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.

Democratic House Sit-In: A Script Even Orwell Couldn’t Have Written

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John Lewis, hero of the 1960’s civil rights movement, led House Democrats in a sit-in, the goal of which was to pass legislation that would empower government bureaucrats to place on a “watch list” those people whose rights will be restricted.

Lewis was joined by most other House Democrats, who were eager to be pictured sitting in. They believe the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, is a fascist. But they’re all down with legislation that would allow Trump, if elected, to name those whose rights he’d like to see restricted.

This is all because gun deaths in America are mainly ISIS inspired, you know.

Seems like the sit-in was a political no-brainer. Even the most calculating of calculating politicians, Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema, was there, posing for a selfie with Arizona colleague Ruben Gallego, from the Progressive Except Palestine caucus.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are gravely concerned about the impact the proposed legislation would have on constitutional freedoms. Those are the same Republicans who rushed to pass the freedom-restricting Patriot Act in the wake of 9/11, which, you’ll remember, was committed by those who “hate us for our freedom.”

Puzzling? Here’s a little background from Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept:

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Open Season on Muslim Americans?

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Rationality has officially departed American politics. You needn’t read past the title to this Intercept piece to understand that: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Call for Bombing ISIS After Orlando Shooting that ISIS Didn’t Direct. Newt Gingrich: Let me go a step further, because remember, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, and Orlando involve American citizens. We’re … Read more

A “Troll” Speaks Out

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And nails it, in my opinion.

The BlueMeanie and I disagree often, but usually respectfully. When it gets disrespectful, it tends to be my lapse, not his.

One area where we disagree is what constitutes a troll. My definition is narrower, so narrow that it applies only to those we’ve banished from the site, with one obvious exception, the Thuckmeister. Ole Thuck repeated himself for the sole purpose of annoying the crap out of us all, bloggers and readers both. The Captain has annoyed me at times, but I doubt that was his intention, and some of his comments are hilarious. On balance, I welcome his input.

BlueMeanie has a lower “troll threshold.” Repeat yourself a bit, and ….

Which brings us to Liza, a frequent commenter here, labeled a troll by Blue Meanie for preferring Jill Stein to Hillary Clinton. In responding, I think Liza articulated quite well a feeling many of us, including yours truly, have:

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Book Reviews: America’s War for the Greater Middle East and Tomorrow’s Battlefield

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By coincidence, I read, back-to-back, two closely connected books: America’s War for the Greater Middle East, by Andrew Bacevich, and Tomorrow’s Battlefield, by Nick Turse. I’ll discuss them in the order in which I should have read them.

America’s War for the Greater Middle East is masterful. Bacevich walks through the last 36 years of constant U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, starting with the failed effort in 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Iran. He ties together the common threads, each step along the way explaining the flawed reasoning, the flawed premises, and the hubris underlying America’s military efforts. Both the analysis and the presentation are superb. For those seeking an understanding of why we’ve stumbled from one ill-conceived military adventure to the next, regardless of which party or which President is in power, America’s War for the Greater Middle East is a must read.

It’d be impossible to convey Bacevich’s brilliance with one excerpt. Nonetheless, here’s one passage, abbreviated a bit, which I found particularly compelling:

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The Plight of the Lower Uppers

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[Cross-posted from Inequality.org]

While taxes have increased on the top one percent in recent years, taxes on the top one tenth of one percent have gone down. 

The top one percent is a convenient way of referring to the super-rich. But it can be quite misleading, sometimes dangerously so. It’s actually a much smaller group, roughly the top one-thousandth, or .1%, that lies at the heart of America’s obscene concentration of wealth and income. Most of that concentration has been into that top one-thousandth. The gains of folks at the bottom of the one percent, the “lower uppers,” have been far less spectacular.

And those lower uppers may actually be paying for the tax breaks that have been showered on the top one-thousandth.

In his recent column, Obama’s War on Inequality, none other than Paul Krugman failed to recognize this reality. Professor Krugman noted that under President Obama, the effective tax rate on the top one percent rose substantially, and that it now was equal to its 1979 level. He then predicted that if elected, Hillary Clinton would continue that trend.

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