From the Desk of Bob Barr

Daily Caller

A recent, nonpartisan poll of 2,008 registered voters, conducted by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, concludes what many Americans already know, which is that our two-party political system is a chaotic mess. Far more disturbing, however, are the survey’s findings that a significant percentage of voters consider that violence, suspension of democratic norms and states seceding from our union, all are acceptable alternatives to our current troubles.

These troubling findings certainly can, at least in part, be attributed to pronounced ignorance that has for at least a decade, characterized many Americans’ understanding of the structure of our national government. For example, a 2014 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that more than one-third of adults surveyed could not name a single one of the three branches of our government.

Coupled with historic lows in the public’s trust in government, such a disturbing level of civic cluelessness makes the most recent finding by the University of Virginia even more troubling.

Having so many voters remaining fundamentally ignorant about how our government operates, while at the same time having little or no trust in that government, and with some forty percent considering it “acceptable to use violence to stop” those in the opposing political party “from achieving their goals,” is a recipe for disaster.

If voters engaged directly with political leaders and parties, there might be at least some check on these disturbing trends, but, as the Pew Research Center has discovered, the vast majority of Americans get their news the easy way, from “digital devices,” which are by definition more subjective, less transparent and more easily manipulated than direct communication. It therefore should come as no surprise that a majority of Americans now support restrictions on their access to information by government and corporate censors.

All this creates a toxic environment for civil political discourse and which, in the current national political goings-on, makes it difficult to be optimistic things will improve anytime soon.

Former President Trump might have given voice to what many voters felt in their gut but were unwilling to state when, in his 2016 campaign he declared publicly it would be fine for his supporters to “knock the crap out of [hecklers].”

Individual acts of violence against political opponents are one thing. Large scale acts of politically motivated violence are quite another, and efforts by political leaders and media pundits to excuse or justify such actions muddy the waters far more than any single politician can hope to accomplish.

When Democrat leaders and pundits excuse or justify massive acts of looting and arson, such as many of those in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, or when certain GOP leaders downplay the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 because it was “mostly peaceful,” it smooths the way for individual, aggrieved voters to view politics through that same lens; which is precisely what nonpartisan surveys illustrate.

In this hyper-partisan atmosphere, populated by many participants with little, if any substantive knowledge of the underlying principles or issues, even a legitimate, academic exercise can be mischaracterized as something evil and nefarious, and therefore worthy of the most extreme opposition. For example, the ideas in a recent book on reducing the regulatory powers of the federal government, published by the very establishment Heritage Foundation — Mandate for Leadership 2025 — are labelled “textbook fascism” by a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

If the ideas in a rather boring, but very academic and substantive book on how to reduce the powers of the federal government are considered to be “fascist,” then there truly is little, if any room remaining in which civil discourse can be advanced in our current political environment.

At the same time, voters who participate in and do have some knowledge of how our political system operates, are witnessing a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives behave in a totally confusing and dysfunctional manner, with no apparent regard for the welfare of the country beyond their own careers.

It therefore should come as no surprise that many Americans have come to adopt alternatives, including those that in the past were considered beyond the pale; whether violence, or as one psychologist at the esteemed Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania suggests, that we would be better off choosing our political leaders by lottery rather than democratic elections.

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.

https://townhall.com/columnists/bobbarr/2023/10/19/bidens-visit-to-israel-in-the-throes-of-a-war-actually-is-an-inflection-point-n2630069

Since taking office early in 2021, President Joe Biden frequently has used the term “inflection point” as a way to add gravitas to whatever issue he is speaking about. In fact, he has used it so often its meaning, or whatever it is supposed to mean, has been significantly diluted. His current visit to Israel, however, which neither Biden nor his media team has described as an “inflection point,” could accurately be seen as such a juncture for Biden and for the Middle East.

In none of the instances in which Biden has employed such rhetoric has he explained exactly what he means by the use of the term. In such linguistic laxity, the president perhaps presumes the reader or listener knows that the term “inflection point” (when not used in its technical, differential geometry context) is defined by dictionary guru Merriam-Webster, as “a moment when significant change occurs or may occur.”

