Category Archives: political news

business news, national news, political news

Estate tax is worth keeping on the books

Time for a confession, which some of you might already have suspected.

I used to write editorials for daily newspapers that ran counter to my own beliefs and principles. Why? Well, as a former colleague once told me: If you take the man’s money, you play by the man’s rules.

So, there you have it. I was getting paid to write editorials for newspapers that had different slants than mine, so I wrote the words, gritted my teeth on occasion — and then accepted the paycheck.

One issue with which I had a disagreement with our newspaper’s editorial policy was the estate tax, or “death tax,” as some have called it. My bosses wanted it repealed. My former publisher at the Amarillo Globe-News (not the guy who runs the place now, but his predecessor) was adamant that we repeal the estate tax. Why punish heirs to estates, he argued, when the person who built the wealth wants to be able to hand it down to his or her heirs?

I’m sure my ex-boss is happy with the U.S. House of Representatives voting this week to repeal the estate tax.

I am not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/04/17/why-are-republicans-pushing-estate-tax-repeal-its-their-nature/

As Paul Waldman writes in the Washington Post: “Republicans say that they aren’t really trying to help wealthy heirs; instead, this is motivated by their deep concern for the fate of family farms and small businesses. But today, the first $5.43 million of any estate is exempt from taxes. That’s the single most important fact to understand about this tax.”

Did you get that? Nearly $5.5 million of any estate is tax exempt!

My congressman, Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, Texas, has been at the forefront of the estate tax repeal effort since joining Congress in 1995. He’s got a dog in that hunt. His family owns a lot of ranch land in Donley County and he doesn’t want any of it taxed when the day comes to hand it over to his heirs. I understand Thornberry’s interest in repealing the estate tax.

Here’s a bit more from Waldman: “According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, ‘In 2013, the most recent year for which final numbers are available, there were 2.6 million deaths in the United States, and 4,700 estate tax returns reporting some tax liability were filed. Thus, taxable estate tax returns represented approximately one-fifth of one percent of deaths in 2013.’”

One-fifth of one percent!

Is that enough of a tax to call for its outright repeal? If yes, then who benefits from it? I reckon it’s the extremely wealthy who have estates valued at far more than $5.43 million, which already is exempt from taxes. Remember?

What will be the fate of this repeal effort? If the Senate approves it as well, President Obama will veto it.

 

political news, State news

Julian Castro: right pick for HRC's ticket?

OK, here’s the deal.

I’ve already noted that it is absurd to try handicapping who will be the Republican and Democratic vice-presidential running mates next year. It’s still absurd to try to look so far in advance.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/04/12/running-mate-selection-way-too-early-for-that/

That all said, one name keeps popping up on the Democratic side that’s beginning to make some sense.

Let’s assume a couple of things.

One is that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the Democrats’ presidential nominee. Another is that Democrats are going to seek to tighten their grip on the Latino vote. Still another — and this remains a long shot — is that Texas, of all places, might be brought into play as the major party candidates fight for enough electoral votes to put one of them over the top.

Here’s a name to consider: Julian Castro.

This does originate with this blog post. Others have said Castro would be a nearly ideal choice for Clinton.

He’s currently the secretary of housing and urban development. Before that he was mayor of San Antonio. He has an identical twin, Joaquin, who serves in Congress.

Why should Clinton pick this young man? Well, he’s a handsome fellow. He speaks Spanish fluently; he also speaks English just as fluently. His story is compelling: raised by a single mother, graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Law. He’s an up-by-bootstraps kind of man.

Democrats have done well in recent election cycles with Latino voters. Republican President George W. Bush made serious inroads with that demographic group in 2000 and 2004, but it’s gone downhill ever since.

Clinton could cement the Democratic hold on Latino voters by putting Castro on the ticket.

As for Texas? Well, let’s just say that the hill for Democrats in Castro’s home state remains quite steep. The state remains heavily Republican and at this moment I cannot see how a Democratic presidential ticket — even one with a Latino in one of the spots — carries the state in 2016. Maybe in 2020.

