Liberty Updates

FullMAGnews

by Bob Barr

As the expression goes, “talk is cheap.” When it comes to gun control, however, talk about taking away or diminishing a right expressly guaranteed in our Constitution is most definitely not “cheap.” Quite the opposite. Perhaps most important in this context is the often un-asked, but disconcerting question for gun control advocates – precisely how would you take away all those now-legal firearms currently in the hands of law-abiding citizens?

What might in the past have been sloughed off as a mere hypothetical question, is becoming increasingly relevant as the Biden Administration and its cohorts in the Congress move their gun-control agenda into high gear, legislatively and by executive action in the aftermath of several highly publicized mass murders.

True to form, such criminal acts already are fueling efforts by Democrats not to address the root causes underlying such evil acts, but rather to push for greater and greater controls on the instrumentality by which many such murders are committed – firearms.

President Joe Biden self-proclaims as America’s most anti-gun president, exceeding in both rhetoric and drive of his former boss, Barack Obama. A recent spate of mass murders by deranged young men already is being used as an impetus for sweeping gun control – by Congress and myriad Executive Branch agencies including but certainly not limited to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and its parent agency, the U. S. Department of Justice

It is no longer a matter of if, but when, substantive restrictions and outright bans on firearms, gun parts, and ammunition make their way onto the books.

Democrats are not just looking for campaign soundbites this time around, and Republicans better confront this imminent battle with far more seriousness than is their norm. There is no better issue with which Biden can burnish his far-Left credentials than gun control.

The Right’s standard rulebook for debating guns must be thrown out the window, and a new approach implemented. Only in this way will the GOP have a real chance to counter the manipulative word-smithing employed for decades by Democrats to disguise their true, confiscatory agenda. If Republicans respond with their usual hesitancy to boldly defend the right to keep and bear arms, the battle will be lost in its opening moves.

One of the easiest ways to push back against Democrats’ proposals to ban guns is perhaps the simplest and the most often overlooked: force them to answer a question they would rather not – precisely how they plan to confiscate the tens of millions of to-be-outlawed firearms, gun parts, and rounds of ammunition in the hands of law-abiding citizens.  No longer should Democrats be let off the hook answering this pivotal question, especially considering that the answer is worse than the alleged disease of gun violence.

It is one thing to pass a ban, even “voluntarily buy-backs” are fairly straightforward. While citizen acquiescence to such bans imposed in other Western countries – Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. – resulted in massive, non-confrontational confiscations of firearms, that would not be the case in the United States, where our Constitution expressly prohibits such government action. The Second Amendment is correctly understood by most Americans as a natural right of individuals, woven into the DNA of our citizenry. Threats of jail or promises of cash payments will not suffice to entice even a meaningful fraction of gun owners to give up this sacred right.

So, what will Democrats do?

The mass refusal to accept Democrats’ gun bans, confiscations, or buybacks is so likely it can no longer be considered a theoretical question to be brushed aside.  Voters have a right to know just what Democrats have in store for them; whether it is jail time if caught with a banned firearm in their home, or something more extreme like armed SWAT teams crashing through their doors in the dead of night.

Furthermore, how will Democrats determine who owns what guns? Will they leverage concealed-carry records, unlawfully access NICS background check records, implement enhanced domestic surveillance, or employ paid snitches? Precisely how far down the road of un-American policies will they elect to travel?

It is to these queries that Biden and others who will do his bidding must be forced to answer, especially insofar as the honest answer very well may be far more than a nonviolent standoff between citizens and the State.

