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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

When It Comes To Combatting Gun Violence, the Real Empty Seat is in the Oval Office

by lgadmin January 13, 2016
written by lgadmin

At one time in the United States, when storied leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan walked the corridors of the White House, the annual State of the Union actually meant something. Whether delivered as a written report, or in person to a joint session of Congress, the ceremonial act was, as Article II of the U. S. Constitution mandates, an opportunity for the President to “give to the Congress information of the state of the union,” as well as recommend policies to fix the issues currently facing the nation. Most importantly, given the stature and respect of those delivering the remarks, State of the Union addresses were events that Americans looked to for real substance, reassurance, and even inspiration.

Today — and especially since Bill Clinton discovered that States of the Union provided an excellent opportunity to present a political laundry list for his Party’s supporters — we are lucky to get just one genuine fact that has not first been put through the ringer of highly paid speechwriters, political consultants, and Party apparatchiks. Even guests of the First Family have become political pawns, carefully chosen to serve as human exclamation points to punctuate the cause du jour featured in the President’s speech.

This year, the theatrics that accompanied Barack Obama’s final State of the Union took a new twist, with one visitor’s seat left vacant as a contrived “memorial” to the victims of gun violence; used by the President to shame Congress for its supposed inaction on gun control.

The real “empty seat,” however, is the one behind the President’s Oval Office desk.

For seven years, we have been held captive as Obama periodically bloviates about the need for tighter gun control, notably after each devastating tragedy involving firearms. A perfect example of this was Obama’s firearms “town hall” last week, in which carefully screened questions served up to the President repeated opportunities to deliver long screeds about gun control, with virtually no substance, but much smoke and mirrors.

Obama, it is well-established, never has been loathe to point fingers and uses his presidential bully pulpit to try to shame supporters of the Second Amendment — often the National Rifle Association by name as a proxy for all firearms owners as a whole. The sheer paranoia of this Administration toward the NRA and its perceived omnipotence, helps Obama perpetuate the myth that the NRA’s five million, dues-paying members are but a front for a secretive and unaccountable “vast Right-wing conspiracy,” controlled by “the gun industry.”

Obama’s fantastical notions about the NRA would be laughable but for the fact that Obama’s acerbic propaganda signals just how far removed he is from the sentiment of the nation, while providing him an excuse for why he must “go it alone” in forging anti-gun policies by non-legislative Executive Actions.

In reality, the only person Obama has to blame for a lack of “meaningful action” on gun crime, is himself. And, the facts lend no support to his efforts either.

Despite the heated rhetoric about gun crime following isolated mass shootings, for example, a 2014 audit of federal prosecutions shows a dramatic decrease in federal gun-crime prosecutions under Obama. Moreover, firearms investigations by Obama’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms also are in decline. Obama loves to explain away this drop in prosecutions of actual gun crime – such as straw man purchases, and possession of firearms by felons – as a matter of cuts to ATF funding forced on him by a hostile Republican Congress. However, it is his own Department of Justice that sets law enforcement and prosecutorial priorities for federal prosecutions — including for firearms violations — and, when it comes to taking violent criminals off the street, it simply has not been a priority for Obama.

In the words of one gun control historian at George Washington University commenting on shifting priorities at the Justice Department under Obama, “there’s more ideological cache harassing Bubba at the gun show than getting a handle on gun crime.” And, with the further confusion created by Obama’s recent Executive Actions about who needs a Federal Firearms License to sell a firearm, this harassment will only increase without any positive effect on gun violence.

It was always unlikely that, in his waning days as President, Obama would somehow come to terms with the reality about firearms ownership (up) and firearms crimes (down); or, that in the areas where he could have actually made a tangible impact on gun violence, Obama would finally take responsibility for failing because of his unwillingness to set aside politics and actually lead. So, while the Mainstream Media and the left-wing Blogosphere will gush over Obama’s “vacant seat” metaphor during his State of the Union, the only seat that reallymatters when it comes to protecting American citizens against individuals using guns with which to commit crimes, is the one behind the President’s desk in the Oval Office.

Originally published here via townhall.com

January 13, 2016 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Despite The Tears, Obama’s Anti-Gun Moves Are Dangerous

by lgadmin January 6, 2016
written by lgadmin

On December 31st, people gathered across America and the world to welcome the New Year with joyous festivities, hopeful resolutions, and cheerful optimism about fresh starts. Bucking the trend, President Obama opted against such new beginnings and vowed instead to do in 2016 as he has the last seven years: Whatever he wants, regardless of what the Constitution, Congress, the Courts, or the public, has to say about it.

