August 2020

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Americans justifiably are concerned about foreign entities working to influence the outcome of our 2020 elections. There is, however, one party with just such a plan already well underway and well-funded that is far closer to Main Street, USA than any foreign entity — George Soros.

Soros and a handful of fellow far-left true believers are well on their way to investing billions of dollars to ensure that tens of millions of mailed-in ballots decide who will be our next president.

On the surface, their plan appears benign and wholly in the public interest, with nary a hint of the leftist agenda for which Soros is well known. For example, a recent story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described an effort by a pair of nonprofit organizations to mail more than two million applications for absentee ballots to voters across Georgia. The article noted that the organizations – the Center for Voter Information and the Voter Participation Center – plan to follow this initial tranche of absentee voter applications with additional mail drops in the coming weeks.

These mass mailings are designed to ensure that as many voters as possible receive absentee ballots, ostensibly to protect them from the “dangers” posed by the coronavirus were they forced to vote in person. It is revealing, however, that the applications are not being sent to voters generally, but only to those described as “irregular voters,” who traditionally or historically do not vote.

Americans justifiably are concerned about foreign entities working to influence the outcome of our 2020 elections. There is, however, one party with just such a plan already well underway and well-funded that is far closer to Main Street, USA than any foreign entity — George Soros.

Soros and a handful of fellow far-left true believers are well on their way to investing billions of dollars to ensure that tens of millions of mailed-in ballots decide who will be our next president.

On the surface, their plan appears benign and wholly in the public interest, with nary a hint of the leftist agenda for which Soros is well known. For example, a recent story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described an effort by a pair of nonprofit organizations to mail more than two million applications for absentee ballots to voters across Georgia. The article noted that the organizations – the Center for Voter Information and the Voter Participation Center – plan to follow this initial tranche of absentee voter applications with additional mail drops in the coming weeks.

These mass mailings are designed to ensure that as many voters as possible receive absentee ballots, ostensibly to protect them from the “dangers” posed by the coronavirus were they forced to vote in person. It is revealing, however, that the applications are not being sent to voters generally, but only to those described as “irregular voters,” who traditionally or historically do not vote.

Soros is of course not the only left-wing advocate funding mail-in vote campaigns; he is simply one of the wealthiest and most notorious. Other benefactors for this leftist goal include the Ford Foundation, Susan Pritzker of Hyatt Hotels fame, the Grove Foundation and many more. They have been actively pursuing their goal of universal mail-in voting for years, but especially since being shocked by Trump’s win four years ago.

Mail-in voting maximizes the chance for fraud at every step of the way, from who requests and then fills out the forms received by mail, to the same or different individuals depositing the actual votes into drop boxes with no security whatsoever. What such a plan will do, thanks to billions in funding by Soros and his leftist cohorts, is to accelerate the “reimagining” of America into a society devoid of meaningful values.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

Parents across America being forced to deal with the technological and administrative burdens of “distance learning” face severe consequences, even potential criminal charges, if they fail to meet these challenges.

One might think that actually getting a student to sit in front of a laptop for hours on end would be a victory in and of itself. Now, however, parents have the added stress of making sure nothing that might be seen on camera behind and around the child shows anything that could be considered politically incorrect, or that might trigger a report to the “authorities.” Failure to do so could result in a visit from the police. This is exactly what happened to the mother of a fifth-grade boy in Baltimore.

The student was a Boy Scout and his mother a Navy veteran. They made what turned out to be a serious mistake during a distance learning session, when they failed to realize that hanging on a wall behind where the boy sat for his video learning session were two BB guns, including a fabled “Red Ryder” model. This oversight was sufficient to trigger fear in the fifth-grade teacher on the other end of the video session, who quickly reported the “disturbing” images to her school principal. Up the chain of command the report went, from the teacher, to the principal, and to the police who were summoned to search the house for “weapons.”

Even more disturbing than the fact that a teacher apparently became traumatized at the sight of a BB gun on a bedroom wall, was the fact that, according to media accounts, the initial call came from “a concerned parent.”

