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Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

As America celebrates another Memorial Day, remembering and honoring those who gave their lives in defense of our country and our freedoms, it is appropriate that we reflect also on the state of our armed forces, not so much in terms of where and how our forces are deployed (itself a timely and critical exercise for the Congress to deal with), but from the perspective of freedom within the military. In other words, are the men and women who serve, and who have served in our armed services, in both military and civilian capacities, having their individual liberty constrained simply by being associated with the military?

This might seem an odd question to be asked of our military, but considering the strange priorities reflected in actions taken by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during his first four months in office, it is a very relevant inquiry; the answer to which is deeply troubling.

In his 2003 book on the history of secret police – The Unsleeping Eye – Robert Stove quotes a passage written by Napoleon Bonaparte’s notorious Minister of Police, Joseph Fouché, to describe the situation by which new governments solidify their hold on power:

“Every government at its dawn usually takes advantage of a danger it has created, either to make it more firm, or to extend its power; all it needs is to escape a conspiracy to acquire more strength and influence.”

Joe Biden was sworn into office just two weeks after the Jan. 6 violence that took place on Capitol Hill following a speech earlier that day by then-President Donald Trump. This “insurrection,” as liberals and the mainstream media have come to call it, became the centerpiece for much of what the new administration claimed was the need for a crack-down on “extremism” and “white supremacy.” Indeed, to this day, nearly six months after Jan. 6, national guard troops remain stationed in Washington, D.C. and “temporary” fencing remains on the Capitol ground.

In his role as defense secretary, Lloyd Austin has taken hold of the “extremism” ball passed to him by Biden, and continues to run with it as a primary, if not the main focus of his job. First, he highlighted the “danger” posed by “extremists in the ranks” to be a fundamental, if not existential threat to the good order and performance of America’s military, and on Feb. 5 issued an unusual, military-wide “stand down” to “address extremism.” He followed this on April 9 by issuing a Defense Department order to establish a “Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG)” with jurisdiction to include all military service members, civilian DOD employees and even retired military.

At the helm of this wide-ranging but vaguely defined “working group,” is Bishop Garrison, appointed by Austin to be his “Point of Contact.” Mr. Garrison’s position is not subject to Senate confirmation, and whether Republicans in either the House or the Senate will proactively inquire into what exactly he and his working group will be up to in the months ahead, remains to be seen. Republicans, however, should be concerned – very concerned – about where this is leading, insofar as it clearly conveys a plan to identify, intimidate, and remove civilians and military personnel with whatever Mr. Garrison and Secretary Austin consider to be “extremist” views.”

For Garrison, what he considers “extremist” views is obvious from his own social media postings, some dating back two years:  anyone associated with or who supported Donald Trump is an extremist and a “racist.” Notwithstanding his having graduated from West Point and serving with distinction in the Army, Garrison’s deeply leftist and anti-Trump views are widely known, and are well-tailored to fill the role of chief Political Officer in today’s Defense Department. His duties as Lloyd Austin’s right-hand man in this regard, as detailed in Austin’s April 6 memo, include:

• Ensuring that potential recruits not harbor any current or “previous” extremist views or behavior.
• Setting up a system by which veterans can report on any contacts by an extremist group, after they have left the military.
• “Monitoring” social media activity for extremist views that might be held by current and potential Department positions.
• Watching for persons who might simply have been “following” or “liking” extremist views, even if they did not actually subscribe to such views or engage in extremist activities.

Austin cleverly did not designate Mr. Garrison as his “Political Commissar,” but in his new role as the Secretary’s Point of Contact for Extremism, that is precisely what he will be doing.

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 recent piece at The Bulwark, Sonny Bunch puts into words a sentiment sensed by many for years, namely, that what once made social media so great has now made it unbearable. According to Bunch, social media’s original design as platforms for “debate culture” has descended into a toxic landscape of information silos where arguments are “dismissed in favor of agreement.”

Rather than a boundless world of information and opinions, social media now serves to blind users from reality.

This sorry situation, however, is precisely what Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein predicted in his 2008 book, The Dumbest Generation, How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. How tragically right he was.

Today, social media is used far less for reasoned debate than as the vehicle for outraged mobs to launch vicious fusillades against their perceived enemies. Some targets of this vehemence are large organizations and companies able to withstand such attacks. Often, however, victims of social media lynch mobs are individuals who knowingly or by chance have traversed the social media crosshairs of the Left and expressed views at odds with the prevailing social media orthodoxy.