Using his vehicle of choice, Obama this week announced – with a flood of presidential tears – several “Executive Actions” aimed at restricting gun sales and ownership in the United States. Similar to his past moves, which range from further regulating healthcare to (illegally) expanding work permits for illegal immigrants, the President justified his unilateral policy decrees on a need to bypass an “ineffectual” Congress. Rather than actually traveling a few blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue to meet personally with congressional leaders, Obama chose again to chastise Congress for being held “hostage” by the “gun lobby.” Obama’s teary-eyed efforts to rally supporters to his gun-control agenda every time a publicized mass-shooting occurs, has become something of a broken record. While the latest proposals – like those unveiled three years ago following the Newtown tragedy — appear on the surface to be largely benign, we had best take them seriously. As Ross Perot cautioned us, “the devil is in the details”; there is a relevant corollary to Perot’s maxim – “it’s often not what’s on the lines count; it’s what between the lines that matters most.” Of most concern among the proposals is the Administration’s attempt to broaden the definition of who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms; a classification which requires cumbersome licensing from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, in addition to dramatically enhanced penalties for violating the myriad regulations and conditions attendant to being a firearms dealer (a “Federal Firearms Licensee” or “FFL”). Yet, even the Administration is not clear on who would qualify. According to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, selling even one firearm could qualify an individual as a federal dealer, “depending on the circumstances” – vagueness not welcome from the person supposed to be the nation’s top lawyer.

In examining Monday’s decrees, Obama’s failure to propose even harsher gun control schemes as demanded by the Left, should not be viewed as a victory for Second Amendment supporters. The eventual goal of gun control advocates is not necessarily “gun control” per se, but ultimately reducing the number of firearms in circulation, and undermining the strength and authority of the Second Amendment. By simply making firearms more expensive to manufacture, and more complicated (and legally treacherous) to own or sell, the president’s “modest” proposals are every bit as dangerous as a move to outlaw certain categories of guns or ammunition; without the fuss of more direct measures that would never actually secure congressional approval. Much like his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton, Obama remains chronically apathetic towards the heavy-lifting required to work with Congress in order to pass his agenda through the regular constitutional process. But unlike Clinton, Obama detests the glad-handing, negotiations, and compromises with those he sees as beneath him; and finds it is far easier to use the “stroke of the pen” to accomplish his goals, regardless of the damage thereby done to such vital principles as limited presidential power and separation of powers between the branches of government. Whereas Clinton was relatively open with his Second Amendment agenda and proposed mostly symbolic policies designed to score political points, Obama has chosen to work in the shadows via non-legislative means that strike more calculated blows to heart of gun rights. And his efforts in this regard are many. Consider the Obama Administration’s signing of the “Arms Trade Treaty” (ATT), which even without ratification by Congress, means the U.S. is “obligated” not to act “contrary to” the gun-control efforts proffered by the treaty explicitly or in ancillary documents. Or, “Operation Choke Point” in 2014, when Obama ordered the Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to pressure banks to dry up financial funding critical to firearms transactions and firearms-related companies. Or, how Obama has attempted to shoehorn the Centers for Disease Control into the gun control debate in an ongoing attempt to make gun violence a “public health” crisis; thereby subject to Food and Drug Administration regulatory control. These are but a few examples of the many calculated moves by the Obama Administration over the last seven years designed to circumvent Congress, and gut the Second Amendment without subjecting himself or his proposals to real debate. The new round of executive actions is more of the same, regardless of how “modest” the President and his allies claim them to be. Each step down this path opens the door wider for subsequent administrations to take the same approach regarding other issues. Whether this Congress, unlike its predecessors, recognizes this long-term damage and takes steps to stop the Administration, is – unfortunately – unlikely.

 

Originally published here via townhall.com

January 6, 2016 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Where Have All The Leaders Gone?

by lgadmin October 28, 2015
written by lgadmin

Once upon a time, America valued and produced great leaders. Men who inspired, who rose above the common, who placed country above self, and who understood the importance of honesty as a vivid and very real motivator of personal behavior and public policy.