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

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

Townhall by Bob Barr When I use a word, ‘Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less. As villains in 20^th Century literature go, Ellsworth Toohey, the antagonist in Ayn Rand’s 1943 The Fountainhead, would hardly seem frightful. He was not a serial killer, terrorist, or supernatural stalker, but rather a diminutive newspaper critic who brought society to the brink of ruin through nothing more than corrupting the meaning of words. It seems clear that Democrats have a similar plan in mind. It is for this reason that conservatives should not dismiss out of hand Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s inane tweet last week that paid leave, childcare, and caregiving constituted “infrastructure” projects. In Gillibrand’s and President Biden’s world, as they collect votes for their $2.25 trillion infrastructure spending package, anything can become “infrastructure,” making it easier to sell to their colleagues and to voters. Similar linguistic chicanery is displayed whenever the Administration sidesteps responsibility for the current chaos at our southern border. Rather than a quickly spiraling health and national security crisis, the border situation is simply a “challenge” — a nuisance if you will, to be noted for the record. By the same legerdemain, and at times even in the same news cycle, “climate change” becomes “climate emergency,” “silence is violence,” and “education” devolves into plopping kids in front of a laptop for six hours a day. When words no longer have definite, objective meaning, they no longer anchor policies or actions to objective, universal principles. The result is public policies that are infinitely malleable, where nothing is certain, and where rebutting such arguments is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. It is, however, precisely where the Administration and the modern Democrat Party wish us to be; a world far easier to control than the real one. When the specter of migrants flooding across our southern border is not a “crisis” but merely a “challenge,” it is by definition no more worthy of concern than might be the “challenge” of enforcing speed limits on the Interstate Highway system. At a more fundamental level, “settled science” is no longer “settled” or “science.” A nine-year-old’s school report is held up to define a global “climate emergency,” in which a drive to outlaw plastic straws becomes a primary public policy to save the planet from that “emergency.” Reliance on the COVID “emergency” to justify all manner of intrusive, and at times nonsensical public policies has accelerated our descent down this linguistic rabbit hole. This war on words has been part of the Left’s game plan for decades, even at times successfully conscripting Republican leaders into its ranks. Recall that in 2012, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts contorted the English language in order to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare. In the opinion he authored, Roberts declared one of the law’s key provisions a lawful “tax,” notwithstanding that both of the other two branches of government – the Congress and the president – had declared definitively and repeatedly that it was not a “tax.” Such wordsmithing creates precedents that can, and are, used by Democrats and Republicans alike to justify government mandates of their choosing. Gun control has always been a favorite linguistic playground for the Left. Most recently, President Biden and other Democrats have taken to declaring that the country’s most popular semi-automatic rifle, the AR-15, is now a feared “weapon of war,” though clearly it is not. The last time America’s military went to war armed only with rifles that were not fully automatic, was in the 19^th Century. This is but one example of how the entire gun control debate been robbed by its proponents of any real meaning. “Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks too many questions,” opined Toohey in Rand’s novel. As Democrats move us ever more rapidly down the path of unpinning words from meaning, the mind will have far fewer questions to ask and thereby far easier to control. Both Rand’s Ellsworth Toohey and Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty would feel very much at home in this world, a situation that should deeply concern those of us who are “old school” and prefer that words retain meaning.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Editor’s note: We endeavor to bring you the top voices on current events representing a range of perspectives. Below is a column arguing that the current boycott against Georgia will not be effective in changing the state’s new voting law. You can find a counterpoint here, where Alan Tonelson argues that boycotts like the one against Georgia can be highly effective and may cause a wave of similar boycotts.

Anyone searching for reasoned analysis or common sense in the decision by Major League Baseball to pack up this summer’s All-Star Game in Atlanta and trek it across the country to Colorado, are doomed to be disappointed. Also destined to be let down will be liberals hoping that the brouhaha surrounding the recent reform of Georgia’s voting laws will push Gov. Brian Kemp and fellow Georgia Republicans to back away from the ballot reform measures they worked so hard to pass.

The ultimate question, of course, is whether Peach State voters will remember this controversy as a deciding factor a year and a half from now when Kemp, Democratic Sen. Ralph Warnock and dozens of other candidates from both major parties seek reelection. Only time will answer that political conundrum.

But for now, and certainly once the dust kicked up by MLB’s precipitous decision dies down after the summer classic in Denver, it likely will be a return to business as usual in Georgia.

The improbability that Democrat hopes for a surge of corporate support for their “woke” voting rights movement will grab hold in the short term, results from a number of factors. Most important among these is the fact that Kemp is in his first term as the state’s chief executive, is already actively campaigning for a second term, and knows that the Republican electorate stands firmly behind his instinctive move to stand up to corporate shakedowns.

The last time a Georgia governor was pressured by corporations unhappy with a piece of legislation backed strongly by conservative interest groups, was in 2016 when Kemp’s predecessor, Nathan Deal, vetoed the “Religious Liberty” bill. Looking to retain corporate support for his final biennium in office and with an eye on his fast-approaching post-electoral career, Deal sided with big business. The most recent voting reform legislation signed March 25, however, is very different, and Kemp already has shown himself a savvy and nuanced politician.