In spite of the potentially life-changing consequences of becoming the latest “Central Park Karen,” or merely someone wrongly accused of being a “Nazi,” such nuances are lost on these online mobs, as their aim is not to change minds or debunk misinformation, but to destroy their targets personally, emotionally, and financially – all while taking glee in the ruin they cause. This internet misbehavior is fueled by hashtags that facilitate coordination and aided by secret algorithms designed to keep users hooked by feeding them aggregated content catering to their preferred tastes and world views.

Whether tech companies could have (or, should have) seen this coming, they are responsible for building the content silos now tearing our culture apart. This raises an important question: Is social media’s descent a reflection of society’s debasement, or a catalyst accelerating it? Actually, both.

Two of social media biggest failures – tribalism and confirmation bias – existed long before the rise of Facebook and Twitter, as traits of the human condition. Individuals naturally gravitate toward like-minded people and possess an instinctual skepticism of ideas and information different from theirs. Traditional liberal arts education was designed specifically to undermine that innate skepticism, and provide young minds with the intellectual tools to withstand the challenge of competing ideas and to unashamedly defend one’s own views.

The demise of traditional liberal arts education in favor of leftist groupthink, coupled with the ascendancy of social media as a way to block out disfavored ideas, has resulted in barriers to independent thought and reasoned debate that make it now nearly impossible to overcome.

In the pressure cooker of social media, bad ideas and bad behaviors are not checked, but rather rewarded with greater engagement, in a sociopathic feedback system used by its purveyors to create addiction to their services.

To make matters worse, traditional alternatives to social media’s distortive effect on information and reality, including the mainstream media, politicians, and religious leaders, appear to be following in social media’s footsteps, with fear-mongering and hyperbolic rhetoric increasingly used to manipulate followers. We see this dangerous phenomenon everywhere.

For example, notwithstanding the fact that trust in the media has sunk to an all-time low, news outlets constantly peddle fear and even outright lies, because doing so brings social media “clicks” and boosts ad revenue. Substance and truth are nothing more than flotsam, to the point where misinformation spreads six-times faster than the truth on Twitter.

In the midst of all this, politicians, although fully cognizant that radical polarization is ripping our country apart, continue using the very same overheated rhetoric on which social media thrives, because it brings in campaign dollars. Even religious leaders prey on fears of a culture in decline because, sadly, it strengthens their congregants’ faith .  .  .  and increases tithes and offerings.

State legislative attempts to rein in social media, well-intentioned as they are (such as the bill recently signed by Florida Gov. de Santis), are virtually guaranteed to be successfully challenged in federal courts, based mainly on the many First Amendment precedents affirming the primacy of public “speech” over government limitation. That task, however, is made far easier thanks to so-called Section 230 of the 1996 “Communications Decency Act,” which treats social media companies as simple “platforms” rather than what they increasingly have morphed into – publishers with their own goals and agendas.

The long-foreseen dangers of social media are now upon us. Whether we survive what we have sown is an open question.

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 year’s toxic confluence of urban violence and COVID lockdowns led to a surge in gun ownership, particularly among first-time purchasers and minorities. More firearms were purchased in 2020 than any year on record – some 21 million, with about 40% being first-time buyers. The radical offshoot of 2020’s urban violence to “defund the police,” led in many cities by the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, also has given rise to an increased interest in private police forces, run not by government and not paid for with taxpayer funds.

The concept of private policing is by no means a new or novel idea; the Foundation for Economic Education, or FEE, wrote about it in an article by Nicholas Elliott 30 years ago in February 1991, for example. It is, however, taking on new life – and controversy – as a result of the dramatic rise in violent crime rates in cities hit hard by the “defund” movement. Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and of course, Minneapolis where the “defund” movement really started, all are witnessing significant increases in violent crime as law enforcement funding has been cut and as anti-police sentiment has grown.

Historically, and contrary to popular belief, the primary responsibility for protection of oneself does not fall to the police; it is the primary responsibility of the individual. This not only reflects the reality that the police cannot be everywhere all the time, but also represents a legal principle recognized in federal court decisions, including by the United States Supreme Court. In fact, that there were no organized, publicly funded police departments in the U.S. until the late 19th century. Citizens themselves were considered stewards of their homes and businesses, and responsible for their personal safety and that of their family members – thus the need for the Second Amendment to ensure the ability of citizens to defend themselves with a firearm.

