January 2019

JANUARY 30, 2019
‘Emergency Powers’ – Be Careful What You Wish For
Bob Barr
1/30/2019 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

It’s a universal law of politics – every president considers the powers he inherits from his predecessor as the “floor,” not the “ceiling,” for powers he will exercise; considering these to be the minimum powers on which he will build his administration, rather than a limitation thereon. This should be a cautionary rule for Republicans now urging President Donald Trump to declare a “national emergency” in order to construct a border wall without congressionally-approved funding.

Following the government “shutdown” stalemate with House Democrats, wherein the President was not able to successfully negotiate funding for a border wall with Mexico, the Administration now is openly considering declaring a “national emergency” and making an end-run around the Congress. The primary vehicle for such a move would be the 1976 “National Emergencies Act.” While this broadly-worded Act arguably can be interpreted to permit such moves by the President, extreme caution, not abandon, should be the guide.

The problems with such a strategy are — or should be – immediately apparent. First, it is unclear if ongoing issues at the border meet legal thresholds for declaring a national emergency. More concerning, however, would be the problem of limiting the ultimate reach of such a declaration; insofar as the declaration itself potentially triggers myriad other powers having nothing to do with immigration. And, of course, there is the over-arching concern with the long-term policy implications of such a declaration.

A president certainly has the authority and responsibility to respond to immediate crises, such as a military attack; and the Constitution provides him robust power to do so. But those clamoring for Trump to use such authority to construct a border wall to limit illegal immigration, need to be reminded that any such powers still must be exercised withinthe parameters of the Constitution.

There are no footnotes in Article II of the Constitution declaring that “under such circumstances as a President determines” he may ignore limitations placed on the government elsewhere in the document. We are, as noted by Founding Father John Adams, “a nation of laws not of men”; not a “nation of laws except in an emergency.”
Recent history offers us an example of problems that arise when a president takes matters into his own hands and circumvents the law, because he decides it does not provide him the power he considers necessary to meet an “emergency.”

In the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks (which constituted a bona fide emergency), President George W. Bush ignored express statutory limitations on the powers granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and directed that government agencies and telecommunications companies regulated by the government, surreptitiously collect electronic communications of millions of individuals without warrants required under that Act. (Interestingly, this set the stage for the Obama Administration to engage in highly questionable, if not unlawful, use of FISA when it proceeded to gather information on candidate and then President-elect Trump in 2016.)

Few would argue, even among Democrats, that America’s border security status quois working well. The decades-long failure by multiple congresses to address the serious deficiencies in our immigration laws and system is an egregious dereliction of duty worthy of its own discussion. Still, evidence suggesting this problem has in the last few months reached “national emergency” levels, is far from incontrovertible; and is in fact highly debatable.

Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham, who have been around long enough to recognize the dangers created by such precedents as declaring a “national immigration emergency,” should be counseling the President to avoid travelling that road, rather than encouraging him down it.

While thinking beyond the issue of the day (right now, immigration) may be a difficult exercise for a Congress long-mired in partisan bickering, Republicans in both house of the Congress should break with tradition and do so.
In our closed, two-party political system, it is guaranteed that sooner or later, a Democrat will be elected president. Cannot the GOP envision how a Democrat president would use the precedent of Trump assuming emergency powers to meet the threat of illegal immigration? Is not the handwriting on the wall that the “other” Party would use just such a precedent to declare that gun violence or climate change has reached emergency proportions, and therefore must and can only be dealt with by exercising “emergency powers?”

Sure, Democrats almost certainly would counsel a president of their party to declare a “gun violence” or “climate change” emergency in America, regardless of what Trump does regarding the immigration problem. But why make it easy for them to do so by establishing a precedent now?

Roger Stone’s Indictment Shows Mueller Isn’t Looking for Justice
The Daily Caller
3:30 PM 01/26/2019 | OPINION
Bob Barr | Former Congressman (R-GA)
261

“I hit Ali with everything and he said, ‘Is that all you got?” and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it’”

— George Foreman

While it is never a good thing to be hit with a federal criminal indictment, Roger Stone, who was arrested early Friday morning based on just such an instrument, very well may be thinking, “Is that all you got?”

A review of the 24-page document reveals little, if anything, not already in the public domain.

The indictment reflects a case built almost entirely on piecing together numerous statements, e-mails, text messages and interviews by Stone over the past two years, then comparing some of those to testimony he reportedly gave before a House of Representatives committee in September 2017 and concluding — surprise! — that there appear to be conflicting statements.

