Category: The 2016 Election

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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