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 | Feb 6, 2025 | Uncategorized |
The HillA 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 on members trading stocks...
by Bob Barr | Jan 17, 2025 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerIt 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.” The subsidies expire at the end...
