Heil Donald

We must be careful with Donald Trump, now that he has gained real traction in the primary race. Based on the overall tenor of his campaign, I view him more as a force for evil than as a force for good. If America is great, it is great because of the values of freedom and equality enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. His hostile, xenophobic and verbally demeaning approach is threatening to lead us down a road that will prove corrosive to the moral fiber of this country.

Ironically, I don't believe that he really expected to be the frontrunner in the Republican primary this late into the race. His primary objective in this race was to be a spoiler to Jeb Bush, who, as Governor of Florida, had blocked his efforts to set up a casino in Miami. In fact, Trump had overwhelming support for his casino projects in Florida, and Bush was just about the only one standing in his way with the power of the executive veto.

It seems to me that he is actually surprised, in a kind of ironically funny way, that Republican voters have taken to his clownish antics, hyperbole, and use of the same campaign tricks that launched Hitler from obscurity and led to the Third Reich. I think that he is privately laughing at those that support him for being idiots and fools.

At the time Hitler entered the race, the German people were demoralized by years of economic hardship. Hitler's demonization of Jews, Gypsies and other "lesser races" fed the need of a frustrated and angry populace for someone to blame.

And, it does not seem to be by accident that Donald Trump is following in Hitler's footsteps: in fact, one of his ex wives has stated that he often read Hitler's speeches, apparently in preparation for a future campaign run.

No matter how serious the problems our nation faces we must not take even one step down a road in which we begin to place blame at the feet of vulnerable minority groups who do not have a voice. If we begin to unleash those evil forces we may not be able to control them. For this reason, Trump must be stopped. He has summoned the Devil by launching his campaign in a tirade against illegal immigrants from Mexico, and then later by suggesting that we should be afraid of all Muslim immigrants.

In 1932 the Germans could have saved the world great pain if more of them had taken the time to think about what Hitler was saying, instead of focusing on how what he was saying made them feel.

Let's hope that the American voter can have the common sense to see through Trump and his manipulative game.

Get the NSA to Church

The NSA Needs to get some Religion in the Form of Congressional Oversight

The executive branch is conducting expansive domestic and global surveillance operations, unprecedented in scope and means, to collect and analyze information and communications of millions of people. These operations have raised serious questions about whether these activities are necessary, proportionate, and legal.

Given that neither Members of Congress nor the public were not — and still are not — adequately informed about these programs, Congress should form a special joint investigatory committee to conduct a full investigation and issue recommendations. Americans have confronted these issues before. Today’s Congress should learn from historical examples and form a new investigatory committee modeled after notable and relevant past successes.

In the early 1970s, the public and Congress learned that the CIA was collecting millions of Americans’ communications. In response, Congress created the Church Committee as a special investigatory committee and adopted a bipartisan approach to independently investigate activities conducted by both Democratic and Republican administrations. The Church Committee also formed a cooperative relationship with the intelligence community to access relevant information, while undertaking rigorous scrutiny of intelligence programs and maintaining the objectivity and credibility to assess them.

The investigation is still considered one of the most successful in U.S. history. It provided a significant accounting of the executive’s activities, led to meaningful reforms that governed surveillance law for more than three decades, and restored public confidence that Congress was conducting its constitutional oversight role. The Church Committee demonstrated that a special investigatory committee can, with political will and good leadership, effectively investigate executive surveillance and intelligence activities—and their abuses.

Source: https://www.eff.org/files/2015/12/14/a_new_church_committee_final.pdf

Common Sense Gun Reforms

Stymied for 7 years -- it is enough to make a man cry!

Obama and the Democratic leadership are perplexed beyond words over their inability to leverage mass murders in support of gun control. No matter how horrific the crime, they seem to be unable to rally public opinion to the notion that increased gun control will make us safer.

Of course, that is for good reason, since keeping weapons out of the hands of law-abiding citizens will not make us safer, and the Democratic leadership has shown a predilection for legislation that directly infringes on the rights of legal gun owners, which has cost them the trust of the majority of Americans when it comes to this particular topic.

They support measures such as legislation that would permit the victims of gun violence to sue the manufacturer of the weapons used as well as a 50% levy on ammunition, two measures that would effectively put the gun industry out of business.

Which is a shame, because there are basic, common sense steps that can make us safer, and on which our representatives should be able to reach a consensus.

For example, it is clear that the mentally ill, as defined as anyone who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution or deemed unfit by way of legal proceeding, should not be permitted to own a gun. However, as demonstrated by the mass shooting at a Lafayette movie theater, all that a shooter has to do is cross state lines in order to conceal the fact that he is mentally ill. Therefore, it is imperative that we establish a national registry of the mentally ill so that this information can be made available to the federal background check system and law enforcement, with penalties for those states that do not comply with the law. A provision must be put in place for an individual to petition a judge for removal from this list once they can be deemed fit.

Similarly, anyone who has been the subject of a protection order should be immediately added to a national database which would prevent them from owning a gun until they can convince a judge that they are no longer a threat.

Finally, it seems clear to me that all gun sales, including transfers of ownership between individual owners, should be subject to the background check provision. A system that effectively keeps guns out of the hands of convicted felons, the mentally ill and those who have been subject to protection orders must not be compromised by loopholes that facilitate straw purchases and transfers.

Such measures would do little to infringe on the rights of the vast majority of law-abiding citizens, but would go far to help keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.

Time to Reverse the Exploding Income Disparity Trend

Source: https://acivilamericandebate.com/2011/04/10/the-30-year-growth-of-income-inequality/

There is one simple explanation for the explosion in the wealth of the top 1% of U.S. earners, and it is the long-term capital gains tax rate.

