From the Desk of Bob Barr

Townhall

There was a time long ago in America’s civic institutions, where men and women who had accomplished great things for our country and for mankind, were studied by students of all ages — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Jonas Salk, and many other notables adorned classrooms and textbooks in schools across the country.

Now, in an increasing number of public schools children are present with a far different role model. The age of the Drag Queen has arrived.

This loony phenomenon, presented as lessons in “diversity” and “acceptance,” has even found its way into churches, and not just fringe religious sects, but mainstream denominations – Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, and Episcopal — presented not only as lewd sideshows, but as official religious services. The United Methodist Church, for example, has accepted as a candidate for full pastoral ordination, a “Drag Queen Pastor” who proclaims himself a “dragavangelist” and laces his sermons with profanity and gibberish about “divine queerness.”

It might be argued in defense of such activities that if adults wish to attend religious services extolling men dressed as women who prance down the aisle like court jesters, they are free to do so, as long as attendance is voluntary. Disturbingly, this lunacy goes beyond consensual adult activity, as with a Lutheran Church in Chicago recently hosting a “Drag Queen Prayer Time” for children during its Sunday service.

As frequently happens with contemporary cultural phenomena, they tend to bleed across national boundaries, and churches in Canada reportedly are witnessing the same “Drag Queen Evangelism” infecting the U.S. Such expansive reach is made easy through social media, including the Chinese-controlled Tik Tok platform, which recently carried a video of an Episcopal church school event featuring a “Drag Queen Activist” in New York City.

Even in “red” states such as Texas, drag queen religious programs are being featured, including some being packaged with Critical Race Theory and lectures on the evils of “whiteness.”

More troubling than churches encouraging Drag Queen Evangelism, however, are Drag Queen activities paid for by taxpayers in public schools, which are by their very nature, not voluntary institutions.

In New York, non-profits have tapped into the drag queen movement in public schools. One report notes that in June 2022 alone, “Drag Story Hour NYC,” took in $46,000 for drag performances in the City’s schools, libraries, and “street festivals.” This apparently is not something new in the Big Apple, which reportedly has wasted more than $200,000 in taxpayer money on just this one drag-oriented non-profit since 2018.

Not to be outdone by New York, schools in California are muscling in on the drag queen education craze, with one middle school presenting a show featuring a drag queen named “Nicole Jizz.” When criticized, the school principal merely offered a weak apology for the lewd name of the “queen,” but not for featuring the performance itself.

Indeed, rather than condemning such activities, especially those involving the use of taxpayer funds for these types of programs in public schools, some top public officials are praising them. This was the case in June, when Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, said publicly at a civil rights conference that “drag queens make everything better” in schools.

In some cases, as with Michigan’s attorney general, support for drag queen programs appears to stem from officials who have been elected as openly gay, who then use their office to push their personal agenda on constituents.

It goes deeper.

Notwithstanding that drag performances by vaudevillians and early theatrical actors date to the late 19th Century, taking such fringe activities out of bars, movie houses, and private clubs, and forcing them into the public square, including churches and schools as “mainstream,” illustrates a disturbing trend that has taken hold in our society over the past three decades.

In this movement, every attribute or achievement formerly admired and emulated has been stripped of value in the name of “equity.” Valuing one accomplishment over another, or one person’s achievements over another’s, is considered inequitable and therefore condemnable. Thus, everyone is a winner and every action, no matter how bizarre or extreme, must be praised equally, if not prized over traditional measures of value.

In such a culture, positive achievement is no longer valued and, sadly, will become increasingly rare. This is the very dark cultural void into which we are headed.

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

The medical profession for generations remained largely immune from the partisan politics that has affected virtually every other sector of our society, helping to protect the sacred bond of trust between doctor and patient from the rancor of petty, partisan political ideologies.

Starting with gun control several years ago, and accelerating now with the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade, that bond is fraying significantly with woke doctors latching onto such issues as a way to tout their ideological bona fides.

In one clear example of this, dozens of graduating doctors from the University of Michigan walked out of their “white coat“ ceremony  to protest a speaker who was to address them not on pro-life issues, but who was simply known as being pro-life.

