by Bob Barr | Jul 31, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com President Donald Trump’s critics, including those in the media, delight in picturing him as a person unconcerned about human rights, and as a president totally unconcerned with the plight of those seeking freedom around the world. As often is the case in politics, the reality is quite different. The ongoing refugee problem in North Africa presents just such an example. Hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees in North Africa’s Western Sahara region may have more reason for hope today than ever before, thanks to the Trump Administration’s concern and involvement. In the 1970s, the people of Western Sahara, then known as the Spanish Sahara, thought for a brief moment that they would be free when Spain renounced her colonial claims, but it was not to be. The territory was soon occupied by the Kingdom of Morocco which continues to claim the area as its own, despite rulings by the International Court of Justice and numerous United Nations Resolutions recognizing the right of the region’s inhabitants, the Sahrawi, to self-determination. In 1991, after years of fighting, the UN worked out a ceasefire in which the parties agreed that the fate of the territory would be determined by referendum, giving the Sahrawi people the right to determine their own future. By that time hundreds of thousands had fled the conflict and were living in UN-administered refugee camps in Algeria. They were expecting to return home to Western Sahara after the referendum, but that vote has yet to take place and they continue to live in those same camps nearly 30 years later. In the meantime, the people of Western...
by Bob Barr | Jul 17, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com Last week, the President of Taiwan visited the United States and four other countries, including the small Caribbean nation of Haiti. A visit by President Tsai Ing-wen to Haiti might be viewed with surprise by some observers. However, to those familiar with economic and strategic factors important to both Taiwan and the United States, the fact that Taiwan’s chief executive included a stop in Port-au-Prince during her visit to Washington, DC is significant. Haiti is one of only 18 countries that still recognize Taiwan diplomatically. Shoring up that support at a time mainland China is moving significantly to increase its economic and military presence in our hemisphere, is important not only for Taiwan but for the U.S. as well. Also important for America’s interests in the region is the fact that Haiti early this year joined with the United States in recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. When Jovenel Moise took his oath of office as Haiti’s 42nd President in February 2017, he inherited a government that had forged extremely close ties with the leftist regime in Venezuela. During his long tenure in office – from 1999 to 2013 – former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez used his personal charisma and his country’s vast supply of oil to win friends throughout the region. Moise’s predecessors benefitted greatly from Chavez’ largesse; receiving huge quantities of Venezuelan oil under an extremely beneficial deferred payment plan. The “Petrocaribe” program was launched in 2004; but instead of boosting Haiti’s economy, it morphed into a cash cow for the cadre of corrupt politicians that have controlled the country’s levers of power for...
by Bob Barr | Jul 3, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com There was a time when America’s big city mayors were real leaders. While few of them we so arrogant as to claim the title of “America’s Mayor” as did Rudy Giuliani, as a breed they exemplified the “take charge,” “get it done” attitude that voters respected and appreciated. Now, in the Snowflake Era that is seeing our country’s college campuses turn into adult day care centers, a number of elected mayors have transitioned to timid, “touchy-feely” office holders afraid to take bold action to protect their citizens and the institutions within their jurisdictions. Portland, Oregon’s Ted Wheeler personifies this new breed of Snowflake Mayors. Wheeler’s timidity to respond to violence by Antifa thugs last weekend, sent conservative reporter Andy Ngo to the hospital with potentially permanent brain injury. Not surprisingly, Antifa gangs in Portland, and in Berkeley, California and elsewhere, are responding to the fecklessness of officials like Wheeler, and are becoming increasingly bold and more violent in their activities. And why not? Law enforcement under the command of officials like Wheeler are ordered to stand aside, “exercise restraint,” and allow Antifa gangs to work their will; especially against conservative speakers and organizations. Perhaps the only surprise in all this is that Wheeler appears so clueless about how the real world operates, that he was surprised by last weekend’s violence in the city he is supposed to lead. The Mayor turned to Twitter to express his surprise that “some” people disrespected Portland’s status as a “beacon of free speech,” when an Antifa gang beat up Ngo, who was simply covering events as a bona fide journalist. Of course, there was...