Democrats are riding high after their electoral victories last November and this past January, and ballyhoo that the legislation is nothing more than a vehicle for minority voter suppression. Such charges carry little weight outside partisan circles, however, and the new law itself includes measures, such as requiring voter ID to obtain an absentee ballot, that are supported by a wide swath of voters. The 2016 legislation, by contrast, was viewed by many as an unnecessary piece of social engineering.

Moreover, while pressures against the Georgia voting reform law continue to percolate in Hollywood and a handful of woke corporate executive suites, the vast majority of public corporations are not about to risk the billions already invested in Georgia. Delta also knows that with Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport being the world’s busiest, the jet fuel tax break it receives thanks to action by the Republican-controlled legislature, which could be easily rescinded (and nearly was last month after Delta joined in the anti-Kemp chorus), means millions in revenue every month.

Despite partisan grumbling about how the new law disenfranchises minority voters, movie producers and investors will be reminded pointedly by state GOP leaders that they would be hard pressed to find any other state willing and able to grant the massive tax relief now offered them by Georgia, which has the largest movie production facilities of any state other than California.

When the dust settles, as it assuredly will by mid-summer, the bottom line will remain the bottom line for businesses headquartered in or that invest heavily in Georgia — under GOP leadership, Georgia is good for business. Kemp, who already has withstood bullying by no less a bully than Donald Trump, will prove no pushover to woke corporate pressure, especially pressure premised on ignorance or deliberate mischaracterization of legislation favored by a majority of his constituents.

With the exception of the now-infamous “no-water-while-waiting-in-line-to-vote” provision in the legislation, language that could and perhaps should be tweaked to better enunciate its goal of prohibiting one of the many clever ways Democrats in fact politick voters, look for Georgia’s “Election Integrity Act of 2021” to remain the law of the land.

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

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Last week, under pressure from the extreme left wing of the Democrat Party, President Joe Biden emerged briefly from his safe house on Pennsylvania Avenue and re-declared his commitment to battle the “epidemic” of gun violence.

The specific measures he outlined were covered by the mainstream media as a major newsworthy event, but in fact represented little of real substance. The importance of Biden’s message, however, lies not so much in the specific measures actually proposed, but in his words that reflect the president’s deep-seated animosity toward the Second Amendment and those who support it.

For example, it was deeply disturbing that the country’s new Attorney General, Merrick Garland, echoed the president’s commitment to gun control, and that David Chipman, a fervent gun control advocate, was being nominated to head the government agency with primary jurisdiction over federal firearms laws – the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or “ATF.”

Biden began by going after the low-hanging fruit – so-called “ghost guns.” There is in fact nothing supernatural about such firearms. Calling them by this cute shorthand is a typical gun control ploy to use certain words designed to scare the public into believing there is a frightening menace lurking out there. This is the same tactic used by the Left when they call the AR-15 rifle, the most popular, lawful rifle in America, a “weapon of war” (which it certainly is not).

In reality, what Biden calls “ghost guns” are nothing more than parts kits for firearms that can be purchased and assembled by an individual, usually a hobbyist, without containing registration markings for the government to track. Such firearms scare gun control advocates for no other reason than they are not registered – a step that has become the default for gun control advocates. If such an unmarked firearm were to be transferred commercially, it would be illegal according to current law, a fact of little note for Biden.

According to Biden and his supporters, these firearms must be registered in order to save the country from further mass shootings by criminals, notwithstanding the rarity with which they are used in such crimes. He therefore directed the Justice Department to prepare regulations to accomplish this.

Biden also tasked the Department with drafting regulations to outlaw arm braces for certain pistols, specifically AR-15 style pistols. As with “ghost guns,” pistol arm braces are rarely used by criminals but often by target shooting enthusiasts, and by those with certain disabilities, because the devices make for more stable and accurate firing of the pistol.

Biden’s directives to his new attorney general to draft these regulatory measures reflects the reality that the president cannot yet count on sufficient votes in the Senate to pass new gun control initiatives, or even those that recently were passed by the Pelosi-controlled House. Those legislative measures would mandate universal federal background checks for virtually all gun purchases, and also would significantly expand the time within which the FBI, which administers the federal background check system, could delay approving any retail gun sale.

There were other less-than-momentous (but still troubling) provisions included in the President’s announcement, such as “model” red flag legislation for the states to adopt.