While most people have little if any concern about the politics of an auto mechanic or a cashier at the grocery store, this understandably is not the case when it comes to doctors who openly, and even hostilely, espouse radical opinions affecting the medical profession and treatment of patients.

Consider, for instance, the trend of emergency medicine physicians jumping into the gun control debate to assert their “expert” policy perspective on gunshot wounds. While it is true that these doctors see first-hand the effects of such violence, many are eager to share their opinions on such matters as the “lethality” of and need for “assault weapons.”

Such views have nothing to do with treatment of patients, and often are not based on any degree of real knowledge about how firearms function or the ballistic properties of differing types and calibers of ammunition. These gratuitous opinions by medical doctors on “gun control” and “weapons of war” are then widely circulated by gun-control advocates as “medical” evidence supporting stricter gun control measures.

Dr. Anthony Fauci did much the same thing during the COVID pandemic. While the good doctor is an infectious disease specialist, when he made (and continues to make) his incessant calls for mandates and lockdowns, he presented himself, and was allowed to do so by two presidents, as something much broader — as a public policy expert. This injected a harmful degree of legal and constitutional confusion into the handling of an already complex pandemic and wound up costing billions of dollars and perhaps thousands of lives.

Physicians are not alone in this trend to politicize and weaponize virtually every facet of our society. America has a long history of profession-based politics, from college professors to union leaders and from Hollywood actors and producers to super-rich athletes. Doctors, however, have in the past been, and should be, held to a higher standard, considering that objectivity and stoicism are essential components of their profession and of their responsibilities to patients relying on them.

Every physician will speak to the importance of patients being honest and upfront with them when answering questions about their health and lifestyle choices, as this allows the doctor to treat patients better and more accurately. But as doctors become more openly involved in publicly partisan politics in their handling of medical issues, the risks increase that patients will alter their answers based on how they believe their doctor will judge them, or worse, refuse to treat them or report them to the authorities for some perceived “threat” to themselves or others.

A 2016 study from Yale researchers suggested politics does in fact impact how physicians treat their patients, so this is hardly a hypothetical debate. As physicians become more radicalized and embrace the progressive rule that protest is itself the most noble of actions, patients have a right to be concerned about the politicization of a profession on which they rely for their health and very lives.

Doctors do not surrender their constitutionally guaranteed right to hold and express opinions, including on current public policy matters, by virtue of being certified to practice medicine. Increasingly, however, physicians are going beyond this and signaling to patients and peers that their opinions take precedence over treatments and access to medical care.

In so doing, doctors clearly have forgotten, or have chosen to deliberately ignore, the following key language from the Hippocratic Oath to which they swore allegiance: “[to] remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings.”

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

Last week the White House publicly issued a “Readout” describing a July 22 meeting between “senior advisors” to President Joe Biden and several state legislators from New York, Delaware, California and Illinois; all so-called “blue states” whose political leaders are firmly committed to restricting law-abiding citizens’ ability to exercise their rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

The news release was the latest example of this administration’s pattern of deliberately mischaracterizing federal laws regarding the liability of firearms retailers and manufacturers for subsequent criminal use of products they sell or manufacture. In other words, a lie designed to further its gun-control agenda.

The federal law at issue is the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” or “PLCAA,” legislation passed by the Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2005.

PLCAA was deemed necessary by a majority of both houses of the Congress and the president of the United States, in the wake of a series of civil lawsuits against lawful manufacturers and retailers of firearms for the subsequent use of those products by individuals for criminal purposes.

The law does not and was never intended to provide absolute protection for manufacturers or retailers of firearms. Rather, the PLCAA was designed simply to provide a legal framework according to which neither manufacturers nor retailers of lawful firearms would be treated differently from other lawful businesses, such as automobile manufacturers and dealers that never had been held liable for the subsequent use of their products (cars) by negligent or unlawful drivers.

In fact, the clear language of the PLCAA provides that so long as the firearms businesses follow the many laws governing their operations, and so long as neither the manufacturer nor the retailer knew or had reason to believe its product would be used by criminals or in an unlawful way, neither business could be sued if an individual later used the gun in such manner.

