Author: Ken

Obama’s Stock Market

Obama’s Stock Market

Remember all the horrifying predictions about what would happen if Obama became president? Millions more will lose their jobs! Runaway inflation will destroy your savings, and gasoline would hit $7 a gallon – or more! And the stock market would surely crash!  Obama, (and Obamacare) they said with certainty, is anti-business and the whole economy will tank.

You don’t remember? Well, I do, because those predictions were made daily and vociferously during the 2008 and then again for the 2012 re-election campaigns. Perhaps you don’t recall them because not one of them came true, causing the GOP soothsayers to now “forget” their own words.

This NY Times article focuses on just one aspect of Obama’s success, the U.S. stock market.

“The facts are inescapable: The Obama years have been among the best of times to be a stock investor, going all the way back to the dawn of the 20th century.

“Consider that had you been prescient enough to buy shares of a low-cost stock index fund on Mr. Obama’s first inauguration day, on Jan. 20, 2009, you would now have tripled your money. Stock market performance of this level has rarely been surpassed.”

Indeed. The facts are inescapable. You could have tripled your money!

I’m well aware that a president has limited impact on the economy in general, and the stock market in particular. Nonetheless, the scare tactics of the past have been proven wrong. Again.  Keep that in mind for the coming election.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Donnie’s Hidden Tax Returns

There are four possible reasons why Donald Trump refuses to do what every other presidential candidate in 40 years has done – release his tax returns.

1 – He earns far less than he wants us to believe. While a couple of years’ worth of tax returns do not by themselves show his net worth, they are decent indicators of the state of his financial affairs.

2 – He gives a ridiculously low amount to charity. We’ve seen the games he’s played with donations to Veterans. Despite a few well-publicized gifts over the years, there are many reasons to believe he’s a tightwad when it comes to sharing his wealth.

3 – The returns reveal embarrassing entanglements with sleazy domestic firms, or worse, with nefarious foreign firms or nations. The rumors are starting to fly, and the evidence is mounting, but since I pride myself on only posting verified information, I’ll say no more. For now.

4 – He pays little or no taxes. Which means, as Elizabeth Warren has said so well in this video, that you have been subsidizing his businesses.

So which of these is the most likely reason for Trump’s stonewalling? My guess is that it’s all four. Seriously.  I am in the financial business, I devour news from many sources, and from my perspective the signs are all there that releasing his returns would be devastating.

His explanation that he is being audited and therefore cannot release them, by the way, has been debunked by every expert.

The Clintons, in case you’re curious, have been paying some serious taxes; close to $10 million on their most recent return, for a tax rate near 35.7% of AGI.

So come on Donnie. Prove me wrong. Put up or shut up.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

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SHAMEFUL: Zika and the GOP

Here’s a story you probably don’t know. It’s sickening.

You do know that the destructive Zika virus is here. It’s infecting many thousands of people in South America and now it’s spreading in the U.S. There is no cure for the devastating problems it causes for mothers and their babies.

President Obama and Democrats in Congress wanted to act quickly. They put together a bill to combat this encroaching disease — a pure, Zika-fighting bill.

Republicans agreed, apparently, that action was necessary.  But instead of agreeing on a bi-partisan compromise, they tacked on poison-pill provisions that they KNEW the Dems could never swallow. Their version blocked funds for Planned Parenthood and loosened environmental protections! As a result, they can now run TV ads saying “Senator So-and-So voted against protecting babies.”

So now there is no bill at all!

This is outrageous, and once again, the Democrats have done a lousy job of getting the public riled up about this grievous offense against women’s and children’s health.

Yes, a few media outlets have covered this shameful episode. This editorial from Columbus, Ohio (originally in the LA Times) makes the story quite clear and I hope you read it.

Republicans repeatedly play political games with people’s lives. Why do we stand for it?

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

 

A Stellar List of No-Shows

The GOP Convention is now up and running. But something will be missing, something that is unprecedented in American political history.

Specifically, just about every Republican with national name-recognition is shunning the convention! As a result, poor Donald has to have his own family stand to speak for him!

Look at the astonishing list of heavy-hitter absentees…

  • The most recent GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.
  • The second most recent nominee, John McCain.
  • The two most recent Republican presidents, George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush.
  • The man most pundits last year assumed was the front runner for the nomination, former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
  • Even Gov. John Kasich (as governor of Ohio, he’s the HOST, for God’s sake!) won’t find time to stop by.