In his October 15^th “60 Minutes” interview with Scott Pelley, Biden declared that his principal motivation for seeking a second term despite his advanced age and the myriad domestic problems he continues to face, was because “[t]h world is at an inflection point.” Two days later, America’s commander-in-chief was en route to Tel Aviv – smack dab in the middle of a burgeoning and already extremely bloody war between our close ally Israel and Hamas, one of that country’s most militant adversaries.

What takes place in that region over the coming days, weeks, and months, may very well turn out to be a point at which “significant change occurs.”

By all public assessments, the Jewish State is poised to launch a ground attack against Hamas, whose base of operations is Gaza, the narrow and densely populated quasi-state that lies between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean coast.

If Israel in fact engages in a massive military invasion of Gaza, the goal of which would be to neutralize Hamas’ ability to launch future cross-border terror operations such as that on October 7^th which resulted in dozens of hostages being taken into Gaza (including several U.S. citizens), the declared “war” between Hamas and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) would almost certainly expand, probably dramatically.

In this context, the potential stakes of Biden’s wartime diplomacy could not be greater.

If Biden succeeds in convincing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that a massive military invasion of Gaza is neither necessary nor prudent, he will have earned significant kudos by heading off a very dangerous and negative “inflection point.”

If Biden is unsuccessful in heading off a major Israeli invasion (and possible subsequent occupation) of Gaza, the resulting expansion beyond the strict confines of Israel and Gaza — including possible direct military involvement by other NGOs (e.g., Hezbollah) and state supporters of Palestine, such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iran — risks hostilities on a scale actually imperiling world peace.

Tuesday’s hospital blast in Gaza already has complicated Biden’s mission. His plan to meet with Jordanian and Palestinian leaders in addition to Israel’s was “upended” due to the hospital disaster, thereby potentially and severely limiting the possible benefits of his trip to the region.

Still, if his discussions with Netanyahu, and perhaps indirectly with Arab officials while in Israel, results in visible movement to secure the release of Hamas-held hostages (especially Americans), he can legitimately claim a degree of success. If some form of punishment for the atrocities committed by Hamas in its most recent cross-border operations that are seen as short of a massive Israeli military operation into Gaza, even perhaps with limited, non-combat U.S. involvement, this, too, could enhance his administration’s stature, and might at least to a small but significant degree lessen the chances for a much wider conflict.

Any way you look at this presidential foray to the Middle East, it is a very real, as opposed to a merely rhetorical “inflection point.” It is one that should be supported publicly in a bipartisan way here at home – although in today’s hyper-partisan political climate that may be too much to hope for.

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.

https://townhall.com/columnists/bobbarr/2023/10/19/bidens-visit-to-israel-in-the-throes-of-a-war-actually-is-an-inflection-point-n2630069

Daily Caller

Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz accomplished his goal last week, when his “Motion to Vacate the [Speaker’s] Chair” passed the House of Representatives with unanimous support from Democrats, plus Gaetz and seven of his colleagues who like him appear to have no vision beyond their own egos.

In kicking former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to the curb with no Plan B beyond making the rounds of cable TV and radio talk shows, Gaetz & Co. left an important segment of the government of the United States adrift in an increasingly dangerous world.

The egotism and immaturity their game reflects will have ripple effects at home and abroad, as leaders scratch their heads and marvel at what the United States has done to deserve such punishment.

Lest we place too much blame at the feet of Gaetz and his Happy Seven for this sorry state of affairs, America and the rest of the world know full well that there are other serious tears in the fabric of our mantle of leadership.

Let’s begin at the top, with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, whose somnambulance is exceeded only by the vitriol that infects virtually every public pronouncement he occasionally makes. If Biden’s handlers and his cohorts in the Congress and in Democrat-controlled state governments across the country honestly believe other world leaders, including friends and foes, do not see and act on such profound and obvious weaknesses, then they are as clueless as he is.

The Republican Party, which in our closed, two-party system is the only meaningful political counterbalance to the Democrat Party that currently controls the White House and the Senate, is being led by a proud egotist whose dealings in both politics and business have earned him the sobriquet of “multiple indictee.”

Amidst all this political chaos, we have a southern border across which uncountable thousands of aliens daily pour, at times with the help of the very federal employees whose responsibility it is to stop such illegal crossings. The rest of the world watches this madness play out, even as the Biden Administration claims with a straight face that the border is “secure.”

