by Bob Barr | Feb 17, 2021 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Next month will mark effectively one-year suffering under the COVID-19 virus. Here is the good, bad, and ugly about what we have learned about ourselves, and our country, when the chips are down. The Good: Free Markets. With the exception of the genuinely unforeseeable panic-buying of paper supplies and disinfectants during COVID’s initial days, the free market did an outstanding job rising to meet spikes in demand. A flurry of new products hit the market, helping to fix product shortages of crucial items. Even breweries and distilleries, crippled by government-mandated closures, stepped up to make hand sanitizer at a time when supplies were strained. Most astoundingly, thanks to advancements in internet broadband technology (the result of keeping government out of the way by Republicans fighting odious regulatory measures like “Net Neutrality”), tens of millions of Americans were able to instantly pivot to “remote” work, saving the economy from certain collapse as government attempted to shut down virtually all in-person business. However, the crowning achieve of the private sector during COVID was its development of COVID vaccines at historic speed, thanks to both technological developments and a demand by the Trump Administration that bureaucrats step out of the way as much as possible. Additionally, the private sector is developing not just vaccines at record speeds, but advanced treatment methods like synthetic monoclonal antibodies as well, which will potentially address new COVID variants far quicker than developing new vaccines – saving countless lives over the years. None of these things would have been possible even a few years ago but are today only through private sector innovation and a push to rollback regulatory red tape. The...
by Bob Barr | Feb 15, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Although our Founders correctly recognized that the overriding responsibility of the president is to secure our liberties by “protect[ing] and defend[ing] the Constitution,” in this modern era most Americans likely would consider that the most important job of the president is to serve as “commander-in-chief” of the armed forces, and thereby protect the nation’s security. If so, the new Biden administration is establishing a rather odd vision for how the Department of Defense will meet its responsibilities in this regard. The national defense priorities of this administration, as revealed in public documents issued already by the president and his chosen Secretary of Defense, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, reflect a sharp departure from his recent predecessors and from historic norms.In one of his first executive orders, Biden chose to exercise his power as commander-in-chief not to affirm or reaffirm the need for a strong military defense against our nation’s adversaries or to announce an important national security initiative as a way to send a message to a particular adversary. No, the most important national security issue on the mind of the new president, insofar as official public pronouncements reveal, is protection of transgenderism in the military. This was affirmed in presidential Executive Order No.14004 signed just five days after he assumed office.At the Pentagon, the first publicly revealed priorities regarding the operation of the world’s most powerful military under the Biden Administration were similarly unusual.On Jan. 29, four days after Biden’s transgender executive order, Secretary Austin followed with a military-wide order that all restrictions on transgenderism would be lifted, at least pending a thorough review of this...
by Bob Barr | Feb 12, 2021 | Uncategorized |
FullMAGnewsAs I wrote last week, the Biden administration is just getting warmed up when it comes to attacks on the Second Amendment. In fact, Biden will test the Second Amendment like never before in U.S. history; both in the ferocity of attacks, and in finding new ways and methods to undermine its place in American culture. Making matters worse, conservatives are woefully underprepared to properly defend it.This is the central thesis of my report on firearms published this month at The Heritage Foundation. In it, I assert the current “needs-based” defense of the Second Amendment not only is inadequate to withstand today’s onslaught by Democrats but also fundamentally misinterprets the spirit of the Amendment. Instead, conservatives must learn to defend the Second Amendment as their natural right; one that is far beyond the reach of gun-grabbers at all levels of government.Consider what is the most common response from liberals when arguing whether a particular firearm or accessory is covered by the Second Amendment’s guarantee. It is almost always some version of, “nobody needs that;” as if there is some unwritten, but obvious list indicating which specific items are protected by the Amendment and which are not.The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban was based on the argument that citizens did not “need” modern sporting rifles; a sentiment that persists to this day, long after the legislation expired a decade later. Bans on high-capacity magazines and certain types of ammunition, monthly limits on purchases of firearms, and similar legislative efforts are all premised on the same justification of a perceived lack of “need” by law-abiding citizens.Kevin Drum, a contributor to Mother Jones, encapsulated the extremes to which...
by Bob Barr | Feb 10, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
TownhallMore consequential than 10 Republican House members voting last month to impeach former President Trump, was this month’s vote by 11 GOP members to strip their colleague, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of her committee assignments. The freshman member had been targeted by Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat majority because she had – before her election last November – engaged in social media communications that ran afoul of today’s political orthodoxy. The fact that 11 GOP members voted with the Democrats and against a Republican, reveals serious leadership, unity, and discipline problems within GOP ranks.But first, to the impeachment vote. Many Republicans understandably were upset that 10 GOP House members broke ranks and voted to impeach Trump during his final days in office. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was singled out for especially harsh rebuke because she occupies one of the top leadership positions in her Party’s caucus.If one considers what happened on January 6th not objectively, but in the light most adverse to the former President, one could construct an argument that something he said or did provoked the violence that occurred on Capitol Hill that day. It boils down to questions of opinion, bias, and perspective. As is their prerogative, 10 Republicans decided to adopt this view and vote for impeachment, a decision for which they will have to answer to their constituents.On the other hand, the highly unusual vote by the full House on February 4th stripping Ms. Greene of her new committee assignments, had nothing to do with evidence, ethics, competence, or legalities. The vote was simply a move by the Democrat majority to punish a new GOP member. There was no evidence or even an...
by Bob Barr | Feb 9, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller America’s true “Greatest Generation” won our nation’s independence only after a costly and bloody war against Great Britain. It took eight years and many thousands of lives, but when the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, the United States was a nation no longer subject to the arbitrary and absolute royal decrees issued by King George III. Now, 238 years later, we are reverting to a nation governed by the modern version of royal decrees – executive orders.The painstakingly crafted Constitution that formalized our representative democracy in 1788 has continued a tripartite government of checks and balances essential to prevent any one branch from exercising unbridled power. Despite this system having withstood all manner of challenges, there now is a very real danger that the unprecedented use of executive orders by President Joe Biden to bypass the legislative branch will seriously, if not irreparably, damage our constitutional framework.George Washington, our first and in many respects our best president, truly understood the system he helped create, and was genuinely loath to overstep those constitutional checks and balances. For example, during his two terms in office, Washington issued only eight executive orders. This is an astoundingly small number, considering that his near God-like popularity and the lack of any limiting precedents gave him the practical power to have used the executive order extensively to rule as he might have wished.To one degree or another, most presidents since then have followed this tradition, using the executive order and other unilateral presidential missives for the limited purposes for which they have been recognized; that is, as a tool to administer the executive...
