by Bob Barr | Oct 24, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com It’s a brutal world out there. Countries do horrible things. Government officials often are complicit. If America’s relations with countries around the world were predicated on dealing only with those whose record of respecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mirrored ours, the number of flags exhibited at the State Department’s Hall of Nations would be small indeed. And yes, even journalists at times find themselves on the wrong end of a government that does not abide by our legal and moral standards; it’s happened over the years in Central and South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Such apparently happened to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi shortly after he entered his nation’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey earlier this month. As the evidence of his grotesque murder mounts, the question for the United States is how should our nation react; what should we do in response? Some in Washington clamor for drastic measures, up to and including a serious reevaluation and down-grading of our longstanding diplomatic, economic, security and national defense relationship with Riyadh. Others counsel silence. The appropriate response lies somewhere in between; but tempered by the fact that this horrible incident has little if anything to do with the United States directly. It is, at its core, a crime by Saudis against a Saudi. There simply is no vital U.S. national security interest at stake. So what should be done? First, our policy makers in Washington need to ascertain the facts. Considering our intelligence capabilities are at least as good as Turkey’s (after all, we largely trained them), this should not be...
by Bob Barr | Oct 18, 2018 | Uncategorized |
The American Spectator The Trump economic revival shouldn’t be punishing medical technology for its contributions. President Trump’s tax, regulatory, and trade policies have sparked a surging U.S. economy. Unfortunately, hidden among all the truly good news, is a serious glitch that may very well be a body blow to an important industry — medical imaging equipment. The culprit is a recently imposed tariff on sophisticated medical imaging devices; the negative effects of which are magnified because the industry already has been hurt badly by the misguided medical device tax imposed on it by Obamacare. Curiously, the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to repeal permanently that unnecessary and harmful tax, which has cost American jobs and slowed investment in critical research and development. Make no mistake, the U.S. trade imbalance with China must be addressed. But punishing a domestic industry that supports nearly two million American jobs and generates more than $52.5 billion annually in exports, does far more harm than good. Instead of strengthening the industry, the tariffs add to the burden under which it already is operating; and undercuts our stature as a global leader in healthcare research, innovation, and medical technology development. While U.S. firms develop, design, and manufacture imaging equipment here at home, they often incorporate parts imported from China and other countries. Imposing tariffs on components made abroad but used to manufacture finished products in the United States, amounts to a tax on inter-company transfers; making it more expensive, not less, for manufacturing to take place here. The consequence of this is that firms may have to reduce their American workforce and decrease their investments in research and...
by Bob Barr | Oct 17, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com To most Americans, a large group of black-clad individuals blockading the streets and harassing motorists who disobey their commands would, quite naturally, be considered a mob. This also would be an apt and reasonable name given to groups of people stalking and screaming at others dining in a restaurant, destroying public monuments, or throwing Molotov cocktails in protest of speakers at a college campus. After all, by definition, a mob is “a large and disorderly crowd of people,” especially those “bent on riotous or destructive action”; and, these incidents are such examples. As we lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur, “the matter speaks for itself.” The problem is, the Mainstream Media and congressional Democrats are not most Americans. In their Liberal La-La Land, like at CNN, one dares not speak “the ‘M’-word” (“mob”) when commenting on events such as these. To these pundits, those roaming gangs and shouting crowds are not mobs, but merely concerned citizens understandably “motivated” by the dangerous actions of the Trump Administration. Herein lies the existential crisis for Democrats, and the dirty little secret they refuse to acknowledge openly — is mob rule what Democrats have become? And is it what our country is becoming? Since their 2016 trouncing, Democrats have strayed far from their Party’s traditional bread and butter issues like education and civil rights; pursuing instead a strategy exclusively focused on stoking emotional outbursts from their base. We hear less and less from Democrats about specific policy solutions for how they will fix anything, and increasingly more paranoid shouting that “people will die” with every move Trump and the GOP make. Therefore, in whatever twisted logic now passes for...
