by Bob Barr | Aug 11, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallFrom the onset of COVID, the World Health Organization (WHO) proved itself unfit for the task of managing a global pandemic. This was not for lack of funding or of access to international experts on virology and disease; the organization had plenty of both. The WHO’s abject failure stemmed from its decision at the very start that its most important mission was to help Beijing save face over China’s role in the outbreak. With this goal in mind, the leadership intentionally downplayed any critical information about the virus that might be damaging to China’s international reputation.It is impossible for us to ever really know what China’s actions cost the international community, by both initially hiding the COVID-19 outbreak and then interfering with efforts to study the virus during its early spread. A safe guess, however, would be millions of lives and trillions of dollars. As for WHO, it simply watched China set the house on fire, then blocked fire fighters from getting to the scene. WHO’s role in helping China with this cover-up earned it a long-overdue rebuke by the Trump administration, which promised to pull U.S. funding from yet another international forum for anti-Americanism. Predictably, President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s efforts to defund WHO, but not because the organization has finally got its act together. In fact, with a recent announcement from WHO supporting a moratorium on COVID-19 vaccine boosters in the United States, the interests of WHO and those of the United States could not be more divergent.Were WHO a neutral, public health-focused agency not controlled by outside bad actors, the call for a booster moratorium could be viewed as a misguided but earnest...
by Bob Barr | Aug 9, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerIn the most recent and clearest sign yet that the Biden administration has not the slightest regard for the Constitution or the Supreme Court of the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued another ban on the ability of landlords to evict renters who fail to meet their rental obligations.Issued on August 3, the CDC’s latest move to void rental contracts for at least two more months is fraught with constitutional error, but such problems are of little importance to this administration because, in the view of CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, it “is the right thing to do.”“The right thing to do” has become the justification for many modern presidents to sweep aside the foundational constitutional principle that the powers of the federal government are, in the words of Founder James Madison, “few and defined” and do not include mass voidance of lawful private contracts.The zeal with which Biden is taking advantage of the so-called COVID “emergency” to extend the powers of the federal government into areas in which it has no proper responsiobility, puts his predecessors to shame. One of this administration’s favored tools, but certainly not its only one, is to issue orders prohibiting landlords from evicting renters. The argument put forward in support of this dictatorial power is that allowing landlords to enforce rental contracts will dramatically exacerbate the spread of COVID.The government’s argument that evictions will lead to “new spikes in [COVID] transmission” is premised on the self-proclaimed notion that evicted renters necessarily will move into “congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads.” In the further opinion of the CDC director, such a...
by Bob Barr | Aug 4, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallRatings for the Olympics are at record lows, and it is no surprise why. Between the anti-American protests of some U.S. athletes, and the empty stands that make the competition feel hollow and flat, Americans are just not catching the Olympic spirit this year. It certainly did not help when Simone Biles, America’s top Olympic gymnast, threw in the towel in the middle of her sport’s biggest competition and on the world’s biggest stage.For America, a country built on hard work, sacrifice, and a “never quit” attitude, Biles’ exit was a slap in the face to the quintessential “grit” that pioneered the very country she represented. Even more ironic, she quit not in an individual event where the fallout would impact only herself, but in the team final when her team was counting on her the most. Some say Biles did not owe “us” anything, and that she was right to do what was “best for her.” Therein lies the problem, reflective of a corrosive selfishness in athletic competition where individual “o.k.-ness” is the highest priority. Contrary to the unsurprising gushing of marshmallow soft liberals, this psychobabble kumbaya spirit does not refect “strength,” but rather textbook weakness which in decades past was afforded no place in American sports.Now, in the Age of Me, this phenomenon is being celebrated; for instance, rewarding tennis pro Naomi Osaka following her sudden withdrawal from the French Open for “mental health” reasons after ditching a press conference. Her actions netted her cover spreads in major magazines, complete with the quintessential woke headline, “IT’S O.K. NOT TO BE O.K.” This fawning coverage of the disgruntled prima...