If, however, there was or is evidence to the contrary — that is that either the manufacturer or the retailer knew or had reason to believe the subsequent owner or user of the firearm would use it in an unlawful manner — they can in fact be sued civilly for damages, just like any other business.

Notwithstanding this clear language and publicly available reporting on the PLCAA at the time of its passage, the Biden administration continues to deliberately mischaracterize the statute.

For example, in last week’s news release, which noted that “President Biden has repeatedly called on Congress to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” the White House claimed that the law provides “more protection from liability” than is afforded other products, and that it completely “denies” victims of “gun violence” any civil remedy in the courts — statements that are categorically untrue.

In fact, the same as before the PLCAA was enacted, a victim of gun violence has full opportunity to sue the individual who used the firearm unlawfully, as well as any other individual or business that transferred or manufactured the gun that was used to commit a criminal offense, if that business did not itself abide by the law or sold or transferred the firearm negligently or with reason to believe it would be used unlawfully.

Continuing to assert that the PLCAA provides absolute immunity from lawsuits against a firearms manufacturer or retailer is utterly disingenuous. Still, this administration and as its gun-control cohorts in the Congress, along with its enablers in the media, continue perpetrating such a deliberate lie to the American people for the sole purpose of furthering the left’s long-held goal of limiting to the greatest extent possible the manufacture, retail and individual possession of lawful firearms.

However, for an administration claiming that our country’s southern border is secure and that an economy experiencing a record level of inflation is in good shape, lying about the scope of a federal law is considered but a minor fib.

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

The votes had not been counted before the schemes to change the outcome of the election began. By the time of the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, there were at least nine separate plots designed to keep Donald Trump in the White House.

Much as King Henry II’s rhetorical question, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest” encouraged those around him to murder the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170, Trump’s incessant cries to have Biden’s 2020 victory overturned led his devotees to conjure all manner of schemes by which to accomplish what they perceived to be their leader’s desire.

Even today, almost two years after the November 2020 vote, we still are finding out just how numerous were these varied plots.

There was the use of disinformation to muddy the waters with claims of election fraud ranging from the credible, such as illegal ballot harvesting in several states and clear violations of Pennsylvania’s election laws, to the truly bizarre – like Roger Stone’s theory about North Korean boats delivering fake ballots through Maine, or Sidney Powell’s claim about rigged voting machines built by Hugo Chavez.

Some of the schemes were simply self-serving efforts by Trump supporters to gain personal advantage, such as the patently absurd proposal by environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark to have Trump name him Acting Attorney General in late December 2020 so he could mastermind an election reversal.

There were other proposed plots based on executive overreach. Virginia attorney William Olson suggested in writing that Trump replace both his own White House counsel and the Acting Attorney General with attorneys who would do his bidding to ensure pro-Trump vote counts in key states. More concerning, a drafted, but never issued Executive Order compelled the Secretary of Defense to seize voting machines for “analysis.”

Most notable were the schemes proposed by figures directly advising the President, such as Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, which contorted the law – and the Constitution – to justify “alternative” slates of electors to be chosen by Vice President Mike Pence during the official certification.

While there is not yet solid evidence that, in the final analysis Trump himself directly approved any of these ideas presented to him — other than the Pence “certification” maneuver — all resulted from Trump’s obsession that the election had been “stolen” and from his constant calls, in private and publicly, that steps be taken to correct things.

In a sense, Trump left office the same way he entered: relying solely on his gut, rather than a core set of principles and surrounded by a cadre of loyal but knowledgeable advisers. Had he chosen to fight allegations of voter fraud solely within the bounds of the law, rather than undermining it, he could have retained the credibility necessary for seeking a second term, even if it came four years late.

As further evidence of these hairbrained proposals come to light, however, the more it will overshadow and tarnish the many important and positive things Trump accomplished during his four-year tenure, especially in the energy and regulatory arenas and his judicial appointments. It will also make his path back, if that remains his plan, even more difficult.

Had Trump left office with dignity and principle, there is little question he now would be well-positioned to win again in 2024. Instead, the continuing revelations of his post-November 2020 shenanigans, including recent evidence made public by the House January 6 Committee, cloud his chances to win his Party’s 2024 nomination, and are dragging down his own polling numbers.

