Warren Buffett trashes GOP tax cuts

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Billionaire Warren Buffett says the Republicans selectively eliminated him and other affluent individuals like him when asking the American public to “sacrifice.”  Buffett places himself in the “mega-rich” category while the rest of us suffer in the economic crisis.  It seems there is something like “carried interest’ that allows this opulent group to get a “bargain” 15 percent tax rate.  Buffett feels protected by conservatives in Congress and is calling for them to stop this “coddling.”

Forecasters agree, warning that the direction of the House Republicans demanding spending cuts without tax increases was the “wrong” thing to do.  These critics are convinced that the stimulation of the economy in the short term will do more to create jobs.  Something like President Obama will introduce Thursday in his speech to Congress.  Another source says revenue enhancement and entitlement reform are needed for the long term.

The fact that Republicans say that raising taxes is not on the table, along with Democrats refusing to touch entitlements leaves only discretionary spending, like education, research, the military and the infrastructure, among others.  Based on the inability of the GOP to move outside its ridiculous ideology on tax increases, it seems this impasse will certainly lead to a partisan standoff that could lead this country into another economic crisis by the end of the year.

Buffett paid $6,938,744 in taxes last year, which he acknowledges sounds like a lot.  But this was a rate of only 17.4 percent, compared to 20 others in his office paying from 33 to 41 percent, an average of 36 percent.  Based on Republican claims that high capital gains taxes tend to discourage investors, Buffett says he doesn’t know of anyone deciding against a good investment because of a high tax rate.

He adds, for those who argue that higher tax rates hurt job creation, a net 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000, as compared to since that period when we’ve actually had lower tax rates with lower job creation.  Two Republicans served as President during that period along with Bill Clinton.  George W. Bush was elected and served as President from 2001 to 2009.  Shortly after entering office GWB enacted tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens in America…including Warren Buffett.

Wild West gun laws looser today than during Wyatt Earp’s fight at the O.K. Corral

You can read all about it in Adam Winkler’s new book, Gunfight, The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, published on September 19, already available on Amazon.com.  Winkler is a professor of constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles, and writes for The Daily Beast and Huffington Post.  He is an expert on gun law whose statements you can take to the bank.  In his research for the book, he confirmed that gun control can work.

The author says in a recent article in HuffPost, quoting Chicago Mayor Richard Daley following the supreme Court’s decision confirming the rights of individuals to own guns, "Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle it in the streets?"  Winkler adds, “Gun control advocates fear -- and gun rights proponents sometimes hope -- the Second Amendment will transform our cities into modern-day versions of Dodge.”

From the comments I have received from my gun control articles, that is exactly what the gun bubbas want.  In the untamed West you needed a gun to protect yourself from the bad guys and wild animals.  Today we have law enforcement protection to fill that void, and, although strained, manages to do a damn good job taking care of the American public.  What we don’t need is a bunch of untrained vigilante gun slinging cowboys that don’t know what they’re doing like the two at the Rep. Gabby Giffords massacre in Tucson.

But returning to the Old West, Winkler describes the dusty streets of a typical town like Dodge City in 1879 with this huge billboard exclaiming, "The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited."  Even Tombstone, AZ, location of the “Shootout at the OK Corral,” barred the carrying of guns openly.  It took Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce and Gov. Jan Brewer to open the state up to the loosest gun laws in the U.S. and make Arizona a laughing stock of the country.

And the gun fanatics should take notice; in the Wild West, law enforcement and the general population did find out that gun control can work.  As Winkler put it, “We've always had a right to bear arms, but we've also always had gun control.”  He closes by asking, “Even in the Wild West, Americans balanced these two and enacted laws restricting guns in order to promote public safety. Why should it be so hard to do the same today?”

There is much more on the long time political battle over gun control and the individual’s right to bear arms.  This is a must read for the gun control folks as well as the gun rights activists.

Over and over, anti-immigration fanatics ignore the facts

Migrant deaths have dropped 38 percent on the Arizona border.  Illegal immigrant apprehensions have dropped 44 percent.  At this pace, migrant deaths in the Tucson sector, the busiest in the U.S., will fall to their lowest level in years.  In the Yuma sector, there was only one migrant death this year.  Although one death is too many, these figures are evidence that the border with Mexico is more secure than ever.

The nation continues a 15-year declinein crime with the 100 largest metropolitan areas experiencing a 21 percent drop in violent crime between 1990 and 2008.  Murder, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, auto theft have all taken large double-digit declines.  With the continued sharp drop, even through the recession, criminologists are baffled.  Some even ask if the decrease in crime is due to immigration.

There were 11.2 illegal immigrants living in the U.S. in 2010, about the same as in 2009.  Something has to be done to reconcile this situation, and only a fool would think we can deport all of them.  And why would we want to considering many of the immigrants are holding necessary jobs and paying taxes.  The studyby Pew Research found that Mexicans, 58 percent of the total are not leaving the country, prompting more calls for immigration reform.   

It’s time for you anti-immigration extremists to face up to the facts, and stop making Arizona look like the most unfriendly state in the U.S.  Instead, we should force Congress and the White House to secure the border so those coming through are legal, and set up a reasonable system of amnesty for the 11.2 million already here.

Enough is enough. It’s time to challenge the 2nd Amendment-Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I commented on how gun rights advocates had amassed so much power under the 2^nd Amendment, and their constant whining over their rights under its protection.  But even with an improvement in gun violence, there are daily reports in the media about shootings using handguns, with the responsibility clearly on the 2^nd Amendment’s interpretation that allows states like Arizona to pass ridiculous weapons laws.