The cherry atop this toxic political sundae, however, is the plan by Gaetz to leave the House of Representatives leaderless, without even a bare majority of members willing to stand up and say, “Okay, at least here and now, we will put aside personal peeves and partisan bickering to ensure that this vital component of the federal government is not left twisting in the wind as the world watches.”

Domestically, governors and legislators will step in to pick up much of the political and economic slack caused by Washington’s ongoing inability (or unwillingness) to function.

Abroad, however, matters left hanging or in tatters because of the failure to engage in at least a semblance of regular order or to maintain leadership in the House of Representatives, will not be so easily patched over.

With the United States absent or dithering in countries and regions from Russia and Ukraine to Taiwan and China, and now to a suddenly exploding Middle East, allies will begin making decisions without Washington at the table; some will seek new friends of convenience. Adversaries will be emboldened to test us as perhaps never before since the interregnum between the First and Second World Wars when the United States stuck its head in the sand while Europe smoldered.

And once those new alliances or partnerships of convenience gel, it will be extremely difficult to turn back the clock and return to the status quo ante. Prestige and influence frittered away over the past several years is not easily regained. The current expansion of “BRICS” (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to include Iran and Saudi Arabia as a counterweight to NATO and the G7, is a harbinger of things to come.

Townhall

A four-page piece of legislation that protects federal funds for school archery and hunting programs from being cut by federal bureaucrats illustrates the many perverse effects of giving Uncle Sam control over America’s education system.

The nearly 60-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) is the multi-headed hydra that provides virtually unlimited ways by which U.S. Department of Education bureaucrats can directly and indirectly control all manner of programs in schools across the country.

The reach of these tentacles is lengthened whenever an unrelated piece of legislation applies  – or can be interpreted to apply – to schools. This is exactly what Miguel Cardona, President Biden’s Education Secretary, did after his boss in 2022 signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), a knee-jerk legislative response to the tragic mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, that same year.

The BSCA contained a number of gun control measures, such as funding incentives for so-called “Red Flag Laws,” but did not prohibit use of federal education funds for such school programs as archery and hunter safety courses. It did, however, include language intended to prevent federal funds from being used to provide any “dangerous weapon” (that is, a firearm) or “training in the use of a dangerous weapon” in schools. This provision was intended to stop moves by some schools to arm teachers, resource officers, and administrators as a way to protect against criminal shooters at schools.

Cardona’s Department, however, saw an opportunity to expand the restrictive language in the BSCA, and ran with it.

Last July, the Education Department issued one of its dreaded “guidance letters” declaring that hunting and archery programs in schools would no longer be eligible to receive any federal funding, because such activities necessarily involved “technically dangerous weapons.”

The problem here is that the way a “dangerous weapon” is defined under federal law is so broad that virtually any Swiss Army knife no matter how small, or any metal-jacketed pen, could be read to fall within its ambit – which is precisely what Education Department bureaucrat Sarah Martinez proceeded to do in her “guidance” letter concerning archery and hunting education programs.

This action by the Education Department was taken not because the legislation as signed by Biden placed any restrictions on such school programs (it did not), but only because the Department simply decided to interpret it that way.

The guidance letter had precisely the “chilling effect” on such programs desired by the Department. Many school administrators, concerned that they could potentially be violating federal law if they allowed such benign programs to continue in their schools, ordered them stopped.

Tommy Floyd, president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, which oversees archery programs in some 9,000 schools with 1.3 million student participants, summed it up this way: “any time the U.S. Department of Education gives guidance about anything .  .  .  [and] until I know the final answer, I’m probably going to pause.”

That would have been the death knell for archery and hunting programs in schools, but for unusually quick action by congressional supporters of such programs.

The “Protecting Hunting Heritage Act” was introduced in the House on August 1 as H.R. 5110, and its four-page text clarified what never had been the intent of the BSCA – namely, that the prohibitory language in that 2022 legislation did not apply to “training in archery, hunting, or other shooting sports” programs in schools covered by the omnibus ESEA. By late last month, the clarifying legislation had overwhelmingly passed both houses of Congress and awaits President Biden’s promised signature.