The more evidence that emerges about Trump’s extra-legal and extra-constitutional efforts to overturn the last election, the greater the chance that other Republican contenders will lose their fear of Trump and opt to challenge him directly in next year’s primary contests.

The longer this process drags out, the more it will hurt the GOP by shifting focus away from Biden’s and the Democrats’ sorry record, back to 2020 and January 6, 2021; even perhaps hurting the Party’s margin of victory in this year’s vital congressional contests.

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

The Democratic Party’s appetite for gun-control legislation is constant, especially in the wake of a mass shooting. Occasionally, they are able to enlist sufficient Republican support in the Congress to actually pass legislation limiting the Second Amendment rights of citizens. This was the case last month when the requisite number of Republicans crossed over and gave Democrats a victory in sending the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” to President Biden for his eager signature.

Not content with their success in passing that expansive legislation, Democrats in the House last week passed another bill to prove they are “doing something” to prevent criminals from shooting innocent victims. At least that’s the theory behind the “Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022” (H.R. 6538) that now awaits Senate action.

H.R. 6538 has a price tag of “only” $2 million (at least to start) and does not itself restrict exercise of citizens’ Second Amendment rights. It is, however, pointless and unnecessary.

Obviously the bill’s primary sponsors, Democratic Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline and Republican Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, concluded that existing “alert” communications between law enforcement agencies are inadequate. Thus, we need an office at the U.S. Department of Justice dedicated to monitoring such events and alerting everyone else — another bureaucracy to “coordinate” something, along with a “study” to be conducted by the Government Accountability Office to let us know how they are doing.

Don’t get me wrong, the disgracefully inadequate, bordering on criminally negligent behavior by the school police agency during the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, illustrates that there are shortcomings in how some police departments and individual officers respond to an “active shooter.” (Strangely, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act signed with much fanfare by Biden, contained no funds specifically earmarked for improved police training, but that’s another story.) However, setting up another office in Washington to serve as nothing but a clearing house for “active shooter” information is not going to touch, much less solve such serious problems.

Still, 43 House GOP members joined all but a single Democrat in voting to create another “Amber Alert,” this one for active shooter situations.

While such an action may sound benign, the actual language in the bill, had Members actually read it before voting “aye,” should have alerted them that this “alert” bill is far too broad to be of serious benefit. For example, the term “active shooter” includes any person “engaged in killing or attempting to kill” (my emphasis) persons in a “populated area.” Additionally, the active shooter must be “determined to pose an active, imminent threat to people in the populated area.” It is apparent right there that there will be problems figuring out what may be in the mind of a “determined” person “attempting to kill” people.

The tendency, of course, will be to include more not fewer potential shooting scenarios in the alert system.

The more problematic provision in the legislation is its definition of “Populated Area” as would trigger a nationwide alert — “a location where one or more persons other than the active shooter are present.” In other words, if there is an armed individual “determined” to pose a danger to at least one other person in an area where there are at least two people present, the alert goes into effect. Broad enough?

Then there is the “coordination” responsibility. The Justice Department must coordinate its work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Department, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

H.R. 6538 is the epitome of a pointless response to a problem needing hard work and commitment, but which receives only a glossy, bureaucratic veneer from the Congress. In a word, as noted by Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan who voted against the bill — it is a “gimmick.”

Moreover, this legislation duplicates other communications systems already in place, such as the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS), which itself is in addition to “fusion centers” active in every state and which employ some 3,000 individuals and have cost taxpayers billions of dollars “with little to show for it,” even though supposed to alert communities to criminal or terrorist activities.

As illustrated by passage of H.R. 6538, however, duplication of effort is hardly a reason for the House of Representatives not to enact more legislation.

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

Townhall

There is a climate revolution happening across the world right now, but not exactly the type for which liberals had hoped. From the Netherlands to Sri Lanka, citizens fed up with government-imposed “green” mandates are pushing back, sometimes violently.

Images last week showed more than 100,000 angry Sri Lankans storming the presidential palace in Colombo. Half a world away in the Netherlands, normally calm Dutch farmers angrily blocked roadways and sprayed government buildings with manure.