The real “red flag” in last week’s pronouncements, however, lies in Biden’s cavalier statements about the Second Amendment. To him, as with other provisions in the Bill of Rights, the right to keep and bear arms is always subject to government-imposed limitations, particularly by those who control the levers of regulatory powers; in this instance, Garland and soon, Chipman.

To them, the guarantee of a citizen’s right to “keep and bear arms” contained in the Bill of Rights, is not chiseled in stone but rather carved into clay and therefore malleable by federal government bureaucrats reflecting Biden’s pinched view of the fundamental right.

The Biden-Harris Administration will be characterized by a constant push for gun control, often purposefully opaque by way of regulatory measures, but with a single goal in mind – reducing the ability of law-abiding citizens (and lawful firearms retailers) to practice their fundamental and constitutionally guaranteed right to purchase and possess firearms. And if the Senate were to do away with the filibuster, that gun control slow walk would become a tsunami.

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.

The FTC is supposed to be a non-partisan federal regulatory agency, un-swayed by partisan politics and the influence of outside companies. As the Google documents show, it’s not.

The Federalist

It is hardly a secret the Barack Obama White House had a cozy relationship with Google. Between 2009 to 2015, representatives and lobbyists for the company averaged one White House meeting a week. In what can only be described as a Google-Obama revolving door, nearly 250 individuals moved either from the government to Google or Google to the government during the Obama presidency.

While politicization of executive branch agencies has become the norm for both major parties, the Obama administration’s tentacles of politicization appear to have reached even further, deep into the regulatory arena.

Leaked documents recently obtained by Politico demonstrate the Obama White House’s tight relationship with the search engine giant may have even influenced the behavior of the Federal Trade Commission, one of the highest so-called independent regulatory enforcement and consumer protection agencies in the land. The memos reveal, for example, that despite having overwhelming data that the company operated as an unchecked monopoly, the FTC declined to pursue enforcement against Google in 2013.

As a former senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, I find these revelations deeply distressing and believe they should drum up calls in Congress to reform and depoliticize these vital federal institutions. This is essential to ensure — to the greatest extent possible — that truth, justice, and law and order prevail in our country.

Federal investigators at the FTC were alerted early in Obama’s first term that Google’s surge in the then-nascent mobile phone industry appeared to be illegal and something needed to be done. Eighteen FTC lawyers and paralegals issued memos explaining that, because of exclusionary and anti-free market deal-making, Google was the default search engine on fully 86 percent of American smartphones and controlled an astounding 97 percent of global mobile searches.

While U.S. antitrust law does not explicitly define precisely what market share moves a company from a fair competitor to a monopoly, several court cases have determined that a 70 percent market share creates a monopolization threshold. This means Google’s 86 percent share more than qualified it for at least investigation, especially when the FTC’s own report showed the commission knew that a Google executive boasted to the giant company’s CEO that the company could soon “own the U.S. market.” Still, Obama’s politically appointed FTC bosses shut the investigation down even though their attorneys suggested charges should be pursued.

Unsurprisingly, the basis for their dismissive decision appears to have been meritless or at the very least contradictory grounds. One telling example was the FTC’s use of Comcast data to allege Google only controlled between 10 and 20 percent of the web traffic for rival shopping and review sites. It did this despite knowing that Google’s CEO stated in sworn testimony to the FTC that the Comcast numbers were wrong. Google’s chief economist and even the FTC’s own attorneys stated the same thing, but Obama’s appointees at the FTC used the data anyway.

The FTC is supposed to be a non-partisan federal regulatory agency, un-swayed by partisan politics and the influence of outside companies. Their mission is to stop unfair or deceptive tactics in the marketplace and to encourage and promote competition in the free market. By not going after Google back in 2013, the Obama FTC decided to let Google squash competition. This type of behavior cannot, or certainly should not, be tolerated from an institution of this size at any time, now or in the future.

To that end, a handful of lawmakers have set out to substantively reform the FTC, among them Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.. He has pointed out the “revolving door conflict” between the FTC and Big Tech and has suggested several reforms, including relocating the FTC to the Department of Justice so it is subject to clearer and more direct oversight. Hawley also has proposed replacing the multi-member commission with a single director appointed by Congress every five years, to maximize public accountability and transparency.

Considering the increasing power of Google and the few other search engines throughout virtually all sectors of government and private businesses, while Congress can debate the best approach to solving this issue, Hawley is right. Something must be done — and soon.

