July 2020

Townhall

by Bob Barr

Our collective attention these days understandably has focused on the Left’s violent protests against America’s cities. Buildings are being burned, mobs are attacking federal employees, and innocent people are being murdered. Meanwhile, a deeply more destructive war is being waged by the Left; one that seeks to dismantle the essential values that sustain the very soul of our country.

In some ways, the Left’s attacks on America’s traditional values is not new; conservatives are used to hearing comedy hacks like Bill Maher mock God, and rich Hollywood starlets and pop singers scold us about the inequalities of capitalism. These are not serious people.

The people who are serious about undermining values such as God, freedom, and individualism are abandoning the public bully pulpit as the forum of choice from which to corrupt our values. One of the insidious tactics they have learned to employ is destruction of the one essential tool whereby ideas and values are collectively understood and transmitted from person to person, and generation to generation – language.

When words no longer have meaning, beliefs and values atrophy. Manipulation of the masses is made far easier. Examples abound.

Undermining the Second Amendment by enacting gun control measures is facilitated by describing it not as what it is – depriving individuals of a God-given right to protect themselves – but by defining the problem as something it is not, and in terms that garner broad (if superficial) public support; namely, protecting the “public health” against a public health “crisis” (gun violence). To further this unscrupulous but clever attack on a fundamental liberty, the Left has worked relentlessly since the 1970s to convince Americans how important it is to have to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) empowered to enact gun control measures as a means of stemming a “public health crisis.”

Now, it is “racism” that is the new “public health crisis” needing the heavy hand of government intrusion to cure. Official resolutions by government bodies declaring “racism” to be a “public health crisis” are becoming commonplace. The non sequitur of declaring a disgusting and long-discredited practice such as “racism” to be a “health” issue, much less one of “crisis” proportion, is swept aside in favor of using it as a political hammer with which to attack and undermine traditional American values – which are not and never have been “racist.”

Of what possible value can the term “public health” have if something as subjective as “racism” (which liberals now use to describe essentially anything they do not like) can be classified under it? The answer is obvious – none — which is the precise goal of the Left.

What is happening with America’s trusted institutions is only a precursor for what is to come if this type of language corruption is allowed to continue. What is to come of the next generation when they are told as children that “gender” is fluid and anyone can choose to be a boy or girl whenever they feel like it? That wanting to achieve the American dream is “toxic whiteness?” Or when they are physically attacked for having ideas or saying things that others consider offensive and which therefore constitute “violence,” and when remaining silent is also “violence?”

In this Bizarro World you cannot win. It brings to mind Ellsworth Toohey’s character in Ayn Rand’s masterpiece, The Fountainhead. Toohey understood the greatest tool for control was breaking a society of any objective truth about what it valued; leaving him to decide for them. To do so, he used his position as a “social critic” to trash excellence and elevate mediocrity, so that his audience lost all touch with their values, and more importantly, with their ability to judge for themselves what is valuable. “Don’t set out to raze all shrines—you’ll frighten men,” Toohey lectures; “enshrine mediocrity—and the shrines are razed.”

As America’s shrines to individuals such as George Washington and Frederick Douglass are defaced and pulled to the ground, and as values such as hard work and individualism are criticized as being racist, how hauntingly appropriate are Toohey’s words at this moment in our nation’s history. May they also serve as a reminder of what is at stake.

Buildings can be fixed. Our nation’s soul and the values on which it has been sustained for almost two-and-a-half centuries, once lost, cannot so easily be recovered.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Most Americans are probably familiar with the principle that neither the Legislative Branch nor the Executive possesses unlimited power. What might come as a surprise, however, is that our Founders established that the third branch — the Judicial — likewise does not enjoy unlimited power over its sister branches.

The notion of a limited federal judiciary may appear radical to generations of liberals and conservatives alike who have been conditioned to turn to the federal courts every time a president of the other political party takes an action with which they disagree. This viewpoint also finds broad support among those serving on the federal bench, many of whom are more than happy to accept for decision any dispute presented to them if doing so seems to expand their power.

The principle that the Judicial Branch of our federal government must operate within limits like the other two accords with the overall structure of our constitutional system as explained at length in the Federalist essays written in 1787 and 1788 by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. Underlying the entire constitutional framework of our government is the principle that it may exercise only powers that are — as stated in Federalist 45 by Madison — “few and defined.” It is most noteworthy that in articulating this principle there was no caveat for the Judicial Branch.