Castro, though, could make the state competitive, forcing Republicans to invest campaign money in a place that since the 1980 election has been a shoo-in for the GOP.

Am I predicting Clinton will select Castro? Come on. Give me some credit. I’ve said it’s too early to make that call.

However, it wouldn’t surprise me.

 

 

national news, political news

Reid to go 'nuclear' on Lynch nomination?

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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is a lame-duck Democrat in a body controlled by Republicans.

He’s not going back into private life without a fight. He’s picked a doozy to wage with his GOP colleagues.

Frankly, it’s a fight worth having.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/harry-reid-says-he-can-force-vote-loretta-lynch-nomination

Reid wants to force the Senate to vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be the nation’s next attorney general. She’s been waiting seemingly since The Flood to get a vote by the full Senate, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell keeps digging in, resisting the vote for this reason and that reason — none of which has any bearing on Lynch’s qualifications for the job to which she’s been nominated by President Obama.

She is highly qualified. She has deserved a full vote since the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended her appointment.

McConnell, though, is holding her hostage to other legislation.

Reid’s role as minority leader is supposed to put him in a subordinate capacity. However, he said this week that if he gets 51 senators to sign on, he can call for a full Senate vote and circumvent the authority reserved customarily for the majority leader.

He’s going to enrage McConnell if he manages to schedule the vote. A majority of senators already has said they plan to confirm Lynch as AG. The trick, then, is to get a majority to agree simply to a vote.

Lynch would succeed Eric Holder at Justice. Republicans already detest Holder. Every day Lynch is delayed from taking her job is a day that Holder remains at his post. Why in the world, if you’re a Senate Republican, do you want to keep someone on the job that you cannot stand?

Senate protocol and decorum are supposed to inviolable. A lot of it has been tossed aside in recent years as the parties have fought tooth-and-nail with each other. Democrats changed the filibuster rules in the previous Congress. And just recently, a group of Republicans sent a letter to the Iranian mullahs telling them the nuclear deal worked out could be tossed aside when the next president takes office in January 2017.

Decorum? Protocol? It’s gone, mostly.

Harry Reid’s set to play some hardball. If it gets Loretta Lynch confirmed as the next attorney general, well, let him throw the first pitch.

 

national news, political news

E-mail controversy isn't yet a 'scandal'

Hillary Clinton’s e-mail dustup just won’t go away.

Former House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had sent the former secretary of state a letter asking about her use of a personal e-mail account. Clinton didn’t respond.

Fox News Channel’s “crawl” across the TV screen, quite naturally, referred to it as a “scandal.”

Hold on. We’re not there. We may never get there.

This is what happens, though, when a candidate declares his or her intention to run for high office. In this case, it’s the highest office in the most powerful country on Earth.

Thus, the e-mail matter is going to keep boiling and roiling.

Is it a “scandal,” which the right-wing mainstream media want to describe it? No. It’s a controversy that needs some more fleshing out.

Clinton admits to using a personal e-mail account to do public business while running the State Department. That was a dumb call. She should have used the government account, which was hers to use. But she wasn’t the first high-ranking Cabinet official to rely on personal e-mail accounts.

Has anyone thought to subpoena former secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condi Rice? Oh, I forgot. They aren’t running for president … nor are they Democrats.

Let’s cool our jets here. Controversy? Yes. Scandal? Not even close.

 

political news, religious news

What does Bachmann know about End Times?

Michelle Bachmann must know something none of the rest of us ever imagined knowing.

The former Republican congresswoman from Minnesota seems to know that the End Times are here. They’re about to arrive. The world is about to end.

Who’s responsible for this? You get one chance at this one: Yep, it’s Barack Obama.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bachmann-end-times-are-here-thanks-Obama

I’m no religious scholar, but here’s my understanding of what my Bible says about the End Times.

