by Bob Barr | Dec 17, 2019 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com Now that the House is set to impeach President Trump for what its Nadler-led Judiciary Committee decided were “impeachable offenses,” it is time to consider what will or, more important, should happen in a Senate trial. In my view, no matter the utter lack of substance in the articles of impeachment certain to be approved by the House this week, the president should prepare to mount a vigorous defense and Senate Republican leaders should assist, not impede him. As an Impeachment Manager in the 1999 trial of former President Clinton, I learned very early that an impeachment trial in the Senate has little in common with “normal” trials that take place daily in federal and state courtrooms according to well-established rules of procedure. Each and every impeachment that crosses the Capitol Rotunda from the House to the Senate, comes without any pre-existing rules of procedure for the trial, whether for a federal judge or a president of the United States. The Senate must adopt by simple majority vote unique rules for the conduct of each and every impeachment trial, including whether to allow live witnesses to testify and the scope of evidence to be admitted. These are extremely important tactical decisions and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must not allow Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to massage them into pablum. It is important the president keep these procedural nuances in mind as he decides who will represent him in the upcoming trial, and what strategy to pursue. The situation will be very different from the one Clinton faced two decades ago. In January 1999, the Democrat president confronted a Republican-led Senate....
by Bob Barr | Dec 16, 2019 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller As a former member of Congress who served eight years on the Financial Services Committee, I have long been concerned with the lack of transparency and unchecked authority enjoyed by the Federal Reserve System, when it comes to the manner by which it “manages” our nation’s financial system. The “Fed” was created by statute more than a century ago and has become the de facto “Central Bank of the United States,” largely immune from the checks and balances that to a large degree keep Congress and presidents accountable to voters. This never has been a healthy state of affairs, and if anything, may be worsening. In what is an admission both startling and frightening in its implications, in recent congressional testimony the Fed as much as admitted its decisions have in fact damaged our economy. Earlier this month, the Fed testified before Congress that its poor oversight and supervisory practices over the banking industry were a likely reason the Fed found it necessary to provide market liquidity for the first time since the financial crisis a decade ago. Fed Vice Chair Randal Quarles, appearing before the House Financial Services Committee said, “We have identified some areas where our existing supervision of the regulatory framework … may have created some incentives that were contributors.” He admitted to lawmakers that decisions by the Fed, “were probably not the decisive contributors, but they were contributors, and I think we need to examine them.” If history is any guide, the rest of us should best not hold our breath waiting for the Fed to actually do something. The concern here is not...
by Bob Barr | Dec 11, 2019 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com In the 36-years since Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story first appeared on the big screen, the movie has become as much a part of the Christmas season as Santa himself. More than just a charming holiday movie, A Christmas Story captures a time in America where kids could be kids; free to roam, daydream, tussle, and yes, even nearly lose an eye, without them (or their parents) being thrown into handcuffs or hauled in front of a family court magistrate. But no longer. Today’s child-rearing environment, dominated by a combination of helicopter parents and overzealous nanny staters, allows no such freedom or independence for kids. From the earliest ages, today’s children are thrust into government-run schools where they’re put through horrific “school shooting drills.” They are told global warming will render the planet unhabitable by the time they reach adulthood. And, as for burning off this nervous energy? Not a chance. Recess, if not already eliminated, has dwindled in many school districts to just 15 minutes of rigidly structured time, with traditional games like tag and dodgeball banned for being “too mean.” Of course, today’s snowflake culture does not get any easier for kids outside the school walls. Killjoy government officials have literally made trick-or-treating a crime for kids over a certain age, and similarly have outlawed throwing snowballs. Even make believe is potentially a criminal act in public. Recently, one Minnesota child was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for his fantasy adventures in a park, when busybody citizens caused a stir online with irrational panic about a “masked predator.” The adult idiocy prompted police to investigate; and instead of dismissing...