The principle that all three branches of government are limited in their jurisdiction and power is fundamental and applies across the entire breadth of the federal government, including to the Judiciary.

In other Federalist essays penned by Hamilton, the role of the Judiciary is defined as the “bulwark” against “legislative overreach,” empowered to declare laws violative of the Constitution to be void. Reflecting this limited responsibility of the Judiciary (described as the “weakest of the three departments”) Hamilton noted that the branch lacks any “influence over the sword or the purse” and is in no way “superior” to the other branches.

Nowhere in the text of the Constitution or in the explanatory Federalist Papers is there any hint that federal judges are empowered to pass judgement on administrative actions of presidents executing laws that have not been found to be unconstitutional.

If on the contrary, a president engages in acts that are prohibited by or contrary to federal law (as George W. Bush did in abusing the FISA law after the terrorist attacks of 9-11) then the federal courts properly have jurisdiction to stop him. This principle was defined early on in the seminal 1803 Marbury v. Madison opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall. Importantly, Marshall declared also that a president who acts within the administrative responsibilities of the office, is not to be second-guessed by federal judges. Unfortunately, it is just this practice of judicial abuse that has become a form of gamesmanship by many lower federal judges ever since President Trump was inaugurated.

This principle of administrative independence is currently presented in the context of Trump order to federal law enforcement officers to protect federal facilities and personnel and to enforce violations of federal laws in cities across the country facing violence by protesting mobs. No federal judge has yet taken the extreme step of declaring such presidential acts unlawful or unconstitutional; but considering the propensity of so-called “Blue State” governors and municipal officials to forum shop for judges inclined to find fault with everything Trump does, it likely is only a matter of time before the conflict is thus joined.

If in fact a federal trial judge were to declare Trump’s order unlawful, the president would be well within his constitutional rights to ignore such efforts since they are clearly outside the jurisdiction of the Judicial Branch.

It is time for a president of the United States to remind this third branch of the government that it, too, must stay within its constitutional lane just as he and the Congress are made to do.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Townhall.com

by Bob Barr

A highlight of any visit to our nation’s capital is spending time at one or more of the beautiful Smithsonian Institution museums that line the National Mall. Since the Smithsonian was founded in 1846, these museums have grown to house artworks and artifacts from Native American pottery to the Apollo moon lander, allowing visitors from around the world to see and understand the greatness that is our country and our culture.

Tragically, even this magnificent cluster of museums has fallen victim to the destructive political correctness that now is driving protestors to deface and tear down statues of George Washington and other great Americans.

One of the more recent examples of this divisive effort is seen in a program on “Whiteness” at the National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC), a part of the Smithsonian Institution. This bizarre exhibition warns viewers of “white racialized identity” as embodied by such cultural beliefs as “rugged individualism,” “the nuclear family,” and “hard work” – all hallmarks of what formerly were considered positive traits that helped build our country; but which now are presented in a negative light, essentially as racist. Instead of noting the ability of each individual by strength to overcome adversity, white participants in this macabre exhibition instead are lectured to consider themselves “fragile” because of their skin color.

The deep disdain for capitalism as a foundation of America’s growth from a small littoral country into a world superpower, and the undisguised assault on Western Enlightenment that are reflected in this exhibit, would be shocking if found anywhere in a public forum, but especially so when incorporated as part of the publicly-funded Smithsonian.

On the other hand, considering what is being urged these days by such once-respected institutions as the New York Times and what is being taught at many heretofore respected institutions of higher learning, perhaps this should not be seen as shocking.

There is, after all, a movement known as the “1619 Project” that seeks to convince persons ignorant of both history and common sense that America was not founded in 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. According to this twisted narrative, America was “founded” a century and a half earlier, not on principles of individual liberty and limited government, but singularly on slavery and white privilege.

This perverse re-writing of history is now being offered the imprimatur of legitimacy through inclusion in the NMAAHC.

