GUNS
Gabby Giffords, the terrific Tucson Congresswoman (and gun owner) who got shot in the head by a lunatic, and her terrific astronaut husband Mark Kelly (also a gun owner), have launched Americans for Responsible Solutions to help blunt the power of the NRA — most of whose members agree its positions are too extreme. If you think you might want to help, click the link to learn more.
BONDS
After last week’s spectre of a bond bubble, several of you asked where you might put your bond money instead. I mentioned two timber stocks (timber grows), I mentioned a dredger (silt accumulates). Some master limited partnerships I own for the long-term: PAA and OKS, yielding around 4.7%, MWE yielding about 6%, PVR and TOO at about 7.5%, and CMLP at 9% — all partly tax-deferred. Don’t put all your eggs in this basket; but a basket to consider for a couple of them.
HAGEL
We should wait for the hearings, of course, but c’mon. A lot has changed since Chuck Hagel compiled his dismal record on LGBT equality. I have little doubt that, if confirmed, he would — to borrow the phrase of the Marines — “step out smartly” to treat LGBT service members fairly and with respect. So the question is: how would he do at the rest of the job, and in helping to make the Department more efficient, squeezing the same capabilities out of a meaningfully trimmed budget?
With that budget so huge, what an opportunity! Because, as President Eisenhower famously noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed . . .” To the extent it can be done without jeopardizing our security, let’s invest in things that will last 100 years rather than things that will blow up.
PFLAG
Jeanne Manford died yesterday, at 92. Mother to a gay activist, she founded Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in 1972. Listen to the President tell that story.
