by Bob Barr | Sep 26, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com From the safety of the historian’s perspective, what made the French Revolution’s “Reign of Terror” truly terrifying was not the streets of blood or the crash of guillotines, but the Revolutionary government’s utter rejection of the rule of law in order to satisfy the people’s bloodlust during that moment in time. When it was decided that justice must be served quicker and more efficiently when facing enemies of the new order, pillars of western civilization were simply cast aside in favor of mob “justice.” Public trials, legal representation, verdicts short of death sentences — all were deemed nuisances to the changes sought by the revolutionaries; and all were discarded with an ease that was truly frightening. Today, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would be justified in feeling as if he has been transported back to Paris in 1793, as his accusers in the United States Senate scream hysterically about the hindrances of due process in pursuit of their concept of “justice.” To them, the unverified accusations of an accuser are more than sufficient grounds to send the Judge to the chopping block. His senatorial accusers and the mob they represent “feel” his guilt, with the coup de grace being his membership in a class of persons each guilty by association – white men. “Her credible allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh should disqualify him from ever being confirmed to the Supreme Court,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand stated more than a week ago, just days after Christine Ford’s accusations were leaked to the media. Meanwhile, Sen. Mazie Hirono told CNN that Kavanaugh’s “credibility is already very questionable” based on nothing more than her distaste for...
by Bob Barr | Sep 24, 2018 | Uncategorized |
The American Spectator A great unsung Donald Trump achievement Speaking to a large gathering at Rice University stadium in September 1962, President John Kennedy challenged his countrymen to place a man on the surface of the moon and return him safely to the earth. At the time, many of those countrymen thought his dream unattainable, at least within the timeframe of a single decade as the President suggested. Yet, in less than seven years, a team of scientists and engineers accomplished exactly what Kennedy envisioned. Late in his presidency, Ronald Reagan challenged his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down” the Berlin Wall; a structure that had stood for more than a quarter century as a seeming permanent monument to the strength of the communist system. His critics, and even some in his own political Party, sloughed off Reagan’s challenge as nothing more than a catchy soundbite delivered by an eloquent but elderly president. A mere two years later, the Berlin Wall and the totalitarian regimes it personified, began crumbling. Early this year, President Trump publicly broached the likelihood of a personal meeting with North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Un, who just weeks before Trump had ridiculed as “Little Rocket Man.” Unsurprisingly, pundits were highly skeptical that a meeting between the two leaders would take place, and even if it did, that any meaningful substantive results would follow. But here we are, just three months after the Singapore Summit, and the leaders of the two Koreas — split apart and still technically in a state of war since 1950 — expressing optimism that the four nations directly involved in that...
by Bob Barr | Sep 20, 2018 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller Lightning-fast responses may be an ability that separates good athletes from outstanding ones. Possessing the skill to respond instantaneously to what is happening around you can mean the difference between the checkered flag at the Indianapolis 500 and a second-place finisher no one will long remember. But in crafting legislation, knee-jerk reactions to events in the real world seldom withstand the test of time and frequently cause more long-term harm than benefit. Unfortunately, this is a lesson rarely understood by state legislators or by those who serve in the Congress of the United States. A list of bad legislation passed by the Congress in response to “crises” would have to include the so-called “Dodd-Frank Act,” which included within its myriad sections the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as “Obamacare.” Both of these massive pieces of legislation became the law of the land in 2010 (when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House), and both gave rise to numerous problems — both anticipated and unforeseen — that necessitated significant remedial action by the courts, the Congress and the Executive Branch. Legislative responses to problems almost always are made to appear appropriate, if not critically important, at the time Congress involves itself. More often than not, however, the remedy turns out to be ill-suited to the malady. This is the case regarding a bill that recently passed the House and awaits action by the Senate — the “Community Safety and Security Act of 2018” (H.R. 6691). As often is the case, the title of...
by Bob Barr | Sep 19, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com It is a good thing Washington politicians do not hold themselves to the same standard as that to which Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is being held. The new standard appears to be that an unverifiable allegation of wrongdoing during a nominee’s high school years, disqualifies that person from holding public office. Were such a bar applied to virtually any Republican or Democrat in Congress, in all probability we would be looking at 535 vacancies. Of course, for the 21st Century Democrat Party, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander; and the one-sided madness continues. The comedic performance by the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats earlier this month during the Kavanaugh hearings, which appeared at the time to be the worst they could muster, sadly turned out only to be prelude to what now is taking place. The childish tantrums by Senators Feinstein, Booker, Harris and company, have turned to blood sport as they gleefully dance around their cauldron of hatred, into which they have tossed unverifiable allegations that Kavanaugh committed a misdeed as a teenager nearly four decades ago. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Sen. Schumer’s gang has been joined by a handful of Republican Senators afraid – as always – to stand and defend their own turf. At the outset, it is unclear what would the modern-day Inspector Javerts have the government do with the unverifiable and dated allegations now levelled against Kavanaugh? The FBI correctly declined Feinstein’s kind offer to launch an investigation into what would have been – even if verifiable proof were to be had – a non-federal crime. The Senator, herself a lawyer, apparently had forgotten what...
by Bob Barr | Sep 12, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com Sitting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee for four days last week probably caused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the sole witness, to imagine himself watching an episode of the old Superman comic; the one where Superman is transported into an alternate Bizarro World universe. In that Bizarro World, you may recall, everything is the opposite of the real world. For Kavanaugh, watching the hearing play out before him, he easily could picture not only two very different political parties before him, but two different worlds. On the Republican side were senators clearly interested in the substance of a Supreme Court nominee’s thinking on, and approach to, the Constitution and laws of the United States. On the other side – the Bizarro World, if you will – were men and women interested in a combination of playing “Gotcha!,” displays of adolescent bad manners, and exhibiting a degree of repetitiveness that would lead one to conclude no one of them could hear what any of the others were saying. These bizarre theatrics were played out with an audience behind Kavanaugh that periodically erupted into unintelligible shouting by spectators sometimes dressed in weird costumes. Although Sen. Lindsey Graham opined at one point that the hearings were “not fit for children” (or words to that effect), I would differ – the antics displayed by the Democrats were of such low degree that children probably would have enjoyed watching them. Children, of course, might not appreciate the difference between a “textualist” and an “originalist,” understand the principle of “separation of powers,” or be concerned whether “privacy” is a right protected under the Constitution....
by Bob Barr | Sep 5, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com It is fair to say that most Americans’ concept of Russia today is based only loosely on reality; shaped largely by Hollywood, spy novels, and incessant hammering by the media against all things Russian. While such accounts of what has become cast as America’s “Enemy No. 1” make for good headlines and as a basis for that most elusive of crimes — “collision” — it dangerously shifts attention from a far more clever and riskier adversary: China. While the craving for power and a dislike for Western values are shared by both Russia and China, the strategies employed by each for achieving global dominance are quite different. In a sense, the former plays checkers and the latter, chess. Some of this at least, can be attributed to the state of each country’s economy. While China’s has grown to become a very real competitor of the United States, Russia has been slipping down the economic ratings charts. This state of affairs is reflected also in the two countries’ military policies. As China pumps billions into its armed forces while engaging no active military campaigns, Russia’s military is enduring significant cuts even as it continues to burn cash in Syria, the Ukraine, and elsewhere. Russia’s slim budget for gaining global influence has produced meager results, but its effectiveness has been amplified because it provides an easy vehicle by which Democrats and the media can attack President Trump. An exclusive report from Buzzfeed last week exposed a Russian plot in the Baltics to gain influence from funding “independent” news sites, while forcing them to produce pro-Kremlin pieces; content bolstered by the purchase of fake clicks,...