Newcomers to the rough-and-tumble world of American politics might be shocked to discover that candidates and campaign operatives make conflicting statements from time to time. Neophytes might also be dismayed to discover that elected officials occasionally cast votes inconsistent with earlier votes. And they also might be amazed that a candidate’s campaign would have an interest in negative information about an opponent’s campaign.

But yes, in the real world, such things do take place.

What truly should shock the conscience is that actions such as inconsistent political campaign statements, or a campaign expressing an interest in discovering an opponent’s weaknesses, have now become criminal offenses; at least in the opinion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

For all the Sturm und Drang surrounding the 19-month long investigation spearheaded by Mueller (supposedly to uncover “collusion” between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia), Friday’s indictment of Stone is surprisingly unrevealing and substantively weak.

If the purpose of the indictment is to show that a massive federal investigation was able to comb through hundreds, if not thousands, of communications to, from and concerning Roger Stone — one of the more loquacious political consultants on the planet — and find several inconsistencies, then the Mueller team has succeeded admirably.

If the goal of the special counsel’s office was to show that the Trump campaign in the final weeks of the 2106 campaign was interested in finding out as much information as it could about weaknesses in the Hillary Clinton campaign, it appears Mueller’s suspicions were correct.

The Trump campaign apparently did communicate with Stone — a well-known friend to the campaign and to the candidate himself.  Some of those communications took place following public reports that contained or referred to information damaging to the Clinton campaign.

If the indictment is designed to jump-start a protracted game of wordsmithing — in which dueling lawyers parse phrases uttered by Stone when he voluntarily appeared before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to testify about matters already widely known publicly (and to the committee) — the indictment certainly lit that fuse.

Finally, as to the allegations that Stone “tampered” with another witness, Jerome Corsi (often described as a “right-wing political commentator and conspiracy theorist”),  the government should have little trouble showing that Stone did, in fact, urge Corsi to assert his right against self-incrimination.

In that regard, also, the prosecutors appear to have strong evidence that the two pundits (Stone and Corsi) argued back and forth about such testimony, even to the point of calling each other names.

The real question in this context should be how and why such communications between two right-wing pundits have become grounds for a federal felony charge against one of them (Stone), and the basis for another felony charge against Stone referencing an argument between Stone and “Person 2,” who reportedly is yet another right-wing radio host and comedian.

If all this were not serious it would be comedic. But it is serious; Stone faces decades in prison if convicted on all seven counts in the indictment.

Most importantly, however, this latest Mueller indictment is serious because of what it says about our system of justice and what it has become in recent years — no longer a search for truth or justice, but rather a drive to “find a crime” no matter how many reputations and lives are ruined along the way.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s seventh district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He currently serves as president and CEO of the Law Enforcement Education Foundation.

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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.

The Art of the Un-manly Shave
Townhall.com
1/23/2019 10:15:00 AM – Bob Barr

We live in the Age of the Lecture; an era in which virtually every forum or opportunity for communicating, becomes a vehicle from which to lecture us about something deemed important to those whose existence revolves around political correctness. Now, even an ad for something as mundane and apolitical as a shaving razor has become the means by which the PC crowd presses its worldview upon us. Politically correct lectures packaged as ads for toilet paper cannot be far behind.

Recently, the iconic men’s grooming brand Gillette released an ad featuring not its latest advancement in shaving technology, but instead taking on the scourge of “toxic masculinity.” This transition from a product built on the masculine art of shaving one’s beard, to a campaign focusing on softness and goodwill, is odd in the extreme.

It appears, however, that the public relations Brainiacs who dreamed up this campaign may have created more of a problem than a solution (to whatever the perceived problem might have been). At least those of us grown tired of politically correct subject matter being shoved at us via television ads, can hope it will backfire.

Rather than striking a cord with its audience as a collective Kumbaya moment, Gillette’s latest ad appears to have struck a raw nerve with viewers. Ad Age, an advertising industry publication, reported that one marketing intelligence firm found 63 percent of social media’s reaction to the ad was negative, compared to just eight percent who viewed it positively.

Does such responsive research mean that Gillette’s customer base is sexist, racist, or supportive of bullying? Hardly. It does suggest, however, that Gillette’s core demographic is men who buy the company’s razors because they shave well; men who consider an ad should be an ad, not a political or sociological soapbox. The market research indicates that Gillette’s customers are men insulted with the idea that they need lecturing by a company that simply manufactures an inanimate object having nothing whatsoever to do with politics or public policy.

