by Bob Barr | Mar 9, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Thirty-two years ago, in his final State of the Union address, Ronald Reagan described America as the “shining city on a hill.” That characterization of the United States was accurate then and it is accurate today, though according to a nonpartisan analysis of human freedom around the globe, our shine has lost some of its luster.The CATO institute in Washington, DC recently published its annual Human Freedom Index, according to which the United States dropped nine points, and now qualifies as only the 17th freest county among 162 nations ranked. New Zealand, Switzerland and Hong Kong continue to hold the top three spots as the freest countries on earth, with Venezuela, Sudan and Syria holding the dubious distinction as the least free. Japan and Estonia are among the nations whose citizens fared better than did ours in the encyclopedic survey.The data on which this 2020 index is based is from 2018, insofar as that is the most recent year for which comprehensive data was available to CATO. Looking ahead to 2019 and 2020, there is little reason to expect New Zealand or Switzerland to lose their coveted positions atop the list, as there have been no significant economic or political policy changes in either country as would likely affect their status, at least relative to other countries. For Hong Kong, however, it would not be surprising to see its top-three ranking suffer as a result of crackdowns over the past two years by the parent regime in Communist China on the degree of liberty that had been enjoyed by Hong Kong’s businesses and citizens.CATO’s analysts consider a dozen indices of...
by Bob Barr | Mar 1, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller As recounted by Lewis Carroll in his timeless parody “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Alice discovers her surroundings to be “curiouser and curiouser.” In many ways, the fictitious world conjured by Carroll more than a century and a half ago aptly describes the state of affairs in our nation’s capital after only the first weeks of the Biden Administration. The speed with which the new administration and its Democrat cohorts in both houses of the Congress are undermining substantive historic and common-sense norms of behavior and law, is deeply disturbing. For nearly two months now, since the violence on Capitol Hill in early January, Washington, D.C., has been turned into an armed compound. Thousands of armed military personnel patrol its streets, and miles of razor wire and metal fencing encircle the Capitol building itself and several blocks in every direction. This militarization of the Capitol, clearly with the approval of the president himself, is not only unprecedented but pointless from a substantive security standpoint, insofar as no threat as might come close to warrant such massive response has been cited and no evidence in support thereof has been produced.But what has been happening inside that secured perimeter is stranger still.Just last week, for example, Merrick Garland, nominated by Biden to serve as the next attorney general of the United States, stated with quite a straight face that he simply was unable to decide whether the act of entering our country illegally should remain an unlawful act. Other matters clearly appropriate on which a nominee for this high office would have views, confounded him as well.At the very same confirmation hearing...
by Bob Barr | Feb 22, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Governments hate Bitcoin. In fact, several countries, including China with the world’s second largest economy, prohibit its use for transactions in their country or banking systems. While the U.S. government has not joined the ranks of nations banning Bitcoin, it has made clear in recent years that it does not like the so-called “cryptocurrency.” Why is Bitcoin, the most well-known cryptocurrency or “convertible virtual currency” (CVC), so disliked by the government? Uncle Sam and his counterparts in many other countries dislike such digital currency for the simple reason it is virtually impossible to control; and if there is one thing any government loves above all else, it is control.In a move designed to gain at least some measure of control over Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the Treasury Department is proposing a federal regulation that would require banks and other “money service businesses” (MSBs) to file reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or “FinCEN,” whenever they engage in a cryptocurrency transaction above $3,000. MSBs include not only traditional banks and credit unions, but also casinos, stock brokerages, mortgage companies and insurance companies, among other businesses.Requiring financial institutions to file reports with FinCEN is nothing new. Such businesses for decades have been required to file what are known as “Suspicious Activity Reports” or “SARs” whenever a customer engages in a transaction that appears to be, you guessed it, “suspicious.”The extremely broad and vague nature of what might constitute a “suspicious transaction” by a banking customer, for example, and the fact that MSBs are prohibited by law from telling their customers that their transactions have been flagged and reported...
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 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...
