June 2021

Townhall

by Bob Barr

It is not clear exactly when it became such an awful burden on citizens to vote on one particular day at a pre-assigned polling place, but somewhere along the line it became so difficult that pressures on state governments resulted in wholesale changes to how, when, and where people actually vote. The changes thus wrought has thrown the proverbial monkey wrench into what had been a well-established, universally understood, and simple system of voting.

Vast expansion of mail-in balloting, coupled with weeks-long “early voting,” has created a Rube Goldberg-like system that has severely undermined voters’ confidence in elections. It also has planted seeds for myriad legal challenges, such as the one filed last week by the Biden Department of Justice challenging Georgia’s recently enacted ballot reform measures.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who still harbors deep resentment of Republicans for refusing to confirm him as a Supreme Court associate justice in the waning weeks of the Obama Administration, was joined at the Justice Department podium last Friday by Kristen Clarke. Together they announced that Georgia was being sued for violating the Voting Rights Act.

Kristen Clarke heads the Department’s Civil Rights Division and has long advocated that America is a deeply racist country. Her current position provides the perfect vehicle with which to drive home her opinions, by alleging that laws designed to make it harder to cheat at the ballot box, are nothing more that disguised measures to perpetuate systemic disenfranchisement of Black voters.

The strings for this litigation will be pulled by Justice Department lawyers but the venue will be the federal District Court in Atlanta, which not coincidentally is the home of Stacey Abrams. Abrams, you may recall, ran for governor in 2018 but lost to Republican Brian Kemp. She has spent the last three years refusing to concede, choosing instead to challenge virtually every move Gov. Kemp makes, including his signing of the voting reform legislation last March.

The provisions of Georgia’s voting reform law actually expanded mail-in balloting beyond existing law (and beyond measures in many other states, including Biden’s home state of Delaware), but obviously not enough to satisfy those like Abrams, Garland, and Clarke who equate ballot integrity with racial disenfranchisement. To these critics, requiring that a voter present a valid identification card at the time they vote, is simply further evidence that Georgia remains, as it always has been in their eyes, a racist state.

The picture painted in the opening pages of the Department’s Complaint against Georgia is bleak, but hardly accurate. It is a picture painted on old parchment by dredging up time-worn allegations of racial gerrymandering lobbed against the state by other Attorneys General, and supplemented by statistics of Black voting strength that, at best, are irrelevant to any charge that racial animus guided the hands of Georgia legislators or the Governor.

In the apt words attributed to former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Garland and Clarke are guilty of “using statistics like drunks use lampposts, for support rather than illumination.”

Notwithstanding the vindictive and baseless claims against Georgia, fighting the lawsuit will be time-consuming and expensive. It necessarily will inject further confusion into an already chaotic 2022 election cycle at a time the country is still reeling from myriad allegations of fraud stemming from last year’s contests. This is, of course, precisely what the Biden Administration wants.

There is far more at stake here than the voting laws of one state.

If the Justice Department prevails in its challenge to Georgia’s law, the Biden Administration will have achieved a major victory in its drive to federalize elections, which is the primary goal of H.R. 1, despite the President not having the votes in the Senate to pass that truly terrible piece of legislation.

Another motive for this challenge to Georgia’s voting reforms is to intimidate any other “red” states that might have recently enacted voting reform measures, or which may be planning to do so.

For a President eager to do anything to keep the leftwing extremists in his own Party off his back, and perhaps to assuage his own sense of guilt for having in the recent past eulogized a former Ku Klux Klan leader, abusing the power of the Department of Justice in this way is an easy step to take.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Emperor Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned. President Joe Biden does not even offer the American people the benefit of music while cities across our country are aflame in murders.

Instead, the president has decided to target for punishment the one group of businesses in the front line of ensuring that firearms do not fall into the hands of criminals: Federal Firearms Licensees or “FFLs,” which includes businesses engaged in the retail sales of firearms and ammunition.

These businesses are heavily regulated by government at all levels, most especially the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). The regulatory regimen each of these tens of thousands of businesses must follow in order not to lose their federally issued license to sell firearms includes maintaining detailed records for every firearm that comes into or leaves their possession. The businesses are subject to periodic, often unannounced visits by ATF personnel who can demand access to their records and inventory.