As an example, in Arizona you need no permit to purchase a handgun, nor do you need a permit to carry a concealed weapon.  No background check in some cases, no gun education classes, just walk in and buy whatever you want and walk out the door.  You might choose a handgun like Jared Loughner used in his Tucson massacre, a Glock 19 with a high capacity gun clip.  It’s all available throughout the state of Arizona, and you can even carry a gun in a bar if you don’t drink.

Texas requires no permit to buy a handgun, but at least they had the sense to place some provisions on concealed carry.  A background check is required and the person must attend classes on firearms education.  They were one of the states, along with Arizona, to reject a guns on campus bill.  In Texas a person can carry a concealed, loaded weapon without a permit while heading to their car.

In comparison, more reasonable states with rational gun laws like California, Illinois and New York make Arizona and Texas look like what they are.  The untamed, backward old west.  More on this later.

Major league basketball is a Social Democracy

Social Democracy is a political ideology of the left and centre-left.  It advocates the creation of a democratic welfare state that combines capitalist and socialistic institutions and practices.  Rather than challenge the capitalist system, its aim is to reform it.  It is sometimes described as a “wide array of welfare and social insurance functions and removing large chunks of wealth and commodity distribution from the market.”  Put simply, it is a sharing of the wealth.

Almost all of the world’s developed countries think of themselves, and are, social democracies; however not the United States.  SD does work in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada.  But what does it have to do with major league basketball?

In a recent article about theNational Basketball Assn. lockout, the owners are crying foul over player salaries and want to slap new caps on them for the future.  In effect, the teams want new contracts that will return them to the black.  In dispute is an argument over how to split a very large amount of money from TV revenue that would ensure that every team is profitable.  The key here is the term “every team.”

The players are already making ridiculous salaries, especially when it comes to what teachers, police and firemen are paid.  In a recent articleon the economy, Paul Wiseman writes that the “economy’s meager gains are giving mostly to the wealthiest…and higher corporate profits.”  In the NBA lockout the general agreement is there should be revenue sharing to make every team—especially the smaller ones with less revenue—profitable.  Sharing of the wealth.

What’s good for the NBA is good for the American public.  A Social Democracy would carve up some of the absurd high salaries of overpaid people in sports, entertainment and the business world, as well as the profits of large corporations, and divide that among the less fortunate.  Just like the National Basketball Assn.

Read more about Social Democracy here.

Add insensitivity to the fanaticism of gun bubbas

by Deadcatdreaming

The Pima County, Arizona RepublicanParty is raffling off a Glock 23 handgun to raise money for Democrat Gabby Giffords reelection campaign.  Rep. Giffords was shot and severely injured by Jared Loughner using a Glock 19 in an attempt to assassinate her in January of this year.  Make good sense?  Of course it does…in Arizona.  The massacre at a Safeway in Tucson left 6 people dead and 13 injured.  Oh, by the way, the winner will also receive three 12-round magazines.

To justify the move, Greg Harris, exec. dir. of the Pima GOP, said that Giffords herself owns a Glock.  I have written about gun dimwits in the past but this guy takes the cake.  Well maybe not.  Mike Shaw, interim Pima County GOP chairman, said: "That Glock is no more responsible for those deaths and the congresswoman's injuries than a Number 2 pencil is responsible for cheating on a test."  A completely, and even more idiotic, new twist to “Guns don’t kill, people do.”

James Kelley, Republican chairman in Tucson’s Legislative District 29, said “I advised against this raffle from day one.  This is insensitive and stupid and a no-brainer.  The chairman and our executive director did the wrong thing.”  To which  the two replied, “Well, we've done it before.”  Kelly responded, “Yes, but not since January 8, and we shouldn’t be doing it now.”  The last I heard, all the raffle tickets had been sold.

As far as I know, Gabby Giffords hasn’t made a statement on the issue yet.  One would have to wonder just how much she still supports the wide-open Arizona gun laws after the January incident.

AZ Gov. Jan Brewer’s beheaded bodies yet to be found

Whoever you are—that group of misguided and misinformed individuals that continues to try and run every illegal immigrant out of Arizona because they are crime-ridden and the cause of all the problems in the state—will simply have to eat crow, or worse.  A Brookings Institution report, something this conglomeration of bigots, above, would never understand, has shown just how outrageous these fanatics are with facts that cannot be denied.

The 2011 report, “City and Suburban Crime Trends in Metropolitan America” surveyed the last 20 years of crime data and discovered that, "crime declines significantly with increases in the proportion [of residents] that is foreign-born and Hispanic."  As an example, the increase of Hispanics, including illegal immigrants, has increased dramatically in the past few years in Phoenix, AZ.  Yet the crime index went from 638.8 in 1999 down to 396 in 2009, a ten year decrease of 38 percent.  Murders were down from 17.5 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 7.6 in 2009.

The Brookings report showed a diversified population helps decrease crime, but input from another expert on the subject, Richard Florida, author of "The Rise of the Creative Class," found that “immigrants are good neighbors” and in their drive to succeed discourage criminal behavior not only in their community but in others as well.

Immigration is still a federal issue and something Washington must address.  The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, along with several of Phoenix’s leading businesses was instrumental in stopping five more immigration laws sponsored by the lunatic State Sen. Russell Pearce, who is currently being recalled.  When will the general population finally get the word?

Read more here.