Put quite simply, the End Times will come without anyone knowing it’s coming. It’s just going to happen. We won’t know the end has arrived until, well, it arrives.

She told a conservative radio host that the president is lying about Islam and about the war we are fighting against Islamic extremists. Then she added that the End Times are coming as a result of the president’s deception. Bachmann said she is excited about the possibility, she said. “The good news that I want to transition to is that, remember the prophets said in the Old Testament, they longed to look into the days that we live in, they long to be a part of these days. That’s why these are not fearful times, these are the most exciting days in history.”

My interpretation of Scripture suggests the End Times is a metaphor for each of our lives. If we believe in Jesus, then we’ll go to heaven to be with him when the end arrives. And I don’t believe you can predict when that moment arrives.

Then again, some politicians — such as Michelle Bachmann — seem to think they know everything.

national news, political news

Rubio looks forward … except for Cuba

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign launch Monday contained a lot of soaring rhetoric about the need to look forward.

The Florida Republican sounded the right notes, spoke the right words and paid tribute to his own life story, which is an interesting and compelling one.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/marco-rubio-2016-presidential-bid-116914.html?hp=t1_r

“While our people and economy are pushing the boundaries of the 21st century, too many of our leaders and their ideas are stuck in the 20th century,” Rubio said. “We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”

Agreed, Sen. Rubio.

However, why are you locked into a 20th-century view of our nation’s relationship with Cuba?

President Obama is trying to breathe life into a bilateral relationship with the island nation that sits just a few miles off the Florida coast. For decades, dating back to the late 1950s, U.S. politicians have trembled in fear — or so it seems — at the prospect that Cuba would become a launching pad for Soviet missiles. Then the Soviet Union vaporized into thin air in 1991. Cuba’s Marxist regime continued on, repressing its people.

The United States maintained its economic embargo against Cuba.

Now the 44th president of the United States is taking a 21st-century view of U.S.-Cuba relations — but Sen. Rubio will have none of it. Rubio, whose parents emigrated from Cuba, said it doesn’t make sense. He calls Cuba an agent of terror.

I’m all ears as it regards Sen. Rubio’s desire to look forward. I am anxious to hear the rest of his message as the 2016 White House campaign gets ramped up.

Let’s start, though, with refining the senator’s view of Cuba.

 

political news

Rubio joins growing GOP field for 2016

Marco Rubio is now running for president of the United States.

The freshman Republican U.S. senator from Florida has joined the swelling chorus of GOP voices seeking to take the White House back from those mean ol’ Democrats.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/marco-rubio-2016-presidential-bid-116914.html?hp=t1_r

What the Rubio candidacy is beginning to illustrate in even more stark terms is that Republicans are going to face the donnybrook while Democrats appear headed for a coronation of sorts when the parties convene their nominating conventions in the summer of ’16.

Those of us who’ve been around long enough remember when the reverse was true. Democrats carved each other up while Republicans rallied behind the suitable heir apparent.

Not this time.

Rubio joins a GOP primary campaign that already includes fellow Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. Others — many others, in fact — are waiting in the wings. I keep hearing different numbers, but the roll call of Republican presidential candidates varies between 12 and 25. Hey, the more the merrier.

The Democrats? They’ve got their prohibitive frontrunner, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She has the deep pockets, the organization, the party machinery and some quite favorable poll numbers backing her up.

The Democratic Party is likely to anoint Clinton as its nominee.

The Republican Party is going to engage in a knock-down, drag-out brawl through the winter, into the spring and possibly right up until the GOP convention.

Some of us remember another time, era and set of circumstances that reversed the roles.

This campaign, from my perspective, is going to be much more fun to watch.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Obamacare lawsuit: Where does it stand?

Hey, it just occurs to me. There’s a lawsuit pending against the Affordable Care Act.