Every firearm sold by an FFL must be accompanied by a federal form meticulously filled out by the prospective purchaser, double-checked by the salesperson and then submitted electronically or by phone to the FBI for a background check before the purchaser may take possession of the gun. Additionally, it is a federal felony offense for an FFL to permit a so-called “straw purchase,” that is, allowing the purchaser of record to buy the gun for someone else not lawfully qualified to possess it.

These myriad requirements apply whether the firearm is a .22 caliber derringer, a 12-ga. pump shotgun or an AR-15 rifle, which is by far the most popular rifle owned by millions of law-abiding citizens.

Although the AR-15 is rarely used by criminals, this administration remains fixated on the AR-15, which it has labeled a “weapon of war,” notwithstanding the rifle is not standard issue for U.S. armed forces for the simple reason it is not capable of automatic fire (unless illegally modified).

To state that the firearms retail business is a highly regulated practice would be a major understatement, and the vast majority of FFLs take their responsibility extremely seriously. Many require multiple checkpoints between a prospective purchaser completing the requisite federal form (known as a Form 4473) and leaving the store with their new firearm. As in any business, of course, mistakes occasionally do happen, but the last thing any FFL wants is to learn that a firearm sold by their business was used in a crime.

The thanks that firearms retailers now receive from the Biden administration for diligently policing gun sales, is to be demonized. Last week, Biden took a momentary break from repeating the canard that the AR-15 is the major culprit in gun crimes, to announce a “zero tolerance” program to put “rogue” FFLs out of business. There is no factual or reasoned connection between violent crime rates, especially murder, and federally licensed gun stores, but recognizing this fact would cloud Biden’s drive to be crowned the toughest anti-gun president in history.

The facts on murder rates as but one example of how violent crime has risen since the start of 2020, are sobering even if ignored by this administration.

Among major metropolitan areas, for example, murder rates last year increased 95% in Milwaukee, 73% in Minneapolis, 62% in New Orleans, 74% in Seattle, and 78% in Louisville. In my hometown of Atlanta, the increase was more modest at “only” 58%. The overwhelming majority (some 75%) of murders are committed by criminals using a firearm, and most of the guns so used were obtained unlawfully and not from FFLs.

Despite this reality, Biden, along with his pick to head ATF, the avowed gun control advocate David Chipman, invariably opt for the cheap, but inaccurate headline rather than addressing the difficult problems underlying increases in violent crime.

Were he truly interested in tackling violent crime, Biden would sit down with those on the front line dealing with these matters, including among others and most importantly, law enforcement leaders (and not only those who support him politically). The President would be well advised also to consult with and listen to firearms retailers, who are as concerned as anyone with stopping violent crime and who actually are in a position to help.

Unfortunately, Biden prefers to demonize these potential allies rather than seek their assistance.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

Most Americans understand that in our system of justice, a person is “innocent until proven guilty” and that someone cannot be punished if they are not guilty. Bedrock due process, right? Not necessarily.

For years, many judges have punished individuals who appear before them even though they have been determined to be innocent. These judges, all of whom have taken an oath to uphold our Constitution, are basically thumbing their nose at jurors who had determined the government failed to meet its burden of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Unfortunately, this practice has not been halted either by the U.S. Supreme Court or federal law.

Finally, however, a bipartisan group of United States senators are pushing legislation that would prohibit this shameful practice of punishing people for crimes for which they had not been convicted.

The bill is S.601, the “Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2021.”

Observers might scratch their head and wonder why such a piece of legislation is even needed, considering the clarity with which our Bill of Rights guarantees such fundamental rights as due process, equal protection of the law, and freedom from excessive punishment, among others. But such a law is needed, and it is needed now.

The practice of punishing individuals for crimes not proven results from a decades-long trend of giving judges and prosecutors ever more power over defendants coming before them. Mandatory minimum sentences may be perhaps the most visible reflection of this trend but is certainly not the only one.

The problem had not escaped the attention of sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his two late colleagues, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In 2014, this trio nearly succeeded in securing the necessary votes to hear a case that could have put an end to the practice of punishment for crimes not committed. In his dissent of not granting cert — Jones v. United States – Scalia issued one of his trademark blistering opinions, bluntly castigating the majority for failing to “put an end to the unbroken string of cases disregarding” such rights as those guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which contains basic guarantees for fair criminal prosecutions.

Scalia found the case particularly offensive because it was not simply a matter of a judge sentencing defendants based on conduct the jury had not considered, but conduct as to which the jury had expressly already acquitted the defendants.