It was from this milieu that Daniel Webster reportedly answered the question posed him by a mid-nineteenth Century European journalist — “what is America’s greatest gift to the world?” – with five simple words that profoundly encapsulated what had brought a fledgling nation barely able to secure its limited borders, to a nation just 50 years later knocking on the doors of the world’s then-great powers. Webster’s answer to this question to describe why world powers already were looking to America as something truly special and good was simply, “The integrity of George Washington.”

Today, some century-and-three-quarters after Webster shared the secret of America’s growing leadership in the world, our nation is locked in another presidential contest pitting many men and women against each other; all vying to “lead” the United States of America for at least four years through the second decade of the 21st Century. And what do we have in this contest’s crop of front-runners? Certainly no George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or Abe Lincoln.

We have a loud-mouthed bully who delights in insulting his own teammates and anyone else within range of his piercing vision. We have the scion of a recent political dynasty, who is clothed in skin so thin the slightest barb elicits expressions of pain and cries of “foul.” We next have a physician with not the slightest experience in the public policy arenas in which a president necessarily must know to act, and whose presence is so soft one has to strain to hear his words. And finally in the pack at the front of the pack, we have a woman so steeped in scandal and fibs that the modern lie detector would be unable to detect that she even subconsciously perceives the difference between a lie and the truth.

Is this really what American Leadership has become? Has the presidency become nothing more than a scramble not just for the comfort that comes from mediocrity, but one that revels in the basest of human nature? Has it become thus rather than a contest that strives to set a tone and an example born of understanding, respect, strength and vision? Where once our national leaders asked of themselves and their fellow Americans, “what can you do for your country,” leaders in Washington now fight to rise to the top of the heap that is the House of Representatives by asking – nay, demanding – “what can this exalted position do for my career.”

In a prescient essay on “Statesmanship” written shortly before the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998, Mark Helprin eloquently explained that in generations past, men rose as leaders in America – whether in business, the military, or most importantly, in the political arena — by placing their own careers, their own lives, subservient to a higher good. Such people possessed what Helprin identified as the sine qua non of a true statesman – the soul of a Medal of Honor winner; a soul unafraid to die. Sadly now, as Helprin wrote back in those dark days at the turn of this most recent Century, “we have only what we have” — a “political class [that is] in the main, . . . in it for themselves.”

The dangers to rise from this schoolyard mess – though one with serious, even dire consequences for the country depending on who finally emerges – are, or should be clear. Our next president must be a man or woman who truly understands public policy and how to maneuver the levers of power in a complex and uncompromising world arena, but without loosening the bonds of America’s history and values that should bind their soul to the unshakable principle of integrity.

Neither the mega-rich bully Trump, nor the quiet but inexperienced surgeon Carson fit this mold. Certainly, the Democratic front-runner — the scandal-born-and-raised wife of America’s most narcissistic President — would never be able to operate in that arena; at least not in a way that would benefit our country. And the thin-skinned son of a former President and brother of another, seeking desperately to prove he is the equal of his father and his brother, already has shown himself unworthy of such a mantel.

Yet there are, on the Republican side, candidates possessed of the understanding, vision and integrity that so often in the past, but so infrequently in the present, have been characteristics possessed by true American statesmen. Whether they will be able to break the media-constructed fence that has been erected around the other front-runners, in time to present voters with a picture of true leadership, is the question not only for this 2016 election cycle, but for many more to follow.

 

Originally Published here via townhall.com

October 28, 2015 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Is Trump America’s “Strongman”?

by lgadmin July 15, 2015
written by lgadmin

When it comes to public confidence in American institutions, conditions rival those of California’s epic drought. According to a recent Gallup poll, the American public is mired in a now eight-year period of historically low confidence in traditional institutions, including government, banks, religious organizations, and the news media. Only the U.S. military and small businesses enjoy greater public confidence than in decades past. Congress, no stranger to dismal approval ratings, “enjoys” strong confidence from only eight percent of Americans.

Under the tepid leadership of the Obama Administration, the United States appears to bow before strong leaders abroad, from Moscow to Havana to Tehran. Faith in America around the globe ebbs with each new “deadline” given Iranian negotiators in Europe. Every ISIS atrocity is played out repeatedly in social and mainstream media, and heightens fears of a “lone wolf” attack here at home. We indeed are in a time of fear and uncertainty.

Is the time ripe for America’s version of the Third World “strongman”? Will we see the arrival of a “macho” leader, riding in on a white horse with sword drawn, to rally a citizenry frozen in fear and uncertainty? Has this strongman already arrived? Is it Donald Trump?