This rate, currently at 15%, insures that the wealthiest Americans, who earn the largest percentage of their income in the form of long-term capital gains, will pay a rate comparable to single filers earning up to $37,450 per year.

For example, in 2011 (the last year in which his tax information was made public), former presidential candidate Mitt Romney earned $13,709,608 from a combination of capital gains, ordinary dividends, taxable interest, speaking fees and corporate directorships, but paid only $1,912,529 in taxes for an effective tax rate of 14.1%.

While itemized deductions in the amount of $4,681,842 helped reduce his taxable income significantly, the 15% rate applied to long-term capital gains in the amount of $6,810,176 played the largest role.

Since the rate was lowered to 15% by G.W. Bush in 2003 in the wake of 9/11 (Osama Bin Laden's indirect gift to the super-wealthy), the after-tax income of the top 1% of earners has gone up over 2.5x, while the income of the highest fifth of earners has merely doubled and the income of the middle fifth has stagnated, barely keeping up with inflation.

The principal reason for this is that the the lower your income, the more likely you are to earn it by way of a paycheck or business income, subject to payroll deductions and a tiered tax rate system with a peak rate of 39.6%.

How this is even remotely fair is beyond my comprehension, but fairness issues aside, income disparity on this level is dangerous to our democracy and strains the fabric of society. Therefore, I propose that we begin treating all long-term capital gains like regular income.

If this had been the law in 2011, Mitt Romney's effective tax rate would have been 26.3%, even after itemizing $4.6 million in deductions (including $2.3 million donated to charity). This, I believe most people would agree, would have been a fairer and more fiscally sound outcome.

It's Time to Replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

With crude oil prices getting close to all-time lows (when adjusted for inflation), now is the time for the Obama Administration to put the strong dollar to work and refill the SPR, and to consider adding a new site to increase the total storage capacity to the original target of 1 billion barrels.

Wild swings in commodities prices are not good for the economy overall. While the drop in the cost of oil and gasoline translates to more cash in consumer's pockets, which can translate to increased consumer spending and economic activity, crude prices that are two low can have negative impacts.

One negative impact is in that it takes the wind out of the sails of efforts to conserve. For example, at $2.20 per gallon for regular unleaded it takes over eight years for the owner of a typical hybrid automobile to recoup the added cost of the vehicle. Since that is longer than most people hold onto a car, there is essentially no financial incentive to buy the most energy-efficient vehicles.

And, since low oil prices feed through to energy prices overall, including the price of electricity, we can expect planned investments in wind and solar generation to be subject to re-evaluation.

Finally, it is the best interest of the United States to maintain the largest stockpile of crude oil possible to shield us from future supply shocks.

Therefore, Obama should authorize new additions to the SPR to help underpin crude prices and to provide us with an increased reserve against for the future.

Domestic Gun Control is Not the Correct Response to Acts of Terrorism

Syed Rizwan Farook, ISIS sympathizer

Once again, the Democratic leadership is immediately latching onto the cowardly San Bernardino shooting as a justification for increased gun control. In fact, at the time their statements were read, it was not yet clear if this was a workplace shooting or an act of terrorism, which bears significance in terms of its implications for gun control.

A workplace shooting, by a disturbed or disgruntled employee, is something completely different from an act of terrorism. A workplace shooting is most commonly a spur-of-the-moment action in which the shooter reaches a certain point and decides that "enough is enough". An act of terrorism is usually something that is planned well in advance, often with the support of associates foreign and domestic, by individuals who are driven by ideology and hell bent on destruction.

The workplace shooter will typically make use of whatever weapons he happens to own, with whatever ammunition he happens to possess at the time. The terrorist will carefully select their weapons and will amass a cache of ammunition. The terrorist will get the weapons by whatever means necessary, and will not think twice about buying guns on the black market if that is the only route open to them. Or, finding it difficult to obtain weapons, the terrorist will plan to commit acts of terrorism by other means, such as with explosives, with unpredictable consequences.

For example, in France it is completely illegal for private citizens to own fully-automatic Kalashnikov rifles of the type used in the Paris assaults. However, that is exactly what the attackers used. And, since concealed carry permits are not available to Parisians, the victims had to wait for the authorities to arrive to repel the attackers. That extra time resulted in over 130 dead.

Therefore, more stringent gun laws will not stop the determined terrorist, and this is something the Democratic leadership should have considered before they went public with their responses to the San Bernardino shooting.

What will help minimize casualties are more weapons in the hands of those trained and able to use them, be they private citizens or law enforcement officials. Gun laws that make it harder for law abiding citizens to obtain weapons of self-defense will leave us all vulnerable.

It is no coincidence that the attackers selected a "soft target" such as a community center for the handicapped and disabled as the site of the attack -- they knew that they would be unlikely to face armed resistance there.

By the time the police entered the San Bernardino community center the shooters had already fled. What might have happened if several of the employees had been armed that day? Could they have held the shooters at bay, buying valuable time? Could they have stopped them? I can envision a future in which law enforcement trains and deputizes tens of thousands of regular citizens nationwide so that they can be equipped to intervene and stop acts of terrorism and violence in time to save lives.

Allow Egypt to Absorb the Gaza Strip

Credit: Khalil Hamra for the Associated Press

In the image above, smoke rises from the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza, as the Egyptian Army destroys buildings to create a buffer zone which will help prevent smuggling into Gaza.

I want to repeat this: the Egyptian Army is engineering a buffer zone with the main objective of preventing weapons and rocket parts from getting into the hands of Hamas.

Therefore, I reiterate my question: Why doesn't Egypt simply absorb the Gaza Strip? The Gaza situation is untenable for Israel and for the residents of Gaza; an Egyptian solution seems like the most obvious path.

Similarly, we should be looking toward Jordan to absorb the West Bank and bring some order to that territory, as well.