Now, seven years later judges still are not prohibited from doing precisely what those three highly respected Supreme Court justices found to be impermissible under our Constitution.

The so-called Capitol Hill “insurrection” last January 6th presents a perfect picture of how the unchecked power to punish individuals for crimes for which they were charged but not convicted, could be used to hammer them.

Many of those charged for actions on January 6th have been denied bail by federal judges, notwithstanding having no prior criminal record or not themselves charged with crimes of violence. Many face multiple charges, making it easy for government prosecutors to pressure them into pleading to some but not all the listed charges. Without the benefit of S.601 being passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Biden, many of these defendants face the unenviable prospect of having their punishment enhanced by a vindictive judge if they decide to plead to fewer or lesser charges, or if found by a jury to be not guilty of some but not all of the charged offenses.

While the unusual coalition of Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg raised a few eyebrows at the time, it drew much needed attention for the need to rein in the unchecked power of judges to unfairly punish individuals brought before them for sentencing.

Whether the key sponsors of S.601, particularly Sens. Durbin (D-IL) and Grassley (R-IA) as the chair and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, will be able to emulate that feat in the Legislative Branch, is far from certain considering the deep partisan divide currently infecting all of Washington, D.C. If they are able to pull it off, and if Biden then signs the bill into law, at least one important element of fairness and due process that used to undergird our Bill of Rights, will have been restored.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Last week, the Biden administration proudly released its promised “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.” At the same time, the White House issued a four-page “FACT SHEET” summarizing the 30-page strategy report. Presenting a “Fact Sheet” in this context is ironic, considering there is not a single fact or piece of hard evidence within the report; it is all opinion, wishful thinking and annoyingly repetitive verbiage.

Still, a fair reading of the document reveals a host of legal and constitutional problems that its implementation would present, and it therefore must be considered seriously and not brushed aside as simply another exercise in federal government bloviation.

At the outset, it should surprise no one that the overarching threat necessitating this entire strategy is “white supremacy”  spawned by the “racism and bigotry” this administration clearly considers unshakably imbedded in our culture.

Whether it is expanded government watchlists, additional federal criminal laws (including that of “domestic terrorism”), more gun control, a cozier relationship between social media platforms and the federal government or simply delivering more “financial relief to millions of Americans” (yes, more deficit spending is a specified priority), this “National Strategy” plants the seeds for more to come over the course of the next three-and-one-half years.

Scooped up in its wide net as a threat to be addressed by the implementation of this program are pretty much any “ideologies” or grievances that might serve to motivate any person or group to violence. Indeed, at one point the report discards any notion that its broad sweep might be in some manner limited, by declaring that “domestic terrorists” could include “individuals [who] may develop their own idiosyncratic justification for violence that defy ready categorization.”

Therein lies perhaps the most serious defect in the extremely broad scope of what Biden appears planning to do, which is to make it a federal crime to express “extremist” views that are hateful against other individuals, groups or the government itself. As noted in an analysis by Patrick Eddington published the same day as Biden’s report (June 15) on the Cato at Liberty Blog, such a move would raise immediate and serious First Amendment issues. More specifically, in appearing to advocate for new laws and federal powers that could be deployed against “extremist views” without being linked directly to inciting violence and likely to result in violence or unlawful acts, the administration would be proposing something at odds with long-standing Supreme Court precedent.

Of significant concern also in this strategic offering are tricks to blur the bright line that since the late 1970s has served to prevent federal law enforcement from lumping together investigations of domestic criminal acts with international ones. This sleight-of-hand would make it much easier to gather evidence against domestic terrorism (meaning, for Biden, “extremist” views or actions), by claiming there are “international” or “foreign” connections. This concern is reinforced by the report’s noting that the U.S. Department of State would be an important player in implementing the administration’s domestic extremism strategy.

Buttressing the report’s emphasis on the State Department’s role in fighting domestic extremism, is the fact that Biden recently announced the United States was joining the “Christchurch Call to Action to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online.” In endorsing this approach, Biden has thrown in with a number of other countries, led by New Zealand and France following the 2019 attack on a mosque in Christchurch. The signatory governments commit to partnering with social media to restrict use of those platforms in furthering or broadcasting “violent extremist content.” The Trump administration wisely had declined to sign onto this plan because of its First Amendment defects; concerns Biden obviously does not share.

