by Bob Barr | Mar 16, 2026 | Townhall Article, Uncategorized |
TownhallEvery night we spend on this earth is a gift from God. But some nights are more special than others. Among the more special nights in my life are those spent in the company of Dave Keene, a friend and colleague of many years.Dave and I would visit, of course, during meetings of the NRA Board of Directors, where we both served for several years; those days were capped off usually by a good dinner, a cigar, and a bit of bourbon. They were the high points of whatever events had brought us together.But nights (and days) spent with Dave at his cabin on the banks of a tributary of the Missouri River (I think) were the truly special times.Dave was an avid and expert fly fisherman, and his cabin in Montana was the perfect venue from which he would enjoy this avocation. I was anything but an expert fly fisherman; most probably the worst Dave had ever tried to instruct. Whenever we headed out in his flatboat, usually in the early morning but sometimes late afternoon, Dave would patiently instruct me on the mechanics of fly fishing. He then would spend the next several hours tying replacement flies on my fishing line, as I would invariably lose the last one in the tree branches on the riverbank. No matter. The hours lazily drifting down the river provided the perfect opportunity for me to pepper Dave with questions about everything from current political goings on, to his work at the epicenter of the birth of the modern conservative movement in the 1960s (Dave was but a few years older than...
by Bob Barr | Feb 27, 2025 | Townhall Article |
TownhallFlareups pitting true, free-market advocates against crony capitalists are nothing new in our heavily regulated economy, with one of the latest battlefields involving fantasy sports companies.In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal law that long had made it illegal for consumers in the U.S. to bet on sports — the “Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act” (“PASPA”). Notwithstanding that marketplace victory, and as I wrote here a year ago, unhealthy relationships between state regulators and certain fantasy sports companies continue to cause problems for other, usually smaller companies. It should come as no surprise that at times these crony capitalist efforts are camouflaged as pro-market measures, the proverbial “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In a recent column, for example, a former GOP legislator wrote, “Lawmakers must recognize that not every industry requires federal interference—especially in sports betting.” While this statement appears broadly supportive of a free-market approach to fantasy sports betting — a position I happen to share — the real call to action by the author is revealed later in the opinion piece, and favors less, not more, market freedom.In fact, the author made it very clear that he’s a fan of the likes of “FanDuel, DraftKings, ESPN Bet, BetMGM, Fanatics, Bet365, and Caesars Sportsbook,” large companies that offer fantasy sports contests (skill-based games), traditional sports betting (straight sports gambling), or both. What he is curiously not a fan of are small fantasy sports upstarts that simply seek to continue servicing their many loyal customers and growing their businesses. Naturally, the big fantasy sports companies, such as DraftKings and FanDuel, which together control 70 percent of the marketplace, don’t like the upstarts...
by Bob Barr | Feb 13, 2025 | Townhall Article |
TownhallNowhere is the difference between the Biden Administration and that of Donald J. Trump in starker contrast than its approach to firearms and the Second Amendment to our Bill of Rights. The former President’s belief that the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed in that Amendment needed to be trimmed back was on display throughout his term in office. Biden even established in 2023 an office in the White House itself to identify and manage gun control policy actions — the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. While this office, ostensibly under the leadership of Vice President Kamala Harris, did nothing of actual substance during its short life span, it did serve to highlight the anti-Second Amendment mindset prevailing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump on the other hand, being an avid supporter of the Second Amendment, quickly upon assuming office directed new Attorney General Pam Bondi to undertake an immediate and comprehensive study of all steps taken by the Biden Administration that have the effect of infringing the Second Amendment — a road map for corrective actions over the next four years.To further illustrate his bona fides as a pro-Second Amendment President, Trump appointed Dave Warrington, a well-known firearms-rights advocate to serve as a presidential advisor in the White House. Trump’s break from Biden’s consistently displayed disdain for the firearms rights of law abiding citizens has been complete. Even among Republican administrations, the speed of Trump’s pro-Second Amendment policies has been unprecedented. For example, it took five years before former President George W. Bush marshalled the courage to finally agree in 2005 to support and sign the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” ...