Since first announcing his intentions to run for president last month, Trump has dominated the headlines with inflammatory rhetoric followed by blustery refusals to apologize. While most pundits believed (hoped?) Trump’s brash behavior would doom him to remain at the bottom of the presidential pile, his poll numbers continue to rise. Last week, CNN reported only he and Jeb Bush held double-digit support among GOP voters.

To Mainstream Media pundits, for whom isolation within the Beltway has dulled any sense of the pulse of the nation outside of Washington’s political aristocracy, Trump’s surge among conservative grassroots makes little sense. To them, the measure of a candidate’s viability is their performance as a “talking head” on Sunday shows; or their willingness to sit for fluff interviews in which no real questions are asked and no real answers given. And, while most candidates would jump at the chance to kiss the rings of the Establishment media, Trump understands the road to the grassroots does not go through D.C.; and in this understanding, Trump plays his hand to perfection.

As The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs noted recently, “Donald Trump is appealing to people . . . who hate politics, who hate politicians. [S]omeone . . . who they view as a straight-shooter, someone who’s different and fresh.”

In other words, Trump is the anti-politician politician; the classic “strongman” but in civilian, rather than military garb.

While candidates like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie have struggled to find a voice that resonates beyond their core supporters, Trump is bullying his way to the top using a tone and style reminiscent of the Latin American “strongman” leader. In typical “strongman” style, Trump is employing a dual combination of strength and simplicity — through his unapologetic style of campaigning and the comfort of policy solutions simple enough to broadly fit people’s preconceived notions of how to fix America’s problems. The combination of the two creates a visage of confidence, which compared to the weak vacillations of the Obama Administration, evokes a powerful emotional reaction to the point where Trump’s patently unserious political posturing is overlooked.

And this is what has the media so confused; they can only focus on the content of his speeches, not what people are taking from them. Trump is gaining ground on his competitors not for what he says — which clearly is intended more to provoke tempers than stir genuine debate — but for what his tone and demeanor symbolize. As Willem Dafoe noted in the movie “Boondock Saints,” it is all about “symbology”; and how Trump’s GOP adversaries respond to his symbology matters a great deal.

Rather than egging Trump on with petty insults, or attempting to engage him in a fruitless debate — both of which serve only to create a media spectacle the Left is more than willing to provoke – GOP candidates might want to take at least a few notes.

Republican voters clearly do not want another candidate who will go to Washington and simply perpetuate the Establishment culture by playing the same games that have left America’s problems to fester at home and abroad. Voters yearn for a candidate whose default position is not to play defense and back away from every challenge — whether at our own back door regarding illegal immigration from Mexico, the continued expansion of ISIS in the Middle East, or a federal court system usurping power from both the legislative and executive branches of government.

The field is wide open for a Republican candidate who recognizes the value of a bold leadership style, but who couples it with a more serious understanding and presentation of solutions befitting an American President rather than a Latin American Strongman.

July 15, 2015 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Let’s Hope the GOP is Serious About Sentencing Reform

by lgadmin July 15, 2015
written by lgadmin

Last Friday, President Obama wrote 46 letters to men and women across the United States that will change their lives. “Dear Jerry,” Obama wrote to one man, “I wanted to personally inform you that I will be granting your application for commutation.” Jerry, like the others, is a convicted drug offender who, Obama claims, should long ago have served his time and been released back into society. Instead, tens of thousands of other low-level drug offenders continue to fester in federal prison; the consequence of overzealous, 1980s-era mandatory minimum sentencing requirements that have led to dangerous overcrowding in the federal prison system, and has cost taxpayers billions annually in the process.

The President, who is to announce plans for comprehensive criminal justice reform later this week, will join a growing number of members of Congress — from both parties — who support sentencing reform. One such example is legislation proposed by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Mike Lee (R-UT), called the Smarter Sentencing Act. This proposal would reduce mandatory minimum sentence requirements for some offenders, while expanding a so-called “safety valve” exception for others; helping to ease prison overcrowding.

This endeavor is supported by public policy groups from both ends of the political spectrum; from FreedomWorks to the Center for American Progress. The goal of this “trans-partisan” coalition is to work together to make America’s criminal justice process smarter, more effective, and more fiscally responsible.