Biden’s plan descends to the absurd when it asserts that studying the “iconography, symbology, and phraseology” used by domestic terrorists is an essential component of a national strategy to counter domestic terrorism. Studying hieroglyphics supposedly used by 21st Century domestic extremists illustrates the shallowness of the administration’s approach, but the many legal and constitutional dangers lurking within it are deadly serious.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

In a free market system, sellers compete by offering products of either a higher quality, or at a lower price. However, when sellers collude to sell their products all at a fixed price, consumers pay a higher price because there is no longer a need for competition. In the private sector, this is called a cartel. In the public sector, we call it a G7 summit.

Joe Biden fancies himself something of a straight shooter, so why is he not shooting straight with Americans when it comes to the G7’s latest scheme for a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent? Try as they might to spin it, the G7’s plan is a global tax cartel, and while this sort of socialism is par for the course for Europe, America should know better.

America is a country whose entrepreneurs built the world’s greatest and strongest economy. We are home to recent success stories like Apple and Amazon, but also benefit from some three million businesses owned by immigrants that generated more than a trillion dollars for the U.S. economy.

Why in the world, then, would we voluntarily agree to make doing business in America and with American companies worse, so that by comparison, it makes doing business in Europe better? It is not the American taxpayers’ job to subsidize European socialism, but that is exactly what Biden is volunteering them to do by pledging U.S. support for this tax cartel.

If European countries want to band together and levy higher taxes on corporations, that is their business. America should be working in the opposite direction, however, by taking steps that make operating a corporation in the United States more appealing. Between its kangaroo courts and mind-boggling fines whenever the European Union decides it is owed money by a corporation, the pitch to move business operations to the U.S. is – or should be – a no-brainer.

Of course, that pitch becomes considerably less believable when America starts adopting the same socialist tax policies that have incentivized companies to flee Europe.

Today’s global companies are more “portable” than ever. Many, like those in Big Tech, have no real manufacturing footprint; others have their manufacturing processes already dispersed around the globe. When corporations decide to pick-up and leave a country, they can do so without the same disruption to their operations that previously would have forced them to just stay put.

Only hubris and detachment from market reality can explain why the G7 thinks companies will only consider investing in a country within the tax cartel, instead of others that recognizes the value of providing economic freedom to do business and make money.

As developing nations today are learning from the ruinous lessons of socialism, the G7 appears to be heading more towards it. It is here that we see the E.U. losing its edge in competing for global business, thus belying the true intent behind the cartel’s action. Europe knows it cannot compete with a global economic landscape favoring economic freedom, and it desperately needs tax revenue to continue funding its progressive agenda, thus the push for a global minimum tax.

Washington should not require a crystal ball to see what future awaits us by jumping on the G7 global tax bandwagon. One has only to consider what is happening to states here at home. New York and California are hemorrhaging both corporations and wealthy citizens. States like Texas and Florida are flourishing as economic “refugees” relocate in pursuit of friendlier business climates and better tax rates. Does Biden think it will be any different on a global scale? Does he not care? Or is this “Europeanization” of corporate tax policy what he actually desires for America?

A global tax cartel forces America to oppose what we do best – engage capitalism.

The Left’s fawning over Europe is nothing new, but as we watch the continent’s slide toward economic decay, unchecked immigration, and ineffective healthcare systems stretched beyond the breaking point by COVID, now is precisely the wrong time to embrace those policies.

However, with Biden at our helm and doing whatever he can to prove he is the “nice cop” taking over from “bad cop” Donald Trump, appeasing his European buddies is more important than working to maintain America’s leadership on the world economic stage.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

During his Senate confirmation hearing on May 26, Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), David Chipman, was asked to define an “assault weapon.” For someone being considered for such a position, especially with his decades of experience lobbying for stricter gun control laws (and as an ATF special agent), the question from Sen. Tom Cotton should have been a soft ball. Instead, Chipman whiffed like a little leaguer going up against Nolan.

After sputtering through some nonsensical gobbledygook, Chipman finally declared that an “assault weapon” is “any semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine above the caliber of .22.” Really?

If the ATF nominee actually believes what he said, it represents an unprecedented expansion of the general definition of “assault weapon” even as has been used by Democrats for decades in crafting gun control legislation. Regardless of whether his response reflected a degree of careful analysis, or was simply a poorly crafted off-the-cuff answer, the statement by itself disqualifies him for the job.