Certainly not all ad campaigns succeed in their goal of increasing market share or product identification. What makes this ad campaign diving headlong into the thicket of political correctness bizarre, is that it breaks completely from all previous campaigns by Gillette; and in a way that manages to alienate its core market demographic. The 1985 debacle by Coca-Cola promoting “New Coke” apparently is history too-long forgotten to have been factored into decision-making for Gillette’s nascent “toxic masculinity” campaign.

A company like Nike, which has built a sporting shoe empire on a liberal social agenda, can successfully employ a polarizing sports celebrity like Colin Kaepernick to boost its sales; people have come to expect it of the company. Starbucks Coffee, which has long and openly promoted a philosophy of love, peace and diversity, can fashion marketing strategies around such social messaging and survive. Gillette, however, is not a “New Age” company; its product has nothing to do with political or public policy, and never has.

A shaving razor is a shaving razor; period. Men who use the product do not wear it on the street to impress others, as is the case with Nike shoes; nor do men gather together in public places to engage in group shaving, akin to the way Starbucks urges consumers to visit its stores to socialize as they imbibe its coffee drinks.

Perhaps another reason why Gillette’s advertising gambit failed so badly, is that it comes just as Americans in large numbers are beginning to see through the incessant lecturing by liberal spokespeople in politics, academia, the film industry, and the media. People finally appear to be recognizing the hypocrisy of a Sen. Elizabeth Warren lecturing us on fairness; or a Democratic Party calling on citizens to fight sexual predation even as it continues to protect one of America’s most notorious sexual predators, former President Bill Clinton.

Consumers may finally have reached the end of their patience with the vacuous moralizing that has become standard fare emanating from Hollywood, Washington, DC and Silicon Valley. While I share with many of my fellow citizens the frustration with having to sit through ads focusing on erectile dysfunction, hemorrhoids, constipation, and every form of malady known to mankind, in order simply to watch the news or a sporting event, I prefer that to a shaving company lecturing me on how it believes I should live my life.

House Democrats Readying Multi-Pronged Attack on Second Amendment
Townhall.com

1/16/2019 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

When Democrats took control of the U.S. House as a result of last November’s election, many Republicans assumed, perhaps optimistically, the danger presented by this new liberal majority would come primarily from legislation passed thanks to their newly-acquired majority; legislation that would be blocked by either the Senate or the White House. Yet, for those like myself who have served in the House of Representatives and know the full force of the House is not necessarily in the legislation brought to the floor, but in the various committees that wield enormous power for the majority party, we warned that there would be consequences; in particular for the Second Amendment.

With the 116th Congress just two weeks old, that danger already is coming into sharp focus.

While most observers’ eyes initially focused on the drama surrounding freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s long shot bid for a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, veteran Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was quietly installed as Chair of the Financial Services Committee. For gun owners and businesses, this is a worst-case scenario.

To many of those outside observers, it might seem as if the Judiciary Committee – with primary jurisdiction in the House over firearms laws and regulations – would be the key battleground for firearms-related attacks.   However, for those of us who bear the battle scars earned through years of fighting to protect the Second Amendment from attacks in the Congress, it is clear this war will be fought on many fronts, and through attacks direct as well as indirect.

President Obama, for example, enlisted bureaucracies under his command as diverse as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (among others), as weapons with which to weaken Second Amendment rights, by abusing those agencies’ regulatory powers.

Lawful firearms businesses will remember well “Operation Choke Point” as a clear abuse of the federal government’s regulatory power over financial institutions, and part of a drive to choke off the ability of those businesses to engage in normal and necessary financial practices.  (Even today, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is using similar tactics against insurance companies in his State that have lawful commercial ties to the National Rifle Association.)

Long a fierce enemy of the NRA and the Second Amendment generally, Maxine Waters now is gearing up to use her newly-acquired power as Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, to punish those entities subject to the extensive jurisdiction of that Committee that dare to engage directly or indirectly in the lawful business of firearms.  Considering that the jurisdiction of this Committee extends beyond even every financial institution touched by federal law or regulation, to include any housing program receiving federal funds, the room for serious mischief to be done by this Congresswoman is troubling in the extreme.