The mainstream nature of this debate, and the growing support for sentencing reform among conservatives in particular, illustrates a radical change in Republican attitudes towards criminal justice just in the past decade. Only a few years ago, for example, the majority of Republican lawmakers would have refused even to discuss the hot-button issue of comprehensive sentencing reform. About the only “reform” GOP leaders in Washington would have considered would have been stiffer penalties and federalization of additional crimes. Now, many in the GOP are open to considering meaningful reform of the justice system’s sentencing structure; a system that saw America’s federal prison population swell by more than 750 percent in just three decades, stretching both budgets and prison resources to their limits.

The conservative case for sentencing reform is clear. The situation worsens with each new inmate added to federal prison system by an outdated sentencing structure that allows for little, if any discretion for judges to differentiate between drug kingpins and non-violent, low level offenders.

The cost of housing federal inmates, especially those serving lengthy, minimum mandatory terms, is huge. In 2013, taxpayers forked over more than $29,000 to incarcerate every federal inmate; pushing federal prison costs to more than 25 percent of the entire Department of Justice budget. This money, much of which is wasted on incarcerating non-violent drug offenders with little to no criminal history, can and should be spent on pursuing real criminals.

The current mandatory minimum sentencing system comes with disastrous societal costs, as well; consequences that are far more difficult to remedy, and which are felt across generations. According to statistics provided by Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), one out of every 28 children in America today has a family member in jail or in prison. This fact alone helps create a “cradle to grave” predicament for any spouse or child. A one-income household, while the spouse is in prison (not to mention the hardships of finding work after prison), increases the reliance on taxpayer-subsidized programs such as Medicaid and EBT/SNAP. Additionally, children from single-parent homes face increased risk of lower school performance, truancy, and criminal behavior. Without sentencing reform, we not only ruin one generation’s chance of upward social mobility, but that of their dependents as well.

Taking into consideration such devastating consequences of rigid mandatory minimums — which come with little evidence to suggest any long-term, positive impact on crime reduction – even many heretofore “tough-on-crime” Republicans have now come to recognize that simply being “tough” is not smart; nor is it fiscally or socially “conservative,” if that term means supporting families, jobs and communities.

Whether this new-found recognition will survive in the ongoing Republican presidential primary – especially with the bombastic Donald Trump leading the field – remains to be seen. But there are grounds to believe it will.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has made criminal justice reform a key component of his campaign. Texans Ted Cruz and Rick Perry have each come out strongly in favor of sentencing reform. “The current draconian mandatory minimum sentences sometimes result in sentencing outcomes that neither fit the crime nor the perpetrator’s unique circumstances,” noted Cruz; adding that, “harsh mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes have contributed to prison overpopulation and are both unfair and ineffective relative to the public expense and human costs of years-long incarceration.”

Such sentiments reflecting the views of key Republican leaders, and supported by such influential conservative-oriented organizations as FreedomWorks, Americans for Tax Reform, and others — if they result in substantive changes to the way our justice system deals with crime and sentencing – will have a profound and positive effect on our society for generations to come.

 

Originally published here on townhall.com

July 15, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

The “Transformative” Tyranny of Mandatory Voting

by Liberty Guard Author March 25, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

The longer Barack Obama serves in office, the more difficult it becomes to really consider him as “President of the United States.” The man’s respect for, and his understanding of, our form of government appears to diminish with each speech he gives, and with each action he takes as President. Still, he is if nothing else, consistent.

Barack Obama has been consistently truthful with the American people in telegraphing his desire of “fundamentally transforming” the United States of America. He exhorted citizens to do precisely that by voting for him in 2008. His signature legislative victory – Obamacare – delivered in 2010, is in the final stages of transforming health care in America from a system driven by the doctor-patient relationship, to one controlled from start to finish, and directly or indirectly, by government.

Obama’s drive to “transform” has not stopped at the ocean’s edge. Through a continuing series of inept moves in the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere, he has succeeded in transforming America from an influential world superpower, to a nation as much mistrusted as respected on vital security matters.

As disturbing as are these realities, even more frightening is the extent to which Obama yearns still to dislodge America from its foundation as a nation unique in placing individual liberty at the pinnacle of political power. His clear objective is to transform us into a society in which government mandates control virtually every aspect of citizens’ lives.

Obama’s latest plan is to transform the “right” to vote into the “requirement” to vote.

During a speech last week to the City Club of Cleveland, Obama declared himself a fan of mandatory voting. The President deflated America to other countries that are practitioners of forced voting. He opined, for example, that in Australia (a country that remains part of the British Commonwealth), citizens are required to vote; and concluded that instituting a similar mandate here would be “transformative.” He is right. Taking away peoples’ right to decide whether to vote in a particular election, and forcing them under penalty of law to vote, would be “transformative”; but certainly not in a good sense.

