Liberty Updates

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Zurich, Switzerland is a major international financial center sitting at the northern tip of its namesake lake. Beginning in 1987 and continuing until 1992, however, this beautiful Swiss city was home to “Needle Park,” an experiment in illicit drug usage that went horribly wrong, and with consequences that plagued the city for years thereafter.

Three decades after Switzerland’s heroin debacle, a new generation of “woke” mayors, prosecutors and governors in the United States is hoping to create Americanized versions of Needle Park.

Advocates of “Safe Injection Facilities,” or “SIFs,” apparently believe that drug addicts are actually being helped if they are provided with needles and other necessary drug paraphernalia and offered a safe place to “shoot up.” In this Bizarro World, facilitating drug use will lessen drug use.

History is less kind and has shown us that encouraging public use of illicit and highly addictive controlled substances such as heroin and methamphetamine is not such a good idea, especially when, as now in many major American cities, violent crime rates are on the upswing, law enforcement presence is declining and the homeless population is increasing.

Undaunted by such reality, the soon-to-be-ex-Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, is proposing to carve out at least two areas in the Big Apple, including one in Harlem on Manhattan’s upper west side, where drug users would be permitted to openly inject drugs of their choosing without fear of arrest or harassment by public officials. This move comes on the heels of legislation signed last month by Gov. Kathy Hochul decriminalizing possession or sale of disposable hypodermic needles used by drug dealers and users.

Those who favor legalization of controlled substances such as heroin and methamphetamine, and who also support government action facilitating the use of the substances, have urged actions such as that whichNew York is now attempting going back to the 1970s. It was this so-called “harm reduction” philosophy that led to Zurich’s notorious Needle Park (which actually increased drug overdoses and HIV cases).

Democrat-run cities in the United States, including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia and, of course, New York, have toyed with the concept of SIFs for years, but at least to this point federal prosecutors and courts have been less than consistently sympathetic to such efforts.

For example, while a federal district court judge in Philadelphia issued an opinion in late 2019 that would have allowed a SIF known as “Safehouse” to operate in the City of Brotherly Love, early this year an appellate court panel reversed that opinion. In its ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the proposed SIF would violate the federal “crack house law,” a 1986 law making it illegal to operate a facility that engages in or facilitates the use or distribution of any controlled substance.

While that 1986 “crack house law” was passed with the strong support of then-Sen. Joe Biden, for those who now are advocating for a radical shift in public drug policy, President Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland is seen as a potential lifeline.

When de Blasio announced his latest free drug-use zone proposal last month, for example, he happily noted that “[w]e have a new administration in Washington” with “the kind of potential cooperation we needed.”

Using public money to establish and maintain areas or facilities where drug users are provided a safe haven to inject themselves with substances such as heroin remains a dream actively pursued by de Blasio and his leftist colleagues in other “deep blue” cities.

Many of these drug zone advocates view the establishment of such areas as the logical next step to the Obama administration’s policy of not prosecuting the vast majority marijuana-related offenses. This hardly is or should be the case.

Using public money to facilitate illicit drug usage has never reduced harm to individuals or to society, and the appalling results of such efforts are well-documented. Sadly, however, our country’s new cadre of woke political officials appear bent on ignoring that history as they rush to go down the same, needle-strewn path that caused great harm to Zurich three decades ago.

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 recent years, the Left has let no incident, no matter how trivial, pass without turning it into a vehicle with which to virtue signal their outrage. Six years ago, it was horror over the shooting of a lion in Zimbabwe. Two years later, it was President Trump’s statement about a demonstration in Charlottesville. Today, it is a Southwest Airlines pilot’s use of an anti-Joe Biden slogan.

Brandon Brown seems to be everywhere these days, a previously unknown NASCAR driver who has become the poster boy for progressive outrage. Last month, when NBC reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed Brown immediately after his first victory at Talladega, she exclaimed that the background crowd was chanting “Let’s go Brandon!” instead of the clearly discernible “[Expletive] Joe Biden.”

Thus, a star was born.

Stavast’s transparent switcheroo quickly made the phrase a commentary on the Mainstream Media’s habit of intentionally distorting objective reality to favor Democrats. Then, as it quickly spread in conservative circles, “Let’s go Brandon” became harmless, if slightly immature internet gag with which to mock Biden.