The Baltimore incident typifies the “zero tolerance” policies that schools across the country have for years followed. These policies allow no room for reason or common sense, and which in this era of “distance learning” are being abused in deeply disturbing ways.

According to news reports of the Baltimore incident, the mother of the fifth grader herself posed a number of important questions to the school and to the police, none of which were answered as they should have been were we living in a society protective of individual privacy, rather than one that most highly values the power of government entities (in this case, public schools).

The boy’s mother asked the right questions — who exactly is able to access the videos of her child as he complies with mandates that he sit in front of a computer video camera to “distance learn?” What happens to the video images and screen shots of the children? Why did the school officials call the police rather than simply phone the parent to obtain the facts and voice their concern?

The only reply from the school officials was that they followed their precious “policies,” including their view that the rule prohibiting students from bringing weapons to school applies equally to “distance learning.” In other words, if a rule prohibits bringing a gun to school, it also prohibits “bringing” it to a “virtual classroom” (also known as a “bedroom” if that is where the student’s laptop is set up). Despite the profoundly idiotic nature of such a policy interpretation, the teacher and principal at this Baltimore public school apparently believe the nonsense they were uttering.

As disturbing as is the privacy-invasive nature of this incident, and the implications for students and families wherever “distance learning” mandates are in place, it gets worse.

In Boston, for example (and almost certainly other cities), parents are being reported to the Department of Children and Families for alleged “child neglect” if students are not logging in to their “virtual” lessons for the requisite time. Despite there being any number of legitimate reasons why a student might not be properly logged in — such as the parents not being fully cognizant of online learning protocols, or their having to rely on an older sibling to ensure the youngster remains on-line — failure can result in visits from the authorities, and even criminal charges.

As with the Baltimore mother, parents in cities like Boston face the worsening nightmare of navigating the techno world of “distance learning” being administered by callous and unthinking bureaucrats with the power to have you thrown in jail at their whim.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990. He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

In politics, if you say something loud enough and often enough, people will believe it. The Democrats have employed this strategy in the current controversy about mail-in voting, bellowing repeatedly that President Trump is trying to sabotage the November election by tampering with the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to handle mail-in ballots, which the Democrats see as the future for their party’s electoral victories. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s orchestration of last Saturday’s 257-150 House vote gifting $25 billion to the USPS was their latest gambit.

The reality, of course, is far different from the Democrat narrative, as Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson established at a Senate hearing he chaired the day before the House vote, labelling the Democrat charges nothing but a conspiratorial “false political narrative.”

The difficulties facing the USPS in the Internet Age has been one of the worst kept secrets in Washington. Study after study has documented how internet communications, especially e-mails, have taken a huge bite out of letter mail. A report by the Treasury Department in December 2018 accurately identified this culprit, noting that “the shift toward digital correspondence and the corresponding decline in USPS mail volume” has resulted in the Service “losing money for more than a decade and is on an unsustainable financial path.” This study was not the first to sound the alarm about the financial difficulties facing the USPS, nor has it been the last.

A September 2019 report by the USPS Inspector General noted that the continuing challenges facing the Service were not being met, resulting in “processing mail with lower productivity for manual, flats, and letters.” In layman’s terms, this means that in the face of dramatically reduced first-class and “flat” letter mail, the USPS was failing to reduce processing costs adequately, thereby continuing deficit spending.

The USPS Inspector General study noted that despite limited implementation of cost-saving measures that had been recommended eight years previously (such as consolidating facilities, improving mail handling automation, and reducing equipment inventories), progress was slow and uneven.

Two major problems have hampered the Postal Service’s ability to significantly cut costs to meet the reality of internet communications. The first of these is Congress itself.

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 formally established the USPS as an organization with elements common to both government agencies and private businesses. This configuration reduced but did not stop congressional meddling in Postal Service operations, such as proposals to close unnecessary post offices or reduce the number of days it delivers mail each week. The real blow came in 2006 when the Congress (then with a GOP majority) passed legislation (signed by then-President George W. Bush) mandating that the Service must pay forward the massive retirement health benefits for its many thousands of employees. This alone has cost the USPS tens of billions of dollars and caused it to operate at a loss every year since 2006.