With the urbanization of the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and reflecting the rise in crime rates and the number of criminal offenses, police departments were formed in cities across the country to provide investigative resources and aid in prosecution of criminal offenses. However, the primary responsibility to protect oneself remained vested with the individual, notwithstanding the explosive growth in taxpayer-funded programs by government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels over the past seven decades.

Now, in this third decade of the 21st century, with the defund movement decimating police budgets in the very places where police presence is most needed, Americans of all backgrounds and ethnicities are coming to realize this truism – it is they that are responsible for protecting themselves, their families, and their businesses. The surge in first-time gun buyers, especially among black Americans reflects just this reality. And, in some metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles County, private policing paid for by individual subscribers, is moving to fill the void created by the defund movement.

Citizen, described in a recent article as a “neighborhood watch app” that has partnered with the large private security firm Los Angeles Professional Security (LAPS), provides “subscription law enforcement service” to residents and businesses that pay a regular fee for protection.

This trend actually is not new. Long before the violent upheavals and subsequent anti-police fervor of the past few years, the ability of major police departments to maintain their numbers was dropping noticeably. This was particularly the case in states governed by Democrat elected officials, such as California and New Jersey.

In response to this decreased funding trend, specialized units were disbanded, investigations cut back, and some city departments disbanded altogether, thereby placing additional burdens on county police. Even traditional law enforcement organizations, such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), concluded in 2015 that partnering with private security firms, a strategy that had taken hold in the U.K. and other countries on the continent, would be of significant benefit in the years ahead.

Significant legal and privacy issues remain to be resolved fully before the concept of subscriber-based security services takes hold across the country, and liberals will decry it as “class-based” security for the rich only. Notwithstanding such criticism, programs like those in Los Angeles, and increased individual ownership of firearms, will come to define the future of policing in many cities across the country.

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.

FullMAGnews

by Bob Barr

The Leftist media has finally discovered black gun owners. Just look at the Washington Post Magazine’s glowing spread about reducing the stigma of black gun ownership; a supportive sentiment that Jeff Bezos’ journalism play toy would never apply to gun owners broadly. It seems the Left has finally found a gun owner it likes, even if it is just because they believe increasing black gun ownership scares white conservatives.

The joke, however, is on them.

In recent years, anyone at a gun range or an NRA-sponsored event, or on gun message boards, is aware of this trend that the Left is just now noticing. But rather than react in fear or anger like the Left had hoped, the gun community has extended a welcoming hand to these new adherents, recognizing that every gun owner – black, brown, white, or green – is another voice in support of the fundamental right enjoyed by all people but which is expressly guaranteed to Americans by the Second Amendment.

While the Left cheapens black gun ownership with identity politics malarkey, supporters of the Second Amendment recognize and respect the intimate nature gun rights played in black history. Figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were well known for their carrying of firearms for defense (an historical fact, even if glossed-over by triggered liberals). For blacks during Reconstruction and Jim Crow, gun rights could be the difference between life and death. Their exercise of the Second Amendment rights was in the true spirit of what the Founders intended – an expression of the natural right to self-preservation.

This extremely important nuance is, of course, completely lost on Leftists who only see a “gotcha” opportunity by trying to paint the modern black gun owner as some sort of radical Black Panther type (see, The Hill’s troubling image choice in a tweet last month), rather than just another man or woman at the range punching targets after a stressful day at work.

In some circles, one might say the media’s disingenuous infatuation with black gun owners to be overtly racist; at the very least, problematic. After all, if the Washington Post actually cared about black gun owners, they would perhaps reexamine and apologize for its decades of support for gun control, which – as Second Amendment advocates frequently point out – has undeniably racist origins. They might even look into gun control’s disproportionate impact on working class and minority communities, rather than continuing to ignore it as they provide platforms to anti-gun propaganda coming from Democrats in Congress, or from organizations like Mike Bloomberg’s “Everytown.”

Then again, the Media likely knows if they look too hard at reasons behind the increase in black gun ownership, they might accidently justify why the Second Amendment remains an essential part of the Constitution and our national culture. For example, if more blacks are purchasing firearms because they believe police are unable or unwilling to provide adequate personal protection, it suggests conservatives were right all along about the Second Amendment being necessary for personal defense (an argument the Supreme Court will soon consider in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett).

Whoops.