Federal housing policy may very well be a starting point from which Waters will launch her Second Amendment attacks.  In so doing the California Congresswoman would be following in the footsteps of President Bill Clinton.  In the mid-1990s this anti-Second Amendment President tried to leverage the federal government’s authority over public housing, to limit Second Amendment rights of individuals and families living in such locations.

Just as what is occurring in New York, none of the options available to Waters or any of the other House committees now controlled by Democrats, requires an actual vote on the House floor, or even in the committees themselves. And, there are no effective mechanisms available to the GOP minority to stop Waters or other Committee Chairs from using their clout, backed by threats of subpoena or appropriations riders, to bully corporations and agencies under their purview to adopt anti-Second Amendment practices or policies.

In addition to the threat of choking out firearm manufacturers and dealers financially, there is another even more ominous threat facing firearm owners. As the National Review highlights here, Waters’ Financial Services Committee could demand that downstream entities, such as credit card processing companies and banks, begin tracking individual purchases of firearms (bypassing retailers themselves who would likely balk at such demands). Such moves by the Congress, especially by committee chairs, would represent a clear – and perhaps initially effective – way to circumvent the provision already in federal law that prohibits the government from maintaining a database of firearms purchasers when their names are submitted to the FBI for the required instant background check.

All this makes it essential that President Trump and the Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Senate remain highly vigilant and unafraid to stand up to what the new anti-Second Amendment majority in the House will be pursuing as a priority agenda item. Backing down or being asleep at the wheel are not options.

Democratic Party Has Become a Cartoon Version of Its Former Self
Townhall.com

There was a time long, long ago in which the national Democratic Party actually stood for something.  Real ideas.   Not necessarily good ideas, but substantive ideas nonetheless. The Party was led by men and women who actually articulated substantive programs. John Kennedy formulated meaningful tax policies, and launched America’s conquest of the Moon.  His successor, Lyndon Johnson, proposed and pushed through the Congress massive and far-reaching federal support programs that still are costing us today.  During the 1970s and into the 80s there were Democratic Members of the Congress who articulated well-considered social policies for welfare recipients and working families; New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan comes to mind.

But no more.  Today in the Democratic caucus, a substantive idea would land with an echoing thud on the floor and be quickly swept away; barely noticed amid the vitriol that consumes the nation’s senior national political party.

While Democrats nowadays prefer the moniker “Progressive” to “Liberal” as a descriptor for their Party and its members, there is nothing remotely progressive about this once proud political movement.  Today’s Democratic Party has become not only a hollowed-out shell of its former incarnation, but as revealed in just the past four months, now is a cartoon version of what it used to be.

In what previous era in the real world, for example, would a Senator sitting on that body’s Judiciary Committee, label himself “Spartacus” after a movie character, when posing a question to a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States?  New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker did precisely that; with a straight face, nonetheless.   In this Democratic Bizarro World, that very same Cory Booker is considered a serious contender for his Party’s 2020 nomination for President.

Want further evidence of the comedy that has overtaken the Democratic Party?   Another presidential wannabe – Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – has made the fact that she has the tiniest bit of Native American Indian blood in her DNA a key part of her self-proclaimed qualification to be that Party’s presidential nominee.

The piece de resistance for contemporary analysis of the bankruptcy of substantive ideas in the Democratic Party, however, is the freshman Congresswoman from New York City, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.  This new Media Darling continues to amaze with displays of how vacuous her knowledge of history, economics, civics, and mathematics truly is.

While some here in my home state of Georgia, or in one of our neighboring states, might forgive young Ms. Ocasio-Cortez with a kind “Bless her heart,” due to her youth and inexperience, the Congresswoman’s shallowness is shared by others of her Party who are not so youthful or inexperienced.  Shouts to impeach President Trump based on nothing more than disdain, if not hatred, for him personally or for other members of his family, bounce around the House chamber like children shouting at each other during a game of “Marco Polo.”

The most telling evidence that today’s national Democratic Party lacks even a scintilla of substance is perhaps not so much in the childish antics of a Maxine Waters or an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez; or even in the already-tiresome calls for investigations of anything and everything “Trump.”  The proof that the Party is utterly devoid of substance or professionalism can be seen every day in the open failure of its leaders to take even the most modest of steps to rein in such antics.