by Bob Barr | Dec 19, 2024 | Townhall Article |
TownhallVerbally attack, or simply criticize in public transgenderism or the gay lifestyle, and you are roundly condemned as trans-phobic or homo-phobic. The term “pro-choice” is the favored moniker to describe those who favor legalized abortion rather than “pro-abortion.” Those who are opposed to abortion, whether on religious, moral, or political grounds, are demeaned as “anti-choice.” Thus is contemporary left-wing culture consumed with staking out their territory as guardians of lifestyles. Mass murders involving firearms become not examples of the need for culture control to identify and resolve cultural behaviors leading to the devaluation of life, but to the simplistic call for instrument control, that is, gun control. Virtually every incident involving gun violence, including most recently the December 16th shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, is headlined by President Biden as illustrating the need for “gun control” not as a call to protect “life.” This month, in perhaps the clearest yet personification of the Left’s disregard for principles of life, the alleged murderer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson is hailed as a true man of the people, a heroic persona even, deified to a degree Bonnie and Clyde could only hope to have aspired during their brief crime spree across America’s heartland during the bleak days of the Great Depression. Luigi Mangione is seen through this lens of his expanding social media savvy fans as “radiant,” an “American hero,” and a modern-day “Robin Hood” – a video sensation even as he is led in shackles into a jail facility in Pennsylvania while he awaits extradition to New York where the cold-blooded murder took place with Mangione allegedly shooting his pre-selected victim in the...
by Bob Barr | Nov 7, 2024 | Townhall Article |
TownhallHindsight may be 20-20, but it can be illustrative and reliable. Here are nine errors Kamala Harris should not have committed during the course of losing her admittedly truncated campaign.Above all, don’t define your campaign as one centered on “change” and then declare there was nothing at all you would change in your own record as vice president. I mean, who couldn’t see this one coming a mile away? Less than one month out from Election Day, Harris gleefully appeared on “The View” with its six uber-liberal glamour gals, and was thrown the softest of softball questions by co-hostess Sunny Hostin — “What, if anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” The whiff of her milquetoast answer that she would not have changed a thing reverberated all the way to her drubbing at Trump’s hands on Tuesday.You’re a “change agent” who wouldn’t “change” a thing? Kiddo, you deserve to lose on that one alone.But there’s more lessons to be learned here. Use celebrities sparingly and certainly don’t rely on them. Sure, voters, especially young ones, love celebrities like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Oprah Winfrey, and the host of others the Harris campaign trotted out over the four months of her campaign. But any campaign manager worth their salt will tell you that celebrities are like snowflakes – beautiful to look at but quickly melt. This lesson un-learned by Harris was especially obvious when compared to Trump’s campaign which wisely avoided playing the “look-at-me” celebrity card. Trump, after all, doesn’t need celebrities to burnish his image. Trump is his own celebrity. Speaking of celebrities, it is not a...
by Bob Barr | Oct 24, 2024 | Townhall Article |
TownhallIt is a time-honored tradition that high-ranking U.S. government officials are – a few easily surmountable legal limitations notwithstanding — permitted to cash in on their public service when they leave Uncle Sam and enter or reenter the private sector. Even modern-day presidents have done so; some more than others (can you say, the “Clinton Foundation?”), but all have gained significant wealth after leaving office.The circumstances involving Barack Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who apparently has signed on as a lawyer representing a Chinese drone-manufacturing corporation, however, raises concerns that go beyond post-public service profiteering and impact our national security. Not only is Lynch serving as an attorney for Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. (“DJI”) – the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial drones – but she has sued the U.S. Department of Defense on behalf of her Chinese client.This is troubling in a number of ways, most importantly because the Chinese drone manufacturing company DJI has for the past few years been listed by the Pentagon as a company with which our government should not deal, because of problematic relationships with the communist Chinese military. Apparently this is of less concern to our former attorney general that what is certain to be a significant retainer her firm is receiving for representing the company.The close relationship between “private” Chinese companies and the communist-controlled government in Beijing and its military arm, the People’s Liberation Army or “PLA,” is well-established and open to no real dispute. Despite superficial steps orchestrated by President Xi in recent years to appear more benign and market-oriented, according to experts these relationships in fact are more significant today than in years past. The...