For any political party, the once-every-four years convention is supposed to be the best opportunity for the party leaders to loudly extoll the virtues of their nominee. Not this time.

So we are so many staying away? What do they know that you might not?

While I sharply disagree with most of the policy positions of each no-show on the list, here’s what I do know. I know they each care deeply about America, and second, they know how government works. They know that Trump – the racist, thin-skinned, ill-informed blowhard with the worst rating on Politifact’s radar—cannot ever be entrusted with the levers of power.

Why would anyone think differently?

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

“Thinking of Hillary”

If you love Hillary and need to defend her now and then, or if you hate her and you’re certain you know why, you must read this article by Michael Arnovitz. It calmly and rationally explores the issues of sexism, her “scandals,” the money she’s made, and her relationship with Wall Street.

If you read nothing else in the piece, scroll down about halfway to see the brilliant comparison between her and General David Petraeus. Those paragraphs are eye-opening.

My favorite line in the article is actually a headline from a different article:  “America loves women like Hillary Clinton — as long as they’re not asking for a promotion.”

Please, please take a few minutes to click here and read the article. It’s factual and remarkably compelling.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

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The Prince of Paranoia

Donald Trump is delusional. Full stop.

The evidence mounts, and is now overwhelming.

Early in his campaign he stood before a cheering crowd and explained how during the 9-11 attacks, “I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.” A day later, when questioned on TV about his claim, he said to ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos, “It was on television. I saw it,” Trump said. “It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don’t like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time.”

Well covered? Then why can’t a single media person recall any such coverage? Because it never happened.

Trump has a long record of believing the most insane conspiracy theories. In recent days he’s brought up the sad suicide of Vincent Foster, hinting, strongly, that Bill or Hillary were directly involved. He chooses to ignore the slew of independent reports that ruled the death a suicide, and nothing more.

He was a staunch “birther” who claimed his team had found stuff about Obama’s birth certificate that “you wouldn’t believe.” Well, you don’t have to believe it, because they never found anything.

He believed oil prices came down because Obama asked the Saudis for a favor, but every independent economist knows that theory is simply stupid.

He implied on several occasions that Ted Cruz’s father was connected to the JFK assassination. He has doubts that Justice Antonin Scalia died of natural causes. And you may recall how during one of the early GOP debates he said he’s all for vaccinations for children, but wait, he knows of a child who became autistic after getting the shot.

For a compilation of some of Trump’s greatest delusions, check out this video from The Daily Show. (But skip over the weak comedy skit at the end.)

And of course he is certain, despite all the amazingly kind coverage he’s received, that the media is out to get him, and him only.

A paranoid “has an irrational and obsessive distrust of others.” But a U.S. president needs to govern in fact-based reality, not a paranoid’s fantasy world.

The thought of a Trump presidency ought to scare the crap out of you. What are you doing to prevent it?

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

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Trump: The Art of the Lie

Senator Bernie Sanders called Donald Trump “a pathological liar.” Is that fair?

Yes.  And the truth about his lying is worse than you thought.

The non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact looked at what Trump has been saying during the campaign and found his statements are:

17% Mostly False,
42% False
19% Pants on Fire lies.

Add that up and a whopping total of 78% of his statements fall into one of those categories. Throw in his Half True (14%) words and then an amazing 92% of everything he says is tainted!

Pathological indeed. And pathetic.

This is an untenable, horrifying situation. You need to help get the word out. This man is an embarrassment to all Americans.

We know that political people stretch the truth, and this PolitiFact chart shows that none of the five major presidential candidates are pure truth-tellers. It’s just that Donald J. Trump surpasses them all by a ridiculously wide margin.

As Republican David Brooks wrote in his scathing NY Times editorial, “Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes … (He) is a childish man running for a job that requires maturity. He is an insecure boasting little boy whose desires were somehow arrested at age 12 … No, not Trump, not ever.”

Amen to that. And that’s no lie.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

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Takin’ It Back

In the past week Sarah Palin, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have each shouted, “It’s time to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!” That phrase, “take our country back,” has been a favorite of GOP candidates for several years, and it certainly picked up steam when Barack Hussein Obama moved into the White House.

But the phrase begs the question; take our country back from whom?