Never content to let a jab at Biden remain just that, the Left has imbued this cheeky expression with all manner of sinister mysticism, just as they did for “learn to code” and the “OK” hand gesture before that.

The perception by the Left that there is an Alt-Right boogeyman behind every meme, and a KKK sympathizer hiding under every red “MAGA” hat, is approaching a clinical psychosis that induces bizarre behavior from the Left.

What, then, is to be done to the Southwest Airlines pilot, whose un-apropos attempt at humor while preparing to land a commercial airliner has caused such an internet ruckus? Is his unprofessional lapse in judgment grounds for a disciplinary demerit from his employer? Or must it be considered another “the-sky-is-falling” catastrophe that endangered lives and triggered racist fears among the passengers on board, and necessitated federal prosecution?

For today’s hyper-sensitive progressives, any words or actions that can be construed to be critical of President Biden, if uttered or undertaken by a real or a perceived conservative, are considered grist for the victimhood mill. Any such words or deeds must be considered “violent,” “dangerous,” or, worst of all, “racist,” and then twisted into a link back to January 6th.

For a group of people who have spent every hour of every day from November 8, 2016 to January 20, 2021 chirping about fascism residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and at Mar-a-Lago), these thin-skinned progressives have drawn an incredibly fine line between free speech and speech that invites the scrutiny of law enforcement.

The sad truth revealed in all this is that progressives have become the most joyless, paranoid people in politics, if not in all their myriad endeavors. It seems impossible for them to take pleasure in anything, since everything is problematic if not potentially devastating. But while they have always been a humorless lot, their post-January 6th penchant for calling on federal law enforcement to punish their perceived tormentors, makes them highly dangerous as well.

Living amongst this extremely vindictive brood is becoming more dangerous each day, but not in the way progressives believe the refrain, “Let’s go, Brandon,” is dangerous. The danger posed by these many faux victims is very real — to our lives, to our liberty, and to our property.

In the public arena, they strive to control our school boards, lead city councils, run police departments, serve in Congress, and stack the courts with their kind. To them, the private sector must be similarly controlled, with mandatory training to expose “unconscious bias,” organized rooting out “white extremism,” and forced medical mandates; all with the caveat, comply or else.

A society controlled by adults having the temperament of toddlers but with access to the levers of real power, is the image that must remain foremost in our mind’s eye as we vote next year and again in 2024. These are elections that can ensure that our futures and those of our children, do not remain in the hands of people who have proved they cannot be trusted to trim the grass of our lawns, much less run our lives.

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

Supreme Court decisions upholding the right to abortion or defending press freedom draw kudos and huzzahs from the mainstream media. The mere possibility that the High Court might issue an opinion supporting the Second Amendment, however, throws that same media into conniption.

So it is with oral arguments scheduled before the Supreme Court this week regarding a closely watched firearms case — New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Considering the fervor with which the mainstream media is wringing its collective hands over this case, one would think the justices were preparing to place a rocket launcher into the hands of every man, woman and child in America.

One writer, Ian Millhisen, authored an opinion piece last week that described the pending case as one that “could gut America’s gun laws,” and mused that if a majority of the nine Supreme Court justices were to side with the citizen-plaintiffs in the case, it would usher in an era of “unlimited” gun rights.

Such hyperbole is typical of the manner by which the mainstream media and most Democrat policy makers have characterized the gun control debate ever since the High Court rendered a pair of decisions in 2008 and 2010 declaring the obvious – that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm, not some amorphous right enjoyed only by the citizenry in general.

Neither of those two decisions opened the floodgates to unfettered concealed-carry gun possession in cities and towns across America. In fact, neither decision even dealt with the right to possess a firearm outside the home, and the numerous restrictions on possession of a gun outside one’s home, especially in notoriously firearms-averse jurisdictions like New York, remain in place even now, 11 years later. This is why the case now before the Court is in fact an important supplement to those decisions.

The case to be argued this week presents squarely the question of whether officials in a state (in this case, New York) can arbitrarily deny a law-abiding citizen a permit to carry a concealed firearm for self-protection outside their home. Government officials in the Empire State are able to exercise such broad authority for no reason other than a 1911 state law, commonly known as the “Sullivan Act,” empowers them to do so.