Anyone who has ever debated gun control advocates on this issue, or on any matter related to the Second Amendment, surely has observed the disparity between knowledge of firearms and the intensity with which liberals make their arguments against them. In fact, the two traits appear inversely proportional, with often the loudest advocates of gun control having the least knowledge about firearms and the Second Amendment. A perfect example of this dichotomy is the loud but ignorant gun-control hero, Parkland High School alumnus David Hogg.

This ignorance does not exist in a vacuum, and it has real-world consequences. As Reason’s Jacob Sullum outlines in a piece detailing why California’s “assault weapon” ban recently was struck down by a federal judge, the entire premise of the law was based on a fundamental lack of understanding (intentional or otherwise) of the firearms that were banned. This misunderstanding led to decades of unconstitutional deprivation of California citizens’ Second Amendment rights, not to mention expensive legal fights defending the ill-conceived law.

For decades, the Left has pushed openly to ban so-called “assault weapons;” either by piecemeal chipping away at characteristics common to rifles such as the popular “AR-15” platform, or by simply declaring them as a class of firearms to be unlawful. In this environment, it is incomprehensible that someone like Chipman, who has years of experience lobbying for such bans, does not know the definitional basis of what it is he is asking Congress to enact. Nobody in his position can, or at least should be that dim.

This leaves the only plausible excuse for Chipman’s answer to be that he does, in fact, believe the definition of “assault rifles” to encompass nearly every modern sporting rifle. Should this be an accurate reflection of his views, the man represents the very worst case for serving as director of ATF.

As I have often written, the important future battles over gun control will not so much be waged in the halls of Congress as they will be in America’s bureaucratic swamp via rule-making processes. These actions remain largely out of the public eye and rarely are checked by Congress, which makes zealots like Chipman especially dangerous.

Driven by both a personal agenda and a mandate from the Oval Office, Chipman’s broad definition of “assault weapon” makes clear he would use the ATF’s equally broad regulatory powers in new and dangerous ways. Already the ATF has signaled its desire to readdress the definition of pistol braces used on common AR- and AK-style pistols, essentially rendering them unlawful.

More dangerous still is the recently published ATF proposal to completely redefine what constitutes a firearm’s “frame or receiver” and the manner by which firearms are to be identified. This far-reaching proposal would upend decades of firearms laws and regulations, and would open the door to massive expansion of the ways in which ATF could control the manufacture, retail, and tracking of all firearms.

With Chipman or a similarly incompetent individual at the helm of ATF being but a phone call or email directive away from gun control advocates in Congress or non-governmental advocacy groups, the harm to the industry and to individual gun owners could be devastating, even if Republicans are able to wrest control of the Congress from the Democrats in next year’s election.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

In a world of facts and reason, Rebekah Jones is an outlier. As National Review’s Charles Cooke elaborately detailed last month about the Florida Department of Health’s former COVID-19 data analyst, Jones is many things – fabulist, grifter, disgraced former professor, and subject of numerous criminal charges from felony robbery to cyber-stalking. But courageous “truth teller” she certainly is not. Then again, in today’s world that depends on one’s politics.

The case against Jones’ credibility is as clear-cut as it gets among today’s flurry of media disinformation, but the Left has nevertheless embraced her as a Joan of Arc figure of the COVID-19 crisis; largely, if not exclusively, because her allegations that Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis manipulated COVID-19 health stats for political gain fits the narrative they yearn to believe. And, as the saying goes, that is their story and they are sticking to it – facts, or Jones’ deranged behavior, to the contrary.

There is little more to add in discrediting Jones’ wild claims against DeSantis that Cooke has not already addressed over the last month, but Jones’ ability to hoodwink liberals simply because her story confirms their personal and political biases, is worth exploring further. It reflects a disturbing trend, particularly among the mainstream media and Democrat politicians, in which “truth-seeking” is more about confirming a narrative, than actually seeking the truth.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to accept information more readily as true if it reflects currently held beliefs, as well as to more quickly reject information that challenges these. To some degree, confirmation bias is a part of human nature. However, when it comes to institutions such as the media, the creep of confirmation bias into the news-gathering process by agenda-driven journalists produces results that range from embarrassing to outright threats to national security.