Such moves as these result directly from government mandates forcing farmers to reduce nitrogen emissions or to stop using chemical fertilizers that have been widely used for decades around the world as a means of protecting crops and increasing yields. Predictably, farming then becomes costlier and consumer prices rise.

The Sri Lankan fertilizer ban, implemented without any transition plan, has pushed the country near starvation as crop yields plummet and food prices soar.

The mandated “green” initiatives in the Netherlands, which include cuts to both fertilizer and livestock, are making farming far more difficult for one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters.

The consequences of these policies are made worse because they are taking place in the context of a developing global food and energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Europe’s rapid and ill-advised push for “renewable” energy left it dangerously reliant on Russia, and dramatically limited European countries’ options to respond to Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

In nearly every way, the global push for “green energy” has left citizens and democracies worse for the wear — energy shortages, skyrocketing inflation, and now, starvation.

This forces one to ask, what aspect of the “green” agenda has made the lives of people anywhere in the world better?

California’s energy policies targeting nuclear power and traditional fuel sources have made blackouts routine in the Golden State. The federal government mandate for ethanol additives in gasoline has cut the lifespan of internal combustion engines while reducing the miles-per-gallon of vehicles that use it.

Even if citizens sincerely care about improving environmental stewardship — which most people do, whether on the left or the right — the costs of current climate policies, especially when hastily implemented, are significant. The supposed benefits, on the other hand, are theoretical and largely reflect political spin. Families, whether in Colombo, Amsterdam, or Los Angeles, cannot feed themselves with hypothetical plans, optimistic charts, and vague promises.

Making the situation worse has been the cynical manner by which those in power often respond to citizens’ concerns; blithely dismissing them with an arrogant wave of the hand. For example, in response to increasing gas prices, President Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, cavalierly suggests simply going out and buying an electric vehicle.

Such a purchase might be an easy option for someone reportedly worth $8 million, but telling the average working-class family, already struggling to fill both their car and their pantry, to run out and purchase an expensive electric car, is nothing more than a cruel joke.

Truth be said, Granholm and others in this Administration consider the high price of fuel not so much of a problem as it is part of the solution – a necessary step on the road to a glorious future no longer reliant on fossil fuels.

Democrats may not see it, but the tide is turning against climate change tyrants who place political agendas above what is best for citizens in the here and now. What we are seeing in Europe, Africa, and Asia is a very real preview of what may happen in the U.S. if Democrats continue pushing Green New Deals that add to the inflation misery and supply-chain shortages already hurting businesses and families.

The Radical Left hoped to jumpstart a climate revolution; it succeeded, but instead of a massive shift towards green energy, their dangerous cognitive blend of hubris and paranoia has blinded them to the timeline needed for such a transformative change to energy and agriculture infrastructures, while deafening them to the concerns of the people most impacted by these plans.

The growing worldwide rebellions we are witnessing are as much about the disastrous consequences of climate change policies as they are about government elites who have long forgotten who they really serve – the people. Hopefully the fight against such destructive policies does not quickly wane.

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 

The “wokeness” that has distorted how America’s history and culture are presented has received a great deal of analysis and media coverage in the past biennium. It now has sunk to a truly idiotic level at George Washington University (GWU), one of the most expensive universities in the country and, at least in years past, considered by many to be one of the more prestigious.

It is a truism that in modern times, colleges and universities across the country have served as incubators for the teaching of left-wing worldviews to students. Such perspective is further solidified in the professional realm via academic journals and government-funded research projects reflecting similarly liberal biases.

Such woke nonsense has infected even the curriculum at  West Point, where cadets now are forced to spend time learning about Critical Race Theory (CRT). In decades past, our nation’s oldest military academy focused on producing Army lieutenants schooled not in the continuing evils of slavery in America, but in how to win wars and protect our nation’s security. Times and priorities change.

America’s historical landmarks have not been immune from woke revisionism. Especially hard hit has been Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, author of the Declaration of Independence and founder of the University of Virginia. The foundation responsible for preserving and maintaining Jefferson’s beautiful estate outside Charlottesville, Virginia previously and unashamedly lauded his genius and his myriad contributions to our nation. Its current left-leaning board now considers it more important to highlight slavery in virtually every aspect of how the former president, his house and its grounds are presented to visitors.

