by Bob Barr | Apr 29, 2019 | Townhall Article |
The Washington TimesThe world is changing, and in the “Internet Age” the pace of change is relentless. Examples abound of victims of such change.Kodak — the company that less than a generation ago was the world leader in providing film for the ubiquitous 35mm cameras around the necks of tourists from San Francisco to Cairo — is a pale shadow of its former self. Landline telephone companies that for over a century provided the primary communications link for families through two world wars, the Great Depression and the advent of the Space Age, is today a virtual technology dinosaur.The means by which virtually every American home receives television services is not immune from such change. The new kids on the block — streaming video services offered by Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Video, soon Disney, and many others — already are pulling serious numbers of customers from the established providers of paid TV services: Cable and satellite TV.Instead of letting this expanding market thrive, Congress is instead considering renewing a 30-year-old, outdated and totally unnecessary law offering unfair advantage to satellite providers.The initial legislative vehicle for this regulatory throwback was passed by Congress in 1988 as the Satellite Home Viewer Act (SHVA), and is now titled the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR). Thirty years ago, the World Wide Web had not even been formally developed and made available to individuals and companies around the globe for mass use. At the time, a perhaps credible argument could be made that then-upstart satellite TV service providers needed a degree of help in competing against then well-entrenched cable providers.In response, Congress passed legislation giving new satellite TV...
by Bob Barr | Apr 24, 2019 | Uncategorized |
FoxNews.comby Bob BarrSome House Democrats who are calling for impeachment proceedings against President Trump on a charge of obstruction of justice claim that President Clinton was impeached in 1998 for far less serious misconduct. As a leader of the Clinton impeachment effort, I disagree.I still believe the Clinton impeachment was justified. But based on what is now in the public record, I don’t believe a Trump impeachment is warranted.Clinton, of course, remained in office after the House impeached him on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice because the Senate acquitted him in a trial. Even if the Democratic-controlled House impeached President Trump, he would also likely stay in office after a Senate trial.Impeachment simply means the House charges the president with serious misconduct it considers to be what the Constitution calls “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The phrase is not defined in the Constitution, and in a sense can mean whatever a simple majority in the House says it means.However, there are two instances in which sitting presidents have been impeached – Andrew Johnson and Clinton – and one in which President Nixon almost certainly would have been impeached had he not first resigned. Looking at these cases gives us clear guidance that there needs to be a very substantial and substantive basis set forth on the record in order for the impeachment process to have the credibility it merits.With Democrats in majority control of the House – holding 235 seats, compared to the 197 seats held by Republicans – odds are that the Democrats can impeach Trump if they want to.Congressional Democrats opposed to President Trump have every right to vote against...
by Bob Barr | Apr 24, 2019 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.comThe Cold War years of the 1960s gave rise to two very different cinematic characterizations of spies – the debonair but ruthless James Bond (aka “Agent 007”), and the bumbling but likeable Maxwell Smart (aka “Agent 86”). Now, half a century later, the federal government has jailed 30-year old Maria Butina as a Russian spy and has asserted that her secretive actions posed a serious threat to our nation’s security. The reality, however, is that Butina’s activities fit far more easily into an episode of Get Smart than as a serious espionage case.During her time as both a visitor and a student in the U.S. from 2015 until her arrest and indictment last year, Butina attended numerous political events while maintaining contacts with officials in her home country. The Department of Justice appropriately has alleged that acting in this manner, Butina violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by failing to register thereunder. She ultimately was pressured into pleading guilty to conspiring to violate that statute. In spite of being arrested and held in solitary confinement for what essentially constitutes an administrative offense, Butina’s biggest mistake appears to be that her activities and her paperwork omission placed her squarely within the ongoing narrative of Russian collusion.The Sentencing Memorandum filed last week by the Justice Department, for example, concedes that Butina is neither “a spy in the traditional sense” nor a “trained intelligence officer.” The government instead asserts that Butina conspired to use “connections” developed during her sojourn in the United States to create “backchannel communications” to the Russian government. Characterizing all this as a serious espionage conspiracy, however, is somewhat of a...