The Smithsonian describes its foundational purpose as a repository for the “American national identity,” which embodies “an identity rooted in exploration, innovation, and a unique American style.” For many decades after its official founding, it upheld this legacy. Nevertheless, such a powerful tool as the world-renowned Smithsonian could not be resisted forever by those who wish to rewrite history. Thus, over the years, radical-Left activists have infiltrated the Smithsonian system, not openly as the radical revisionists they are, but as “historians,” “social scientists,” and “educators.”

NMAAHC’s program is a deliberate effort to radicalize a member museum of the Smithsonian using misinformation and propaganda completely at odds with the very foundation of the Smithsonian’s establishment: “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” The “Whiteness” exhibit is the opposite of knowledge, as it turns America’s historically documented founding philosophy of individual liberty on its head with circular logic and academic gobbledygook devoid of any genuine substance. In so doing, these radical revisionists are ruining the reputation of a storied institution, for the sole purpose of turning it into another mouthpiece for the “woke” agenda.

The pride that American adults and schoolchildren would feel as they crossed the threshold into the National Museum of American History to view the massive American flag that flew over Ft. McHenry as Francis Scott Key penned the words to the “Star-Spangled Banner,” now is sought to be replaced by a sense of guilt and shame as visitors confront the “Whiteness” exhibit at another of the Smithsonian’s museums just blocks away.

The drive by the Left to radicalize our country and our culture is not only being waged by Antifa thugs, Black Lives Matter protestors and liberal elected officials, who enable their destructive behavior on the streets of America’s cities, from Portland to Atlanta. It is a war being fought just as aggressively, though more discreetly, in the very public institutions supposed to preserve and protect our nation’s heritage.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

For years there has been developing a deep clash in our country between generations, political parties and personalities. This many-faceted conflict broke to the surface with the election of Donald Trump four years ago, and has remained part of virtually every major public policy issue since Trump’s first day in office. It now has erupted into full violence.

Perhaps nowhere in the country is the culture clash more starkly displayed than in Portland, Oregon; not in Minneapolis, not in New York City and not even in Washington, DC. Portland has become ground zero where the battle for the very heart of America’s culture is being played out.

Portland has long been known as a city of high-brow culture and far-left politics. For decades, it was a magnet for liberals of all stripes and ages; but in the past few years it has attracted a far more sinister and dangerous element – Antifa. Portland’s soft, left-wing political establishment, led since January 2017 by pacifist Mayor Ted Wheeler, provides a perfect breeding ground for violent protesters.

Since joining forces in late May, Antifa and Black Lives Matter have engaged in nightly demonstrations, vandalism, and arson, meeting little resistance from the city. In recent days, however, Wheeler’s strategy of “soft policing” (backed by Oregon’s equally liberal Governor Kate Brown) has run into resistance.

President Trump has thrown down the gauntlet in Portland, declaring that while the state’s and the city’s political leaders may not care if vandals desecrate federal buildings and facilities and endanger federal employees in Portland, he does. Reflecting an executive order he signed in late June directing federal law enforcement to proactively protect federal buildings, structures and personnel against vandals and other violent activists, and to actually prosecute those who perpetrate such acts, Trump recently ordered federal law enforcement personnel into Portland to do just that.

Judging by the howls emanating from Portland City Hall and from the state capitol in Eugene, one might conclude that the President had sent Patton’s Third Army into the city. Both Wheeler and Brown cried that Trump had sent masses of “secret police” into Portland to indiscriminately grab peaceful protestors off the streets and whisk them off to secret locations (perhaps to be waterboarded).

In fact, there has been nothing secret about the Administration’s actions; far from it. The President and the acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf have made clear in numerous public pronouncements their commitment to protect federal facilities and personnel in Portland and other cities. Moreover, ubiquitous TV cameras and cell phone recordings would make clandestine police actions next to impossible at any rate.

Wheeler continues to view the goings on in the city he nominally leads through the same rose-tinted glasses that throughout his tenure has allowed Antifa thugs to physically attack conservative journalists, stop traffic on major highways, and engage in acts of arson and vandalism largely at will. Not surprisingly, Trump does not view violent protests with the same degree of compassion as does the mayor, particularly when directed at federal properties and personnel.

Wheeler’s timidity in dealing with violent protestors truly has blinded him to reality. For example, even as Antifa and Black Lives Matters protestors last weekend were attacking Portland Police buildings as well as the federal courthouse in the city, Wheeler was on TV complaining that it was only the presence of federal law enforcement that caused any problem.