Ultimately, it is our universities and colleges that take the cake for some of the silliest examples of woke-ism, a process that began a half century ago when student activists began demanding that nicknames or mascots for their schools’ sports teams be changed to be more politically correct and sensitive.

One of the first major schools to succumb to this pressure was Stanford University. Prior to 1972, the prestigious university’s sports teams were known as the “Stanford Indians.” The perceived slight to Native Americans by such nomenclature demanded a change. Thus, for the past half century the school’s teams have been known simply as the “Cardinal” (not the bird, just the color). Its logo is even less exciting than a color — a tree.

In the ensuing decades, various schools have followed Stanford’s woke example and changed their mascots or monikers based on similar pressures. At times, such changes reflected a degree of common sense, as when Ole Miss in 2003 bid farewell to its longtime mascot, “Col. Reb.”

However, and without a doubt, the institute of higher learning that most deserves to be awarded the Woke Dunce is GWU, which has just decided to retire its moniker, the “Colonials.” Just how a word that simply and factually refers to those in the 13 American colonies as what they were – “colonials” – remains a mystery to me as a graduate of GWU (M.A. ’72) and to many others. However, no less prestigious a body than the GWU Board of Trustees has decided the name is sufficiently offensive and “divisive” as to warrant being tossed aside.

The University Trustees did not undertake the process of discarding the moniker lightly. Consistent with being a body nestled in the heart of Washington, D.C., the trustees proceeded in meritoriously ponderous bureaucratic fashion that eventually will consume five years of its precious time to settle the Great Moniker War once and for all.

Beginning with a “Task Force on Naming” in 2019, and continuing via a “Special Committee on the Colonials Moniker” the following year, this June the august body revealed to the world that “Colonials,” which apparently many of its students and alumni misunderstand to refer to “colonizers” or to slaveholders (hence the derogatory connotation), was just too divisive and not harmonious with the sense of “community” at the heart of GW’s “values.”

The world now breathlessly awaits the unveiling of a new, “unifying” nickname. In the years after the 2023-24 academic year, the university’s 27,000 students, who cough up around $75,000 per year, can rest easier knowing they no longer will be saddled with such an offensive moniker. All hail academia!

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

Polls illustrating the depths of the American public’s dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden are likely to have devastating short- and long-term consequences for his Party’s electoral successes this year and beyond. That is, unless the GOP, as it has been known in the past to do, loses its focus.

The recent escapade between the White House and the oil and gas industry is a perfect example.

When Joe Biden tweeted to “companies running gas stations” his demand that they immediately lower prices at the pump, it was not the U.S. Oil & Gas Association’s satirical response that stung. It was a highly critical tweet from liberal billionaire donor Jeff Bezos.

There have been so many Biden blunders, big and small during his 18 months in office, that they no longer surprise most observers. Importantly, however, the real extent of their cost to the Democrat Party is finally beginning to register with the Party leaders and influential supporters.

The collateral damage of Biden’s incompetence is showing serious cracks within the top ranks of his own Party. The lack of acceptance, much less control, over the numerous crises facing his administration – including those that are self-inflicted – are impacting voters Democrats desperately need in order to retain power.

The Commander in Chief’s obvious incompetence and ineffectiveness does not occur in a vacuum, and whether his fellow Democrats like it or not, they are tied to Biden as their standard-bearer (much like Republicans with former President Trump).

This puts the Party between a rock and a meatgrinder. Democrats could use what may be their last few months of congressional control to push an agenda independent of the White House. Doing so, however, would undermine Biden’s remaining credibility ahead of the 2024 presidential contest. This leaves them basically two options, one of which divides the country even further, and one that is not fully within their control.

Democrats’ first strategy would be to use its many media allies to stoke culture clashes as a way to push Biden as a “leader” of the resulting, even though engineered, public outcry. Such strategy presents its own set of problems, considering that pressing such culture clashes as we have witnessed over the past two years can easily get out of hand, and work to Republicans’ advantage. Moreover, such moves would require appeal to the Party’s reactionary progressive wing, which is as much out of touch with reality as Biden.