Although the media may be celebrating the rise of black gun ownership for all the wrong reasons, it is still a trend worth celebrating. In spite of the fear-mongering of Democrats in Congress, support for stricter gun control is dropping – in no small part because of the surge in gun ownership, particularly among first-time purchasers. Whether black gun owners armed themselves out of fear of racially motivated mass shootings like the 2015 Mother Emanuel church shooting in Charleston, or because during the 2020 riots police were not able to protect black-owned residences and businesses caught in the chaos, they join tens of millions of other gun owners who exercise their Second Amendment rights based on the same desire for protection of person and property.

As much as the media will try to drive a wedge into the Second Amendment community with cheap race-baiting, we know better than to let them pick this fight. Our unity scares them because it defies the progressive playbook of identity politics and takes away their ability to define the gun rights movement as fundamentally racist. Their loss is our gain.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of FullMagNews.com

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

Support for President Trump has become something of a litmus test in today’s GOP. While this actually is not a bad measure of political backbone for a Party often in need of it, the removal of Liz Cheney as Conference chair and her replacement with up-and-comer Elise Stefanik, is a reminder that in order to project and protect conservative values, the Party needs more. Much more.

Beyond Stefanik’s support for Trump is a troubling voting history in Congress. According to FreedomWorks’ 2020 congressional scorecard, Stefanik received a paltry 37 percent on scored votes. By comparison, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a 26 – just 11 points less than the GOP’s now third-ranking member in the House. Stefanik hardly seems the right choice to carry the GOP mantle at a time when conservative values are under attack from a progressive mob determined to wipe out all that we hold dear.

There are other troubling signs for the GOP. Take Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz’s support for Trump and willingness to stand up to critics played a major role in the Florida Millennial blossoming into a rising GOP star, even though rumors of his questionable behavior were known for years. And, with a FreedomWorks’ congressional score of 65 (largely attributed to many missed votes on key bills), Gaetz’s unreliability as a crucial conservative vote fails to offset the liability he has become.

Stefanik and Gaetz are but the latest examples of the personality-over-principles problem within the GOP.

The prevalence of social media in today’s political campaigns appears to have forever altered how candidates communicate with voters. In some ways, this has given way to a welcomed sense of intimacy and genuineness through candid conversations recorded by the candidates themselves, rather than emotionless, focus-group-tested rote speeches and campaign ads.

On the other hand, social media, and the drive to “go viral” tends to bring out more bombastic behavior and antics, which may work well on the campaign trail and in congressional hearings soundbites, but can just as easily be highly counterproductive. Members who cannot, or will not rise to the dignity of the office they come to hold, become unwelcome distractions at a moment when the Party’s focus must be to sell the conservative agenda to voters.

This is not to say that members of Congress should be “seen, not heard.” In fact, one could argue the GOP needs more dominant personalities, able to command the attention and respect of voters in order to carry the conservative message forward. The problem occurs when the personality clouds that message – or hides it altogether.

Dominant Republican figures such as Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and Newt Gingrich were not the sole product of outsized personalities able to “troll” their opponents. Their successes resulted from their abilities to sell the conservative message artfully and effectively to voters in a way that brought new voters into the party and offered existing members something new to cheer about. This is not possible without principles, no matter the size of one’s online following.

Trump was able to generate more votes for an incumbent president in history, but it still was not enough. The groundwork he laid will require the next generation of GOP leaders to not just tell voters that we need to “make America great again,” but explain to them precisely how it will do so.

Trump captured voters’ attention. It is now up to the GOP to hold it.

This is no easy task or one that should be taken lightly. As much as it seems obvious that Democrats want to destroy everything that makes America great, such insidiousness is wrapped in the seductive trappings of “free everything.” Opting to be the opposition Party that spends, but just not quite as lavishly as the Democrat Party, is hardly a winning strategy for the GOP.

Republicans will never be able to out-spend liberals. The only long-term, winning strategy is a true return to conservative principles that demonstrate to voters – clearly, consistently, and substantively – the very real threats to individual liberty posed by runaway spending, higher taxes, and authoritarian moves. This is, however, a strategy that will not, indeed cannot, be achieved by superficial personality theater.

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

Shortly after being sworn in as our nation’s 46th president, Joe Biden issued an executive order emphasizing that his first priority as commander-in-chief was to ensure that transgendered individuals in the military are protected. Biden’s unusual, but not wholly unexpected, emphasis on transgenderism was followed within days by the new secretary of defense, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, issuing a military-wide order mandating protection for transgendered personnel. On Feb. 4, Austin doubled down on this inward-looking focus when he declared a 60-day “stand down” designed to identify and ferret out “extremism” in the ranks.