Despite hyped-up claims by Mayor Wheeler, Governor Brown, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and now House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), that federal law enforcement in Portland have been engaging in wantonly unconstitutional actions protecting federal facilities and personnel from violence, President Trump is unlikely to back down; nor should he.

As President, Mr. Trump has an absolute responsibility to protect federal facilities and personnel whenever and wherever they are threatened, whether at home or abroad. That this no longer is considered by the Democrat Party as a legitimate underpinning of civil society, illustrates the depth of the chasm into which we are sliding.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

It did not take the gun control crowd long to find ways to piggy-back onto the COVID-19 pandemic scare and press their extremist agenda. A recently-published article by a college professor, suggesting that COVID-19 contact tracing should be studied seriously as a solution to the problem of gun violence in America, reveals the partisan political agenda underlying much of the ongoing debate about the pandemic.

To be sure, the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious health issue. Addressing it requires that government agencies cooperate, act transparently, and focus their efforts on health and medical measures that actually are relevant to the problems presented by the virus. Key to the eventual success of efforts to rein in the pandemic, however, is one additional ingredient very often lacking in measures suggested or mandated by appointed and elected officials: consistency.

Whipsawing citizens by alternatively telling them medical masks are not really helpful, and then mandating them, hardly helped to develop the credibility needed to ensure public compliance with meaningful measures to slow the spread of the virus. This gulf was widened further when police began to ticket individuals for not wearing masks while engaged in isolated activities, such as sunning on an empty beach or jogging along an otherwise deserted trail.

Shuttering churches but not Black Lives Matter gatherings further illustrated the hypocrisy underlying actions by state and municipal authorities.

Any lingering doubt of the hypocrisy or subjectivity underlying many of these government edicts should have been dispelled with pictures of government officials grandstanding for the media, shoulder-to-shoulder with protestors, during the recent spate of riots engulfing many major metropolitan areas.

In the midst of all this, COVID contact tracing, using the power of ubiquitous “smart” phones to map patterns of contacts by individuals known to have or suspected of having contracted the virus, surfaced as a way to slow the spread of the virus.

The glaringly-obvious privacy problems inherent in contact tracing have to some extent tempered the rush to implement such programs (or perhaps simply caused officials to do so less publicly). Its emergence as a means of more broadly controlling people, however, has been seized by Nanny State advocates as a way to pursue government control of non-medical issues including, of course, gun control.

A recently-published article by Northwestern University sociology professor Andrew Papachristos is illustrative of this movement to employ invasive contact tracing to address other problems, such as gun violence. In this particular proposal, however, there is no substance whatsoever. Not once does the professor actually say how contact tracing data would solve gun violence, only that “research” of it – as some deus ex machina device – would magically solve the problem.

That nonsense, such as the kind promoted by Papachristos, would be taken seriously even to the extent of publication demonstrates the degree to which the Left will seize on virtually any occurrence, whether a viral pandemic, a police shooting, and especially the never-ending crusade to undermine the Second Amendment, as a vehicle with which to further their political agenda.

At its core, this proposal is a call for the comprehensive tracking and databasing of citizens’ daily lives. Once databased, the information can be easily extracted, then analyzed and finally (and easily) manipulated to identify and ultimately quash behavior deemed socially unacceptable, all under the guise of white knights protecting the public health.

Even if contact tracing could conceivably be managed by private third parties and completely anonymized (such as through encrypted cell phone technology), the mere existence of the data inevitably would prove too tempting for the government not to find some way to justify obtaining it for other uses — in the “public interest,” of course.

Government repeatedly has shown itself untrustworthy to maintain or have access to databases, such as those now being proposed for COVID-19 contact tracing. That door must remain closed, notwithstanding a call by a sociology professor to open it for gun control purposes.

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Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

If there were lingering doubt remaining in the mind of any New York City police officer that the state’s elected leadership is biased against the NYPD, it would have been erased last week.

On July 8^th Letitia James, the Attorney General for the state of New York, issued a “Preliminary Report on the New York City Police Department’s Response to Demonstrations Following the Death of George Floyd.” The 57-page document makes clear that neither the governor (who requested the report) nor the attorney general “has the backs” of the largest civilian police force in the country.