It is laudable that Congress, in this age of nearly impenetrable partisanship, was motivated to attack this abuse of federal education control, and to do so swiftly. However, the problem and process that led to the need for such action illustrates all that is wrong with America’s public education system, with its top-down control by a massive and intimidating Education Department.

In this perverse system, bureaucrats with an ideological agenda such as opposition to any activity remotely deemed by them to support firearms or any type of “weapons,” can move to block students from benefitting from such programs as archery, and hope that those in the Congress harboring opposing views do not notice.

Thank goodness that in this instance Congress did notice, but consider all the other instances of such “guidance” abuse that slip by unnoticed.

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

Daily Caller

Daily Caller

It appears the Left may no longer feel the need to cloak its gun control measures with even a pretense of legal imprimatur.  In their zeal to restrict the ability of law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm for personal protection, some top Democrat public officials now are mandating new gun control policies without even a fig leaf of constitutional legitimacy.

Late last week, for example, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Administration declared that no person, other than police or licensed security officers, could lawfully possess a firearm anywhere in public within the state’s largest city – Albuquerque – or in the surrounding county – Bernalillo. This blanket restriction applied also to “state property” located anywhere within New Mexico’s 121,591 square mile jurisdiction. The precise extent of “state property,” other than schools and parks, is left undefined.

Unlike recent gun control policies announced by governors of other Democrat-led states such as New York’s Kathy Hochul, which have been at least presented as responses to last year’s Second Amendment-affirming  Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, and clothed with a façade of legal respectability, Lujan Grisham’s action offered no such pretense.

Her Administration’s new draconian measures – already being challenged in federal court – have been presented as an “action plan” to “do more” to stop criminal gun violence and rampant illicit drug usage plaguing the state. To Lujan Grisham, blatantly imposing her anti-gun will on the citizens over whom she maintains colorable power, is an appropriate (if nonsensical) way to spur a “debate” about gun control.

The announced premises on which these highly restrictive measures are based is a pair of executive orders signed by Lujan Grisham last Thursday and Friday, declaring that “drug abuse” and “gun violence” are “emergencies” of such magnitude and urgency that the Second Amendment guarantee protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms for self-defense, is of secondary importance (if that).

While the actual language in each of the Governor’s two executive orders declaring drug abuse and gun violence to constitute “emergencies” would appear to limit their reach only to October 6, 2023, in the very same documents both of the “emergencies” are deemed to be of “unknown duration”; in other words, indefinite.

Adding to this concern, the September 8th “Public Health Emergency Order” setting forth the actual restrictions on firearms possession by New Mexico citizens, explicitly would not expire on October 6th, but would “remain in effect for the duration of the public health emergencies declared in Executive Orders 2023-130 (“gun violence”) and 2023-132 (“drug abuse”).

By cleverly having New Mexico Secretary of Health Patrick Allen issue the operative and restrictive “action plan,” rather than include such onerous provisions in her own, more general “executive orders,” Lujan Grisham may be attempting to insert additional vagueness into the just-announced gun control policy, and also to try and insulate herself from legal accountability.

The bottom line in all this, however, is that we have a Governor who is so clueless about how the real world operates, that she has concluded the best way “to drastically reduce the number of violent incidents and fentanyl-related deaths in New Mexico,” is to make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, their families, and their communities against gun violence and drug traffickers.

It would be bad enough for the citizens of New Mexico were it only their Governor’s lack of common sense in such regard that impacts them. After all, her announced measures reflect a frame of mind that has manifested itself for decades in policies proposed and implemented by the gun control movement.

Sadly, that lack of common sense exhibited by Lujan Grisham and her minions now is made far worse because it is buttressed by the notion that “inherent constitutional police power” is an appropriate tool by which to take away a constitutionally guaranteed right of the citizenry.

The co-president of New Mexico’s organization designed “to Prevent Gun Violence,” Miranda Viscoli, echoed such perspective, concluding that if voiding an explicit state and federal constitutional guarantee “saves [but] one life,” it is an acceptable price to pay.

In this warped world view, no individual liberty could ever be considered safe from the degree of vacuity and constitutional disdain now being exhibited by gun control zealots such as Michelle Lujan Grisham.

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

It has become easy to poke fun at Canada’s Gen-X Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. From his incessant warbling about Climate Catastrophe to his bedrock antagonism to firearms, Trudeau personifies Woke-ism more than any other leader of a major nation.  It is his Liberal government’s obsession with the LGBTQ phenomenon, however, that takes the cultural cake.