According to that long-standing and onerous law, if an otherwise law-abiding citizen in New York fails to convince the reviewing government official that he or she has a “special need” beyond the “needs” of citizens generally to protect themselves outside their home, that citizen is plum out of luck and denied this most basic right of self-defense.

No other right expressly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is so arbitrarily encumbered.

Notwithstanding that the current case has nothing whatsoever to do with the many restrictions imposed on the type, quantity, and acquisition of firearms imposed already by laws at all levels of government, anti-gun activists and writers continue to sound the alarm that if at least five members of the current Supreme Court bench side with the two individual plaintiffs in the New York case, cities across the country will run red with blood. Hardly.

First-year law students know it is extremely rare for the Supreme Court of the United States to render any decision that goes beyond the “four corners” of a case presented to it; and even then, the Court is notorious for rendering decisions on the most narrow grounds possible. Moreover, trying to handicap in advance how so-called “conservative” justices will line up on any particular case is at best a crapshoot.

Thus, when all the dust settles late next spring, when the court likely will publish its opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, it is unlikely the sky will have fallen on the gun control Chicken Littles.

Hopefully, however, the court’s decision will at a minimum put a clear and definitive stop to state laws that permit government officials at their whim to pick winners and losers in the never-ending effort by American citizens to protect themselves from the violence that increasingly confronts them on the streets of cities in New York and beyond.

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 American people are done hearing from Dr. Anthony Fauci. We do not need another word from him about the “science” of COVID-19, what America “must do” to defeat the pandemic, or anything else that this demonstrated liar and Deep State denizen has to say. That he continues to serve as the oracle of truth for America’s pandemic response, is beyond rational comprehension.

A popular aphorism reminds us that sometimes “the cure is worse than the disease.” If Fauci is considered the “cure” for the government’s response to COVID-19, that shoe fits perfectly. Fauci has been wrong about virtually every aspect of COVID-19, with dreadful economic, social, and public health consequences, yet he remains in the media throne.

Conveniently ignored by the Left, is the fact that Fauci was the one who, early on, created massive confusion about facemasks; first by berating Americans for attempting to secure personal protective gear in the pandemic’s early days, and later scolding the public for not wearing them, even if fully vaccinated and safe from serious cases.

Fauci has been perhaps the single biggest roadblock to moving American society back to normal, with his doomsday pronouncements like needing to cancel Christmas, or constantly warning another “wave” is just around the corner.

The Good Doctor seems to relish striking panic into the hearts of people who just want to know the facts in order to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. Fauci is, however, a shrewd operator. He understands perfectly that panic ensures his longevity as a Washington fixture.

President Donald Trump likely had no clue of the monster he unleashed in January 2020 when he appointed the then-largely unknown bureaucrat-doctor to the White House Coronavirus Task Force. And there he remained — a parasite feeding from the media spotlight as America’s “top expert,” all the while undermining at every turn both Trump’s and Vice President Pence’s efforts to get a handle on the developing pandemic.

Fauci’s not-so-subtle efforts undercutting Trump in an election year guaranteed he would land softly and prominently in the Biden Administration.

The truth, regardless of partisan politics, is that Fauci cannot be trusted on public health matters – by anyone. His priorities during COVID have always been not what is best for America, but what is best for building his reputation, and protecting the role he played in developing and furthering relationships with the Communist Chinese government (and military) on “gain of function” studies and other projects that potentially, if not actually, harm America’s national security interests.

Fauci knows the truth about his COVID shenanigans will be his downfall, and he is not about to let that happen.

The most recent revelations confirming that the National Institutes for Health was actively funding “gain of function” research in China – exactly what Fauci had denied publicly in a heated exchange with Sen. Rand Paul last July – is proof that not only should Fauci be blocked from offering any further input on COVID-19, but should himself be investigated for potential criminal misconduct, the least of which being lying to Congress.

Were the House of Representatives interested in exercising real oversight, as opposed to the showtime investigation of the January 6th Capitol Hill demonstrations, they would subpoena Fauci and others with knowledge of the role the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH played in the dangerous research with China that very well may have led to the “lab leak” scenario spawning COVID.