From start to finish, the report illustrates that the lens through which the state’s attorney general views the NYPD is one that presumes the department to be rife with racism, and which repeatedly responded to “peaceful” protests with unnecessary force. Even though the report is deemed “preliminary,” the attorney general exhibits no hesitancy in recommending long-term, systemic “reforms” to the NYPD.

At its core, this report is designed to support pre-conceived changes to the NYPD, premised on obvious disdain for the department as it currently exists.

The report punches all the right rhetorical buttons. The attorney general states that the office hopes to “reimagine” the role of the city’s police force, and thereby to “rebuild” the “trust” between it and the people of New York that the NYPD itself has destroyed. The report talks grandiosely of how its recommendations will, if implemented, fundamentally “redesign public safety and the role of police in society.”

The wording throughout the report reveals its bias in favor of the protesters and against the police. References to actions by the protesters are prefaced with the term “allegedly;” responsive actions by the police are not similarly modified. Even when the report notes that police were subject to having objects thrown at them (everything from frozen plastic bottles of water to glass bottles and bricks), they are not deemed to have “responded” against the violence aimed at them with pepper spray and batons, but rather that they “retaliated” against the “peaceful protestors.”

Descriptions of police responses and mob violence are lumped together as “violence by protesters and police,” with no distinction between the two groups or the appropriateness of their actions.

Concern is expressed in the report that the actions by the police were “terrifying” to the protesters, and “generated a lot of fear amongst the crowd.” Nary a word is found in the report for whatever fear may have been felt by police officers facing unruly, violent crowds armed with glass bottles, bricks and Molotov Cocktails.

The report is at pains to note that the “fear” felt by the protesters resulting from the violent actions of the NYPD, constitutes “ongoing emotional and mental trauma,” such that some of the protestors now find themselves having “trouble sleeping and eating,” and are “afraid to leave their homes” for fear “that NYPD would attack them in the street.” Such testimony, though bordering on nonsensical, nonetheless is consistent with the premise of the attorney general’s investigation, which was to document “perceived wrongdoing” by the NYPD.

This report is part of an orchestrated plan laying the groundwork for a complete revamp of the NYPD in the image of the New Left that is being pressed openly by George Soros. In the strange new world recommended in this report, police would have no jurisdiction over traffic offenses, and “minor offenses” such as “fare evasion,” trespassing on private property, disorderly conduct and marijuana possession would be decriminalized, so as to reduce fear-inducing confrontations between police and citizens.

The Commissioner of Police no longer would have effective control of the NYPD, which would instead be lodged with a greatly strengthened Civilian Complaint Review Board and Office of Inspector General.

The recipe detailed in this Report, even clothed as it is as “preliminary,” is a prescription for disaster for the citizens of this once great city.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

American Action News

by Bob Barr

Five years ago, a single white man walked into Atlanta’s International Airport with a lawfully owned AR-15 rifle; simply making a statement that a law-abiding citizen should be able to lawfully carry a firearm in public places. Notwithstanding the benign nature of the stunt, the Atlanta and national media went into high alert, as did law enforcement, which questioned and followed the man closely to ensure he did not bother anybody (he did not). Nowhere was there reported a word of public support for the gun-toting citizen.

Last weekend, between 100 and 200 black men marched along a major Atlanta road to Stone Mountain State Park. Virtually all the marchers conspicuously carried AR-15s or similar style rifles, were dressed in black and wore masks. Most sported ammunition bandoliers and many were festooned also in protective vests.

There was nary a peep of criticism or concern expressed by the media or government officials, some of whom gushed over the fact that the armed phalanx was “peaceful” – well, sort of.

How times have changed. Or is it something other than the passage of time that distinguishes the one man carrying a single rifle in a public place in 2015, from hundreds doing the same thing just five years later? Oh, did I mention that a number of this past week’s armed marchers engaged in intimidating verbal confrontations with white motorists?

The July 4th marchers were led by a foul-mouthed masked man calling himself “Grand Master Jay” in an oh-so-clever play on the manner by which KKK big wigs referred to themselves as “Masters,” “Wizards,” and the like. The marchers’ oft-shouted demands called for everything from reparations for slavery to removal of the three Confederate generals carved into the massive granite outcropping.