Fortunately, in the case of Jones, it has been mostly the former. For all the sanctimonious finger-wagging at the Right for its associations with the QAnon phenomenon, the Left’s obsession with Jones simply because she is attacking one of the GOP’s best and brightest rising stars, is laughably hypocritical. Even 60 Minutes’ hit-piece on DeSantis came-off as so nakedly partisan, it barely qualified as offensive.

The situation is much different, however, when the stakes are raised with national security on the line. Take, for instance, the mainstream media’s intentional scuttling of any hint that COVID-19 may have originated from a research facility in Wuhan because such a theory conflicted with the Left’s browbeating of Trump and other Republicans about “anti-Asian” rhetoric. Where might we be today in holding China responsible for its malfeasance had the media last year invested the same vigor into following fact-based and plausible theories about the virus’ origin, rather than blindly taking as gospel assertions from one man, the now discredited Dr. Anthony Fauci, that a lab leak was virtually impossible.

The list of the Left’s “Emperors with no Clothes” is indeed lengthening.

As I wrote last week, the Left’s perpetual blind spot for the threat posed by China to U.S. interests is made even worse by a confirmation bias that steels American media and politicians from any counter information that might have a shot at breaking this spell. How can elected officials in charge of making national policy, or the media outlets that help inform these elected officials, be effective if they only see reality through such hyper-partisan tunnel vision?

Jones may be taking the Left for a ride, raking in donations from gullible supporters while making fools of journalists who fall for her scam, but it is what she, and Fauci (now cashing in on his own lucrative book deal), represents that should be a wake-up call for the Left and Right alike. Our ability to absorb and objectively process new information is a critical survival mechanism. Dulling this ability by simply assuming we are being told the truth by those who share common beliefs makes us more prone to believing false narratives from bad actors, especially those disguised as friends.

“Trust, but verify,” was a phrase often used by President Ronald during negotiations with the Soviet Union over nuclear disarmament. Today, however, we do far too much of the former, and far too little of the latter. It is an environment of fake news and propaganda, that without immediate correction, will surely bring ruin to our great nation.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Conservatives for years have warned about the dangers posed to the Second Amendment by regulatory chokepoints imposed by state and local lawmakers. They warned these processes could be unintentionally, or more likely intentionally, used to chill citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Over the last year in North Carolina, these fears have proved frighteningly prescient.

North Carolina is one of 10 states and Washington, D.C. that require a permit to purchase a pistol, which is processed and approved by the county sheriff after completing a background check on the applicant. State law requires this process to be completed within 14 days. Despite this legal requirement, however, in some counties the wait is now stretching into months. Unlike federal background checks, there is no “default” approval after expiration of the statutory window for processing.

County sheriffs, such as Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry L. McFadden who rode into office on the 2018 “Progressive Wave,” claim the simultaneous factors of COVID-19-related work disruption and a historic surge in gun purchases, have put counties behind in processing pistol purchase permits. Thus, people should “just be patient.” In other words, the officials will get to the permits when it fits their priorities, and in the meantime, citizens should sit quietly and wait.

The lack of urgency to addressing what amounts to a denial of citizens’ Second Amendment rights is inexcusable. Consider the impact this bureaucratic bottleneck places on first-time gun purchasers in particular. If a person believes himself or herself to be in imminent danger, other than a long gun that is completely impractical for arming oneself outside the home, there is no option other than to hope and pray that their permit is processed in time. After all, who do citizens call when it is police breaking the law?

Adding to the absurdity of these regulatory hurdles is the fact that this government law-breaking is for the sake of upholding a process already made redundant by federal background checks performed at the time a rifle or pistol is purchased from a firearms retailer anywhere in the United States. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn about how and why these schemes remain on the books, is that they provide state and local gun-grabbers a tool by which to punish citizens seeking to exercise a fundamental right guaranteed by our Bill of Rights.

Sadly, the situation in North Carolina is not unique. Consider Maryland’s onerous purchase permit scheme, which is currently being challenged in court by the National Rifle Association. The NRA Institute for Legal Action (NRA-ILA) correctly asserts that Maryland’s regulatory requirements place financial and time burdens on applicants that are designed intentionally to “’intimidate’ law-abiding citizens and prevent them from exercising their Second Amendment rights.” As I have noted previously, such burdens fall hardest on working class and minority communities. Given the racist origins of gun control, this too seems intentional.