by Bob Barr | Jun 26, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com Watch Out! Eric Swalwell is making his move. The Congressman — who represents a district not far from the epicenter of 21st-Century liberalism that San Francisco has become — has yet to accomplish anything of note that would distinguish him from the large pack of Democratic Party presidential wannabes jockeying to win attention in these still-early months of the 2020 election cycle. He is attempting valiantly to change that equation by pressing a gun control platform that puts to shame Michael Bloomberg’s long-running campaign to make himself America’s Gun Control King. One of the problems Swalwell faces in his drive for relevance, is that every one of his Democratic teammates has made gun control a central plank in their platform. The party appears once again to have concluded that gun control will be pivotal in wresting control of the White House away from the GOP. Swalwell’s attempt to leapfrog to the head of the gun-control class actually garnered him a headline last November; though not really the type a serious candidate relishes. Responding on Twitter to a comment about how his proposal to ban “assault weapons” and force their “buy-back” under penalty of arrest could provoke a war, Swalwell pompously chirped “it would be a short war” because “the government has nukes” and “they’re legit.” Ever since, banning firearms in America has been Swalwell’s default sound-bite. In spite of the Congressman’s laughably superficial knowledge of firearms, and his cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons, Swalwell’s laundry list of proposals actually offers an accurate perspective on how Democrats really feel about the Second Amendment. Last week, for example, at an...
by Bob Barr | May 15, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com In recent weeks, the once wide, online dominion of Right-leaning pot stirrers like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Laura Loomer, has shrunk considerably, as Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube, and Twitter have shut down their accounts, despite the large followings enjoyed by such individuals. “We’ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology,” Facebook piously declared earlier this month after booting a number of “far-right” individuals, including those above, from its platforms. Necessarily, of course, decisions about what is “civil” and “safe” for users of social media are based not on the “likes” or “dislikes” of the individual consumers themselves, but on algorithms devised by employees of the social media companies. What may be even more disturbing than the censorial actions by the social media platforms, is the sneaky role being played in all this by a new breed of liberal CEOs with billions in ad dollars as their weapon of choice – and when these “Mad Men” talk, social media listens. Social media CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey may fancy themselves as the “good guys” in making the “hard decisions” like banning people on their platforms in pursuit of civility online, but it is advertising dollars that actually are at the core of their motivations. Therefore, when Marc Pritchard, the chief marketing officer of Procter & Gamble, a $66 billion company, makes pointed comments such as “we prefer to work with those who don’t allow anonymity to be a weapon,” or “while today everyone can have a microphone, it doesn’t mean every voice needs to be amplified” – it is hardly a...
by Bob Barr | May 8, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com Riley Howell was laid to rest Sunday in Waynesville, North Carolina, at a funeral service with full military honors. He was not killed in a Middle East war zone; he was not even an enlisted member of the Armed Services. Riley was a student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who died rushing toward a person who entered his classroom with a pistol and began shooting. Riley’s parents say he was shot three times at close range as he charged forward, but still managed to take the shooter to the ground so hard that he whined to first responders of internal injuries. It happened in the blink of an eye, but Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney credits Riley with saving countless lives and giving police, who fortunately were nearby, time to get to the classroom and detain the shooter. “But for [Riley Howell’s] work, the assailant might not have been disarmed . . . his sacrifice saved lives,” Putney said. Indeed, Riley’s final act in life – saving others regardless of cost – was an ultimate expression of humanity, tragically juxtaposed to that of the extreme inhumanity exhibited by his killer. But, in leaving behind a legacy of heroism, he also offers an important lesson for us all. We are told by the Department of Homeland Security that the appropriate response to an active shooter situation is “run, hide, fight,” in descending order of priority. Though perhaps effective for self-preservation, such instructions reflect a disturbing truth that we have in many respects lost the collective courage of our forefathers; and have become in large measure a nation that encourages the role of the victim and the...