The world thus envisioned by Barack Obama would be a country in which everyone has a right to health care, to a college education, to a job, and to everything else the benevolent government decides the people should have; everything, that is, except the right to decide whether to vote. Obama noted favorably that the result of mandated voting would be to increase voting by the core constituencies of the Democratic Party; though the Voter-in-Chief paid lip service to the broader goal of increasing the overall percentage of voters who actually vote (which is low).

Voting in this Bizarro World would become simply another burden of being a citizen; right up there with paying taxes or carrying government-defined health insurance.

Some observers – many, perhaps — might be inclined to shrug off these latest musings of Barack Obama as simply “food for thought” offered by a president in the last two years of a second term. What gives them real currency, and why we ought to be extremely concerned about them, is the propensity already demonstrated by this President for doing what he wants via executive orders, whenever the Congress or the American people fail to give him what he wants through lawful and constitutional process. In this same mold, Attorney General Eric Holder misses no opportunity to attack efforts by state legislatures to protect their voting procedures against fraud by ensuring that only lawful citizens vote.

At the end of the day, there are innumerable ways this Administration could try to link federal benefits to voting, either directly or indirectly.

As a child, I lived in many other cultures and countries, including some in which voting was a requirement enforced by military force. This had the effect of driving up the percentage of people “voting” to laudable heights – but at the same time, driving down individual freedom to depressing depths. However, so long as those advocating for such forced measure can remain in charge – and they usually can in such a system – for them, it is a desirable arrangement. For the rest of us, not so much.

March 25, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Message to Republicans — Motives Do Matter

by Liberty Guard Author March 4, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

“I didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Giuliana made this startling statement in defense of his earlier observation that Obama does not truly “love America.” Not surprisingly, Giuliani’s criticism had pushed the Left to apoplectic fits. Obama’s defenders rushed to the aid of their Savior-in-Chief; characterizing Giuliani as a washed-up “has-been” taking cheap shots at the man he failed to beat in 2008. Less expected, however, were the droves of Republicans who jumped aboard the “motives-don’t-matter” bandwagon.

While Giuliani’s initial criticism of Obama was not unlike that of other conservatives during the last six years, many Republicans lost no time jumping in front of the cameras to distance themselves from Giuliani and echo his mantra. “I don’t think it helps to question the President’s patriotism or motives,” said Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. He was joined by other Republican notables, including 2016 presidential hopefuls Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Jeb Bush observed it was proper to question the President’s “policies” but not why he does what he does.

Like most “outrages” on the Left, the Democrats’ blustering was a time-tested trick to force squeamish Republicans to back down. In fact, the Democrats were using the very tool they have employed so effectively for years – question Republicans’ motives. How many times, for example, have we heard liberal wags claim that any criticism of Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder reflects Republican racial animus; or that opposition to redefining marriage is motivated by “homophobia?” Even GOP efforts to reform welfare is attributed to a mean-spirited hatred of the “poor.” In these and countless other instances, Liberals openly and shamelessly question conservatives’ motives; often in very personal terms.

Motives do matter; so why are so many Republicans so squeamish about admitting this, especially when such criticism is pegged to important matters of national security and other fundamental policy issues? Common sense dictates they should know better. Giuliani, who first rose to national prominence in the 1980s as the hard-charging United States Attorney in New York City, certainly must recall that establishing a motive or knowledge of bad acts is an essential element of a successful prosecution. It’s Criminal Law 101.

In the political arena, inquiring into and understanding why a decision-maker undertakes certain actions as opposed to others — actions that may affect our entire economy or our nation’s defense — is a vital first step in developing alternative policies and correcting mistakes.

For example, the refusal by Republicans to subject the President’s motives to public debate is doing exactly what Obama is doing with regard to ISIS — criticizing the terror organization’s actions without understanding the reasons it commits atrocities. If we do not understand the mind of the enemy, we doom ourselves to flailing around in the dark against an adversary without any real hope of defeating him.

President Ronald Reagan orchestrated the defeat of the Soviet Union not simply by criticizing the self-evident inefficiencies of the Soviet economy, or the deplorable living conditions created by its authoritarian regime. He did so by enunciating the moral depravity at the core of the Communist philosophy, as the “evil empire” it was. Only by understanding and articulating what motivated Communists was Reagan able to outflank them; ultimately sending the USSR to the “ash heap of history,” as he predicted would happen.

