by Bob Barr | Feb 16, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Donald Trump warned Americans about the Deep State. Instead of listening, Democrats (the Party of yore that actually cared about abusive government power) and their cronies in the Mainstream Media mocked him for peddling an “Alt-Right conspiracy.” Not only do we now have more than sufficient proof that the Deep State exists, but clear evidence it has grown stronger, bolder, and more dangerous. In just the past week, two shocking reports have come to light that detail the extent to which the Deep State has flourished in the shadows. The first comes from Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, who, in a just-declassified letter to the country’s top Foreign Intelligence officials, called for full disclosure of a previously classified, April 2021 report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). That report details how the CIA “secretly conducted its own bulk program…entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight…” The second example of Deep State growth comes in a public filing just last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by President Trump in 2019 to investigate FBI wrongdoing. The document details what amounts to a clear conspiracy to infiltrate the office of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and then President Trump; not only unlawfully gathering information on him, but feeding it back to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. One of these allegations alone is enough to make the hair on the back of one’s neck...
by Bob Barr | Feb 9, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall I love Delta Airlines. It is my true hometown airline and I fly it regularly. If any passenger were to act in a way that endangers the flight, the crew, or other passengers, that person should be held accountable by Delta and by federal law if circumstances warrant. But, please, let’s not create another “No Fly” list. Currently, the FBI maintains a classified “terror watchlist” containing the names and information for thousands of individuals the government believes pose a potential terror threat. There is the TSA’s “No-Fly List” that determines who is allowed to board a commercial airplane. The agency also maintains a Secondary Security Screening Selection (SSSS) list that assigns certain passengers for additional screening. It is no secret that the federal government already maintains a number of “lists” that serve to prevent individuals whose names appear thereon from engaging in what otherwise would be constitutionally guaranteed activities, such as purchasing a firearm or travelling interstate (yes, this has been held by the Supreme Court to be a protected right). We simply do not need another list. Not that long ago, the private sector maintained a healthy suspicion of government power, and its potential for abuse. The 9/11 terror attacks changed this dynamic significantly, with the private sector cooperating increasingly (and occasionally, unlawfully) with federal officials to achieve the shared goal of keeping America safe. Today, however, the mentality that the public and private sectors are “partners” is commonplace, and often has less to do with the original intent of preventing terror attacks, and more to do with enlisting Uncle Sam and his federal agents to help...
by Bob Barr | Feb 2, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall “Advantage Putin. No, advantage Biden. Clearly a stalemate.” The debate goes on and on in Washington, Moscow, Berlin, and elsewhere, in anticipation of an armed conflict between the former Soviet vassal state of Ukraine and its erstwhile mother state of Russia. The “fog of war” is becoming denser with each passing day, even though no shot has yet been fired. Assuredly, many people will die if there is in fact a war between Russia and Ukraine, although this “human factor” figures little in public policy debates. Of far greater interest to world leaders are the economic and geopolitical consequences of a potential war. Ukraine occupies a position of some geographic and economic importance to Russia and to Europe (especially Germany). And, while not a member of NATO, Ukraine is a friend and ally to the organization and to its most important member – the United States. Considering the stakes involved, it would be reasonable to presume that President Biden would be doing everything possible to avoid an armed conflict. However, aside from Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s sincere and well-intentioned efforts to keep matters in that region on a diplomatic track, others in the Administration and on Capitol Hill, including Biden himself, appear hell-bent to push the situation towards a military resolution. In recent days, Biden has pressed the issue directly in a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart. Biden also has ordered U.S. troops in the region placed on high alert, and accelerated shipments of American military materiel to Ukraine. What precisely is the vital national security interest that would justify direct or even heavy indirect U.S....
by Bob Barr | Jan 26, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall The “modern” Olympic Games are no longer “Olympic.” They have, in recent decades, become as much about politics and money as about individual athletic excellence. It is time to either change them dramatically or just end them altogether. The 1968 “Black Power” fists by two American athletes as they stood on the dais while our national anthem was played, opened to door to use of the Olympic venue for making controversial political statements. The door was thrown wide open a dozen years later when, in 1980, the United States led a 66-nation boycott of the Summer Games because the Carter Administration was upset with the Soviet Union’s military incursions in Afghanistan. (The predecessor 1976 games suffered a smaller, but still significant, boycott for other, unrelated political reasons.) It’s been largely downhill since then. Perhaps it should not be shocking that the Olympics have gone the way of sports generally. The same alliance of money and politics that has made U.S. professional sports increasingly difficult to watch, is endemic to the games and its governing body, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Television revenue is the fuel for modern Olympics, just as steroid abuse appears to fuel the bodies of many of its athletes. The few weeks of each summer or winter competition have become so jam-packed with events as to make it nearly impossible to focus on the traditional “Olympic” events on which the Games historically were based. Regularly adding events like skateboarding may bring in a few younger viewers, but at the cost of further diluting the lasting significance of the Games. The packed schedule makes coverage of...
by Bob Barr | Jan 19, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall The Grand Old Party is at a major crossroads as it nears its 168th birthday. Former President Donald Trump is at a similar juncture as he nears his 76th. How these two traverse their intersecting crossroads will go a long way to determine whether Republicans will win major victories in this year’s congressional contests and whether they will recapture the White House in 2024. At the moment, the disjointed and deteriorating relationship between Mr. Trump and some of the Party’s rising stars does not bode well for lasting GOP victories. This should not be the case. Polling shows clearly that the American electorate is deeply frustrated and disappointed with the Biden presidency; to the extent even that voters are being pulled away from the Democrat Party and into the Republican orbit. At the same time, a cadre of well-known and popular Republican governors are implementing positive public policies far more successfully than their Democrat counterparts. In both houses of Congress, Republican leadership is successfully maintaining a united front in opposition to the socialist agendas being pressed by Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Schumer. Republicans should be clamoring to highlight the tremendous accomplishments of governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Maryland’s Larry Hogan, and others. These state leaders represent a clear and positive antidote to the damage being inflicted on our country by the Biden Administration and its congressional cohorts. So, what exactly is the problem for the GOP? In a word, the immediate past president. Unlike Republican former presidents before him, who, after leaving office supported the Party, its leaders, and its candidates so as to strengthen the Party moving...
by Bob Barr | Jan 12, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Whether it is their fear of Donald Trump or their hatred of him, congressional Democrats will stop at nothing in their incessant drive to destroy him. Most recently, they have dredged up a post-Civil War era provision in the Constitution as a possible way to keep him from serving a second term as president in 2025. Democrats’ latest anti-Trump gambit is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. If you are not familiar with this provision, you are not alone; it was ratified in 1868 and was last used more than a century ago. The language was inserted into the otherwise important 14th Amendment, which secures our vital “privileges or immunities of citizen” along with “due process” and “equal protection of the laws.” Section 3 of the Amendment, however, has nothing to do with those important guarantees. Its purpose was simply to prevent individuals who had taken up arms against the United States, or who had rendered “aid or comfort” to enemies of the United States, from later serving in the federal or state government. Section 3 was last used in 1919 against a sitting United States Senator alleged to have given assistance to Germany in World War I. Even then, he was later reseated, and Section 3 has lain undisturbed for well over a century. Until now. A year ago, Democrats were quick to label the January 6th demonstrations on Capitol Hill an “insurrection,” and their Google search of that word appears to have led them to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment because – you guessed it – the phrase “insurrection or rebellion” appears in it as an apt description, not...