Other ongoing cost saving measures undertaken by the USPS during both Republican and Democrat administrations, such as removing lightly used mailboxes and discarding outdated sorting machines, while not nearly enough to cover the huge cost of pre-funding health retirement benefits, have helped stem the fiscal hemorrhaging. However, when recently appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took steps to simply continue such modest measures, he ran into a congressional buzz saw, even being accused of acting with criminal intent by a pair of Democrat House members.

This brings us to the real elephant in the room, and the other main reason behind the Postal Service’s financial insolvency — its heavily unionized workforce. Since being legitimized by the 1970 law that established the USPS, these unions “negotiate compensation, benefits, and working conditions,” including “no layoff” clauses; factors that have spawned a future the 2019 Treasury report calls “unsustainable.”

Following tradition, the postal unions already have endorsed Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden; they also have been pressing Pelosi to exercise her power as Speaker to stop DeJoy from implementing further cost-cutting measures, even including those carried over from the Obama Administration.

What we are witnessing is a proxy war being waged by Democrats in Congress on behalf of the postal union workers on whose votes Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and now presidential nominee Biden depend. It has nothing whatsoever to do with “voting rights.”

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

To some extent, most crimes are relatively easy to explain. For example, greed leads to theft; anger often is a predicate to violence; a desire to “belong” pushes many teenagers to join gangs; and marital discord lies at the root of far too many murders. But the cold-blooded murder of a young child, like 5-year-old Cannon Hinnant, defies all rational understanding or explanation — a senseless act by an individual who has lost all touch with humanity. It is the very definition of inhuman.

It is difficult to recount the details of young Cannon’s murder without being moved to tears. Although the incident was largely ignored by the mainstream media, the pointlessness and savagery of the murder, apparently without any conceivable explanation or motive, is deeply unsettling.

Cannon Hinnant’s murder starkly illustrates the reality that America’s moral soul is dying.

America was founded as a sanctuary for religious refugees. At its core and since its creation, our country has been a society with a shared belief in God and on the moral virtues to which our Founders explicitly paid tribute. It was this spirit of moral integrity that helped turn America into the world’s guiding light for hope and freedom.

Today, that light is decidedly dimmed. Looking at the violence-torn streets of Portland, Chicago, New York, and so many other cities and communities, it has become virtually impossible to recognize the country “made only for a moral and religious People,” as John Adams once wrote.

On the surface the looting and violence may appear to some observers as political acts; but roving mobs beating people within an inch of their lives is much more than a social movement gone too far. What is taking place is clear evidence of a culture in decline — a nation untethered from its moral foundation and facing a future from which no new law or “critical race theory” seminar will protect us.

For decades, Leftists have pointed to the trend of mass shootings as a political phenomenon; the result of an overly robust interpretation of the Second Amendment that has allowed too many guns to “fall into the wrong hands.” Ignored in this scenario are far more crucial cultural and psychological factors that have spawned an environment in which individuals feel empowered to commit mass murder and remain numb to the resulting horror. The resulting decay of civil society is truly frightening.

Until recently, basic institutions such as family, church, social groups, and other person-to-person ties kept the vast majority of people in our society firmly grounded to generally accepted norms of civil behavior. With the waning importance and outright denigration of such personal relationships and institutions, it becomes hardly coincidental we now are witnessing a trend of increasing violence and emotional detachment from individual actions.

Today, religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is openly mocked and condemned. Children are increasingly born into broken or loveless families. In-person social groups are being replaced by impersonal and disconnected “digital” relationships, a trend made even worse during the ongoing COVID pandemic.

In such an increasingly disconnected environment, it should surprise no one that so many people, especially young adults, are growing numb to causing pain in others. This is especially the case when such violence is encouraged by fake friends on social media or explained away (and thereby impliedly approved) by political leaders. America’s value system is being turned on its head; love and reason are pushed aside while hate and violence are condoned if not celebrated. It is a recipe for disaster to which we have only begun to reap the consequences.