Keep in mind that Obama was elected by a majority of American voters, twice, so they’re saying they want a minority to take it back from the majority. Then too, in the last presidential election a million more Americans voted for Democrats than Republicans in Congressional races but thanks to gerrymandering the House is firmly under GOP control.

So who are they talking about? From whom must they wrest control? Here, in no particular order, are some of the nefarious groups who need to hand back the country to the Real Americans.

• Blacks
• Hispanics
• Muslims
• Jews
• Women
• Gays
• Unions
• Progressives (who used to be called liberals)
• Teachers
• Journalists and others in “the mainstream news media.”
• Hollywood
• Scientists
• College students
• College professors
• The unemployed
• The working poor
• The lower middle-class

As a member of two of those groups, Liberal Jew, I find it deeply disturbing when Republicans say they want to take my country from me! Take our country back is dark, divisive language. Why aren’t the pundits calling it out?

Democrats campaign with equal vigor but they don’t paint their opponents with such a broad brush. Hillary and Bernie’s ire is targeted to special interest lobbyists, polluters, billionaires whose “dark money” attempts to control elections, climate change deniers, war mongers and so on.

So the next time you hear some right-leaning blowhard spout “take our country back!,” understand that they just might be talking about you.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Obamacare and Jobs

The U.S. unemployment has stayed at 5.0% for a few months now. That’s very close to what economists consider “full employment.” Yet as recently as yesterday’s Republican debate, we heard several of their leading candidates say, again, that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is “a proven job killer.” They say it despite all evidence to the contrary. They say it with a straight face. They say it knowing it’s a lie.

Here are the facts in a nice easy to grasp picture.

ACA and jobs

That eye-opening chart is from an article published by the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. It’s accurate. But for those who might be suspicious, and since this blog is all about verifiable facts, check out all the amazing details from the Wall Street Journal, 1/8/16.

Here are a few highlights from the Journal.

  • Last year was the second-best year of job growth since 1999. The best year was 2014.
  • The share of Americans with jobs, known as the employment-to-population ratio, improved to 59.5%, the highest since May 2009.
  • As of December, the median jobless worker has been unemployed for 10.5 weeks, the shortest period since 2008 and a substantial improvement from 2010 when the typical jobless spell lasted 25 weeks.

And for those who say the jobs are part-time jobs, nope. “The economy has recovered all of the full-time jobs lost since the last recession hit eight years ago.”

Yes, the recovery could have been faster – and if the GOP had agreed to a bigger stimulus package years ago it would have been faster.

But now, whenever you hear a Republican complain about the ACA, or anything else under the Obama administration related to jobs, you know they are flat-out wrong!

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

The Truth About Hillary’s War Vote

In life or politics, things we know have a way of being not what they first seemed.

For example, in late 2002 when it came time for the Senate to vote “for the Iraq war” we all “know” that Obama voted no and Hillary voted yes. That vote, many say, helped Obama secure the Democratic nomination.

End of story. Barack got it right, Hillary got it wrong (and she’s said so).

Except it’s not nearly that stark.

I recently came across a video that changed my understanding of that auspicious vote. The unedited single-camera twenty-minute video shows Senator Hillary Clinton of New York taking the podium in the Senate to lay out the intricate pros and cons as she saw them. She delivers a masterful speech that everyone who cares about history or politics should see. It’s not the Hillary you think you know.

The speech is one of deep intellect, nuance, inner struggle and firmness of purpose. She becomes the embodiment of quiet, determined leadership. The entire speech lasts twenty minutes and on YouTube it’s broken into two segments. You probably have neither the time nor inclination to watch it all, so please click here to watch just the last three minutes. Use the slider on the bottom to get to 6:00 minutes.  (For political junkies, here’s Part 1.)

Remember that at the time the Bush administration had told us beyond any doubt that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  We now know there were no such weapons and that the Bush/Cheney team took the Senate vote and twisted its intent to provide cover for their own disastrous agenda.

After watching Hillary’s speech it’s clear she was voting for something significantly more restrained than “going to war.” Above all, notice the importance she places on bi-partisanship, on supporting our president and presenting a united front to Saddam and the world.

After you see it, try to imagine any of the leading Republican presidential candidates delivering such a quietly powerful speech. Trump? Carson? Rubio? Cruz?  They never would, they never could. Not one of them.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

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