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Monthly Archives

August 2015

BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Trump is the GOP’s Rosemarys Baby

by lgadmin August 19, 2015
written by lgadmin

In a matter of only two months, business mogul and Reality-TV eccentric Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has gone from “a collective eye roll and a laugh” (Washington Post, June 16th) to a “Trump Tsunami” (Time.com, August 17th). His meteoric rise from quaint outsider to front-runner has left his Republican challengers scratching their heads in disbelief; with GOP apparatchiks bemoaning what was shaping up to be a gentlemanly and substantive duel between an Establishment candidate (read, “Jeb Bush”) and several sort-of-Establishment, and non-Establishment candidates (read, “everyone else”), turning into a bar room brawl, in which Trump is winning.

While the GOP ponders the why and how of Trump’s ascendancy, in reality, the party need look no further than the closest mirror. Trump is the GOP’s Rosemary’s Baby — a phenomenon of the Republican Party’s own making; the result of years of failed leadership, broken promises and spineless decisions.

As Pogo said eloquently, “we have met the enemy and it is us.”

Leaders of the GOP inside and outside the Washington Beltway can blame Trump all they want for the deep-seated rage that is his fuel. But such blame falls hollow at Trump’s feet; he did not create this acrid environment — they did. Trump is simply taking advantage of it. In a sense, it was only a matter of time before someone came along with the unbridled chutzpah and unlimited money of a Donald Trump, to cash in on the anti-Establishment anger that has long-simmered among the voting electorate.

In fact, a Donald Trump was forewarned us a century ago by the political satirist, H. L. Mencken. As the acid-tongued essayist from Baltimore noted, in an emotionally-driven and rationality-starved environment such as we find ourselves in today, “all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.”

To restate the obvious, Trump is not a conservative; he barely qualifies as a Republican. He is, as the National Review’s Charles Cooke pointed out recently in a debate with Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, “a man in the Republican debate who praises single-payer . . . [who is] still talking about funding Planned Parenthood . . . who has flip-flopped perhaps on the wealth tax and on gun control . . . who on any other circumstances, would have been laughed at through the primary.” The problem for the GOP is, these are not any other circumstances; these are circumstances tailor-made for a candidate like Trump, who is a master of knowing how to game the masses – and the conservative media itself — for the purposes of raising his own profile.

This is no longer the stuff of entertainment. Trump has become dangerously viable.

And what exactly has he offered in exchange for this outpouring of support?

He proudly refuses to offer substance; avoiding interviews that may actually challenge him to provide a fact-based vision for a Trump Administration. He proclaims himself the “world’s greatest negotiator,” but what does he “negotiate” aside from self-aggrandizement and fulfillment? He mouths inane statements loudly and repeatedly – such as “forcing” Mexico to pay for the massive and impenetrable border wall he will construct — and crowds cheer him because he “doesn’t back down” and “tells it like it is.” Doesn’t “back down” from telling what“like it is” — nonsensical blustering?

And still, people of otherwise rational mind flock to him because “he isn’t a politician”; as if not being a “politician” is now far more important than possessing a philosophy guided by the Constitution and a commitment to individual freedom.

Perhaps this is what Trumps represents most of all — not a reflection of “discontent” among conservatives, but the willingness of so-called “conservatives” to abandon all semblance of logic, reason, and fidelity to the values that first“made America great,” in exchange for whomever simply barks the loudest that they will “make America great again.”

This signals a depressing shift in what we value as intellectual and moral leadership in the conservative movement; where we no longer are guided by the scholarly wisdom from the likes of William F. Buckley, but instead by the facile and superficial talking points mouthed by high-paid pundits. In this landscape devoid of high ideas and understanding, it is “The Donald,” not Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, who serves as the standard bearer for “rebellion” against the status quo.

This is not progress. It is regression; and further serves the point that Mencken was trying to make — that as the mob continues to feed upon its hysteria, eventually it “will reach [its] heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Whether the GOP can stem this tide by changing its ways, thereby putting an end the source of unrest among its voters, is a question that goes to the very heart of what the Republican Party stands for . . . if anything.