If serious effort were to be expended in this regard, criminal referrals to the Justice Department might very well result, which of course is why no one in this administration or on the Democrat side of the congressional aisles will touch that can of worms.

So, the status quo will remain, at least until perhaps an unrelated revelation such as the “Puppygate” dog-torturing scandal forces Fauci out, or until the GOP regains a majority in the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm election.

However, even if the Republicans regain the majority, they might decide not to follow through and seriously investigate Fauci’s skulduggery. Such a GOP cop-out would bring coy smiles to the faces of leaders in Beijing, secure in the knowledge that their Man in Washington again avoided accountability.

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

In the name of COVID, American citizens in 2021 are being subjected to a form of perverse religious persecution by elected officials and unelected regulatory bureaucrats. This is ironic, considering that the United States was founded on the principle that government is not empowered to dictate or negate, directly or indirectly, an individual’s religious beliefs.

Now, centuries after our nation’s founding, government leaders and bureaucrats at the state and federal levels are punishing those who assert a religious objection to receiving a COVID vaccination.

This intolerance is but the latest in a seemingly endless series of measures by government to use the COVID pandemic as a hammer to control virtually every segment of our society, from education to healthcare, and from the military to the entire commercial sector.

A country that produced such advocates of religious freedom and tolerance as George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin now chafes under the intolerance and exercise of arbitrary power by the likes of President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who recently declared categorically that “there are not religious exemptions” for people being vaccinated against COVID.

In September, Biden confirmed by executive order what many citizens had feared for months he would do. He decreed that COVID vaccinations would be required for all federal employees, including members of the armed forces, but also for all individuals working for private companies with 100 or more employees. OSHA – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — will be Uncle Sam’s primary vaccine enforcer. (OSHA is a regulatory nanny agency signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1971.)

OSHA was ready to go to work even before Biden’s Sept. 9 order, having declared last summer that COVID-19 is a “workplace hazard,” thereby making it an enforceable mandate on American businesses.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are working feverishly to pass legislation that would greatly increase the level of fines OSHA could levy on businesses failing to meet Biden’s private sector vaccine mandate.

A number of companies already are jumping into Biden’s mandate line and forcing employees to get vaccinated or be terminated.

Even though both the U.S. military and private companies offer “religious exemptions,” in practice these are a sham.

United Airlines, among the first major air carriers to salute Biden’s vaccine order, allowed the few of its employees who sought a religious exemption to do so, but then placed them on indefinite leave without pay.

Another large employer, Washington state, empowers its bureaucrats to be the ultimate arbiters of whether an employee’s claim of religious objection to being vaccinated will be allowed. Washington State University’s head football coach, Nick Rolovich, for example, was fired from his multi-million dollar job by the university’s athletic director, who summarily denied the coach’s requested religious exemption.

Similar fates have befallen employees at other businesses. One longtime employee at Trader Joe’s was grudgingly granted a religious exemption, but then fired anyway on a pretext.

Members of our armed forces wanting to assert a religious reason for noncompliance are being forced to take legal action to do so. The Navy, however, appears uninterested in allowing any meaningful opportunity for its members to assert such an exemption. Reportedly Navy SEALs, among the most elite of our military units, are being told that a religious exemption may be sought, but even if granted, requesting individuals will be terminated from the service.

Many of these cases already are being challenged in the courts, a costly and time-consuming process for most employees, and especially for members of the military. While some judges are granting temporary reprieves for employees asserting their right to religious exemptions, others are not. The latter includes Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, who last week refused to grant a stay to Maine healthcare workers claiming their religious beliefs precluded them from meeting their state government’s mandate.

Even if the full U.S. Supreme Court decides to step in and protect many thousands if not millions of American citizens from being arbitrarily and summarily punished for their religious beliefs, the fact that so many individuals already are being placed in such predicament illustrates the damage already done to the foundation of religious freedom and tolerance that once undergirded our constitutional Republic.

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

California has long been a refuge for people big on ideas but short on realism. Whether it is the famous sunshine, its gorgeous coastline, or the state’s tolerance for even the most extreme buffoonery, California has played center stage for more than its fair share of “movements” – from beatnik and other counterculture revolutions to murderous cults.