As was true in the 1980s, so it is now in this 21st Century. Condemning the unconstitutional actions of the Obama Administration is appropriate and essential (even obvious). But this makes sense only if and when we begin to deconstruct the motivations for such actions in order to truly understand the enemy we face. Otherwise we are just shooting in the dark.

Many of today’s Democrats, reflecting the philosophy underlying this Administration, are no longer motivated solely by the benign desire to help others using the power of government. Instead, Obama and those in his Administration appear clearly to act based on a genuine disdain for and rejection of the American traditions of free markets, private property, and individual rights; principles they see as a moral blight on society rather than as a foundation from which to protect and strengthen our nation.

If the GOP truly hopes to defeat this brand of toxic “progressivism,” it had better learn to defend its positions aggressively, rather than backing down whenever the media or its political adversaries play the “motive” card.

March 4, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Obama’s Amateur-Hour Foreign Policy Endangers America And Our Allies

by Liberty Guard Author February 25, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

Shortly after the Iraqi city of Fallujah fell to the Islamic State (ISIS) in January 2014, President Obama was interviewed by The New Yorker. When asked about the loss of such an iconic city from the U.S. war in Iraq, Obama responded with his usual glibness: “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Less than six-months after he made those comments, Obama’s “jayvee team” would establish an Islamic “Caliphate” spanning two countries, with an estimated 31,000 fighters from all over the world pouring into its territory for a chance to die martyrs’ deaths while fighting the western armies of “Rome.”

Yet, even as ISIS grows in size and brutality, Obama and his Administration continue to harbor a fantasy world in which, to them, these horrendous acts of terrorists are on par with those committed here in America by Christians during the Jim Crow era;and fueled today in the global jihad not by religious zeal, but by poor economic conditions and anti-immigrant racism. This sophomoric view of the world is neither funny nor tolerable; it is in fact emboldening our adversaries from Moscow to Mosul, and from Havana to Beijing, with potentially devastating harm to the interests of the United States and our allies.

With few exceptions, Obama’s predecessors in the Oval Office navigated the complex and high-stakes arena of international diplomacy based on a sober assessment of the world as it is. Now, Obama and his advisors make decisions based on the world as they dream it to be; and, if reality happens to fall outside their tightly crafted narrative, it is either marginalized or dismissed outright.

This desperate attempt to shoehorn an increasingly unstable international environment into a situation in which Obama remains the stoic “Savior,” has turned the State Department into a sideshow, with spokespersons spouting gibberish that would be comical if not for the fact that these people represent the United States to the rest of the world.

In the tense standoff between Russia and Ukraine, then-State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki (who recently was promoted to the White House staff) tweeted a picture of herself holding a piece of paper with “#UnitedForUkraine” scrawled on it. The childish “diplomatic” gesture immediately prompted headlines such as, “Russia sends troops, Obama administration sends a selfie.” More recently, as ISIS leaders publicly execute Americans, Christians, homosexuals, and others it does not consider true believers, a State Department spokesperson suggested with a straight face a “root cause” for the growth of ISIS was a “lack of opportunity for jobs.”

As the White House tried to convince Americans that ISIS sprang-up out of Mesopotamia overnight – a fantasy that fit nicely with the reality that the Administration was utterly unprepared to deal the threat for many months — ISIS was very public about articulating its goals in the region; even publishing annual reports about its progress. In fact, it was Obama’s ill-advised and Hillary-backed intervention in Libya, sending that country tumbling into chaos, that ISIS found the foothold in the region it needed to expand.

“Obama’s intervention in Libya was an abject failure, judged even by its own standards,” writes Alan Kuperman, a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. “Rather than helping the United States combat terrorism … Libya now serves as a safe haven for militias affiliated with both al Qaeda and [ISIS].”

The reason the Obama Administration so badly bungled the Libya intervention is the same reason why State Department spokespeople continue to speak of the war with ISIS in the same terms it would use to explain drug addiction or inner-city poverty: It refuses to accept the world and the actors on the international stage cannot be controlled with political messaging and spin. Therefore, rather than admitting even basic truths about the challenges it faces — like Islamic terrorists are actually Islamicand adhere zealously to a “theology that must be understood to be combatted” — this Administration prefers to trumpet so-called intelligence reports focused on specters and boogeymen with which it feels more comfortable, such as domestic “right-wing sovereign citizen extremist groups.”

