by Bob Barr | May 25, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Bob Barr Brietbart Every multiple murder committed by an individual with a firearm at a school is followed immediately by a heated debate about why and how such a tragedy occurred and what steps can be taken to prevent, or at least minimize, the chance for a recurrence. This is an understandable and healthy debate in which we should engage; healthy, that is, unless the debate is structured as a simplistic, zero sum game in which a single factor is declared the cause of the tragedy – usually the lack of sufficient gun control – or a single solution proposed to solve it – often, arming teachers or having more police officers at schools. Those who understand policing and law enforcement more than do pundits spouting the simplistic mantra of a single cause or “magic bullet” solution, however, know better. Unravelling the tragedy of mass shootings necessitates far more focused and deliberate study and resources than the vast majority of politicians and opinion makers are willing to afford it. This clearly is the case when considering the policy of placing police officers (generally known as “School Resource Officers” or SROs) in our schools as a means of preventing and defending against violent attacks. In the most recent school mass shootings – this past February at a high school in Parkland, Florida and earlier this month at one in Santa Fe, Texas – the lack of an armed, uniformed law enforcement officer in the schools was not an issue. Both high schools had uniformed officers on their campuses. Yet, an armed attacker was able to gain access to each school...
by Bob Barr | May 23, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com America is nearing the point at which graduating high-school seniors have never known a United States not at war. These young people will have never boarded a commercial aircraft without first submitting to uniformed strangers wearing blue gloves scanning their belongings and touching their bodies. They have never engaged in an electronic communication free from potential eavesdropping by government-run super computers. This strange new world is the direct result of the fear-of-terrorism that has gripped the United States since September 11, 2001; and if many in the United States Congress have their way, this state of affairs will be further enshrined in a resolution that will place our country on what amounts to a de factoperpetual war footing. The vehicle chosen for this action is a “new and improved” Authorization for the Use of Military Force (“AUMF”) to replace two earlier versions that have been stretched beyond any reasonable recognition by three Presidents. The joint resolution now awaiting consideration in the Senate was crafted by lame duck Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee and Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine (D-VA). It would replace the 2001 Authorization that empowered President George W. Bush to pursue those responsible for the 9-11 attacks (but which has been mis-cited and mis-used ever since to justify all manner of foreign and domestic government actions, including warrantless surveillance of citizens’ electronic communications). The new version also would replace the 2002 AUMF that justified Bush’s invasion of Iraq without the constitutionally-required congressional Declaration of War. If the intent of those supporting this new AUMF is to reduce the latitude presidents now enjoy in committing American forces in combat...
by Bob Barr | May 16, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com Like all services the government provides, incarcerating the estimated 1.5 million inmates in America’s prison system sooner or later falls victim to the laws of scarcity. There is only so much room for so many prisoners; there are only so many people willing to work for minimal wages in high-risk prison environments; and budgets for all of it are not infinite (already topping $80 billion at all three levels of government). One might hope that lawmakers in Washington finally would be ready to address the problems manifest in our over-criminalized society and our already over-crowded prisons, by passing legislation that starts to reform rather than enlarge penalties and prisons. Sadly, this is far from clear. While many Democratic lawmakers and a growing number of their Republican colleagues in recent years have endorsed meaningful reforms to our bloated and antiquated criminal justice system, their efforts have met stiff resistance from hardline conservatives whose only response to crime is harsher sentences and more prisons. On the Republican side of the aisle, criminal justice reform efforts have been encouraged by local success of such reform in 30 states including Georgia, Texas, and South Carolina. Reforms measures adopted in those and other states have resulted in substantial drops in incarceration rates and criminal recidivism. Now, one such reform bill, modeled after these state-led successes, will soon be taken up by the U.S. House, after passing the House Judiciary Committee last week. But its fate, unfortunately, remains uncertain. The FIRST STEP Act (H.R.5682) is far from incorporating the sweeping changes necessary for fixing the deeply-rooted problems in our criminal justice system, of which overcrowding is but one symptom. Nevertheless,...