Knowing this history helps to understand why a state with an economy larger than most countries in the world, is swiftly heading towards total collapse. The people running California today are the same ones who for decades believed they could change the world with music and sit-ins but are joined now by millions of young “progressives” even less-anchored to reality than their hippie mentors.

The result of this strange brew is a series of public policy responses to major issues that would be utterly laughable, if not for the very real and extremely serious consequences born of such ineptitude.

Thus, while the populations of other sun-belt states like Texas and Florida are increasing rapidly, California’s population is shrinking. What should be even more troubling is that some 23 percent, nearly one-fourth of California voters, report they are “seriously considering” leaving the state. This includes the rich and famous as well as many businesses which, when leaving, take with them significant tax revenues the state desperately needs to fund its lavish social spending.

How are California’s political leaders responding? Not with any apparent measure of concern, and with some expressing anger at exiting businesses. Last year, for example, state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, upset that Tesla founder Elon Musk did not share her progressive vision about empowering Big Labor, tweeted “F*k Elon Musk.” When the Tesla billionaire later announced the company’s move from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas, he pointedly noted the Assemblywoman’s profane tweet.

It would be one thing if Ms. Gonzalez’s cavalier attitude was only costing the state critical jobs and tax revenues, but the problem goes much deeper.

Rabid environmentalism has fueled state leaders’ willful disconnect from reality and threatens to push California over the edge of a historic energy crisis on which it has teetered precipitously for two decades.

Many Californians remember the state’s energy crisis at the turn of the Millennium, which put the term “rolling blackouts” into the public lexicon. Millions were without power for hours at a time, disrupting businesses and livelihoods alike. In the two decades since, California’s energy situation has become demonstrably more perilous, even as state leaders seem blissfully oblivious to the looming catastrophe.

Once upon a time, California enjoyed sufficient energy infrastructure reserves that enabled it to recover from incessant bureaucratic meddling in the energy marketplace, but no longer.

Environmental extremism in pursuit of a “100 percent clean energy future” has gutted traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas. In this unrealistic scenario, California’s energy future will rely exclusively on power sources subject to natural impediments – like clouds, windless days, and drought. Not surprisingly, nuclear power, by far the cleanest and most reliable energy source, failed to survive this clean energy onslaught; the state right now is decommissioning its last remaining nuclear power station, responsible for a whopping 10 percent of the state’s energy needs.

It should be obvious to even the most casual observer that making up this deficit will be impossible relying on wind and solar alone, but state officials continue their anti-energy march, including plans to eliminate internal combustion engines from use altogether. Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a bill banning the sale of small gas engines, like those found on leaf blowers. That’s one small step for a man, one more giant leap into the energy abyss.

The real danger, however, is that without traditional energy infrastructure, there is no way California can steer away from the iceberg into which its leaders are turning. Outside of buying energy from adjacent states (several of which are facing their own energy crises), there simply is no “back-up” power generation acceptable to California “greenies” capable of coming close to meeting the energy demands placed on it. Once the new blackouts begin, they will remain – perhaps permanently.

For the millions of the 25 percent of California citizens who already are considering leaving the state, now might be the time to do so, before the last U-Haul crosses the border eastward. It is polite to ask the last person in a room to turn off the lights when leaving, but considering California’s current trajectory, such a request will not be necessary.

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

In 1961 a previously unknown “doo wop” group, the Tokens, topped the singles chart with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Considering the “woke” leadership of the United States military and our foreign intelligence agencies, many are wondering if the U.S. military “lion” sleeps while our Russian and Chinese counterparts work feverishly to overtake us in at least one key technology – hypersonic weaponry.

It is a concern worthy of serious study.

Recent public reports establish that both Russia and China have made significant advances in developing hypersonic missiles, the next generation of warhead delivery systems. These reports come as America’s commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden and his top military and foreign intelligence leaders remain fixated on ensuring a “woke” defense establishment and on mandating COVID vaccines for all military and civilian employees under their command, regardless of how many resignations such a short-sighted policy will cause.

When these factors are considered alongside Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley’s publicly reported views that Communist China is not “an enemy,” and his self-admitted friendship with his counterparts in the People’s Liberation Army that overrode his loyalty to former President Trump, it is indeed fair to speculate where his true priorities lie.