by Bob Barr | Dec 9, 2019 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller The Trump administration has performed admirably in reducing the regulatory red tape that has strangled American businesses and limited our country’s competitiveness. But for reasons not entirely clear, the Department of Labor has lagged behind other agencies in this regard. One clear example is the way the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has continued unnecessary and counterproductive Obama-era litigation against tech companies for alleged discriminatory wage and hiring practices. To some extent, the Labor Department’s hesitancy to retreat from a series of lawsuits against Google, Oracle, and other tech giants initiated by the prior administration can be explained by President Trump’s first Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s cozy relationship with the Washington establishment. Thankfully, Acosta’s replacement, Eugene Scalia, son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who took over the reins at the sprawling bureaucracy at the end of September, is no friend of the nanny state. OFCCP is the Great Society-era agency established to ensure private companies that contract with Uncle Sam do so without discriminatory hiring, employment or wage practices. Over the decades, this agency has taken steps to reform federal contracting policies in this regard. But its overall record has been mixed, especially in recent years. In a 2017 study, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agreed that the OFCCP’s mission to ensure discriminatory-free practices by corporate partners was “worthy.” At the same time, however, the report set forth in extensive detail that the OFCCP in recent years had become enamored of faulty, statistics-based challenges to companies engaged in federal contracts and had repeatedly abused its powerful remedy of threatening to debar...
by Bob Barr | Dec 2, 2019 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller The impeachment proceedings against President Trump have moved on from the House Intelligence Committee to the Judiciary Committee (which happens to be the only House committee with formal jurisdiction over impeachment). It is chaired by New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who has served on the committee for 27 years. Notwithstanding the change in venue, the proceedings are still a farce. They bear only surface resemblance to those in which I (and Nadler) participated 21 years ago. The latest move in this game of impeachment took place on Sunday, when White House Counsel Pat Cipollone sent Nadler a letter telling him that his client — the president of the United States — would not be participating in the committee’s inaugural impeachment hearing later this week. The lawyer’s letter was blunt; but if anything, it was too polite. Nadler had declared Sunday the date by which Trump must let him know if he accepted the invitation to “participate” in the committee’s activities. The deadline was conveyed to the president in a Nov. 26 letter. For its authority, the letter drew on House Resolution 660, which formally launched the impeachment inquiry when passed by the full House on Oct. 31. It also referenced the procedures subsequently adopted by the Judiciary Committee for its hearings. Taken together, these three documents establish clearly that whether and however the president might wish to participate in the Judiciary proceedings, it would be within the absolute control of Nadler; just as last month’s impeachment hearings in the Intelligence Committee were controlled completely by Chairman Adam Schiff. For example, while the rules seem to afford...
by Bob Barr | Nov 25, 2019 | Uncategorized |
The Daily Caller Now that one phase of the impeachment process is finished — sort of — the question is, where are we? Has the needle moved? Are we closer to the goal? Where do we now go? In every sense that means anything of substance, we are right back where we started many weeks ago. We have come full circle. The sum total of what we have learned can be summarized in one half dozen points: • The Washington Establishment — especially that ensconced in the Department of State, and often referred to (not without good reason) as “Foggy Bottom” — dislikes President Trump with an animosity bordering on hatred. • The president disdains the Washington Establishment, most notably those careerists at the Department of State, who regularly exhibit a predisposition in favor of the foreign countries to which they are or have been assigned rather than to the country they are sworn to serve. • California Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is the 21st century version of the ancient philosopher Diogenes, who was doomed to search vainly with his lantern for an “honest man,” though Schiff’s vain search for an “impeachable offense” lacks the aid even of a lantern. • The ratio between opinions, presumptions, conclusions and inferences on the one hand, and factual evidence adduced during the two weeks of hearings and a dozen or so witnesses, is a mathematical nullity, as division by zero is not calculable. Zero being the number of actual fact-based pieces of evidence, related by witnesses purporting to establish a “quid pro quo” that Trump sought to...