Calling themselves alternatively a “Black Militia” and a “Not F*#@ing Around Coalition,” the armed marchers strutted around the streets near the state-run park, stopping cars and making demands of white (not black) drivers. Police who stood by as little more than disinterested observers.

The inescapable irony in the scene, which would have been comical aside from the fact that it was not, lies in how the authorities treated these armed, black marchers who were verbally assaulting and menacingly intimidating law-abiding citizens on the public thoroughfares. The kid gloves with which the authorities treated the black marchers, was in clear contrast to the heightened concern exhibited by authorities and the media, whenever armed white protestors occasionally gather in the vicinity of Stone Mountain.

The timid response by officials in Georgia last Saturday also is in stark contrast to the hyperbolic manner by which authorities in Richmond, Virginia and Lansing, Michigan responded to groups of armed white protestors earlier this year. Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer called the protestors “perverse” and various legislators declared how “afraid” the protestors made them feel.

The obsequious response to the Black Militia march by Georgia authorities all but guarantees there will be further such displays by this group and likely copy-cats.

A perfect example of how tepid responses to armed vigilantism begets violence was illustrated the very same Independence Day weekend in Atlanta, when eight-year-old Secoriea Turner was fatally shot. The little girl was killed near a burned-out Wendy’s, where on June 12th a black man was fatally shot by a white police officer after he had resisted being arrested and then fired a taser at the officer.

For three weeks following that incident, Atlanta’s mayor and police chief had turned a blind eye to barricades that had been erected at the burned-out fast food restaurant and then allowed armed blacks to “guard” the area. It was only after Secoriea Turner was shot on the night of July 4th that the mayor awoke to the problem and issued her first tough words against the armed thugs; too late to save young Secoriea Turner.

Timidity in response to armed thuggery, whether accompanied by high-minded rhetoric of “racial justice” or extortionate demands for “reparations” money, only begets more of the same. Whether authorities in Atlanta and other cities ever will awake to this reality is at best very iffy in today’s racially strained environment. The real question is how many more innocent lives will be lost in the meantime.

Townhall.com

by Bob Barr

For years, American cities run by Democrat mayors and city councils have been beset by serious fiscal problems. Now, however, these “blue” cities are reaping a far more tragic harvest of the mismanagement they have sown – violence and death.

What transpired in Atlanta over the July 4th weekend was sadly predictable, except that is, to the city’s mayor.

At this critical juncture, Atlanta’s police department has a leadership vacuum, with the former chief having stepped down immediately following the death of civilian Rayshard Brooks at a local Wendy’s on June 12th. For the past month, armed thugs have been patrolling a number of streets in Atlanta and adjacent areas without fear of arrest.

Meanwhile, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms dithered and preened before the media, hoping to elevate herself in Biden’s not-so-discreet search for an African American female running mate. Last Saturday, on a day most Americans were celebrating our nation’s founding, eight-year-old Atlantan Secoriea Turner paid the price for living in a city void of leadership. The child was fatally shot while was riding in a car driven by her mother who was simply trying to go around a barricade erected unlawfully on a public street by armed thugs.

Mayor Lance Bottoms publicly condemned the shooting, but pointedly refused to accept any responsibility for having created the circumstances that allowed the tragedy to occur in the first place. In failing to accept responsibility, Atlanta’s mayor was following in the footsteps of other mayors whose leadership lethargy has led to violence in the cities over which they exercise power, including Seattle, Minneapolis, New York, and elsewhere.

After-the-fact, self-serving recriminations by these mayors ring hollow in the face of clear evidence that it was their failure to act that created the very conditions precipitating the violence — last weekend in Atlanta and late last month in Seattle’s so-called “CHOP” occupied zone.

Apparently, it comes as a surprise to these elected officials when criminals commit violent acts after the police step back and “give them room” to work their will. Unfortunately, it is not the mayors who pay the price, but innocent citizens, including defenseless children.

Compounding the problem, officials in these cities typically react in ways that make things worse. Atlanta is a perfect example of the tragedy that lies at the end of a chain of events started by failed leadership.

The violence that flared in Atlanta following the May 25th death of George Floyd in Minneapolis was met by city officials overreacting and punishing law enforcement. This misstep was exacerbated two weeks later when Atlanta’s top prosecutor overzealously rushed to prosecute a police officer, for what appears by all available evidence, to have been a justifiable shooting of a suspect who resisted arrest and wrested the officer’s taser, then firing it at the officer who returned fire with his sidearm.