In a similar vein, over at the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, on assuming office early this year, made clear that his top priority as Secretary of Defense is not China or Russia, but rather to ferret out “white extremism” in the ranks.

At the CIA, recruitment videos soliciting future intelligence experts focus not on defending against foreign threats and equipping our nation’s decision-makers with the very best intelligence possible on which to base national security policy, but on ensuring that the next generation of employees are sufficiently versed in LGBTQ philosophy.

While the Pentagon’s policies on LGBTQ awareness and hiring are well-advanced, its focus on hypersonic weapon technology appears far less robust, even as Russia and China continue with major programs in this area. According to a recent, nonpartisan study by the Congressional Research Service specifically regarding “Hypersonic Weapons,” the United States currently has “no programs of record for hypersonic weapons,” and only possible production of “prototypes.”

Pentagon news releases speak glowingly about the importance of developing both offensive and defensive hypersonic weapon capability, but when officials are pressed on the matter, the picture lacks clarity. For example, in typical government gobbledygook, the Defense Department’s Principal Deputy Director for Hypersonics, Mike White, has explained that the department has not moved beyond the stage of “[identifying] the most viable overarching weapon system concepts to choose from and then make a decision based on success and challenges.”

In other words, while our primary adversaries develop functional hypersonic weaponry, our government is still “deciding to decide.”

On the defense side of the hypersonic weapon equation, the picture is equally dim. According to the same August 2021 CRS study, even as both China and Russia continue to aggressively develop hypersonic weaponry, including those capable of maneuvering in flight and carrying nuclear warheads, a former top Pentagon official, Michael Griffin, testified before Congress that the United States “doesn’t have defenses against [their] systems.”

China’s development of hypersonic delivery vehicles is especially troubling considering that its leaders reportedly are looking at possible deployment of such devastating weapons in a “regional context.”  In the current heated environment Beijing is fostering vis-à-vis Taiwan, such a policy presents an exceptionally dangerous scenario.

We all are by now familiar with Gen. Milley’s promise to warn Beijing in advance of any hostile action against the communist regime by the U.S. military. Unfortunately, the good General failed to elicit a corresponding promise from his PLA counterpart to warn us in advance of Chinese action, including by hypersonic missile.

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 COVID crystal ball is murky. Will it clear or darken further?

In what seems like a lifetime ago, elected officials were selling two weeks of economic and social sacrifice as the price to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Today, more than a year-and-a-half later, there remain cities and states in which citizens need permission from the powers that be, in the form of vaccines and masks, to do everything from eating in a restaurant to keeping one’s job.

The extremes to which local, state, and federal authorities have gone to exercise their newfound COVID “emergency powers,” is no surprise to anyone familiar with the way modern government works. Still, the speed by which America turned from a quasi-free society to one reflecting a patchwork of punitive policies, rules, and mandates, caught all but the most cynical critics of government power off-guard. Even private-sector requirements come with tightly wound strings trailing back to the White House.

Of course, consistent with the universal law that “no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse,” it could be worse. We could be Australia.

Whereas here in the United States enforcement of COVID regulations has been mostly reactive, authorities in Australia have been far more aggressive. Aussie police cars and officers in battle gear roam the streets and sidewalks of the country’s cities, on the lookout for unmasked senior citizens, who then are wrestled to the ground and forced to mask-up before being arrested.

Videos of such brutality from countries like Russia and China, are unsurprising, but in Australia – a western-style society with a long history of democratic norms? It was unthinkable – until it wasn’t.

The question is, if it can happen in the Land Down Under, can it happen here?

Thankfully, at least for now, the roadblocks to despotic rule constructed two-and-one-third centuries ago by our Founders, have kept us safe from the COVID tyranny we are witnessing in Australia and elsewhere around the globe. But for how long will these defenses hold? How strong is our Bill of Rights, the primary shield against totally unchecked government power?

The genius of our written Constitution is that the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights are explicit, thereby allowing for strong legal challenges to government overreach. This was clear early in the COVID pandemic when governments attempted to close gun stores and to restrict the right of people to travel freely from one state to another. These legal opportunities, however, are not available to our less-fortunate friends in Australia.

