by Bob Barr | Feb 27, 2025 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Flareups 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...
by Bob Barr | Feb 13, 2025 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Nowhere 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...
by Bob Barr | Feb 6, 2025 | Uncategorized |
The Hill A January 2025 report by Unusual Whales, a financial data platform for retail traders, revealed how members of Congress once again beat average market returns last year. Not surprisingly, debate has resurfaced in Washington about whether it is time to pass legislation, such as that proposed by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), to ban stock trading by elected representatives. Ossoff has championed this issue in one form or another since first being elected to the Senate in 2020, and its current, bipartisan permutation, the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, reflects a principle with which I and a large majority of the American electorate agree. However, as former presidential candidate Ross Perot famously opined, “the devil is in the details.” By any reasoned standard, government officials profiting from the regulations and laws they help enact constitutes a serious ethical issue. The magnitude of this problem was revealed starkly last September, when it was reported that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband sold 2,000 shares of Visa stock for $500,000 just weeks before the Justice Department sued the company’s debit card business in a lawsuit many legal experts consider unjustified. The actions by Mr. Pelosi ignited increased public concern that officials may be using their positions, and the inside information they obtain as a result, to influence the market for their own benefit. It is not just Pelosi’s husband who appears to be a beneficiary of such maneuvering. The new Unusual Whales report shows that in 2024 one member of Congress gained an eye-popping 149 percent in stock trades — more than 124 percent greater than the S&P 500’s 2024 benchmark. While this report highlights the significance of this potential conflict of interest problem, an outright ban...
by Bob Barr | Jan 17, 2025 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller It needs to be said loud and clear: murder is not a “policy choice.” Grotesquely, however, socialized medicine advocates are taking advantage of the December 4th slaying in New York City of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to press their policy agenda. A Generation Lab poll released last week found that 50% of college students — a demographic largely conditioned by social media — viewed accused killer Luigi Mangione either “extremely” or “somewhat” favorably. Only 19% thought the same of Thompson. In the background of such disinformation are such books as “Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans,” by Wendell Potter, Cigna’s former Vice President of Corporate Communications. In 2024, Cigna was the sixth-largest health insurance company in America, with $195 billion in revenue. Among other things, the book instructed health executives how to survive an “ambush” interview by leftwing documentary propagandist Michael Moore, whose 2007 film “Sicko” praised Fidel Castro’s communist medical system, and itself became a major impetus for the 2010 passage of the increasingly troubled Obamacare system. As Peter Suderman wrote last month in Reason Magazine, Obamacare’s high costs to participants hit hard because “it required coverage of a slew of federally mandated essential health benefits, regardless of whether those benefits were needed or wanted.” Then, a spendthrift Congress (one of many) uncapped benefit subsidies in 2021 with the “American Rescue Plan Act” during the COVID-19 pandemic, and again in 2022 with the “Inflation Reduction Act.” Those actions allowed “households making up to $350,000 a year in some cases, to obtain subsidized coverage, at a cost of about $30 billion to $40 billion annually.”...
by Bob Barr | Dec 26, 2024 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Writer Greg Steinmetz titled his 2015 book chronicling the life of Sixteenth Century German financier Jacob Fugger, “The Richest Man Who Ever Lived.” Whether a biography centuries from now will describe Elon Musk in similarly grandiose terms, as his contemporaries we will never know. Suffice to say, however, that this richest of men in this first quarter of the 21st Century will have left his mark as one of the era’s most influential individuals. Elon Musk actually shares much in common with Jacob Fugger, notwithstanding their very different geopolitical worlds. Both Fugger and Musk are risk-takers. Both are bold and self-assured. As noted by Fugger’s biographer, the German money lender was bold to the point of being imperious. Even more to the point perhaps, while Fugger is described by Steinmetz as one of the true architects of modern capitalism, Musk is one its most apt students, having parlayed a sound upbringing in South Africa into a business empire the components of which touch virtually every sector of government and business around the world (and beyond); including most notably the social media giant X (formerly Twitter), Tesla as the world’s preeminent proponent of electric-powered vehicles, and SpaceX which is leading the long-overdue revitalization of America’s space effort. Fugger in his time was despised by components of what we would today accurately describe as The Establishment, especially the then-massively powerful Roman Catholic Church. In fact, Fugger’s exercise of his financial prowess and power brought the Pope to his knees and forced the Church to reverse centuries of dogma and permit what had previously been officially taboo – charging interest for loans. In...