Such manipulation of the regulatory measures imposed by state and local governments to chill gun rights are consistent with gun control measures passed last March by the Democrat majority in the U.S. House. By requiring all firearm purchases, including private sales, to include a federal background check, while greatly extending the window in which these checks can be processed, Democrats have potentially created a de facto national waiting period of at least 20 business days (from the current three days), under the guise that background check systems cannot keep up with demand, an excuse that has demonstrably not been the case under the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”) which has been operating for more than two decades.

Local sheriffs, like North Carolina’s McFadden, are able to undermine the federal system’s approval time constraints based on state statutes, which will remain in place unless and until those gun control laws are changed by voters or they are struck down by the courts as impermissible infringements on the Second Amendment.

These regulatory minefields are the battlefields on which the real war on firearms rights currently is being waged. Without a broad and decisive Second Amendment victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, which recent history suggests is unlikely to happen, citizens in many states and municipalities will remain at the mercy of local anti-gun officials.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

Why in the world was the U.S. funding virus research in China? This is the $10 trillion question about which more members of Congress other than Sen. Rand Paul should be grilling Dr. Anthony Fauci, who thus far has failed to give Americans the straight answers we deserve.

The issue is far bigger than Fauci and what Republicans should be demanding is a clear answer to why America funds any research of any sort with our primary world adversary, especially research that is at best “dual use” research, and at worst a precursor for devastating biological warfare.

One reason is that the Left has never appeared to understand the real world, in which there are friends and enemies; including enemies with smiling faces and offering candy, but whose aim is to kill you. In the case of China, smiling faces are empty promises of domestic liberalization, and its proffered candy is lucrative Chinese markets for U.S. companies.

The truth behind the mask is all too easy to spot – if one is willing to look.

Human rights abuses against the Uyghur people, Orwellian surveillance networks and “social credit” systems, a tyrannical crackdown in Hong Kong, and state-sponsored cyber-hacking of U.S. companies are but a few examples of China’s recent reprehensible conduct. Still, the Left continues to mollycoddle this global power as if it were nothing more than a puppy wetting the carpet.

This behavior is embarrassing when it comes from the private sector, as when the NBA, an avowed “social justice” advocate, shushed its players from criticizing China for fear of jeopardizing the league’s $5 billion investment in that country, or when a spineless Hollywood actor apologizes to Beijing for making a factual statement about Taiwan. Kowtowing from U.S. government leaders, however, is a far more serious matter.

Despite the formidable size of its military, China’s bread and butter remains asymmetrical warfare, focusing on geopolitical pressure to manipulate other international powers including the U.S., while using its military chess pieces primarily to ward off interference in its internal affairs. With China’s finely honed knowledge of how money and power flows through Washington, D.C., its leaders understand that buying influence in academia, the media, Hollywood, and woke corporations serves the dual purpose of controlling American politicians.

It therefore comes as no surprise that fact-based theories about COVID-19 originating in a Chinese lab led to pushback by leftist politicians and media. Some Democrats even played the race card, accusing Republicans of being “anti-Asian” for placing the blame on China; no doubt exactly as Chinese officials privately predicted.

China’s well-known and historical predisposition to play the “long game” in its dealings with U.S. administrations, allows it to wait patiently for presidents more easily manipulated to its agenda – someone like Joe Biden. With Democrats now in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House, it is unlikely China will ever be held accountable for its release of the COVID virus and its intentional cover up efforts.

None of this analysis is new. China’s bad and manipulative behavior has been on display for decades, which only raises the question of why the U.S. continues to play into its hands geopolitically, even as we give the communists critical intelligence by “partnering” with them on health, economic, and academic endeavors, like Fauci’s research in Wuhan. That such resources sooner or later will be used directly or indirectly against us has been a very real and tangible danger for decades.

Perhaps America’s primacy as a global superpower has dulled our ability to recognize a bully when we see one, but it is beyond time for the U.S. to begin fighting back, using the same asymmetrical methods as China uses against us. For example, Trump’s 2016 post-election phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was a masterclass in subtle, diplomatic shot-firing at China. Another easy win would be extending refugee status to Hong Kong citizens attempting to escape tyrannical Chinese rule.

Democrat politicians and the lords of social media in Silicon Valley may whine and complain about agitating their “buddies” across the Pacific, but these craven concerns need to be brushed aside. China is already waging war against the U.S., even if Democrats choose not to recognize the reality.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.