While successful outcomes to such court challenges are by no means guaranteed, the right and the ability to bring credible, constitutionally based challenges does provide a meaningful (and peaceable) playing field that can be the difference between living in tyranny or civil war.

The concept of federalism woven into our system of government provides an additional level of protection against COVID-based abuse by the federal government. State governors not enamored of the Biden Administration’s mandate-heavy, one-size-fits-all approach possess a degree of freedom and flexibility not enjoyed by their counterparts in Australia and other western countries. Florida and Texas, and many other “Red” states where citizens have elected governors more conservative and libertarian-minded than Joe Biden, have proven the worth of the dual-sovereignty model bequeathed to us by our Founders.

Then there is the Second Amendment, which allows for an armed citizenry and serves as a natural hedge against tyranny unrestrained by the democratic process alone. While it is unrealistic to suggest militias with small arms could stand a chance against the full might of the U.S. military, the real point is that the Second Amendment ensures that the road to tyranny would not be without painful, ruinous speedbumps. No such impediments exist in Australia, which years ago cracked down hard on the private ownership of firearms.

Still, it remains to be seen whether these vital safeguards will continue to withstand the constant pressure by “progressives” in Washington, DC, and in state capitols from California to New York, to force everyone into surrendering their remaining vestiges of individual liberty in the name of “safety.” This is the real questions voters should bear in mind as they vote next year and two years thereafter.

Is Australia’s nightmare our future?

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

Apparently unconcerned about California’s population decline, which most observers attribute to the state’s high taxes and excessive regulation, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom last weekend signed into law a passel of new mandates, some of which appear crazy even by the Golden State’s liberal standards.

Based on a “finding” that having “Boys” and “Girls” toy aisles in large retail stores is “stigmatizing,” Newsom signed into law a requirement that, beginning in 2024, large retail stores in California must have “gender-neutral” toy sections. The LGBTQ lobby in the state lauded the move, claiming it will reduce “pressure [on] children to conform to gender stereotypes.”

Where such nonsense comes from remains a mystery to many of us not living inside California’s bubble, but it has come to infect virtually every aspect of life within the state. One of the strangest pieces of what the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday called “impactful” legislation signed by Newsom, is one that outlaws “stealthing.” Lest one make the same mistake I did when first seeing that term in the article, thinking it had to do with military stealth technology, it actually (in California, at least) has to do with …  sexual intercourse.

With the stroke of a pen, however, Newsom may have solved the awful problem of sexual “stealthing.”

According to the Chronicle, AB453 “criminalizes the nonconsensual removal of condoms during sexual intercourse, an act known as ‘stealthing.’” This conduct apparently has become such a serious and widespread problem in the Golden States that it requires a state-level prohibition to correct. Indeed, according to Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, who hails from Los Angeles, if left ignored as a form of “sexual battery,” the practice would continue to “cause long-term physical harm and violate the dignity and autonomy of [its] victims.”

Yet another bill signed by Newsom in his never-ending quest to control virtually every facet of personal conduct his imaginative mind can conjure, was AB367, the “Menstrual Equity Act of 2021.” This forward-looking new law strengthens the “basic human right” of Californians to have free access in school restrooms to “menstrual products.”

Notwithstanding that such a normal bodily function as considered by this new law is by its nature personal and private, the legislation expressly concludes that its impact will “ensur[e] the health, dignity, and full participation of all Californians in public life” (my emphasis). California’s already over-taxed citizens henceforth will be able to rest easy, knowing that all public schools from grades 6 to 12, and all state colleges, community colleges and universities will be stocked with tampons.

Consistent with its commitment to gender neutrality in all things, the new law extends the tampon mandate not only to girls’ restrooms, but to boys’ and gender-neutral bathrooms as well. This presumably will ensure that California’s “gender equity” commitment extends to all manner of students, including those who may be “nonbinary” or “gender nonconforming,” and cradles them in a “safe, and welcoming” environment free from any “forms of bias.”

As if students in California’s public schools did not have their classroom time already filled with mandated subjects, including sex education touching on transgenderism, in the future, thanks to yet another piece of legislation signed into law by Newsom, students will be forced to take courses in “ethnic studies” in order to graduate.

