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.

Our Gun Law Failure — Kristof Says It So Well

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Posted by Bob Lord Nick Kristof's piece in today's Times is a must read for anyone who cares about our insane gun laws, or lack thereof. Here's the closing: For that matter, we can look for inspiration at our own history on auto safety. As with guns, some auto deaths are caused by people who … Read more

Petition Ron Barber to Lead The Charge

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Ron Barber is the natural choice to lead the charge in bringing sanity to our gun laws. But he needs to hear us, loud and clear. Please, please go to the right hand column of the page, or click HERE and sign the petition. Then blast the link out via Facebook or Twitter. UPDATE 12/16: Having just zipped … Read more

Moments When Leaders Are Made

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Posted by Bob Lord As we reel from the tragedy in Newtown, we know it is in times like this that new leaders arise. Who will step out of the shadows and lead the fight to bring sanity to our gun laws? There's no question who is best positioned to lead at this time. Nobody … Read more

Reeking of Smugness

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Posted by Bob Lord

I periodically receive the viral emails that make their way through the right-wing American Jewish community. Because I'm Jewish by birth, folks think I subscribe to the "Isreal can do no wrong" point of view. The latest piece is a doozy, The Deadly Israeli House, by Daniel Greenfield. This piece has been pasted into an email and is furiously working its way through the vast network of AIPAC affiliated Jews. 

It's worth a read, because it is so emblematic of the absolutely putrid smugness of these zealots. Here's a sample:

The Cost of Empire

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Posted by Bob Lord

Post-election euphoria only lasts so long, even for total party hacks. For me, it was more post-election relief — I just can't feel euphoric about today's Democratic Party. But whether it's euphoria or relief, today reality crashed the party.

I wrote earlier today about how the Justice Department's decision not to prosecute HSBC for money laundering was influenced by the possible effect an indictment might have on the banking system. That of course is overshadowed by Michigan, the home of the modern labor movement, becoming a right-to-work state. The AzBlueMeanie has covered that today. It's hard to overstate the significance of this development. On Morning Joe, the gang viewed it as a positive that Volkswagen bullt a plant here and pays its workers $14.90 per hour, because otherwise those jobs would have stayed in Germany. Really? Our workers needed to accept less than German workers so that Volkswagen also could save the cost of shipping finished cars from Germany in order to sell them here? My crude logic tells me that accepting subsistence wages wasn't really necessary to land those jobs.  

Then there's this, from TomDispatch: The True Costs of Empire. In this post, David Vine discusses the cost of maintaining the United States garrison state. The numbers are stunning.