To preserve what remains of our nation’s soul and to begin repairing damage from years of attack, we must unabashedly reject the manipulative tactics of political leaders who justify violence as excusable or even necessary. We must push back against those who threaten to completely destroy the only institutions left that promote good moral character. The dark alternative that awaits us is a new “normal” in which nothing that debases life or moral values is beyond the pale; where senseless killings of little boys playing in their driveways is overlooked because drawing attention to it does not advance preferred political agendas.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

by Bob Barr

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Arguments will continue to rage over whether President Trump is constitutionally permitted on his own to spend money to build the wall on our southern border, to fund measures addressing the effects of COVID-19 or to manage federal immigration policies. However, there is one order the president could give that is clearly within his authority to manage the executive branch he heads, and which is entirely consistent with the no-nonsense management style that has characterized his time in office: direct all federal departments, offices, and agencies to immediately stop sending employees to “critical race theory” training, also known as “white privilege” reeducation programs.

While descriptions of critical race theory training have surfaced recently in the wake of racially motivated or racially excused rioting, training which teaches federal employees that “white privilege” and “racism” are systemic diseases that define American society, have been around for decades. It is long past time that such wasteful spending stop.

It is difficult to place an accurate figure on how much taxpayer money is spent each year on these programs by federal agencies and by non-governmental entities receiving federal dollars, such as the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, but it is in the millions of dollars. Numerous self-styled experts in “white privilege” have reaped lucrative incomes from such lecturing. Just one of these charlatans, Howard Ross, reportedly billed the federal government $3 million in just one year. Robin DiAngelo, the best-selling author of “White Fragility,” reportedly charges $40,000 to share her “expertise” for just half a day.

Just what taxpayers get in return, other than lectures on the evils of “hard work” and “rugged individualism,” is difficult to discern; but two threshold questions emerge as to why Uncle Sam should be lecturing public employees that the very qualities that have made America the sole superpower on the planet are now considered toxic.

First, why has the Trump administration not put a stop already to such expenditures? As the head of the Executive Branch, the president could certainly order that federal employees will no longer be sent to such reeducation programs, and that outside entities receiving federal dollars will no longer be permitted to use those monies for such nonsense. That Trump has not done so until now is strange, but it certainly is not too late to so order, and the timing appears perfect for such a move.

The second, and more troubling question is, why would grown men willingly participate in such demeaning programs that belittle them because of their race and their gender? For example, in a recently reported training program exclusively for senior-level white male employees at Sandia Laboratories, participants were made to attend sessions in which they were insulted for being white males and forced to write apologies to women and people of color for this sin. Similar programs have been documented as being conducted at other federal agencies, including the Treasury Department.

That grown men, especially those who enjoyed seniority in their jobs at a prestigious scientific laboratory (one that developed the atomic bomb that ended World War II), would submit to such ignominy reveals the extent to which the notion of “white guilt” has infected our culture. This destructive concept has embedded itself so deeply that it now is undermining the race-neutral principle of merit-based advancement that has for more than two centuries served as the fuel for American preeminence in fields including science, technology, transportation, and economics.

Even if Trump were to sign an executive order ending all federal expenditures for critical race theory training, legislation would be necessary to ensure its permanence. With the Democrat Party now led by a standard bearer who openly advocates that an individual’s race and gender counts for more than ability, and with the House of Representatives in the hands of that same Party (and likely to remain so at least through the next biennium), such nonsense as “white fragility” reeducation programs are not likely to disappear quickly; though by any rational measure they should.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Townhall

By Bob Barr

When it comes to undercover investigative journalists, there are few better than Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe. In the last decade, O’Keefe’s undercover exposés have revealed the corrupt underbelly of some of the Left’s most revered institutions (such as Planned Parenthood), as well as exposing the incompetence that infects many government agencies. O’Keefe’s advocacy has earned him many friends but also enemies, including some inside the government. A recent event suggests the FBI is among those not happy with O’Keefe.

The incident in question happened when O’Keefe, a resident of New York, tried to purchase a firearm from a retailer in that state. Although he has never been convicted of a felony and does not fall within any of the eight other reasons under federal law that would prohibit him from buying a gun, he was turned down.