Democrats’ ability to implement such a strategy is rife with examples of their inability to do so.

For example, the zeal with which the Biden Administration implemented its post-Trump COVID plan alienated much of the American public that was more than ready to return to normalcy. Their social “re-education” campaigns in schools, under the guise of gender education and Critical Race Theory, prompted a national backlash against school district officials and made school board races a priority in local elections (to the clear benefit of Republican candidates). Even criminal justice reform, which was gaining momentum with Republicans, came to a grinding halt as progressives hijacked the narrative and turned it into a “defund the police” movement with no appeal to moderates on either side.

This leaves the Democrats with their other “option” – hoping that Republicans lose focus this election year, and shift their vision backwards to 2020, or forward to 2024.

Given the many and serious problems the Biden White House has created or worsened — from crime to inflation and from immigration to national security — the pathway to a resounding Republican victories this November would seem to be crystal clear to every incumbent, challenger, and Party leader:

• Fix the Economy

• Stop Illegal Immigration

• Repair our Military, and

• Protect Communities Against Rampant Crime

Should Republicans veer from repeatedly articulating these key issues and solutions therefor, by reigniting arguments about who stole what in 2020, or who should be the GOP standard bearer in 2024, they will have squandered an opportunity for historic victories this year, and helped Democrats regain momentum to which they are not entitled for 2024.

It remains to be seen whether the GOP responds to this call by staying focused on 2022 or allows itself to be pulled off track either by clever Democrat ploys or by its own internal squabbling. Considering the GOP’s uneven history in staying focused on the real enemy, how it handles the next, crucial four months remains 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

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling late last month that New York’s 110-year-old concealed carry law was unconstitutional, the Empire State’s Democrat-controlled legislature and left-wing accidental governor, Kathy Hochul, wasted no time reaffirming that they will go to any lengths to prevent its citizens from lawfully carrying firearms outside the home for personal protection.

The new law, signed over the weekend by Hochul, almost certainly will ultimately be thrown out by the federal courts. However, the state’s lawmakers know that such a process likely will take many months if not years to be finally decided, and that for at least that period of time, they will be free to continue denying citizens the right to protect themselves in public.

The immediate impetus for New York’s latest anti-gun maneuver was the Supreme Court’s 6-3 opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, issued June 23. As recited by Justice Clarence Thomas in his majority opinion, the prior law, known commonly as the “Sullivan Act,” was constitutionally defective because it placed far too much discretion in the hands of local state officials to arbitrarily deny an applicant a concealed carry permit unless he or she convinced them that they had a unique, “proper cause” to carry a concealed firearm outside their home.

For more than a century, this provision worked to prevent all but a very select few New Yorkers from carrying a gun to protect themselves in public (open carry is not permitted in the state, so concealed carry is the only alternative).

In signing the new and highly restrictive legislation over the Independence Day weekend, Hochul and leaders in the legislature openly threw down a gauntlet to the Supreme Court, declaring that its Bruen decision was an “assault on our democracy” that would not deter New York in its continuing mission to enact “sensible gun regulations.”

By any objective measure, however, the provisions in state Senate Bill S.51001 are anything but “sensible.” In some respects, the new law is even more restrictive than its predecessor.

Beginning Sept. 1, when the new law is to take effect, no law-abiding New Yorker would be eligible to obtain a carry permit without first convincing the state police that he or she possesses “the essential character, temperament and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself or others.”

This vague and undefined criteria is but one of many conditions an applicant must meet to the satisfaction of state law enforcement officials. Others include character references, family background information, and access to their social media accounts for three years prior. These and many other criteria are buttressed by a catchall requirement that allows the permitting authority to demand, “such other information required by the licensing officer that is reasonably necessary and related to the licensing application.”

