Articles by Peter Barbour

Credit: LA Times The only silver lining for the GOP that can be gleaned from the November 6 elections is that it retained control of the House of Representatives. Otherwise, the election results were devastating for the GOP, and while demographics was a primary reason Governor Romney lost to President Obama and Democrats increased their majority in the Senate, it was not the only reason. The loss, once again, revealed a split in the party which I mentioned in a prior column. A demographic anal...

Photo: facebook.com/IAmBrandonRaub Recently 26-year-old US Marine veteran and Virginia resident Brandon Raub, who served his country in Iraq and Afghanistan, was arrested by local authorities working in concert with federal agents for what they deemed were threatening posts on Facebook. In a telephone interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Raub said, "I'm currently in John Randolph in the psychiatric ward being held against my will. They were concerned about me calling for the arrest of g...

A hollow point bullet is an expanding bullet that has a pit or hollowed out shape in its tip, often intended to cause the bullet to expand upon entering a target in order to decrease penetration, causing the target to absorb more of the impact and disrupting more tissue as it travels through a body. Hollow point bullets are designed to inflict maximum damage to their targets. They're not practice rounds. The purpose of hollow points is to kill and maim. In a trend that has received little atten...

Photo: ABC News The son is in and the father out. Senator Rand Paul (KY) is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention later this month in Tampa while the senator's father and Republican presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul (TX), has not been scheduled to speak, disappointing his many supporters. Getting shut out of this year's convention, just as the Texas congressman was shut out of last cycle's convention, is likely a "punishment" for not endorsing the party's presumptive nomi...

Photo: crooksandliars.com Recently Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy made clear the company's support of traditional marriage. "We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit," Cathy said in article published Monday by the Baptist Press. "We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that." Cathy added that, "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at...

Photo: nationalconfidential.com The Congressional Budget Office recently said that President Obama's Affordable Health Care Act (aka "Obamacare") cuts the deficit. To those favoring the repeal of the Health Care Act, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, "Repealing the (health care law) will lead to an increase in budget deficits over the coming decade, though a smaller one than previously reported." Not everyone agrees with this rosy CBO assessment. Ch...

Photo: Gage Skidmore It is not easy running for public office, especially president of the United States. Once you become a candidate for president, you have alienated at least 40-45% of all Americans. It gets worse once you become the nominee. The next 3+ months will be rough sledding for President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. While the challenge for the president will be defending his record on the economy and National Debt, Romney's challenge at the moment app...

As we approach the November election less than four months away, Mitt Romney is being praised by some (his supporters) and criticized by others (President Obama's supporters ) for his speech to the NAACP. Anyone who pays attention to politics knew that it would be this way. If he didn't speak to the NAACP, Romney would have been roundly criticized for showing disrespect to the NAACP. Now that he has spoken to the NAACP, he is being criticized for doing it only for political reasons as a cynical...

James Madison said in the Federalist Papers: "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." Unfortunately, our government has shown that it is completely willing to control the governed, but completely unable or unwilling to control or limit itself. The latest example of a government unwilling to control itself is the Patient...