Those who believe that depoliticizing the FTC is a lost cause might be forgetting how other federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies operate within guidelines to reduce political bias. Consider how the Justice Department handled Google during the Obama years. As civil rights attorney and frequent Fox News guest Harmeet Dhillon wrote recently in the New York Post:

Despite the administration’s close ties to Silicon Valley, the Obama Justice Department in 2015 filed a Supreme Court brief against Google in Google v. Oracle, arguing that the firm engaged in significant intellectual property theft in creating Android … lawyers now consider the action to be the copyright case of the century because it could help stop what appears to be one of Big Tech’s primary means of monopolizing the digital marketplace — intellectual-property theft.

If the Justice Department can operate with at least this degree of independence, so too can the FTC. With the Big Tech accountability movement gaining steam, we need the FTC to resume its role as a non-partisan protector of the free market. If it continues down its current path of blissful ignorance and partisanship, who knows where we will be after another decade of these self-serving and nonchalant practices.

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

What makes a mass shooter capable of emotionless, indiscriminate killing remains largely a mystery. Such a depraved act is not within the normal programming of a human being, not even for most hardened criminals. We may never truly understand all the factors, both physiological and environmental, that turn angry people into mass killers, but there is much we do know and can figure out, if common sense is our guide.

Since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, the mass shooting phenomenon has been intensively studied by experts in a number of disciplines, from law enforcement to sociology and psychiatry. The research has revealed patterns and understandings that have led to life-saving techniques for responding to mass shootings, such as law enforcement confronting the shooters quickly rather than waiting for a tactical approach, and implementing threat assessment protocols to identify at-risk individuals and get them needed help before reaching a tipping point.

Noticeably absent from this school of research is any evidence of a pattern regarding the firearms used to commit these killings – a point hopelessly lost on Democrats. Rather than attempt to tackle the far more complex cultural and social issues at the root of mass shootings, the answer for Democrats is always more gun control; even when such crimes occur, as often they do, in jurisdictions that already have in place extremely restrictive gun control measures. Democrats’ persistence on gun control as a response to mass killings is not just perplexing, but counterproductive and downright stupid.

With all we do know about mass shootings, there simply is no excuse for Democrats to play dumb when it comes to the irrelevancy of their gun control proposals to the reality of these heinous acts. For example, despite pretending otherwise, Democrats know that universal background checks will not stop mass shooters when there are no “disqualifying” factors present at the time of purchase – as is the case with the vast majority of mass shooters, who obtain their firearms legally.

Another favorite Democrat “solution” that, of course, is a government mandate, are “cooling off” periods. This represents yet another gun-control measure that cannot possibly work to prevent mass shootings, which often are planned over weeks and even months.

Finally, there is the call for an “assault weapon ban” that always follows close on the heels of every mass shooting incident. Arguing that the horrific social malady of mass shootings could be cured by banning certain firearms because of their appearance makes as much sense as claiming that child pornography can be prevented by outlawing certain types of cameras.

The only result of outlawing any particular category of firearms because of their appearance (such as the AR-15 rifle, the most popular sporting rifle in the country) would be to push these killers to use pistols instead, which have proven to be just as deadly.

Democrats know all of these things, but simply do not care because their real goal is to take as many guns out of as many hands as possible, including, of course, those of law-abiding parents, spouses, business owners and others who depend on being able to arm themselves to protect themselves, their families, and their businesses. Such persistence is not just dumb, it is dangerous.

What we do know about mass shootings suggests the biggest factor in limiting their damage is how quickly shooters are confronted, either by police or citizen bystanders. The FBI concluded exactly this after surveying 50 active-shooter incidents from 2016 to 2017. In its report, the Bureau stated that, “the enhanced threat posed by active shooters and the swiftness with which active shooter incidents unfold support the importance of preparation by law enforcement officers and citizens alike.”

By disarming law-abiding citizens in the name of preventing mass shootings, Democrats are directly contradicting what the FBI suggests needs to happen in order to minimize the carnage, and also could potentially make these tragedies far less common as potential mass killers, being the cowards they are, realize that what they thought to be soft targets are actually anything but.