You remember that, yes? House Speaker John Boehner filed a lawsuit against the ACA, contending that President Obama didn’t have the authority to tinker with it through executive authority.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obamacare-lawsuit/

He filed the suit after a lot of huffing and puffing about it.

Since its filing, though, some data have suggested something that foes of the ACA — aka Obamacare — don’t want to hear.

It’s that Americans are signing up for it. The ACA is working. Actually working. More Americans have health insurance now who didn’t have it before it was enacted.

Boehner, though, didn’t want to hear those silly thing. He said the president overstepped his constitutional authority by “rewriting the law,” a duty reserved solely for Congress.

I maintain the idea that the lawsuit is intended to please the Republican Party base that hates the idea of government mandating health insurance, even though it’s been done at the state level. Massachusetts, under the administration of then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, did so — and it became the model for the federal law enacted by Congress.

Several millions of Americans have health insurance these days. The lawsuit is out there. Somewhere. Waiting to be adjudicated.

The most fascinating political trick of the upcoming presidential campaign, meanwhile, may occur among Republicans who will vow to get rid of the ACA if they are elected — and replace it with … what?

 

political news

HRC really is going to 'hit the road'

I do not intend to comment on every little thing Hillary Rodham Clinton does as she launches her second bid for the presidency of the United States, but this development is rather intriguing.

She’s driving — actually riding — in a van to Iowa.

No fancy jet. No limo. A van.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-hits-the-road-116911.html?hp=t2_r

This might be a sign of her attempt to connect with everyday Americans, folks who perhaps really and truly understand what it means to be “dead broke,” or those who struggle meet monthly financial obligations.

Clinton’s announcement Sunday that she’s running for president has been seen as wildly different from when she declared her candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

It was the absence of the letter “I,” as in the first-person pronoun that so many politicians are prone to use. Commentators noted today that she didn’t even mention herself until about halfway through her remarks. Might that, too, be a sign of newfound humility? OK, it well might be stagecraft, calculated to make observers like yours truly take note.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is fraught with some unique characteristics. Perhaps the most unique — as some have noted — is that she’ll have to put distance between herself and not just one president, but two: the current president, Barack Obama, and the man to whom she’s been married for nearly 40 years, Bill Clinton.

President Obama is now heading into the final turn of his time in office and he’s seeking to build his legacy. Former President Clinton remains arguably the nation’s most recognizable and political force of nature. It’s that relationship and its proximity to the Hillary Clinton’s campaign that presents the most potential trouble.

Hillary Clinton will have to demonstrate she’s her own woman, with her own ideas, world view and that she cannot  be overshadowed by the Democrats’ Big Dog.

But hey, first things first.

She’s going to climb into that van and ride through the Midwest to Iowa. It’s time to connect with folks out here in Flyover Country.

 

national news, political news

Is HRC 'likable enough' to get elected?

A young U.S. senator, Barack Obama, uttered arguably one of the signature lines of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primary campaign when he told fellow Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”

I’m betting that Clinton didn’t appreciate the “compliment.”

Now, eight years later, she’s launching another bid for the presidency.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/12/clinton-campaigns-challenge-make-her-likeable/

And as the Wall Street Journal reports, her task is to make her “likable enough” to get elected president of the United States next year.

As the WSJ reported: “She needs to try to humanize herself, because in some ways she’s kind of become a cardboard cutout figure,” said Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University.

So, the campaign begins anew for the former first lady, senator and secretary of state.

Many in the media refer to her simply as “Hillary.” Just a mention of that name and you know to whom the reference is being made. Does the first-name familiarity make her likable? Hardly. I continue to believe she needs to translate likability into authenticity.

She remains a political powerhouse. The strength, though, doesn’t always connect with voters in a tangible manner. Clinton at times appears evasive, which hardly lends itself to likability.

I will be among millions of voters looking for signs that she’s capable of understanding the problems, worries and concerns of average American citizens. If she does, she’ll prove she’s for real, that she’s authentic.

And likable.