by Bob Barr | Jun 24, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com Virtue signaling in corporate America has become as much of a marketing strategy as television commercials and magazine ads. Most recently, the “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) demonstrations have provided ample opportunity for corporations to demonstrate how “woke” they are, by donating money to BLM and issuing self-serving tweets trumpeting their generosity and “wokeness.” The ease with which groups like BLM are able to successfully pressure corporate leaders to bow to their demands may surprise some observers, but it is in fact nothing new. Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton honed the strategy to near perfection years ago. At its core, such corporate capitulation reflects a deep, if unexplainable corporate sense of racial guilt that can be triggered by outside groups pressing the right buttons. The strategy appears often to work even though the true goals of those exerting the pressure may have little, if anything to do with racial justice, and everything to do with funding an anti-capitalist movement designed to destroy these very corporations in the name of “social progress.” BLM’s leaders do not even feel the need to hide their true goals from their corporate victims. In a recent interview, BLM founder Patrisse Cullors identifies herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists.” This is no slip of the tongue. Such language reflects the Movement’s philosophical underpinnings and goals — the dismantling of America’s capitalist economic system as a “racist tool.” As with so many other contemporary “progressive” movements, such as “Fight for 15,” “Extinction Rebellion,” and “Occupy,” BLM starts with a superficially worthy niche to gain quick publicity and support. Many of the protestors...
by Bob Barr | Jun 22, 2020 | Uncategorized |
As the Supreme Court nears the end of its 2019-2020 term, it is becoming increasingly questionable whether the “conservative majority” that Trump appointees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were supposed to have ushered in actually exists. Ever since his legally convoluted majority opinion upholding Obamacare against serious constitutional challenge eight years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts has provided conservatives plenty of reason to suspect he is not the “conservative” jurist in whom many had pinned hopes. However, a handful of decisions by the Court in the past two months have raised new red flags that the problems with the “conservative” majority run deeper than a single jurist. An additional concern is that recent public threats by leading Democrat senators directed against the Court’s Republican-appointed justices might well have intimidated some of them into tempering their views. The refusal in late April by a majority of the nine justices to decide a Second Amendment case out of New York City that was ripe for such action was the first of these red flags. It came as no surprise that Roberts joined the majority in refusing to decide the case. What was surprising, however, is that Brett Kavanaugh, the most recent Associate Justice, joined Roberts and the four “liberal” justices in punting the New York gun case. It was Kavanaugh who was the victim of an especially vicious confirmation battle in 2018, and who was specifically and publicly threatened by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in March. Just weeks later, the Court declined to accept another case that was ripe for decision. On June15, the Court refused to hear a challenge by...
by Bob Barr | Jun 19, 2020 | Uncategorized |
American Action News The violent upheavals we have witnessed over the past three weeks in cities across America, coupled with the clamoring for “racial justice,” has elicited comparisons with events in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Similarities exist certainly, but our country is a far different place than it was 52 years ago. Where we wind up when the dust settles after the votes are cast on November 3rd, will be far different from where we found ourselves on Wednesday, November 6, 1968, or, four years later the day after Richard Nixon was reelected. The violence in America in 1968 and continuing for several years thereafter, was precipitated initially by opposition to the war in Vietnam but was seriously exacerbated by domestic events, notably the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy that Spring and Summer. King’s assassination in particular provided the other catalyst for the wave of violence – racial tension. Today, while there is no discernible relationship between U.S. foreign policy and the turmoil rocking cities from Seattle to Atlanta, there clearly is a strong underpinning of racial animosity; more so than was the case a half-century ago. Another common element between the political upheavals evident in these two eras is deep-seated personal animosity toward a national leader – Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972, and Donald Trump today. In that first election, Nixon tapped into a profound sense of unease among middle-class voters, focused first on the antiwar demonstrations and later the violence following King’s assassination. In declaring himself the “law and order” candidate running against an entrenched establishment Democrat — Hubert Humphrey...