Since early February, this administration’s obsession with wokeness in the military — referred to officially as “diversity” and “inclusion” — has only become worse. According to civilian military experts, this fixation is weakening our nation’s war-fighting ability.

To confirm this disturbing state of military affairs, one need look no further than the U.S. Army’s recent recruitment video, “Emma/The Calling.” This animated video, designed obviously to encourage lesbians to enlist in the Army, does not even pretend to value what heretofore has been the raison d’etre for maintaining a military — the ability and responsibility to fight and win wars. Instead, Emma stresses the paramount importance of “inclusion,” as depicted by the character’s lesbianism and her “two mothers.”

The Army video shares this vision with a similarly focused CIA recruitment video, in which a “Latina” employee of the Agency encourages other “intersectional” and “cisgender millennials” to join today’s “inclusive” Intelligence Community as she did, notwithstanding her preexisting mental problems (which she identifies as “generalized anxiety disorder”).

The controversy surrounding the mission and values undergirding both our national intelligence capabilities and those of our armed forces, was on further display last month in an exchange between Sen. Ted Cruz and Defense Secretary Austin; an exchange precipitated by opinions expressed by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The conservative commentator had criticized the Biden administration’s drive to feminize our military and pointed to the announcement that maternity uniforms were now available for pregnant female troops.

Rather than leave the debate surrounding the feminization of the military to civilian commentators and Biden administration spokespeople to defend, active-duty military officials responded directly and pointedly to Carlson on official government communications sites. This precipitated Cruz’s letter to Austin, in which he expressed strong concerns about “politicizing the military” and “undermining civil-military relations.”

There does not yet appear to have been any public response by Austin or other military leaders to Cruz’s demands for an “official response” and for an “in person” meeting with the Marine Corps Commandant to explain the military’s official rebuke of media critics of the Administration’s policies. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, however, did respond publicly and even declared that Secretary Austin shared his “revulsion” at Carlson’s expressed opinions.

At the core of the Defense Department’s push-back against Carlson is the time-worn trope that the “greatest strength” of our military is its “diversity”; not its war-fighting ability, but its “diversity.” Therein lies the problem. When a nation’s military shifts its priority away from developing and maintaining war-fighting effectiveness and toward amorphous and deeply divisive culture issues, such as “transgenderism” and “inclusion,” it necessarily loses the sharp edge essential to projecting strength and winning military conflicts.

As military policy expert Mackubin Owens wrote in the April 6-13, 2021 edition of the Washington Examiner, in a piece titled “War Goes Woke,” our military now is at a crucial “crossroads … between military effectiveness and ‘wokeness.’” Failure to correct this growing imbalance will, in Owens’ learned opinion, lead to “catastrophic defeat on a future battlefield.” In fact, recent war games conducted to plan against just such outcomes in hypothetical conflicts with China, did not turn out well for the United States.

It is one thing to suffer defeat in a U.S.-China war game scenario, no matter how realistic the terms of engagement. It is quite another to contemplate losing such an engagement in the real world — a scenario becoming more frighteningly likely with each passing day that wokeness reigns supreme  in our military.

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

To point out the elephant sitting next to the 500-pound gorilla in the room, the federal government spends too much money. In spite of the regular verbal abuses levelled at so-called “earmarks,” they are not to blame for this massive problem. In a sense, earmarks, can be considered part of the solution. Why? Because they are transparent.

One of the primary catalysts for profligate spending is the near-complete lack of transparency in the annual congressional appropriations process. Rather than budgets with neatly organized line-items detailing where and how taxpayer dollars are spent, most federal spending results from huge pots of money allocated by very general categories for the thousands of federal offices, agencies, and departments authorized to spend those dollars. Attempting to track specifically where monies eventually are spent is nearly impossible, even for those familiar with the arcane process.

This purposeful lack of transparency is made worse due to decades of funding government through short-term (usually “emergency”) bills, where bloat and the sheer speed at which the bills are passed helps to ensure opacity.

One of the most popular Beltway novelties is Sen. Rand Paul’s annual “Festivus Report” that confirms what we have long known, which is that government is wasteful. The truly bothersome take-away from Rand’s study is the degree to which it makes clear the absurd ways in which taxpayer dollars actually are being wasted.