by Bob Barr | May 9, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com After several hours walking the exhibit hall last Saturday at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Dallas, Texas (which I attended as a member of the Association’s Board of Directors), I sat down to watch and read the news accounts of the event, which brought together some 88,000 men, women and children. Watching and reading many of the media’s description of the convention, I was struck by the vast disconnect between those commenting on the event from the outside, and those attending the event on the inside. The convention itself was marked – as it is every year – by complete civility with not a hint of any violent or even unruly behavior. Convention goers came from across America, including from Florida where, just two months before a deranged criminal went on a murder spree at a Parkland high school. Attendees came to Dallas to socialize, to inspect the latest products offered by the firearms and hunting industries, to hear from political leaders, and generally to show support for our country and the Constitution. Yet, if one were to believe many of the reports by outside interests, it would be easy to conclude that the 2018 NRA Convention was a gathering of irresponsible, murder-sympathizing automatons whose only goal in life is to squeeze the trigger of a machine gun and laugh fiendishly while doing so. That anti-NRA narrative has been voiced in recent years by groups such as the Bloomberg-financed “Everytown for Gun Safety” and the gun-hating “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.” This year, the ranks of the Blame-the-NRA-for-Everything movement has been joined by a cadre of high schoolers led...
by Bob Barr | May 7, 2018 | Uncategorized |
The America Spectator The only thing missing is Robert Mueller’s involvement. “CMS” is the acronym for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for managing the massive federal Medicare and Medicaid programs. In North Carolina, an unfolding scandal with allegations of Corruption, Money and Sexual misconduct may give a whole new meaning to “CMS.” The saga involves that state’s Democratic Governor (Roy Cooper), his hand-picked director of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (Dr. Mandy Cohen), and at least one Republican state legislator. The political backstory to this tale begins with Cooper surprising the pollsters and his opponent — incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory — in November 2016 by winning a narrow victory. Through deft sleight-of-hand, and taking advantage of a quirk in state law, Cooper arranged an early swearing-in for himself just minutes after midnight on January 1, 2017. That legerdemain allowed Cooper just 12 days laterto appoint Cohen, at the time Obama’s Chief Operating Officer of Medicaid, to head the North Carolina DHHS before Barack Obama left office. Thus was set the stage for the Cooper Administration to bring to a screeching halt what had been one of his predecessor’s top priorities — rolling back years of reckless spending by North Carolina Democrats. One of McCrory’s main targets had been Medicaid spending in the state; which had come to swallow nearly $15 billion of North Carolina’s $23 billion annual budget. The runaway Medicaid spending had placed North Carolina in a financial bind, with little cash for anything else. Thus, in 2015 McCrory and the Republican state legislature passed a law that would limit Medicaid spending, remove management of...
by Bob Barr | May 2, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com As the little girl in the movie “Poltergeist” declared, “They’re baaaack.” This time, however, it is not evil ghosts reappearing to make us shiver, but real-life leftists transforming their mid-20th century social movement centered on college campuses and anti-war rhetoric, to one far more subtle and multi-pronged. Hillary Clinton’s college mentor, socialist Saul Alinsky, the Rasputin behind that 1960’s movement, drafted the roadmap for the radical Left to achieve its transformational goal of socializing America. They fell short of their goal, but only with regard to the timeline. Now, in this early 21st century, Alinsky’s manifesto is being updated and expanded; and one of its prime implementers may surprise you. The non-profit community, long a meeting place for far-left sympathizers and Democrat do-gooders, now is in the vanguard of defining and implementing what Alinsky defined more than four decades ago as “Rules for Radicals.” Alinsky’s 13 rules, combining psychology with political activism and brutal single-mindedness, is an undeniable masterpiece when it comes to neutralizing one’s opponents. Yet, as timeless as Alinsky’s rules may appear, they are not indelible. Today’s liberals have, with some exception, evolved passed the raw violence of predecessors like the Weathermen, a late-60s urban terrorist group. Instead, the new weapon of choice is more cleverly camouflaged and dangerous. Riding on the coattails of post-modernism forced on us by university professors and pandering politicians, is the notion that objective “truth” is fiction, and that facts are simply a matter of shaping perspective. It seems fitting then that a 14thRule should be added to Alinsky’s original 13: “Truth is what you make it to be.” Facts no longer are...