Republicans need to discard their normal default position on the firearms policy debate, which is conflict avoidance, and call out Democrats for just what they are doing by pressing for gun control as the solution to mass shootings — making the problem worse not better.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

When the sitting president of the United States closets himself and refuses to appear publicly or to personally articulate his policies except when pressured to do so, people notice. When a president of the United States fumbles and mumbles publicly to the degree that what he is saying borders on undecipherable, people notice. When a sitting American president publicly disparages his own country, people notice. When America’s national security policies are delivered as indecisive, weak and apologetic, people notice.

When a U.S. president behaves in such ways, it is not only people in America who notice. Leaders of other nations, including key allies and major adversaries alike, take note also.

Weakness and vacillation may carry a political price domestically for a president, costing him and his political allies votes. More important, however, that same perception of weakness and inconsistency comes with a price abroad, and in terms of national security the price can be far more dangerous.

While President Biden may be comfortable saying little and doing even less, governing as an absentee president places our country in a decidedly uncomfortable posture abroad.

On the world stage, where since the demise of the Soviet Union three decades ago, the United States has reigned as the only true superpower, the absence of leadership is seen as weakness. If you are perceived as weak, you will be challenged accordingly.

As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and many others have understood, a nation’s bargaining power to negotiate with other nations is based as much on how it is perceived by others as on its inherent power. A nation’s posture will be diminished in direct proportion to the degree it is seen as weak or indecisive, even if that weakness is based on its internal policies and priorities more than its actual diplomatic and military policy initiatives.

In the case of the Biden administration, however, the weakness is real, and is being openly telegraphed to at least one of our major adversaries – China.

Just last week, for example, in response to a question posed to Secretary of State Tony Blinken at a public forum, he stated that the United States is “not standing against China.” Now, either the president no longer considers China an adversary of the United States, or he does but is afraid to irritate Beijing by directly intimating such. Either way, the statement is deeply troubling insofar as it telegraphs weakness and hesitancy to the Chinese government.

By any real measure China is an adversary of ours and is openly challenging us on every index according to which national power is measured – geographic, technologic, economic and military.

As politics among nations is practiced in the real world if you do not “stand against” your adversaries, you are considered to have backed away, which most decidedly is not the position from which you want to be dealing with major world powers like China and Russia. Blinken’s timid statement vis-à-vis China followed his defensive posturing at a meeting in Alaska with his Chinese counterpart just a few days earlier. And while not directed at Russia, the weakness the Secretary of State portrayed assuredly was heard by Vladimir Putin, who understands the rules of the game even if Biden does not.

To be lectured at by Chinese officials, as was Blinken in Alaska, should have been met by a rhetorical blast clearly heard not only in Beijing, but also in Pyongyang, Tehran and Moscow. Yet, it was met by silence which, here again, in the international arena will be seen and responded to as weakness.

Already, the regime in Tehran is demanding that the United States, not Iran, must “come back to compliance” with the nuclear deal that Iran itself already had broken. Putin meanwhile is verbally challenging Biden after the U.S. President’s childish and unnecessary statement to a reporter that Putin is a “killer.”

Meanwhile, as our adversaries around the globe are flexing their muscles and challenging the Biden Administration, our Secretary of Defense appears fixated on LGBTQ policies in the ranks of our armed forces.

It is in just such unsettling circumstances that mistakes are made, and, unlike domestic political gaffes, national security blunders and misperceptions often lead to conflict and even war.