Originally published here via townhall.com

August 19, 2015 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

“Animasgate” Highlights EPA Double Standard

by lgadmin August 12, 2015
written by lgadmin

President Ronald Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator” for his remarkable ability to distill complex political and philosophical principles into one-liners that virtually any audience or political leader could understand. For example, when speaking to representatives of the Future Farmers of America on what happens when the government becomes involved in agriculture, Reagan famously quipped, “The 10 most dangerous words in the English language are, ‘Hi, I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.’”

Today, as orange water saturated with toxic contaminants flows down the Animas River from Colorado towards the farmlands of the Southwest — because of a blunder by federal workers — the words of the “Gipper” ring louder than ever.

The environmental disaster unfolding in Colorado is one of the worst since the 2010 “BP Oil Spill” in the Gulf of Mexico. This time, however, it is the federal government — more specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency – that is responsible for the mess. While poking around the old Gold King Mine in Colorado as part of a “clean up program,” EPA crews broke through a retaining barrier. The breach released some three million gallons of heavy metal-laden water into the river, which flows into New Mexico and from there into the vast San Juan River Basin.

Compounding the problem of the spill itself is the EPA’s slowness in admitting to and detailing the scope of the disaster, including how much toxic sludge was actually released and the extent of the risk to citizens and lands downstream in both the short-term and, more importantly, the long-term hazards. Without a private sector company or citizen to blame, the EPA is loath to hold itself accountable, or to practice the transparency it so often demands of the private sector.

The EPA downplays its environmental blunder that has become “Animasgate” as merely “trigger[ing] a large release of mine wastewater.” The Agency presents itself as a victim in a “tragedy” with which we should sympathize because it is, after all, so “hard being on the other side.” Well, boo hoo!

Compare this “woe is me” scenario to the vitriolic attacks by the federal government against BP following the Gulf Oil Leak five years ago, when no mercy was shown to the corporation that was responsible for the accidental spill. The Department of Justice blasted BP’s “culture of . . . profit over prudence” and accused it of “gross negligence”; the Securities and Exchange Commission charged BP with “hid[ing] critical information simply because it fears the backlash”; and, the EPA temporarily banned BP from new government contracts, citing the company’s “lack of business integrity.”

The double standard so blatantly on display in this instance by the feds, is made worse by the fact that the government can not only levy huge fines against companies (or individuals) who violate environmental regulations and laws, but can pound them with criminal charges as well. However, when the shoe is on the other foot, and it is Uncle Sam’s bureaucrats who are at fault, how are they to be held to account? What incentive does EPA have to do what it demanded of BP – to spare no cost in rectifying the problem to the government’s satisfaction; and to do so with absolute transparency and repeated admissions of guilt.

Even our judicial system offers little hope to the victims of the Animas River Spill; because it is so institutionally rigged in favor of the government.

At least when corporations are the agents of environmental disasters, those adversely affected have recourse in the courts. Not so with government agencies, which largely are shielded from being subject to lawsuits through doctrines such as sovereign immunity. There is, in effect, an inverse relationship between giving government agencies, including EPA, more power, and making it accountable for the use (or abuse) of those powers.

The far Left may claim a moral monopoly on protecting the environment, but none of its pro-regulation, anti-business “solutions” to environmental woes have done anything more than empower government to punish those who defy its demands, while insulating itself from culpability when it cannot live up to those same standards.

While neither the mainstream media nor the political arms of the Left would ever admit, it is conservatives who possess a far more legitimate claim to being leaders in the fight to protect the environment. From the tens of millions of hunters, farmers, outdoorsmen, and others who have a personal stake in conserving and protecting America’s natural resources, to entrepreneurs like Tesla’s Elon Musk who are pioneering the future of renewable energy — it will be the free market that delivers the tools, technology, and ideas used to improve our world. And, as Reagan stated so eloquently decades ago, the private sector’s potential for good is limited only by the government’s desire to “help” it along.

With “help” such as provided by EPA last week in Colorado, the country – and the environment — would be far better off if Uncle Sam just stayed home.

Originally published here via townhall.com

August 12, 2015 0 comment
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