At the beginning of this month, for example, Trudeau’s Global Affairs Canada, a counterpart to our country’s State Department, issued its latest “travel advisory” for its citizens to be wary of travelling to the United States. Among the myriad dangers for which Canadian visitors to the United States are urged to prepare (including volcanoes, earthquakes, wild fires, mass shootings, yellow fever, and rabies), is the “danger” they face because their neighbor to the south has become exceptionally hostile to “LGBTQ people.”

Of particular concern to Trudeau’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrysti Freeland, is the fact that some jurisdictions in the United States have passed legislation limiting “drag shows.” Freeland’s office also singled out for specific criticism the fact that certain American states have “restrict[ed] the transgender community from access to gender affirming care.”

Although Canada has published a general advisory for LGBTQ matters at least since early this year, the most recent advisory warning about LGBTQ hostility being prevalent in the United States, appears to be the first time Ottawa has specifically flagged our country in this way.

The Global Affairs department did not cite any statistics on how many visitors from Trudeau’s country actually have attended or plan to attend drag shows in the United States, or how many, if any, of its visiting citizens might otherwise have sought access to “gender affirming care” while visiting America. Nonetheless, the advisory cautioned visitors to carefully check the “laws and policies” of jurisdictions to be visited before venturing across the border.

A review of Canada’s official positioning on LGBTQ issues reveals an even more complex and extensive inclusionary framework than commonly used here in the United States.

For example, the basic gender nomenclature government policy in Canada is officially deemed to be “2SLGBTQI+” rather than our culture’s more constrained “LGBTQ.”

Unfamiliar as I am with this longer acronym, I discovered that the “2S” prefix is used to identify “a person whose gender identity, spiritual identity and/or sexual orientation comprises both male and female spirits.” Apparently, at least in Canada, such two-spirit sexual orientation is “traditional to many Indigenous cultures.” Learn something new every day. (The “I” stands for “Intersex,” with an explanation that is at once ambiguous and all-encompassing, and ultimately meaningless.)

The Canadian gender identity bureaucracy includes a lengthy and downright confusing glossary of applicable terms, including “SOGI” (“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”), “SOGIE” (“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression”), and “SOGIESC” (“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression and Sex Characteristics”). It is a complex world, indeed.

In addition to the now-commonly employed terms such as “Cisgender,” “Questioning” (which, according to the official government glossary, can be an indefinite state of existence), and “Pansexual,” our northern neighbor pays homage to an individual “who lacks romantic attraction or interest in romantic expression” – identifying such person as “Aromantic.” Similarly, for the Canadian government it is critical to distinguish a person who is “sexually attracted to two or more genders” (“Bisexual”) from one who is “romantically attracted to two or more genders” (“Biromantic”).

The Trudeau government’s fixation on LGBTQ matters, as reflected in these official edicts — including the travel advisory warning against travel to the United States simply because some states have passed laws reflecting concern that gender-altering medical procedures can be undertaken without parental consent or even knowledge — is but the latest manifestation of what many in Canada see as an “incompetent” and “unserious” administration led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In this assessment, I agree.

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

In the early years of the last century, as our country was flexing its new-found muscle as a major industrial power, Latin America and the Caribbean served as a primary arena where presidents including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson showcased our military might.

Now, many 2024 GOP presidential wannabes appear eager to resurrect what would be a far more dangerous version of the early 20^th Century’s “gunboat diplomacy” toward Mexico.

This predisposition was displayed vividly during the first Republican primary debate on August 23^rd, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared proudly that “on day one” he would send American troops into Mexico to strike suspected cartel-run fentanyl labs.

While it was DeSantis’ debate rhetoric that forced the question of U.S. military action against drug labs inside Mexico to the fore, the notion has been percolating on the back burner for several years.

During his presidency, Donald Trump apparently was so intrigued by the idea of striking facilities across our southern border, that in 2020 he reportedly requested that his then-Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, provide him a plan for launching “some Patriot missiles [to] take out the labs.”

Thankfully, such plans were never consummated, but there remain many in the GOP who today openly support such moves, up to and including bills for the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against targets inside Mexico.