While Rand’s yearly opus sheds a broad light on wasteful spending, it is by definition, after-the-fact. Earmarks, on the other hand, provide a more current way for taxpayers to see how some of those federal dollars are to be spent, as they are specific line-items in proposed appropriations bills. This process allows at least a small amount of sunshine to be cast on an otherwise deliberately dark process.

Often, the stigma directed at earmarks is not with the process itself, but with the specific programs or activities to which the earmarks are directed. This is understandable. However, contrast earmark spending, which constitutes a mere one percent of the budget, with the vast office budgets for federal agencies that lack anywhere near the same level of transparency as earmark spending. We might know that a particular agency receives so many billion dollars in funding, but that is about it.

When considered objectively, earmark spending represents how government spending should be handled. In order to get an earmark, a member of Congress who has a specific need in his or her district must convince fellow members on committees to consider and approve funding for this need. If they are successful in convincing other members of the merits of their proposal, it becomes a public line-item in the budget to then be voted on, and with a “paper trail” for the world to see.

Imagine if all federal funding had to go through a similar process, rather than money just being tucked away in a “general fund” where billions in taxpayer dollars are allocated without ever seeing the light of day. Earmarks hold members of Congress accountable for spending habits far better than the overall appropriations process, notwithstanding they always make easy targets for “fiscal hawks” to prove they are “fiscal hawks.”

Not surprising, it rarely is noted by earmark critics that such proposed spending measures do not actually constitute new spending, but instead are specifically directed expenses from the amounts appropriated for the federal agencies that are to perform the earmarked projects.

In other words, whether earmarked or not, the money is being spent regardless, so the more honest conversation is not about earmarks themselves, but why Congress feels compelled to spend so much overall year after year. That, however, makes for a far more uncomfortable conversation, and one that many self-described “fiscally conservative” Republicans would rather avoid, especially when a president of their Party is the one on a spending spree.

Banning earmarks in the past did not curb federal spending, nor will doing so in the future. Unless and until Democrats and Republicans alike stop using the latest and greatest “disaster” to camouflage and justify ever more wildly excessive government spending, taxpayers actually stand to benefit from earmark spending, which affords them at least one tool with which to sift through the bureaucratic fog that otherwise hides the trillions of dollars Uncle Sam blithely spends.

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

Despite being labeled a major health epidemic in 2013, the extremely powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl continues to flood into our country and ruin lives in communities from coast to coast. A nagging question is whether the United States Postal Service (USPS) is part of the solution or part of the problem.

The lethargy exhibited by the USPS in complying with federal law mandating that it do a far better job of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States from abroad – especially from China — has been the subject of more than a single congressional hearing in recent years.

Also problematic, however, is failure by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to uphold its part of the bargain, as also mandated by the Congress.

Despite the “Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act” (STOP Act) becoming law in 2018, only now, two-and-one-half years later, is the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, getting around to issuing final regulations to implement the act.

For its part, the USPS has been openly dismissive of the law’s requirement that it implement technology, known as “Advanced Electronic Data (AED),” by which to identify suspicious packages coming into one of several international mail facilities to be flagged for inspection by CBP. Such AED technology was supposed to have been in place by Jan. 1 this year but was not. Last September, the USPS Inspector General publicly blamed CBP for this shortcoming because it had failed to issue implementing regulations for the STOP Act.

The CBP has taken an almost Alice-in-Wonderland view of the problem. For example, in testimony last Dec. 10 before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, a top CBP official, Thomas Overacker, blithely declared that, despite the deadline of Jan. 1, 2021 being “on the near horizon,” his agency “has persistently …  expanded interagency cooperation, updated technologies, and changed staffing methodologies to enhance targeting, enforcement, and interdiction of narcotics in the international mail environment.” Translation – nothing of significance has yet been done.

Rest assured, however, as Overacker told the Senators in that same appearance, “CBP, USPS, and our federal partners in the United States will continue to monitor progress toward compliance with the AED requirements” and continue “working closely” to address the fentanyl problem. Translation – expect more of the same.

It is no secret that much, if not most of the fentanyl entering the United States is from China – directly or indirectly by way of Mexican cartels that produce the synthetic opioid with chemical components from China. The finished product is then smuggled across our increasingly porous southern border. The preferred means for China’s fentanyl producers to send the drug directly to American consumers is by USPS, since the chances for detection are low and the likelihood of delivery high.

