Bob Lord

Bob has mostly wound down his 39-year career as a tax and business lawyer (with a 1-year interruption to run for Congress in 2008 (CD3), when he tried to unseat John Shadegg. Bob now serves as the senior advisor on tax policy for the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who believe the light taxation of America's rich is destabilizing our democracy, and as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Bob has been writing for Blog For Arizona since late 2011, concentrating mostly on federal issues, with an occasional foray into Arizona state politics.

Is Laura Pastor Up To Old Tricks?

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Posted by Bob Lord

[Disclaimer: I've endorsed David Lujan in the District 4 Phoenix City Council Race]

Looks like the Laura
Pastor campaign may be up to old tricks.  Pastor filed for a run for Phoenix
City Council in District 4 last Friday, and already I've been told she is using connections, including her father, to pressure unpaid
volunteers who support her opponents to back off.  A volunteer for the Lujan campaign informed me that his/her boss
received a call from Laura wanting to know why someone that works for them is publicly supporting her opponent in her race. Turns out the volunteer got a sit
down from the boss, letting it be known that while a person has a constitutional right
to support any candidate, he/she needs to tread lightly since her dad is a
sitting Congressman and may try to settle the score.  (The volunteer’s
name has been withheld for fear of repercussions.) 

Insipid Viral Email Alert

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Posted by Bob Lord

Received another insipid viral tea partyesque email the other day. This one apparently has been making the rounds for the last few weeks. The originator depicts Chicago as the #1 hellhole in the U.S. (it's obviously not), then blames it all on Democrats. As you'd expect, the arguments are beyond specious. I've pasted in the email and my response after the jump. If you receive the email and want to gig the sender (or, better yet, the bottom most person on the email chain), feel free to use my response. Or you may want to spice up the language in the response — I was exercising unusual restraint.

Book Review, New Website and Self-Promotion

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Posted by Bob Lord A few weeks ago, I stumbled on to a new website, inequality.org, dedicated to what I believe is the greatest challenge we face, income and wealth inequality. The columnists at that site, Sam Pizzigati, Chuck Collins, and Salvatore Babones, all are excellent, and the site has very helpful links to other … Read more

Awesome Video on Wealth Inequality

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Posted by Bob Lord This video has gone viral, and deservedly so. Take a look, if you haven't seen it already: http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/ Sorry, if I were less technologically challenged I'd have posted the video itself. Perhaps one of my colleagues will read this and put the video up in a separate post.  In five minutes … Read more

Boy Scouts: A Belated Follow-Up Post

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Posted by Bob Lord

Shortly after my post, Teaching Bigotry to Youth, I received an email from a friend, who is gay, thanking me for the post and, more importantly, giving me his perspective as a gay man. I often wonder if the reason many homophobes have such a hard time with this issue is that they have no gay friends or acquaintances, and therefore no real understanding. But even for those who don't fall in that category, I thought my friend's words were enlightening. His email appears after the jump, with a few names deleted.