Although Newsom last year vetoed a similar ethnic studies bill because it was considered “too politically correct” – even for California — and contained too much technical jargon, the new law does not disappoint. For example, its mandated provisions extend to “Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x Studies.” It even includes “Armenian migration” among the “historically marginalized groups” to be studied. In a perhaps surprise blow to the ultra-liberals in the General Assembly, the new version of the legislation apparently is not quite as hard on “capitalism” as its predecessor.

With Newsom flexing his muscles after beating back the recent, quixotic recall effort against him, and with a General Assembly constantly pushing the envelope of liberalism to new extremes, it remains a safe bet that the next round of legislation reaching his desk will be even more nonsensical than this collection of mandated silliness.

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

In the latest round of negotiations over President Joe Biden’s proposal to raise taxes by $2.1 trillion, Democrats have struck a moderate, but hypocritical, compromise. According to The New York Times, the agreed-upon funding scheme will target “the merely rich more than the fabulously rich” by “raising tax rates on income rather than targeting wealth itself.”

Off to the side, one can hear Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk sighing with relief.

As Newsmax reported, their plan “largely leaves technology tycoons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk untouched.” This news comes just months after a Pro Publica exposé demonstrated how the two mega tycoons pay very little, if anything, in federal income tax.

Why would the so-called “Tax the Rich” Democrats leave the fortunes of two of the richest men in the world largely untouched? For the same reason that they allow these same billionaires to evade federal regulatory rules, such as Musk’s deliberate disregard of spaceflight safety standards, which has led to fiery explosions.

And, coincidentally, these people contribute generously to Democratic campaigns and causes.

Staff from Bezos’ Amazon provided over $2.2 million to the Biden campaign and nearly $1.0 million to the DNC Services Corp. Those at Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla provided more than $210,000 and $106,000 to the DNC Services Corp.

While these billionaires may have bought themselves a reprieve from the Democrats’ progressive tax agenda, not so lucky are the people historian Patrick Wyman refers to as “the American gentry.” These are the “single-digit millionaires” who own concrete assets like farmland, apartment buildings and construction companies, and live in unfashionable cities like Allentown, Pennsylvania.

And, coincidentally, many of them supported President Donald Trump.

It is on these “gentry,” not on the billionaires against whom Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren rage with such verbal ferocity, that the burden of the new taxation will fall. Class warfare messaging might play well with young leftists who don’t vote, but most Democratic lawmakers are far too savvy to risk angering the donor class, no matter how much they insist that these fat cats need to “pay their fair share.”

They claim to be champions of the working class but mock actual blue-collar Americans as backward bigots at every turn. They claim to be pushing back against a “war on women” but censor the very word “woman.” They clutch their pearls at Trump’s disregard for “democratic norms” but have no qualms about plans to create new blue states or pack the Supreme Court.

Democrat state legislators take group pictures on private jets, even as they and their Hollywood friends party maskless at the Met Gala.

You’d better not try any of that. Let your mask slip slightly below your nose as you wrestle with your carry-on, and you’ll be booted off the plane in a heartbeat. It’s your fault, of course. If you wanted to fly maskless, you should not have flown commercial. If you wanted to enjoy the Gala without a sweaty rag over your face, you should have snagged a spot on Anna Wintour’s guest list.

Or, if you can’t be one of the elites but still want to enjoy their special privileges, you could consider being a member of a group they like; one that allows them to virtue signal without facing any real consequences. Haitian migrants fit the bill, and so 15,000 of them are allowed to walk across the southern border without so much as a nasal swab. Meanwhile, if you fail to present your vaccine paperwork, you’ll be out of a job.

The upper crust don’t care about the border caravan because none of those migrants will end up moving into their gated communities. They love the poor and downtrodden, of course, but there are zoning laws for a reason. Nor do they care about crime. Looting, rioting and defunding the police — they’ll cheer all of it on. There’s no crime where they live, at least the violent kind (remember Bernie Madoff). If the police are defunded, they can always pay for private security to keep the riff-raff off their lawns.

Our elites and their Democrat lackeys care about climate change, COVID and economic inequality, but only until these causes inconvenience them. They actually may believe they are building a better world but in reality, they are simply constructing a world in which they do as they please while the rest of us chafe under their every caprice. If we object, that’s just evidence of our moral deficiency and of their right, and indeed their duty, to keep us in line.

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.