The Wendy’s where the shooting occurred was promptly burned by an arsonist, and the site was allowed to be made into a makeshift shrine, barricaded and protected by armed thugs. It was near this sanctum that young Secoriea Turner was shot and killed on July 4th.

Neither Atlanta’s mayor nor others of these feckless municipal leaders seem to have learned anything from the history faced in recent years by their colleagues in cities from Charlottesville, Virginia to Berkeley, California.

The lessons revealed by these recent incidents are hardly of recent vintage. They are as old as civil society. Failure to stand up to the mob and backing away from violent thuggery never achieves peace and quiet.

It may be an ugly fact of life, but individual freedom sooner or later will be tested by those who would rob others of their liberty. Law enforcement – and more importantly, the willingness to use it – is an essential component of a free and ordered society. Elected officials who refuse to recognize this have no business wearing the mantel of leadership. Whether the citizens of Seattle, New York, Atlanta, and so many other cities led by such individuals will wake to this anomaly before there are more children murdered as a result, should be a key criterion facing voters this year and next.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7 District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

It is no secret that President Trump and down-ballot Republicans have a healthcare problem as they prepare to face voters in less than four months. The country remains gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, and many voters blame the administration and its allies in Congress for not coming up with a magic solution. This view seems to be shared by donors, many of whom have signaled that they view health care as the party’s most serious vulnerability.

While there still is time to right the ship before the November elections, Republicans in Washington need to seriously analyze what has gone wrong and take corrective action before it is too late. If they look beneath the headlines, they will find that much of the health care dysfunction and obstruction comes not from their adversaries on Capitol Hill or from blue state governors, but from inside the federal government; specifically, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS has been central to many of the problems that have plagued the administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite knowing early on, for example, that over 140 nursing homes had at least one resident who tested positive for the virus, CMS put all their residents at risk by refusing to release that vital information.

This seeming lack of concern for seniors’ well-being angered everyone from the residents’ families to the emergency personnel who could have used the data to save lives, and it came at the very time Trump was starting to lose what had been a major advantage with senior voters.

At the center of this botched response has been CMS Administrator Seema Verma. A former health care consultant, Verma has struggled throughout the pandemic to provide Americans with clear information and direction. Her shortcomings were on full display in the early days of the pandemic when she refused media requests to answer questions about the government’s supply of ventilators, hospital beds and ICU units for infected patients. Her media blunders damaged the Trump administration right when Americans were turning to Washington for a sense of security and leadership.

Making mistakes during an unprecedented public health crisis is one thing, but deliberately sabotaging the administration’s free-market healthcare agenda – as Verma has done — is quite another.

Notwithstanding that the agency she heads answers to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Verma reportedly sabotaged an administration drug pricing reform plan to be implemented by Azar, because she was unwilling to reform the dysfunctional insurance rebate system. She reportedly brazenly threatened Azar that she would “make sure he’d never work in this town again” if he pursued the pricing reform issue. When Azar refused to cave, Verma helped to deep-six his pro-consumer effort during a key meeting last year.

Verma’s obstruction then rolled over into the broader Obamacare reform effort, where she broke from the White House policy team, and freelanced her own $1 trillion plan that many senior administration officials worried would drive people away from the cheaper health insurance options two years in the making.  Her continued shenanigans have helped ensure that the administration still does not have any significant health care victories to tout this November.

While Verma’s policy impediments have hurt the administration politically, the accusations of crony capitalism that she has created for the White House may be even more damaging. Last November, for example, she tried to have taxpayers reimburse her for nearly $50,000 worth of jewelry, clothing, and other personal items that she said were stolen during a work trip. As if that were not enough, she also quietly directed millions of dollars in agency funds to communication consultants designed in large measure to boost her image, despite an already sizable CMS communications budget.

Notwithstanding the red flags raised about her spending habits, the fact that she has been anything but a team player regarding the president’s drug pricing reform effort, and considering the early and continuing missteps in handling the COVID-19 pandemic by her agency, Verma continues in her post. The longer she remains as head of the federal agency that administers both Medicare and Medicaid, the longer she remains an albatross around the neck of President Trump and the GOP heading into November.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990.  He now serves as President of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia.