by Bob Barr | Jan 12, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallWhether 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 of a demonstration but of...
by Bob Barr | Jan 5, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallAs legislative red flags go, they don’t get much bigger than what the Biden Administration is attempting — $80 billion of additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service so the agency can more than double the number of employees it now has.At the moment, Biden’s plan to hire 87,000 new IRS employees is stuck in senatorial limbo — part of his “Build Back Better” plan passed late last year by the House. While Senate Republicans are holding firm against passing “BBB,” there is a real danger Democrats could slip the IRS provision (or major pieces of it) into some other “must pass” legislation and “Presto!” the agency doubles in size and power.Democrats appear perfectly comfortable buying the President’s absurd claim that not only will the massive BBB “cost nothing,” but that increasing the size and power of the IRS will turn a profit and will target only “the rich.” Their IRS expansion plan is a massive lie, with major consequences not just for the wealthy but for all citizens; and its successful implementation could be aided thanks to the hubbub surrounding the one-year anniversary of the events of last January 6, which provides a perfect cover for Democrats to sneak these changes through under the radar. As a threshold question, why would the IRS need to double in size and rake in $80 billion in additional funding if its agents are only going after the rich? After all, the agency already does this, as evidenced by the fact that audit rates for the wealthy are significantly higher than for those in lower income brackets. If the IRS was truly short-staffed, and the...
by Bob Barr | Dec 29, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallAll things considered, 2021 was a good year for Republicans. In 2022 will the GOP build on its 2021 successes, or allow itself to be dragged back to 2020? The answer is right in front of our eyes. This year has been a disaster for the Democrats largely because they refused to move forward, electing instead to remain mired in the past and fighting yesterday’s battles. If Republicans take the same course in 2022, they will likely reap the same disappointing harvest. The events of last January 6 at the U.S. Capitol will predictably be a focal point for Democrat campaigns heading into 2022. They really have nothing positive from 2021 on which to campaign, so they will use 1/6 as a lure to drag Republicans down, too. The last thing Republicans need is to take that bait and fight on that playing field; doing so would be a sure way to turn off moderate Republicans, as well as independent voters who the GOP must reach in order to regain majorities in the House and Senate.This, of course, is easier said than done. In addition to Democrats chumming the waters, some on the GOP’s own team refuse to move forward. They see 1/6 as a positive flashpoint and Biden’s heavy-handed response to it as a wedge issue to churn up anger on the Right. This would be a major strategic mistakeAs right as these Republicans are about the federal government’s overzealous response to 1/6, it is not the winning message going forward. Voters, especially those not already committed to the GOP, yearn for a vision for the future rather than to be repeatedly enraged...
by Bob Barr | Dec 22, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThe confluence of COVID-19 and the election of Joe Biden has created a federal leviathan that considers no problem as too small or off-limits for federal involvement. This makes Republican governors the last line of defense against a full federal takeover of states. Thankfully, in this respect the GOP is stronger than one might think. Republican governors by and large have not let 2020’s election defeat distract them from proving themselves to voters ahead of the crucial 2022 and 2024 elections. Most notable among this group are Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas, Kristi Noem from South Dakota, and Brian Kemp from my home state of Georgia. Tested simultaneously by the pandemic, the federal government’s response to COVID, Biden’s disastrous economic policies, and urban crime, these governors have shown repeatedly to voters the value of governing according to consistent, conservative principles. It is no coincidence that those states that are doing better than others are those governed by Republicans, who understand that the best response to COVID-19 was not to run into the basement and turn off the lights. Beginning with Georgia, and soon followed by Florida and Texas, states quickest to reopen after the initial COVID “lockdown” consistently have demonstrated far more resiliency to this perfect storm of economic and social challenges, than states opting to rely on the heavy hand of government.For example, while California’s and New York’s unemployment rates are 7.3 and 6.9 percent respectively, Georgia’s remains at an all-time low of 3.1 percent; Florida and Texas also remain low, at 4.6 and 5.4 percent.This is no fluke. There is an ongoing, seismic realignment of economic centers in...
by Bob Barr | Dec 15, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallNeither California nor California-based judges miss an opportunity to display their anti-Second Amendment bias, most recently in a pair of federal court rulings upholding the state’s bans on so-called “assault weapons” and on firearms magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds.The state’s anti-firearms laws, and their support from the still-liberal Ninth Circuit panel of judges, highlight a problem that continues to bedevil Second Amendment supporters – that is, defending the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms” in terms of need rather than principle.In a report I authored for the Heritage Foundation earlier this year, I argued that defending the Second Amendment by asserting individuals have a need to own a particular type of gun or accessory – which is how many conservatives frame their arguments against gun-control laws – leaves advocates of the Amendment vulnerable to precisely what the federal appellate courts have done in so many recent opinions declaring such “needs-based” restrictions to be constitutional. For example, in the 7-4 decision upholding the magazine ban, the Ninth Circuit deemed the measure constitutionally acceptable because it “interferes only minimally” with the Second Amendment, and because “there is no evidence that anyone ever has been unable to defend his or her home and family due to the lack of a large-capacity magazine.”To borrow from the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, this is “pure applesauce.” These judges cannot possibly know whether such evidence exists, or that the lack of evidence now does not mean it will not be there in the future. The Court’s ruling is based simply on the judges’ opinion on whether there is a “need” for...
by Bob Barr | Dec 8, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall“The whole aim of practical politics,” H.L. Mencken famously quipped in the 1920’s, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” How very true.Although written a century ago, Mencken’s metaphor of an endless series of imaginary hobgoblins easily describes the string of new “variants” of the COVID virus, all which send petty tyrants from New York’s Bill de Blasio to Australia’s Scott Morrison, clamoring for new lockdowns and restrictions – for our safety, of course. As I wrote last week, news about the “omicron” variant had global leaders racing to be the first to reimplement “safety” measures designed to keep the variant out of their country, even though there was no evidence omicron was any worse than previous strains, or that similar efforts made any difference in the past.These tyrants, petty as they may appear to be, are a very real danger to freedom, though in a way much different from their predecessors in Soviet-era KGB or East Germany’s Stasi. These are not innately malicious government actors in the vein of 1984. They are just…stupid. COVIDiots, if you will.In America, we have the Constitution that thankfully limits (eventually, at least) the damage COVIDiots may cause at the local, state, and federal levels; other countries are not so lucky. Rather than learning to live with COVID by taking reasonable and measured steps to limit its impact, countries like Australia persist in pursuing scorched earth policies in which economic and social freedom are viewed as impediments to be surmounted so the government can fulfill...
