by Bob Barr | Mar 4, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com For nearly three-quarters of a century, America’s taxpayers have given tens of billions of dollars to an agency of the federal government charged expressly with identifying, controlling and preventing diseases. Yet, despite having faced numerous disease outbreaks in those decades – from malaria in the post-World War II southern states, to SARS, avian flu and Ebola outbreaks in recent years – the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) appears to have been woefully unprepared to respond to the still-developing COVID-19, or “Coronavirus,” that sprang out of mainland China at the end of last year. Predictably, Democrats are almost gleefully pointing to President Trump’s departmental reorganization and funding cuts for the CDC in 2018 as the reason for the agency’s anemic response to COVID-19’s rapid spread. The root cause of the problems at CDC are not of Trump’s making, however, and go far deeper than any recent administrative changes or funding decisions. The CDC for years has suffered from a problem common to government agencies everywhere – “mission creep”; whereby an agency and congressional appropriators deliberately keep expanding its responsibilities in order to justify bigger and bigger budgets. In the case of CDC, this is reflected in the range of non-disease related responsibilities it has championed in recent years; everything from school bullying to workplace accidents and, most notably, gun control. Such institutional expansionism, however, comes at a price; and here it is a loss of focus and priority to what once was the core responsibility of the CDC – control and prevention of diseases. Trump’s three-year long effort to reform federal regulatory and policy functions across...
by Bob Barr | Jan 22, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com The list of reasons Iran should not become a nuclear nation is lengthy; but recent events present the starkest reason yet why that must never happen. In the broadest sense, nuclear power should not belong to a nation that openly talks about eliminating an entire race of people from the planet. Rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, Iran’s theocratic regime clearly cannot be trusted to use such power only for deterrent purposes. The recent downing of a civilian aircraft by its military forces serves as a glaringly obvious, practical reason why Iran must never gain access to military nuclear technology — incompetence. Contrary to the visage of Iran as a mega-presence on the world stage (a view regularly promoted by the regime’s leaders), the country is not a formidable military presence by modern standards. Our Defense Intelligence Agency notes that the Iranian regime in recent years has emphasized military improvements to its forces. However, as a result of embargoes on foreign-produced technology, such improvements have been hamstrung by sanctions and internal financial troubles. Iran’s once modern air force now is comprised of aging fighter jets, and its ballistic missile arsenal – the backbone of its military power – includes many that the DIA believes to be old and inaccurate. As calculated by the military-tracking organization GlobalFirePower.com, Iran’s military power ranks 14th in the world, behind countries such as Egypt and Brazil. While the military threat posed by Iran is not one to be taken lightly, it is not one that warrants the same degree of concern as Russia’s or China’s. Iran’s offensive strength lies in its ability and predisposition to engage in asymmetrical warfare;...
by Bob Barr | Jan 6, 2020 | Townhall Article |
The Daily Caller You can hear it already — calls by congressional Democrats to declare that the manner by which President Trump, as our country’s commander in chief, approved a military strike against Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a known and active operational terrorist leader, should not only be condemned but possibly provide the basis for yet another article of impeachment. Yes, the partisan hatred of Trump by the Democratic Party, led by its crop of presidential wannabes, appears to be sinking to this level — that our country’s commander in chief was not only wrong in approving the drone strike against Iran’s top terrorist commander based on sound and timely intelligence, but that in so doing he may have committed acts constituting grounds for removal from office. While none of the Democratic presidential candidates has yet called openly and explicitly for an inquiry of impeachment based on last week’s military action against Soleimani, as a group they have pounced eagerly on the matter in public appearances and in social media statements, openly critical of the military act itself as well as the fact that Trump did not brief congressional Democratic leaders prior to the strike. The babbling by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about the strike that killed Soleimani is easy to disregard; reflecting the ignorance of U.S. law and national security that has become the hallmark of her social media rants. The bloviating by presidential candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, however, are more troubling. Each of them, by virtue of their positions — a former vice president,...
by Bob Barr | Dec 4, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com For the first time in nearly a decade, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case directly involving the Second Amendment. Not since McDonald v. Chicago in 2010 has the High Court taken up a gun rights case, despite several opportunities to further clarify its landmark decisions in that case and the Heller opinion two years earlier. Conservatives, however, would be well advised to hold off uncorking the champagne bottles. While the case at hand, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, appears ripe for a favorable ruling especially as the Court has shifted to the right since 2010, such an outcome must first overcome several hurdles. Most important is the question of whether the Court will even issue a ruling now that New York has struck the offending law from the books, arguably making the case moot, and thereby sidestepping any strengthening of the McDonald and Heller rulings. Before the City’s clever move repealing the law, it prohibited licensed gun owners from transporting an unloaded and stowed firearm from the home to ranges or dwellings outside the city limits. Conservatives, however, point to troublesome remnants of the revamped ordinance as reasons for a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court. Also problematic is the fact that the City could reinstate the statute as quickly as it earlier repealed it. The nuanced and highly specific nature of the case also makes it less likely that the Court, even if it were to issue a ruling, would hand down the broad support for gun rights that Heller and McDonald failed to deliver. Instead, like those two cases, it is just as likely...
by Bob Barr | Oct 16, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com If a college student today was asked on an exam to explain what a “Star Chamber” was, the answer would be far likelier to have something to do with the “Star Wars” saga than to include any reference to the notoriously corrupt system of secret judicial proceedings that prevailed in England from the late 15th Century through the mid-17th. However, if the student’s answer noted that the impeachment proceedings now being orchestrated in the House of Representatives by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team of inquisitors bore a clear resemblance to Star Chamber proceedings, you would have to give that student at least a passing grade. Students of British history would know as well that Star Chamber proceedings were conducted by Privy Counsellors and common-law judges according to arbitrary standards of “justice.” While such positions as Privy Counsellors are not found in 21st Century American government, the manner by which House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is proceeding in his effort to impeach President Trump, bears a striking resemblance to those British “jurists” of long ago. His colleague Jerry Nadler, who chairs the Judiciary Committee and also has targeted the President for removal, would fit the characterization just as nicely. As with the Star Chambers of old, Schiff has shown a clear preference for conducting the business of investigating a sitting president in secret. He is able to do this because the committee he chairs is charged with conducting essential oversight of the federal government’s sprawling Intelligence Community, and dealing with the often highly-classified information necessary to carry out that responsibility. The Committee, which was established in the...
by Bob Barr | Aug 7, 2019 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com The dual mass shootings last weekend exposed two uncomfortable truths. First, there is a cancerous undercurrent of extremism in our society; and second, this phenomenon is not relegated to one side of the political spectrum or the other. In El Paso, the shooter killed in the name of white supremacy. In Dayton, the killer previously praised the violence of Antifa. Law enforcement agencies and legislative bodies at the federal, state, and local levels now must address whether new authorities are needed, more funding made available, or simply better enforcement of existing powers required; in order to cope with the rising tide of murders that affect families and communities from Chicago to Texas and from California to Baltimore. But there is a vital role political leaders can and must play, in addressing the extremist and violence-oriented thinking that clearly is grabbing the minds and hands of far too many American men. Trump’s initial address to the nation Monday in the immediate aftermath of the El Paso and Dayton rampages, was appropriate — as a first step. The brevity of the statement was fitting; his visits to the cities-in-mourning respectful and proper. What follows in the coming days and weeks, however, is far more consequential and important, and can emanate only from the Oval Office – a forceful and unequivocal denunciation of extremism in all its horrible visages, and especially white nationalism. It should not have to be said, but it does — there is absolutely no place for white nationalism or racism of any kind within the conservative movement or the Republican Party at any level. For too...