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

FullMAGnews by Bob Barr In the United States, where the Constitution is — or is supposed to be — the supreme law of the land, two things are true. Police, tasked with upholding the law, have the right to do what is necessary to secure control of a situation in order to protect themselves and others. Equally important, however, is that police officers afford due recognition of and respect for the fundamental, natural right of the citizenry to keep and bear arms at home and outside the home. Balancing these rights and responsibilities is not always easy, especially in times of unrest and, as now, when increasing gun control is placing additional obstacles in the way. Ideally, when these two truths come to a head, the situation is resolved peaceably and without altercation, which is how the vast majority of cases are resolved. Unfortunately, when the situation falls short of this ideal, the result can be injury or death to citizens and at times to police officers themselves. Worse still, such tragic outcomes are increasingly common as gun rights in America are put to the test like never before. For the sake of the nation, the lives of our brave men and women in blue, and the future of gun rights in America, it is imperative that the police and Second Amendment citizens must work together to reverse this unsettling trend. Although Second Amendment conservatives and racial justice activists rarely see eye-to-eye, not least of all because of the outright anti-police rhetoric of Black Lives Matter, recent incidents that have stoked the anger of these groups should also cause conservatives generally to pause and pay attention to what is going on. Behind the click-bait headlines and incessant anti-gun progressive propaganda, the deaths of black citizens like Breonna Taylor, Corey Jones, and Philando Castile highlight the tragic consequences when the give-and-take of Second Amendment rights versus the duties of police becomes unbalanced. Taylor died last March during a botched police raid that unfolded under questionable circumstances as police returned fire to a single shot fired by Taylor’s boyfriend from inside the apartment, who thought their apartment was being broken into and robbed. Jones was a concealed weapons permit holder shot by a plainclothes police officer who approached him from an unmarked vehicle while Jones waited on the side of the road for a tow truck late at night. Castile happened to be driving a vehicle stopped by police and was inexplicably shot by officers after calmly notifying them that he was lawfully carrying a firearm. While these are extreme examples, and all involved questionable police officer conduct that fell short of the overall high standards demanded of law enforcement, they demonstrate what can happen in the absence of sound training and proper respect for citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms. To be sure, police officers in general still reflect robust respect for the Second Amendment. However, particularly in more urban areas where far-Left activists have either been elected sheriff or have risen to leadership posts in police departments, results can be very different. This makes sound police training for encounters with armed citizens even more critical; importantly, this training should include focusing on plainly and unambiguously directing citizens how to safely secure their firearms during an encounter. Also, however, citizens must be respectful of, and toward police officers. To this end, there must be immediate and absolute compliance in following their precise instructions. Even if a citizen believes he or she is in the right, the time for protest comes after the situation is de-escalated, not during. When police and citizens treat each other with respect and understanding, there is no reason for violent escalation. However, if ambiguity, disrespect, mistake, or criminal action – by either side – disturbs the critical balance, the outcome can be, as we have recently seen, tragic. Although the radical gun control proposed by Democrats have placed a strain on this relationship, police and Second Amendment citizens need never forget they are natural allies in the fight for public safety and for Second Amendment rights. 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 1850, American author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel in which the female protagonist was forced to wear a highly visible “scarlet letter” as a sign that she had committed a terrible sin (adultery). The term has ever since been used as shorthand for publicly stigmatizing someone who has done (or not done) something for which they should be ostracized or punished.

Now, more than 170 years after “The Scarlet Letter” was published, President Joe Biden, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and others are calling for a 21st Century scarlet letter (in this case a “C” for COVID), in the form of an electronic app attesting that the bearer has either received a COVID vaccine or has otherwise been deemed immunized to the virus.

Unlike the “A” that Hawthorne’s protagonist, Hester Prynne, was forced to display, the new-fangled “COVID Passport” works also in reverse, by identifying those who have not been immunized and are therefore to be denied admission to an event or service they might otherwise access.

The hypocrisy of the Democrats’ plan for a COVID ID is glaring.

Just last week, Biden blasted the governor and legislature of Georgia for mandating that absentee voters must show a valid ID in order to receive a ballot. There were other measures included in the legislative package, but the ID requirement caused the loudest howl by Biden and other Democrats who claimed it was “racist” in its intent, and in practice would “suppress” the minority vote.

In a word, requiring a person to show a valid ID in order to obtain a benefit, here an absentee ballot, was, in the view of the President of the United States and many others in his party, “racist,” a reverse scarlet letter if you will.

So much for consistency. What is “racist” one day is not so the next day, depending, of course, on who or which political party is advocating for an identification requirement.

More importantly, there are the privacy concerns that underlie – or certainly should underlie – the use of an electronic tag or “passport” (as advocates for proof of COVID immunity like to call it).

Hester Prynne was forced to display her Scarlet A on her outer clothing. COVID passport advocates are more sophisticated, or cagey, in this regard, and propose to rely on a type of electronic talisman that would be read or discoverable by a government agency or private business serving as a gatekeeper, to deny entry to undesirables. “Undesirables” in this context would be individuals who do not meet the criteria set by the government to be considered COVID-safe.

Not surprisingly, New York appears to be the first state actually to have begun implementing a COVID “passport.” Cuomo has even come up with a cute name for the app – the “Excelsior Pass.” Sounds so impressive there almost certainly will be some New Yorkers who sign up simply to be a member of such a rarefied class of “Excelsior” designees. Cuomo has – with a straight face, even – assured every holder of the pass that their privacy will be protected.