Whereas in decades past when the Democratic Party controlled the levers of power in the House or the Senate, leaders like Tip O’Neill would demand at least some level of decorum and decency from its membership.  Today, neither Speaker Nancy Pelosi nor Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dares to – or cares to – step in and insist on even a nominal degree of professionalism.  In such an environment, it is then hardly surprising that another freshman Congresswoman proudly uses the foulest of language in public to describe the President of the United States and receives nary the slightest rebuke from Speaker Pelosi.

Perhaps the saddest take-away from an examination of this scenario – in which the Democratic Party appears to revel in its lack of substance and decorum – is the lack of a substantive policy response from the other side of the aisle.   While we all should be thankful that the GOP congressional leadership and members do not stoop to the disgusting level of profanity to which their Democrat counterparts have sunk; it is distressing that the lack of coherent, substantive policy in our Nation’s Capital continues to be a bipartisan problem.

Federalist’ Principles of Governing Are Dead – Consider the Impasse Over ‘The Wall’

Townhall.com

1/2/2019 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

Two hundred and thirty years ago, three of our Founding Fathers authored a series of essays that came to be known as the “Federalist Papers.”  Thomas Jefferson years later characterized these writings as the “best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.”  In other words, “if you want to understand how American government is supposed to function, read the ‘Federalist Papers.’”

Sadly, it appears obvious few, if any, of the key protagonists in today’s political battles between the three branches of our government that were established in that bygone era (which I consider our “Greatest Generation”) have read, much less truly understand the principles embodied in that collection of essays.

Most Americans are at least vaguely familiar with the fact that our federal government is comprised of three branches – Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.  The men who framed our Constitution, however, incorporated into the mechanisms it created many other important principles; including several that were designed expressly to distance our government from that of Great Britain, the country from which we were splitting.

In establishing the position of “President,” for example, our Framers made clear that this person was not to be selected by, or to be a part of, the Legislative Branch.  This is distinct from the British model, in which the chief executive is the “Prime Minister”; chosen not by the voters in general election, but by his or her fellow Members of Parliament, and therefore answerable directly to that body.

By contrast, in our country, the president, as the chief executive, is elected by the citizenry at-large (technically, through “electors”), and therefore answerable to the People of the entire country; not to the Legislative Branch.
Conversely, and in another important principle incorporated into the Constitution, Members of the Legislative Branch (the two Houses of Congress) neither answer to nor are to be controlled by the President.  Rather, each Member of Congress (whether Representative or Senator) is to reflect and be answerable to the constituents of his or her district or state; not to the President. While those interests may from time to time coincide, U.S. Representatives and Senators are not serving in that august institution merely to do a president’s bidding.

So, what has changed (other than a profound ignorance of the principles undergirding our constitutional form of government)?  Why do Republican Members of Congress by and large consider it their bounden duty to use their powers and responsibilities to do the bidding of a president simply because the person occupying that office is of the same political party as are they?  Similarly, why do Democrats operate in the same mode when the White House is occupied by a person with a “D” after their name?

In a word, what has turned our political structure on its head, is the one thing our Founding Fathers disdained and warned us about – party politics.  Especially in the closed, two-party system that has constrained politics in America for more than a century and a half, the primary allegiance deemed important to the vast majority of Representatives and Senators now serving, is to the President who happens to be of their same political party.  If the president is a Republican, the congressional leaders of that party consider it their obligation to employ their powers to enact his agenda; and failure to toe that line is considered cause for punishment.  The Democrats operate in just the same manner.

Thus have the lines between the Executive and Legislative Branches become muddled, if not largely erased; and most Members of Congress now rarely assert a voice or an agenda independent from that of the president.  Members not of the president’s party consider it their primary responsibility to oppose the Administration’s agenda; those who share the president’s political affiliation view it as their almost sacred responsibility to do whatever they can to support the agenda of “their” president.

The current battle between the Congress and President Trump regarding “the wall” is but the most recent example of how far we have drifted from the principle of a Congress as not only a “co-equal” branch of government, but an independent one.  Republicans assert that they and their fellow GOP members “must” support the wall simply because President Trump demands it and made it a signature issue of his 2016 campaign.  Democrats adamantly oppose the “wall” and anything else Trump advocates, because he is not of their party and based on the fact he desires it.

What is at stake here is not “the wall” or any other specific program championed by this president or one of his predecessors.  What has been lost – and is an ingredient vital for the proper functioning of our country’s government for the benefit of the citizenry – is a Legislative Branch fueled by independent regard for ideas and principles rather than blind loyalty to a political party.