Isebrand.com

Teddy Roosevelt & others: Estate Tax is a good idea

Theodore Roosevelt, 1907: "an [inheritance] tax on such enormous fortunes as have been accumulated in America would be one of the methods by which we should try to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity..."

William Gates Sr. wrote: "Such distinguished Americans as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis saw the estate tax as a practical, democratic restraint on massive concentrated wealth and power. And in fact repeal of the estate tax today would widen the growing gap in economic and political influence between the wealthy and the rest of America." (The Washington Post, 2/16/01)

And this from the Democratic Party's Senate leadership, a statement demonstrating the most American of virtues, commonsense: "State officials have warned that states rely on the estate tax as a source of revenue and could face budget shortfalls if the estate tax is repealed. Finally, many charitable organizations, universities, and other groups that rely on donations for funding are concerned that an elimination of the estate tax would sharply reduce the amount of contributions they receive from individuals and trusts."

Oldicaid

Good graphic over at uggabugga.

Wow! Bu$h keeps coming up with even MORE ways to talk about his bad ideas! What a talent this chimp has!

President Bu$h had a press conference! Remember those? They're those things that President Clinton and even Reagan used to have a lot, and this president never does.

"All the president did tonight was confirm that he will pay for his risky privatization scheme by cutting the benefits of middle-class seniors," said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California."

Thanks God for Harry and Nancy! At least someone's making some sense out there. Lord knows, it isn't Bu$h who's making any sense!

From the AP article: "Bush spoke as White House officials issued written material saying the type of change he had in mind could be accomplished with a 'sliding scale benefit formula.'" Oooooooo! Written material! Ooooooooo! A sliding scale! Isn't that something like a slippery slope, Mr. President? Like, a slippery slope into poverty, maybe? Jeez.

Is this guy for real? Well, unfortunately he thinks he is. Lord, God in heaven, has the idea of President Kerry ever looked so good as it does tonight?

I smell smoke. And I think it's coming from something Bu$h is inhaling.

Two words: Poor Laura.

Republicans don't like what Bob Dole has to say... FRIST REJECTS THE ADVICE OF HIS ELDERS

Did you catch Bob Dole's op-ed in The New York Times?

Two funny things about it:

1. It was a partisan piece supporting Sen. Frist's "nuclear option" to undo Senate rules on filibustering, so long as Frist "believes he has exhausted every effort at compromise." Well, little did Bob Dole know that Sen. Frist was destined to reject compromise! Democratic Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid proposed a compromise, and Frist just up and walked away in a show of typical we-demand-single-party-rule arrogance.

2. Apparently for the Republican National Committee (RNC), Dole wasn't partisan enough! They released Dole's op-ed, but cut out that very paragraph in which Dole calls for bipartisanship

Hello, Sen. Frist?! Bob recommends you do exactly what you failed to: compromise! Frist, listen: Dole's old enough to be your father. He was in the Senate for decades and became one of its most respected members. He gets it! Maybe you should consider heeding the advice of your elders.

Here's the paragraph the RNC cut: "I still hold out hope that the two Senate leaders will find a way to ensure that senators have the opportunity to fulfill their constitutional duty to offer 'advice and consent' on the president's judicial nominees while protecting minority rights. Time has not yet run out."

Dinosaurs in the Senate!

Remember when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) made a speech in January blasting the idea of global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?" He kept citing Michael Crichton, the scientist (oops) -- I mean, novelist famous for his story, Jurassic Park, and who recently authored State of Fear, another treatise (oops)--I mean novel in which eco-terrorists manufacture catastrophes in a maniacal attempt to prove that global warming is true...which it isn't, says Crichton the scientist (oops) -- I mean, novelist.

Well, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change seems to think that maybe Sen. Inhofe is wrong, and Crichton isn't necessarily all that great on the whole facts and evidence thing. They've issued, "Answers to Key Questions Raised by M. Crichton in State of Fear."

One of my favorite bits: "In his appendix, Crichton offers his personal views on climate change.  He acknowledges that the world is warming and that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are increasing, but argues that no one knows how much of the observed warming is due to natural versus human forces.  Further, because it is impossible to know exactly how much warming the world will experience a century from now, he argues that his guess is just as credible as the projections from any scientist. By this argument, if my doctor is not 100% certain of his diagnosis of my medical condition, then I’m just as well served by self-diagnosis via random guess."

New Zealand approves civil unions for gay couples and . . . nothing happens

A new law took effect today in New Zealand that allows same-sex couples to enter into civil unions that are marriages in every way (full, complete, identical legal status as marriage) but in name.

It has been reported that following this move, no meteors have crashed into New Zealand; neither has there been a hurricane, volcanic eruption, civil disorder, a plague, bad HD TV reception, or sweaty feet on the part of national treasure Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings. Additionally, no impact has been seen on any pre-existing marriages or on marriage or divorce rates as a whole.

Kiwi commentator Craig Young: "I think most of our fellow New Zealanders have realized that a pack of rabble-rousing fundamentalists were the only ones getting into hysterics about civil unions, and don't mind us having our day at the registry."

CHRISTIAN RIGHT LEADER HAS WHITE SUPREMACIST TIES

Fredrick Clarkson, an expert on the Religious Right, writes: "It turns out that Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council and the organizer of "Justice Sunday," the Christian Right rally in Louisville last weekend, has a seamy history -- that includes a secret deal with white supremacist leader, David Duke."