Despite assurances from Empire State officials that people who opt to sign up for the new app will be guaranteed that their personal and medical information that necessarily has to be inputted into the app will be protected, clearly, there is no way this will be the case. In order for the system to work as advertised, there has to be a link between the holder of the app (the “COVID-free” person) and the business he or she wants to access; whether a concert at Madison Square Garden, dinner at a five-star restaurant, or entrance to a government building. There is no way that with such links being accessed every time the Excelsior Pass holder elects to use the app, their privacy can be secured, whether at the point of access or at the database(s) where the information is maintained.

Already, Silicon Valley behemoths, including Microsoft and Oracle, are chomping at the bit to be part of the COVID passport system(s) that the Biden Administration is developing. These and other corporations, such as Walmart, are members of a “Vaccine Credential Initiative” working to ensure that “health information” belonging to users of the apps these companies develop and own, will be “feely and safely accessible.” That pretty much says it all.

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

While age may have slowed Jesse Jackson’s political activities (he is nearly 80 years old), the strategy he launched in the early 1980s of using race as a lever to pressure corporations into donating money to causes he championed lives on, with renewed vigor in today’s hyper-partisan political environment. Truly, no sporting event or business is safe from becoming a racial football.

In Georgia, the 85^th Masters Golf Tournament, which has withstood charges of racism and sexism in recent years, now is under attack not for anything it has done (or not done), but simply because the governor of the state in which it is located last week signed legislation making the state’s voting procedures more secure. That act alone was enough to initiate calls by Black Lives Matter groups and others to both boycott and move the venerable tournament out of Augusta, Georgia.

Baseball, which historically was considered America’s apolitical national pastime, now also is in the crosshairs of these same groups for the very same reason. The annual All-Star game, scheduled to be played this summer at the Atlanta Braves stadium in a suburb of the city long considered the “Capitol of the New South,” is being targeted for boycott and transfer to a stadium in another state.

For now, at least, neither batting averages nor handicaps define professional sports in America, only race.

This actually is nothing new since racial activists five years ago discovered that disrespecting the playing of our National Anthem prior to professional sporting events garnered them significant publicity. What is new, however, is the widening scope of activities that now trigger calls for boycotts, and the vehemence that accompanies such demands.

Not only has the recent changes to Georgia’s voting laws spawned demands to move these major sporting events (and movie productions) out of the state, but calls also have been issued by left-wing groups to boycott some of the Peach State’s most iconic products and services, including Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines.

These targeted corporations have themselves done nothing to warrant the ire of BLM or any other civil rights groups; quite the contrary. Coca Cola and Delta, for example, have for years been committed to, and demonstrably instituted the very principles of “diversity and equity” that these activist groups demand. The companies apparently are targeted for boycott simply because they are headquartered in Georgia and are not publicly demanding that the just-passed voting reform legislation be repealed.

The blatantly unfair demand that the new laws be rescinded is not going to be met, at least anytime soon, but the corporations may very well bow to the demands by offering concessions, like increased donations to BLM and clones and to Democrat candidates in the coming 2022 and 2024 election cycles, and perhaps further changes to hiring and promotion practices.

These tactics reflect the 21^st century version of what writers and researchers have called the long-running “intimidation and shakedown tactics” of Jesse Jackson; honed to near-perfection by charging racism in order to secure payments to his self-styled civil rights organization, the “Rainbow Push Coalition” (and other groups with which he has been associated) as far back as the early 1980s. Al Sharpton emulated Jackson’s tactics through his “National Action Network.”

Examined objectively, the legislation recently signed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp actually has nothing to do with race. The measures simply tighten procedures to ensure that opportunities for fraud in balloting is minimized to a degree beyond what prevailed in the November 2020 general and January 5^th Senate run-off elections. But the mere fact that the new laws require voters to show an ID before receiving an absentee ballot, now is enough to demand harsh penalties on businesses and sporting events in the state; actions that by some analyses, will wind up harming the very people BLM, for example, claims to champion.

Ultimately, whether such heavy-handed and ill-placed intimidation tactics will succeed in changing the political makeup of the government in Georgia (and in other states being targeted), will be decided by next year’s voters. Voter capitulation to such blatant economic and political extortion would deeply undermine – perhaps for generations — the unique brand of federalism and representative democracy that is one of our nation’s core strengths.

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.