by Bob Barr | May 4, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThe Democrat Party in 2020 subjected the United States to a truly grave disservice by hiding from the American electorate candidate Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. The question now is, can the damage to the country be contained; a predicament we have not faced for more than a century, if ever.There were telltale signs of Biden’s slips during the last campaign, but as a candidate he still did well enough in the debates (where the bar has become increasingly low) and in his limited public appearances, such that it seemed he had enough left in the tank to get through at least one term. In hindsight, it is clear he was already running on fumes.It is no secret that the emotional and physical stress of the presidency will rapidly age whoever occupies the office, regardless of how young or old he or she may be. One only need look at the before and after pictures of George W. Bush or Barack Obama – both relatively young men when first elected – to see the changes eight years in the Oval Office will bring. Biden, who at 78 was the oldest ever to be inaugurated, was already at a distinct disadvantage even before having to deal with the simultaneous challenges of a pandemic, a cratering economy, serious national security challenges in Afghanistan, and now an actual war between an ally and an adversarial superpower. The burdens of the past 16 months have taken a visible toll and we are not yet near the incumbent’s first term midpoint. His noticeable absences from key moments on the world stage has America leading from behind, and if...
by Bob Barr | Apr 27, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallTexas is home to the Alamo. It has given America such patriotic heroes as Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, both of whom died at the Alamo. Iconic business entrepreneurs, such as Ross Perot and Boone Pickens rose to riches in Texas. Many license plate frames warn tailgaters, “Don’t Mess With Texas.” Everything about Texas was over-sized, including its rugged individualism.But things are changing, and not in favor of the Lone Star State’s cowboy legacy. Earlier this month, for example, the Houston City Council approved an ordinance forcing businesses, including bars, nightclubs, sexually oriented businesses, convenience stores, and game rooms, to install exterior security cameras and government-approved lighting, and turn over captured video footage to law enforcement on demand and without any warrant. An ordinance like this would not be a shock were it enacted by Nanny Staters in New York City or San Francisco, but in Texas? Even considering the liberalism that has taken hold in almost every major American city today, a privacy-invasive ordinance such as this becoming law in Texas illustrates just how far leftward the state has shifted. Storied Texas politician Billy Clayton once said, “A born Texan has instilled in his system a mindset of no retreat or no surrender” – clearly not a political perspective that would succumb to a city government’s mandate forcing private businesses to serve as snoops for the police. It would be easy to blame policies such as this on the influx of refugees from California, or the hipsters who frolic in Austin, but it is not just urban liberals who are pushing Texas into the arms of Big Brother. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has revealed himself to be...
by Bob Barr | Apr 25, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerFew people realize that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was founded in the immediate aftermath of World War II for a limited and very specific purpose – to eradicate malaria. In recent decades, however, the Atlanta-based bureaucracy has become the poster child for regulatory mission creep.Its huge regulatory wings need to be clipped.CDC was established in 1946 to attack and control malaria, which at the time was endemic in the southern United States (hence the agency’s being headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, rather than Washington, D.C.). The bureaucracy set out to accomplish its limited mission with 369 employees and a budget of $1 million. The CDC actually was quite successful at eradicating malaria as a significant health concern, largely by attacking breeding areas for mosquitos with the insecticide DDT (which, since the early 1970s has been banned by the EPA).After achieving its statutorily defined goal within a few years, like any worthy bureaucracy, the leadership of the CDC set about searching for new responsibilities to assume, and for which – of course – more taxpayer funding was needed. Thus was launched one of the great examples of government “mission creep.”From that early staff of 369 employees, the CDC has mushroomed into a sprawling bureaucratic behemoth with myriad components, populated by more than 21,000 full-time employees and a budget as proposed for FY 2023 of nearly $47.5 billion. Along the way it has managed to pull into its bureaucratic orbit such non-disease related responsibilities as traffic accidents, obesity, and, of course, gun control.The bureaucratic staying power wielded by the CDC is best illustrated in the fact that, despite repeated and successful efforts by Republican-led...