Were a New York carry permit applicant ever successful in meeting these burdensome and arbitrary roadblocks, the places where he or she could actually and lawfully carry a firearm are so limited as to render the permit almost useless. For example, the permit holder could not carry a gun:

• In a subway station
• In Times Square
• In any public park
• At any public or private school
• On any restricted sidewalk
• Into any private property unless the owner thereof has publicly posted a notice that such carry is expressly permitted

In yet another unreasonable, if not absurd restriction, if a permit holder has a gun in their vehicle that happens not to be in their “immediate possession or control,” it has to have the ammunition removed and then secured in a “safe storage depository” (not the glove box) that cannot be seen from outside the vehicle.

Surprisingly, the new law does provide an appeal process; not surprisingly, however, it is virtually meaningless. Any appeal goes to the superintendent of state police, which would have been the denying authority in the first instance, and then to the state attorney general, who also has been consistently opposed to citizens being able to carry firearms.

Law-abiding New Yorkers who wish to be permitted to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right defend themselves with a firearm in any public place likely to present a threat, had best be prepared for yet further lengthy and costly battles in court in order to do so.

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

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen was a historic moment for gun rights in America. Lest Second Amendment advocates engage in a lengthy celebration, however, they had best prepare for more pitched battles at the state and local levels, where firearms opponents will fiercely defend their turf.

An individual right to possess a firearm was – finally – recognized by the Supreme Court in its 2008 Heller decision, and extended to all the states two years later in McDonald. Extending that fundamental natural right to self-preservation outside one’s home, which is the essence of last week’s ruling, serves also as a welcome update to the Court’s almost plodding effort to reclaim gun rights from decades of liberal encroachment.

Nevertheless, the decision, important as it is, merely shifts the theater of operations from the national to the state and local levels where Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in Bruen, excellent in form and substance, in effect ushers in a new phase of Leftist scheming on gun control.

Like Heller, Bruen is pivotal in impact, but limited in scope. In a concurring opinion supplementing Thomas’ six-member majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh (joined by Chief Justice Roberts), stressed that the ruling would not necessarily limit the ability of states to establish requirements for concealed carry – only that they cannot arbitrarily deny the right to carry. As with Heller, in the uncertainty created by Kavanaugh’s opinion, we now will be forced to contend with myriad regulatory tricks by local and state governments to undermine this latest ruling.

Immediately after Heller, for example, District of Columbia officials went to work finding loopholes around the “individual right” to keep and bear arms affirmed by the Supreme Court.

As documented by journalist Emily Miller, D.C. enacted a costly 17-step process for gun permits, including “five hours of mandatory training that had to be completed outside the District, and multiple trips to D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) headquarters during business hours.” This was in addition to the city’s ban on semiautomatic firearms, a requirement that gun owners re-register firearms every three years, a limit of registering only one handgun every 30 days, and a ban on both open and concealed carry, all of which deeply undermined, the High Court’s ruling.

It took multiple court challenges and nearly a decade to undo post-Heller gun control measures concocted by D.C. officials, costing taxpayers a fortune to partially restore constitutional rights thought to have been “guaranteed” by the 2008 decision.

Even today, D.C. regulators continue to make it nearly impossible for commercial firearm stores to operate within the city. Aside from the police department itself, which for a time was the only federally licensed dealer in the jurisdiction, there are currently only two active FFLs for citizens to use to take possession of firearms lawfully purchased online.

D.C.’s persistent gaming of Supreme Court rulings is not an outlier example of what anti-gun bureaucrats will do to obstruct what they see as a hostile legal landscape. It is the new playbook.

Extreme laws like New York’s have now been deemed unconstitutional by the highest court in the land, but the Left is not going to suddenly surrender and accept the constitutionality of the Second Amendment. In states like New York, Washington, California, and Connecticut, led by politicians who see banning firearms as a moral imperative and a response to a “national emergency” of gun violence, the strategy remains one of pushing the limits of Supreme Court rulings and forcing citizens to challenge them in expensive, years-long court battles.

The gun control movement considers it has nothing to lose, and even if they find themselves about to lose in court and facing yet another national precedent for gun rights, they can always do as New York City did in 2020, and change the law right before a judicial decision is rendered.

In a very practical sense, the Bruen decision is not the end of the fight for the primacy of the Second Amendment. It is just beginning, and every election at every level and for every position on the ballot, from sheriff to district attorney, and from judge to governor, will play a role.

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.