by Bob Barr | Jun 17, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com The law enforcement reform bill introduced last week in the House by the Democrat majority – the “Justice in Policing Act of 2020” – contains a number of proposals worthy of serious debate and bipartisan support. However, where the legislation proposes detailed, in-the-weeds standards for the use of deadly force by police officers, it suggests a “one-size-fits-all” solution that would be utterly unworkable and, if implemented, lead to far more serious problems than it could hope to solve. As to the positive aspects of the bill, for example the proposals for improved and increased training for federal law enforcement officers directly, and for state and local law enforcement indirectly through grants, should garner support from both sides of the congressional aisle and the president as well. A poorly trained officer is in many ways a problem waiting to happen. The Justice in Policing Act also would reduce the “militarization” footprint of local police departments, by cutting back on the surplus military equipment the federal government has been providing to those departments for the past three decades; everything from fully automatic weapons to armored vehicles. This proposal would help to de-emphasize the military perspective of law enforcement in favor of the civilian, which is and must always be predicated on the Constitution and laws flowing therefrom. Moving to rein in the use of “no knock warrants” by federal and local police – which very often lead to unnecessarily deadly confrontations – is another positive measure addressed in the legislation. When the bill gets into the weeds of actual law enforcement, things become more problematic by virtue of its imprecise and overly expansive...
by Bob Barr | Jun 15, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller Marches, demonstrations and even riots have been sweeping cities across the country. Protesters have literally taken over a sector of downtown Seattle. Calls to “defund the police” are being heard even in the halls of the Congress. Some health experts are predicting a resurgence of COVID-19. Amidst all this chaos the U.S. Postal Service is begging Congress to give it another bailout. Congress should respond to this request with a resounding “NO.” The United States Postal Service (USPS) has suffered from well-documented structural problems for years; long before the coronavirus pandemic hit early this year. However, in recognition of the difficulties the Postal Service faced along with almost every other business sector hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, it received $10 billion as part of the CARES Act. For any well-run business, that should have sufficed to get it over the pandemic hump. Not for the folks at the USPS. Now, just a few months after that huge cash infusion, the Postal Service is coming back begging for another bailout; this time for a whopping $25 billion. In the absence of meaningful structural reforms to the failed business model under which the USPS long has operated, Congress should not even consider granting this request. For one thing, in light of recent jobs numbers and other signs that the economy already is bouncing back, there may be no need to pass the most recent proposed COVID-19 “stimulus” package, the HEROES Act. Even aside from this broader perspective, however, it is clear that giving the USPS as it currently is structured more taxpayer money, would be throwing good money...
by Bob Barr | Jun 10, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller Policing in the United States is overdue for reform. Admitting to this is not a matter of race, political party, or ideology. It is an observable truth, confirmed time and again by the lack of accountability in holding bad cops responsible for actions that should not be tolerated in a free country governed by the constitutional rule of law. There are steps that the federal and state governments can and should undertake to address deficiencies in policing. Defunding the police, however, is not an idea worthy of consideration. The fact that “defund the police” is actually being seriously considered illustrates the idiocracy that has infected public debate in 21st century America. Defunding the police because of a few bad police officers is akin to closing down hospitals as a result of an occasional malpractice incident by doctors; or closing public schools because there are some bad teachers. Such a move would solve nothing and in fact make matters incalculably worse for everyone (except perhaps for the very rich, who could afford private security services for their homes, property, and vehicles). Still, however, especially within the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the proposal lives. Thankfully, amidst the cacophony, there are a few rational voices. On Twitter, Washington Post columnist and noted police critic Radley Balko suggests we not get too hung up on the phrase “defund the police” as a literal objective, but rather take it as a call-to-arms for a host of sensible reforms. Balko’s approach should be garnering wide, nonpartisan appeal, but many Black Lives Matter activists still insist that the only solution is literally to get rid of police departments. “Please don’t misrepresent...
