There must be a word to describe a person of modest abilities who is willing to shed every layer of self-esteem at his/her disposal to fulfill a voracious ambition with no regard for retaining even a molecule of dignity while exhibiting even the slightest trace of sense.
As it so happens, there is a word, actually two – Andy Barr.
The Republican congressman from Lexington has made clinging like a hemorrhoid to President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump as the raison d’etre in his campaign to succeed the retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, this fall.
It’s gotten kind of embarrassing. Old Andy is coming across like a 16-year-old girl screaming for the cute mophead during the early days of Beatlemania. It’s as if he imagines ballroom dancing with the Lord of Mar-a-Lago ala Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He often sounds like the brainwashed Major Bennet Marco in The Manchurian Candidate when he says, to paraphrase, Donald. J. Trump “is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.’’
It’s actually kinda funny, to be honest. But Andy stepped over the line from farce to horror this week by endorsing the atrocities perpetrated by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency who have terrorized the citizens of the city of Minneapolis, and elsewhere for that matter. He offered this on the X social media site:
“The left’s defund the police rhetoric was wrong and dangerous in 2020. And it’s wrong and dangerous now. Liberal stupidity all over again. President Trump is doing EXACTLY what Kentuckians voted for: the largest deportation operation in history. We won’t back down!’’
And said this on the Gary Benson Show on Fox News radio:
“President Trump is doing what the American people elected him to do. I would hope American taxpayers would be thankful that these enforcement efforts are happening to stop this fraud. And I would hope that Americans, even Americans who may disagree with the president or ICE would understand that what they are doing in assaulting or resisting or opposing or intimidating or interfering with federal officers is not only wrong it is illegal.’’
Oh my.
First, “defund the police’’ has nothing to do with the masked pistoleros of ICE, federal agents who are supposed to respect and protect the people of the United States and are instead gunning them down with little or no provocation, certainly nothing that warranted them being struck down in a hail of bullets.
And Andy, you might want to check the Constitution some time. Opposing governmental actions, from ICE or any other federal agency, is well within everyone’s right. It’s certainly called for in this instance.
Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, stopped her car to provide support for protestors objecting to ICE presence in the city. She was approached by ICE agents and, after a period, attempted to drive away when she was shot three times. There are claims that she clipped the ICE agent with her car, leading to the deadly assault, although that has not been verified. Federal officials claim the agent acted in self defense and that Good was, somehow, a domestic terrorist. The Justice Department has refused to even investigate the incident.
And then there was Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital. Pretti was using his phone to record a confrontation between ICE agents and two women. He approached to help the women after the ICE agents had slung them to the ground. He was thereupon sprayed with some sort of irritant and shoved to the ground by one of the agents.
Said one witness:
“The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn’t see him touch any of them – he wasn’t even turned toward them. It didn’t look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn’t see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times … I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him …”
Pretti was carrying a gun, according to ICE, but he didn’t brandish the weapon and it was removed before he was shot. He was, in fact, shot something like nine times. For no reason.
And, by the way, for the record, a third individual, a native of Venezuela, was shot in Minneapolis earlier this month while trying to flee custody. He survived.
This, to Andy’s obviously muddled mind, is why Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States, so he could send heavily armed goons to the streets of one of the nation’s major cities and bully people, including some who are here without proper authorization.
And then, when the feeling strikes, shoot them.
As further evidence of Trump doing what he was elected to do, at least in Andy world, it should be noted that undocumented immigrants aren’t the only ones feeling the heavy hand of the federal government. There are multiple reports of American citizens being detained as well.
“I am seeing and hearing about people in Hennepin County being stopped, questioned and harassed solely because of the color of their skin – solely being the operative word here,” Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt said during a news conference. “Now that same discrimination is also spilling into the law enforcement community” where some off-duty officers have been stopped.
And then there are incidents like the one involving an elderly couple who were halted as they headed to church on a Sunday morning.
“We turned into a parking lot and were greeted by approximately four unmarked ice vehicles with agents who immediately stopped us and pointed semi-automatic weapons in our face, asked us to roll down the windows, threatened us multiple times with arrest,’’ the man told reporters.
These are not cherry-picked incidents. These armed, sworn agents of the federal government, usually dressed in military fatigues, are cornering individuals in Minneapolis and elsewhere – ICE recently started a campaign in Maine but reportedly has withdrawn – with little regard for individual rights or public safety. A Department of Homeland Security memo maintains agents don’t even need a judicially approved warrant to break down the doors of city residents – documented or not. An administrative warrant – issued by the department itself.
If that’s not tyranny, what is?
The public is quickly turning against Donnie and Andy on the ICE question despite Andy’s plea for understanding. And the whole mess has attracted the attention of Barr’s fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, who happens to be the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.
Paul told reporters that he favors “ICE getting dangerous criminals out of our cities.’’ Therefore he is not in favor of abolishing ICE as some, particularly on the Democratic side, have proposed.
“I am for restoring trust in ICE and the way you restore trust in ICE is immediately have an independent commission,’’ he said.
Before then, he had called three ICE officials to appear before his committee to address the situation.
“I think for people to have confidence in government and confidence in law enforcement in government we have to be very honest,’’ he said. “And I don’t think it’s honest to say he brandished a weapon. I don’ think it’s honest to say he assaulted officers Every American has seen this video now, most have…at every point in the video he retreats. Now I’m not saying he might not have been obnoxious, I’m not saying he might not have said obnoxious things. But he doesn’t even obstruct the traffic. He waves a car through in the middle of this. As they approach him he retreats. As they approach him again, he retreats. When a woman is shoved to the ground, that’s when he goes to help her up and that’s when he is grabbed from behind. At no point in time do I see an assault. And I don’t think anybody in America believes he was assaulting those officers. So, we have to tell the truth and I think at this point because there hasn’t been this honest approach to things I think what you’re going to have to have is an independent investigation.’’