Private sector delivery services, such as UPS and FedEx, have for several years, and as required by federal law after the attacks of 9-11, utilized AED technology to scan virtually every package that comes into the United States from abroad through their delivery services.

Significantly, the USPS was successful in carving out an exemption from the post-911 law’s AED mandates. Even though the Postal Service tried unsuccessfully to exempt itself from the 2018 STOP Act, its slow-walking implementation of the law’s requirements has been notorious and, for recipients of fentanyl-laced packages ordered openly on the internet from China, deadly.

As currently drafted, the pending CBP “final” regulations contain numerous loopholes, including an overly broad definition of “letter,” a category of incoming international mail exempt from AED review. More important, however, is the fact that many countries (some 130) are exempted from the AED requirements, with no meaningful benchmarks for compliance.

There are other dangers to the years-long failure by the USPS and the CBP to get their act together in this regard. Not only has this bureaucratic dithering negatively impacted the fight against illicit fentanyl importation but has made it much easier to bring counterfeit goods, including PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) into the country.

If the Biden administration is looking for an easy way to stanch the flow of illicit fentanyl into the country and at the same time curtail the importation of counterfeit goods, it can easily do so by strengthening the pending CBP rule to at long last fully implement the STOP Act, and then actually force federal agencies to abide by it.

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

The Central Intelligence Agency under President Joe Biden and his appointed director, Bill Burns, appears to have morphed into yet another tool of the “woke” Left; unrecognizable to many of the men and women who, like me, were proud to serve what was in years past the world’s preeminent intelligence agency. It has become an embarrassment.

In a recent recruitment video published on social media, the point is made clear that the mission for employees of today’s CIA is not about serving as members of a team committed to providing the very best objective intelligence to policymakers in the administration. The mission now is more about using the CIA as a vehicle to boost one’s self-image.

This ad, perhaps dreamed up by some overly woke ad agency, has the self-declared 36-year-old female CIA employee refusing “to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas about what a woman can or should be.” She then informs us that she is “tired of feeling like I have to apologize for the space I occupy rather than intoxicate people with my effort, my brilliance.”

Labeling this gobbledygook idiotic is being overly kind. In fact, when I first saw this video, I thought it was a joke. Sadly, it is not. It is an official CIA recruitment video, obviously directed to self-centered individuals with pre-existing psychological issues (including something the star of the video calls “generalized anxiety disorder”).

At National Review, Charles Cooke humorously pans the video as a “well-targeted” recruitment tool, given the sorts of people who respond positively to it are “already experts in manipulating, infiltrating, surveilling, and extracting dubious confessions from the rest of us.” However, the video represents more than just an absurd attempt to blend in with today’s progressive orthodoxy.

The recruitment video apparently is one of a series, and depicts an internal culture that no longer understands the underlying and fundamental responsibility of the CIA, an agency at the center of our Intelligence Community. Part and parcel of that responsibility is, or used to be, to hire and retain employees who understand their job is to produce the very best finished intelligence product for our nation’s top policymakers.

This absurd, woke recruitment video twists that crucial responsibility so that the job of CIA recruiters is to find and hire individuals based on their self-image, and on how working for the CIA will contribute to their, not the country’s well-being. The ad also raises questions about the intelligence of those within the Agency who concluded that releasing the video was a good idea in the first place.

Think back to the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump in late 2019. That entire process was provoked initially by a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president — a call which congressional Democrats found objectionable. Somewhat lost in the partisan trappings of the impeachment, however, was the fact that the person or persons responsible for the initial leaks about the incident, were intelligence officers who considered themselves and their view of what the president should or should not be discussing with another world leader, to supersede their responsibility as an employee of the Intelligence Community.

In this respect, those intelligence employees were performing precisely as the arrogant and self-centered employee in this latest recruitment video would have them behave, as rogue employees asserting their “brilliance” as opposed to working for the president.

The ultimate value of America’s foreign intelligence apparatus is founded on whether policymakers can trust that the intelligence given to them is neutral, objective, and unfiltered. President Biden may prefer receiving intelligence product based instead on a very different criteria, including that its authors think highly of themselves and who see their job as a means of fulfilling their self-worth rather than that of the United States.

If so, this is a recipe for foreign intelligence failures, if not disasters. Making matters worse, and as I have noted previously, it is being aided by a Secretary of Defense consumed with transgenderism and allegations of “white supremacy” rather than threats against us by our foreign adversaries.

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.

FullMAGnews

by Bob Barr