The FBI figures in this equation because since 1998, it has been responsible for maintaining the database of information through which all retail firearm sales must be checked (the so-called “NICS” system). If there is no information in the database establishing that the purchaser falls into one of the classes of persons prohibited from possessing a gun, the sale may proceed. On the other hand, if the database reveals that a purchaser falls within one of the prohibitory categories, the retailer is notified and the sale cannot lawfully go forward.

Since O’Keefe demonstrably does not fall within one of the disabling categories, his purchase should have been promptly approved. That it was not, raises suspicions that the FBI has on its own decided it does not want him to have a firearm and therefore told the retailer, “No.” This is against federal law, and is the basis for a challenge to the Bureau’s action filed by O’Keefe last week in federal court.

It is in fact high time someone challenged the FBI for what appears to be a secret “watch list” of people it (or a sister agency such as ATF) simply does not want to have a firearm – a “We Don’t Like You” Watch List.

While the law establishing the NICS system is quite clear in defining who are individuals prohibited from possessing firearms, there is wiggle room for the FBI to delay a sale if there is a legitimate reason to suspect a person might fall into a prohibited category. In such case, the FBI notifies the retailer that the sale should be “delayed,” but if nothing further is found within three business days the retailer may proceed with the sale.

Thus, if the FBI has a legitimate reason to suspect a prospective purchaser may be a prohibited gun owner but needs extra time to confirm this, it has three days to do so. The “delay” power was never intended as a way for the government to play games and prevent a law-abiding citizen from purchasing a firearm.

Still, despite the clarity of the NICS law, and the clear intent of the Congress in passing it to ensure that the process not be used to deny a legitimate purchaser the ability to obtain a firearm in the normal course of business, the FBI continues to play games and misuse its regulatory power.

In recent years, for example, in states that lawfully allow marijuana for medical reasons, the federal government has decided that if a person possesses a medical marijuana card but does not in fact use marijuana, the individual still is considered to be a user of an “unlawful” substance, and denied the ability to exercise their Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm.

Also, the FBI for years has sought the power to consider someone whose name has been put on a secret “Terrorist Watch List,” to be prohibited from purchasing a firearm. While the Congress has properly refused to grant the government such arbitrary power, it is reason for legitimate concern given the lack of transparency with which the government compiles and maintains such “lists.”

Whatever the real reason for the FBI denying O’Keefe the ability to purchase a firearm, it is an abuse of power. Last week’s lawsuit hopefully will not only shed much needed light on the procedures by which the government decides who can exercise their right to keep and bear arms, but will ultimately hold accountable those officials who are abusing the law in such critical matters. Many Americans in addition to James O’Keefe have a stake in the outcome of this case.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.   He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Politicians love anniversaries, especially those recalling tragic events. Every time an anniversary of such a public event occurs — whether the first, fifth, tenth or twenty-fifth — some politician will rush to remind the public of the past event as a way to position himself or herself as a true leader, by calling for the government to do whatever it is they want done that would have prevented the prior tragedy or which they claim will prevent its recurrence.

This past week, amidst the myriad problems relating to the COVID pandemic and the recurring violence destroying lives, property and businesses in cities across the country, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine used the bully pulpit of his office to again call for the state legislature to pass gun control measures he has long championed. The timing for his latest call was the anniversary of a shooting spree last August 4^th by an individual outside a Dayton, Ohio bar who fatally shot nine people before he was shot dead by police.

In the immediate aftermath of that 2019 shooting, DeWine issued a call for the legislature to pass a long list of gun control measures, including many that bore no relationship to the manner by which the Dayton shooter — a 26-year old white male with antifa sympathies — was able to obtain the firearm he used to carry out his horrific crime.

Included in DeWine’s proposal were measures constituting what has become known in recent years as a “Red Flag Law.” Such a law empowers law enforcement officers and other individuals including friends or relatives of a gun owner, to obtain a court order directing police to seize all firearms possessed by the person against whom the order is directed, based on allegations that the individual poses a threat to himself or others. A number of states already have passed such measures, despite their constitutional infirmities. DeWine’s initial legislative package also called for what would amount to a statewide “universal” background check system for virtually all firearms transfers including those between private, law-abiding citizens.