Clarkson is alluding to an important  Max Blumenthal article in The Nation this week.

Blumenthal's article also traces the rise of Perkins, which intersects with the rise of the Republican religious government strategy itself:

"Tony Perkins, Justice Sunday was the fulfillment of a strategy devised more than two decades ago by his political mentor, Woody Jenkins. In May 1981, in the wake of Ronald Reagan's presidential victory, Jenkins and some fifty other conservative activists met at the Northern Virginia home of direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie to plot the growth of their movement. The Council for National Policy (CNP), an ultra-secretive, right-wing organization, was the outcome of that meeting. The CNP hooked up theocrats like R.J. Rushdoony, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell with wealthy movement funders like Amway founder Richard DeVos and beer baron Joseph Coors. As DeVos famously said, the CNP "brings together the doers with the donors."

What's the matter...?

Tom Franks has an interesting article in the current issue of The New York Review of Books. The article defines the "backlash" (his term) that he feels defines the now 30+ years-old positioning of the Republican Party as the populist party.

Generally speaking, Franks sees the backlash act as at least a two-parter: 1) class warfare that positions Democrats as rich elitists and out of touch, and 2) accusations that Democrats were treasonous during the Vietnam War. Ultimately, 2) is an echo of 1). It was "rich kids" who didn't fight in Vietnam.

What is more, Franks contends, this backlash act is successful in large part because Democrats don't counter it. What else explains how the two parts of the backlash could be believed by so many when they are both untruths?

Here's Franks on that: "The illusion that George W. Bush 'understands' the struggles of working-class people was only made possible by the unintentional assistance of the Democratic campaign. Once again, the 'party of the people' chose to sacrifice the liberal economic policies that used to connect them to such voters on the altar of centrism. Advised by a legion of tired consultants, many of whom work as corporate lobbyists in off years, Kerry chose not to make much noise about corruption on Wall Street, or to expose the business practices of Wal-Mart, or to spend a lot of time talking about raising the minimum wage."

A particularly good paragraph: "Again and again, in the course of the electoral battle, I heard striking tales of this tragically inverted form of class consciousness: of a cleaning lady who voted for Bush because she could never support a rich man for president. Of the numerous people who lost their cable TV because of nonpayment but who nevertheless sported Bush stickers on their cars."

Democratic moral values...question mark

THE SITUATION:

From Matt Bai's piece in The New York Times Magazine yesterday:

"Before Schiavo ever became the story of the moment, Democrats were wrestling over the meaning of moral values, with about as much clarity as you might expect from a bunch of cable-TV pundits debating superstring theory. There are two basic arguments being put forward by national Democrats on how to change their image, and at a breakfast for Democratic officials in Washington last month, I heard two of the party's more serious thinkers lay them out.

PROPOSALS:

From an Associated Press article:

Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN): "'The national image of the Democratic Party does not sell well in the South,' Ford said. 'However, the position of national Democrats on fiscal matters, ironically, is more in line with where voters are. We have to do a better job of telling that story.'"

Back to Bai's piece:

"Howard Dean, the party's new chairman, counseled that if Democrats really wanted to win back churchgoers, they had to make the case that traditionally liberal programs like health care and community-development block grants were moral values, too. 'I am tired of having decent Americans who don't happen to wear their religious beliefs on their sleeves called immoral,' Dean said.

AN ANALYSIS:

Bai again:

"Democrats can try to change the conversation by playing with language and definitions, but in the end, any meaningful re-evaluation of their approach to moral values -- like just about everything else on the Democratic agenda -- will require more intellectual rigor as well. Like Bill Clinton in 1992, Democrats now may have to confront some of their most powerful interest groups, which have grown accustomed to demanding absolute fealty on issues like abortion and obscenity, if they want their notions of morality to feel more consistent and inclusive to many Americans.

"This may be a transitional moment for both parties. More voters now are refusing to join either party, rejecting the notion that either holds a monopoly on values. And as technology advances, so, too, does the shading of moral choices that used to seem black or white. Can Roe v. Wade still be the sole arbiter of life's starting point, for instance, now that a mother can watch her 12-week-old fetus spinning in the womb? Perhaps the party that builds a national consensus in the era after Terri Schiavo will be the one that has the courage not to exploit moral choices but to wrestle with them. Most Americans seem to understand that we are entering a time of complex, wrenching decisions that defy facile and self-righteous answers. Maybe it's time for politicians to admit that, too."

"The newfound power of Ohio's evangelicals has the Republican Party scared about 2006"

A Columbus, Ohio weekly, The Other Paper, has an interesting article by Dan Williamson on the influence of conservative evangelicals' stranglehold on the Ohio GOP.

From the article:

"I would say 2006 is the year that we're gonna have the fight for what Ohio Republicans really stand for," Jordan said. "Are we the party of Reagan and Bush, or are we the establishment—quote, 'moderate'—Republican Party? It's time to have the fight for the heart and soul of Ohio Republicans."

Parsley said Republicans' treatment of religious conservatives is similar to the way Democrats have traditionally treated African-Americans.

"It seems that they stir those voters up, and just as soon as they get into office, they forget that it was those voters that helped them get there," Parsley said.

"I think that right-wing evangelicals have felt the same thing from the Republican Party: You need our vote until you get in office, and then you don't so much need our vote anymore and wish we'd kind of go away. The fact is, we're not going away."