Obama’s “Amateur Hour” foreign policy has managed to both inject America blindly into action in the name of preventing terrorism, while at the same time marginalizing other legitimate terror threats. At this juncture, halfway through Obama’s second term, and with the Congress seeming to lack the backbone to force the Administration to remove its rose-colored glasses and forsake its trademark “hashtag” diplomacy substituting for true statesmanship, we and our allies will continue to play defense while ISIS and other terror groups flourish in the vacuum left by America’s exit as a true leader on the world stage.

February 25, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

A President Wants War Powers. Will Congress Be Fooled Again?

by Liberty Guard Author February 23, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

When the House and Senate reconvene this week following their Presidents Day recess, one of the hot topics of debate will be the request laid at their doorsteps earlier this month by President Obama, who wants the Congress to authorize him to go after ISIS.

Aside from the question of whether the president of the United States, who serves pursuant to the Constitution as commander i chief of the armed forces, even needs such authorization, there is every good reason for the Congress not to vote another Authorization for the Use of Military Force such as the one passed in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

As my mom urged me more than once, in words that served me well during my years in the political arena: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Unfortunately, both houses of the Congress appear predisposed to be fooled once again.

In the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush asked Congress for authority to employ military “force” against those individuals and entities responsible for or complicit in that morning’s attacks on the American homeland. Congress quickly complied.

What the Bush administration asked for — and what I and other members of the Congress believed we were granting at the time — was a limited and straightforward authorization for the executive branch to employ military “force” to go after al-Qaida and whoever else was responsible for or complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Boy, were we fooled.

No sooner did the ink dry on the AUMF than the Bush-Cheney administration began using it to justify all manner of actions, most having nothing to do with military “force,” to carry out a far-reaching anti-terrorism program of action abroad and at home. The resolution quickly morphed into a justification for massive surreptitious eavesdropping on American citizens, using torture in contravention of U.S. law, and conducting open-ended military operations in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe.

The abuse of the 9/11 AUMF continued throughout the Bush administration, and into the Obama presidency with few adjustments. And now, they want another one.

The problem here at its most fundamental is why such a thing as a resolution authorizing a president to take military action against individuals or entities that have killed American citizens and are aiming to further harm American individuals and interests, is necessary in the first place.

More important still is the question of how did a simple joint resolution of the Congress become the justification whereby the government overrode civil liberties guaranteed against such actions by the Bill of Rights; and why would the Congress even consider allowing it to happen again?

In the case of the 2001 AUMF, it was sleight of hand by the Bush administration that led Congress into thinking it was merely authorizing what the resolution stated explicitly it was authorizing — the use of force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. In fact, however, the resolution became the cover for the Bush administration to do whatever it wanted, wherever it wanted, and whenever it wanted, against whatever targets — domestic or foreign — the White House decided to label a “terrorist threat.”

The Bush administration correctly gambled that, once passed, Congress would not later limit the subsequent reach of the resolution for fear of being labeled “soft” on terrorism.

Today, more than 13 years later, there are those, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who advocate another broad, largely open-ended AUMF to fight ISIS wherever and whenever its elements may be found. While some members of Congress are raising concerns over such a decision, many are not; and even among those expressing reservations, most are focusing on the specific — and important — geographic and time parameters of the resolution, not on preventing the more important constitutional abuses lurking beneath the surface.

The Congress is being asked to leave in place the broad and constitutionally-problematic 2001 AUMF, even as it gives the executive branch additional powers. Recent history tells us this is a recipe for serious constitutional mischief.

Instead of toying with another joint resolution, why not look to the Constitution, which requires that Congress fund those specific military programs it deems appropriate, prohibit those it opposes, and requires the president to operate as commander in chief within the bounds of the Constitution? That course of action, of course, would force the Congress to carefully consider and debate not only military operations, costs and responsibilities; but to understand the Constitution and the limits it places on government action.

Simply passing a resolution telling the president to “go after the bad guys” and worrying about the problems such action might cause later on, if at all, is so much easier.

Attorney Bob Barr of Smyrna is a former U.S. Republican congressman.

February 23, 2015 0 comment
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Liberty Updates

Liberty Update – Is Loretta Lynch No Different than Eric Holder?

by Liberty Guard Author February 5, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author
February 5, 2015 0 comment
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