Thus far, Ohio’s legislature has shown little interest in passing such far-reaching legislation, despite DeWine’s pressing.

In the face of this legislative resistance, DeWine later in 2019 backed away from some of the more problematic provisions in what he cleverly titled his “STRONG Ohio” bill, including those that would have directly and formally established a Red Flag Law. However, the details of his proposed law clearly move toward just such a law, and he continues to press for other problematic provisions, including opening the door to a potential firearms registry for transfers between private persons.

Like many gun control advocates holding public office, DeWine appears drawn to the limelight rather than the hard work of dealing with the legislature and the public to enact meaningful measures that would address actual problems but still within both the letter and the intent of the Second Amendment and other provisions in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. In fact, hidden within his proposals are some measures that could provide the basis for such action.

If, instead of grandstanding before the media on the anniversary of a tragedy that already constituted a criminal act, the Governor worked hard to craft more limited legislation and budgetary measures that address known deficiencies in laws designed already to keep firearms out of the hands of persons not allowed under long-standing federal to possess them, he likely would have far more success. But then again, that is much harder than calling a news conference and restating the time-worn trope that “Doing nothing is simply not an option,” as he did last week.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

When 13,000 air traffic controllers walked off the job in August 1981, President Ronald Reagan had this to say: “Tell them when the strike’s over, they don’t have any jobs.” The media, not yet fully familiar with the seriousness with which Reagan intended to govern, scoffed at the president’s threat. But it was not a bluff. Two days later, when more than 11,000 controllers refused to come back, Reagan fired them all. It was a powerful move, and demonstrated to the entire country that essential public employees serve the public, not union bosses. America’s public school teachers should be reminded of this fact.

With thousands of teachers across the country currently protesting a return to the classroom because of COVID fears, Reagan’s example is particularly relevant. Like air traffic controllers, teachers sign employment contracts. While air traffic controllers contract with the federal government and teachers with local school districts, the principle is the same: perform the duties for which you were hired, or be fired.

Teachers who refuse to teach in the setting for which they were hired – the classroom – need to stop acting like scared bunnies and grow up. If they truly are “essential” workers, as they remind us repeatedly, then they need to start behaving like other essential employees and get back to work.

Many businesses, unfortunately, have been forced by the government to shut down wholly or in part in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, and this is having a devastating effect on our national economy. Amidst this devastation, public schools in virtually every jurisdiction across the country ended the school year early after COVID hit our shores in March.

Unlike commercial businesses, however, the prolonged closure of schools has ramifications far beyond the economic. Moreover, educating children is a process that cannot be switched on and off like a production line; the damage to young minds that are allowed to lie fallow month after month, or which are presented with “virtual” learning in place of human-to-human interface, creates learning voids not easily replenished.

“Teaching” means, if anything, working with students as well as encouraging students to work with other students in a social setting for the purpose of learning essential skills and acquiring essential knowledge. “Virtual” teaching is not teaching at all; it is cinematography – nothing more than an adult (the “teacher”) speaking to a camera, with an audience of one (the “student”) at the end of the electronic transmission watching a screen. Raw information may be thus transmitted, but not true knowledge.

What many public school teachers and their union bosses at the National Education Association appear to be setting as the price for them to return to the classroom, is a guarantee that the environment will be 100% percent COVID-free at all times. Such a condition is, of course, impossible to meet and essentially allows the teachers to avoid a return to their job site for the foreseeable future.

Moreover, demanding a zero-risk premise for classroom teaching sends the message to students (and everyone else for that matter) that risk-avoidance is the highest and most desirable goal for society. This further erodes the principle on which America’s greatness heretofore has been premised – that society advances not by avoiding challenges, but by meeting and overcoming them.

There might perhaps be somewhat more compassion for the our-way-or-the-highway posture being taken by these public school teachers had they and their union not spent decades working to ensure that public education remained the only practical option for millions of families across America. Unionized teachers continue to vilify homeschooling and oppose providing taxpaying parents any meaningful ability to choose where to send their children to be educated.

No teacher should be forced to go into the classroom against their will. However, if local government leaders properly equip them with personal protective equipment and mandate reasonable protocols within the schools to minimize the risk of COVID, and if teachers and their unions then still refuse to teach in school, it is time to “pull a Reagan” and fire them. The money saved from thinning educational bloat of protesting teachers and useless district administrators with nothing to do, can be returned to parents who are struggling to pay for alternatives to ensure their children actually have a productive school year.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

The Nanny State has survived wars, economic downturns and election upheavals. It has shown itself stronger even than a major, worldwide pandemic. From semi-reasonable mandates such as requiring masks when in large groups, to the absurd, such as wearing a mask while walking alone with your dog, Nanny State regulators at all levels of government have been busy little bees during this coronavirus pandemic.

Not satisfied with limiting its intrusive meddling to measures at least marginally related to the pandemic, however, Big Brother now has focused its attention on social drinking — working to stop responsible adults from having a couple of drinks with dinner or during happy hour on occasion.

The vehicle for this latest nosiness is the drafting of new 2020 Dietary Guidelines by a government advisory committee. These dietary busy bodies are recommending that adults should not consume more than one drink per day. As with many federal “guidelines,” this latest compendium contradicts earlier versions, setting a standard that is 50% lower for men. A closer look at the make-up of the advisory committee hints at why the proposed guidelines are more draconian than its predecessor.

Timothy Naimi, an alcohol researcher on the Advisory Committee, appears to be leading the committee’s crackdown on accountable drinking by adult men and women. He has publicly defended the questionable goal, going so far as to warn the American people against having a couple of drinks after days of no-drinking activity. His comments suggest that every responsible man or woman who may like to unwind with more than one drink every so often is not only putting their own health at risk, but endangering society at large.

Naimi is an advocate of increased alcohol sales restrictions and taxes and a well-known adversary of the alcohol industry. It should come as no surprise therefore that the new government guidelines he helped devise appear based more on the lifestyle choices, opinions, and ideological worldview of one school of thought than they are on scientific facts and evidence. In fact, even a cursory reading of the text of this new report demonstrates that it has few data-driven legs to stand on.

By their own admission, they state that the drinking levels in the previous Dietary Guidelines “constitute reasonably low risk” and that “most studies found lower risk among men consuming within ranges up to 2 drinks per day.” However, they claim that by a mere “preponderance” of evidence they have discovered, men and women should only have one drink a day; hardly convincing. Their conclusion is weakened further considering that the document states that only a single study examined the difference between men consuming one or two drinks per day.

The lack of factual, empirical data for the committee’s recommendations would be quickly discounted if in fact it was subject to rigorous scientific methodology. But for Nanny State adherents like Naimi, what counts most are conclusions that support government power to intervene in private and commercial transactions and decision-making. To call the evidence on which this group has relied “conclusive” would be laughable but for the likelihood that, like numerous other government-funded studies, sooner or later it will fuel regulatory edicts with significant economic ramifications for the industry affected.

Apparently cognizant that their report would draw scrutiny, Naimi and his colleagues devote an entire concluding section to answering the question, “Why is tightening recommendations for men justified?” The authors claim that, although incidents such as motor vehicle crashes, falls and violence typically occur at higher levels of consumption, the “risk increases above zero drinks,” so the American people should therefore impose greater limitations on themselves.

This line of reasoning is akin to arguing that the government should reduce highway speed limit from 55 miles per hour to 54 simply because “the faster the speed, the more harm can potentially come.” The myopic logic fueling this report also ignores the negative consequences that can come from driving too slowly, just as the proposed 2020 Guidelines ignore the benefits that people may receive from moderate drinking, including reduced risk of strokes and heart disease.

The report would have little if any practical value at any time, but especially in these pandemic-stressed times, it makes no sense whatsoever and, if followed, will lead to significant harm to individuals and to an industry already hit hard by pandemic-based restrictions.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.