Ken's Comments

Further on the debate over whether the Republicans should consider a Supreme Court nominee submitted by President Obama to replace Justice Scalia. Seems that in 2006, then Senator Obama called on his colleagues in the Democrat majority to not consider appointees offered by President Bush.  A full 2 years prior to the end of President Bush's term in office. In 1988 and 1992, then Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, killed many appointees offered by Presidents Reagan and Bush, respectively. http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2016/02/27/washposts-thiessen-biden-blocked-federal-court-nominations-en-masse My position remains the same as before.  To have my respect, if an elected official takes a position for or against considering judicial nominees they need to remain consistent regardless of the party to which the President belongs. Personally, I don't favor a total ban on consideration of a nominee just because it is the President's la...

Senator McConnell says a Supreme Court nominee by President Obama won't be considered in the Senate.  Republican Presidential Candidates sing out in agreement.  Democrats and liberals whine loudly about this.  In response to that whining, a friend of mine sent me this link: http://www.politico.com/story/2007/07/schumer-to-fight-new-bush-high-court-picks-005146 In July 2007 - more than 18 months before President George W. Bush was to leave office, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on his colleagues in the newly elected Democrat Majority to refuse to approve any Supreme Court nominees offered by President Bush.  Note the timing - not an election year, 18 months before the President was to leave office. Note the hypocrisy. Now, let me put a different twist on this, since I claim to be a thoughtful, reasonable Conservative. 1. How many Republicans were in the Senate in 2007 when Sen. Schumer said this? 2. How many of those Senators disagreed with...

The headlines are that Senator Ted Cruz won, Donald Trump came in second and Senator Marco Rubio third but let's look at why and what else happened that is significant. First, the why.  To begin with, Trump did not have quite the organization that Cruz did.  Winning a caucus process is not the same as winning an election.  Trump's personality got a lot of voters out but there are nuances to getting enough and winning in the caucus.  Also, I do believe some of the last minute dirty tricks by the Cruz campaign had an effect.  I think the letter from Cruz kept a few people home who were probably Trump supporters and passing on the incorrect information about Dr. Ben Carson resulted in Cruz picking up some of Carson's supporters. Some things that need to be recognized.  \Cruz's margin was not that big.  He was sagging in the polls.  Not quite enough to lose but close. Where people felt Trump skipping the Iowa debate was a mistake, I think it cost ...

Want to get an understanding of what happened with the housing market and the financial meltdown of 2007 and 2008?  Go see the movie "The Big Short" or read the book of the same name on which the movie was based.  It's a brutal expose' of the games that were played in the financial markets to create the housing boom that led to the housing crash. We're far enough removed from the tragedy that the movie was entertaining and had a number of funny moments. At the same time the events of that time were tragic and it was criminal what people throughout major companies and the agencies - both public and private - created to monitor did. Some thoughts. 1. Why did it happen? The financial markets encourage greed.  The goal is quick money not steady, stable results.  Maximize profits, make money each quarter.  Money is lent based on numbers - what is your credit score.  Money is no longer lent based on evaluation of risk.  D...

The link below is to an interesting story about President Obama. The gist of the Politico article is that there are some themes or "storylines" developing about the Obama Administration. If more than one of catches firm hold in the minds of the public it could damage President Obama's chances at re-election. Now you might say, give me an example - last year, the Democrats developed a story line that John McCain would be four more years of President Bush, it was not true, but it was a prospect no one really wanted. The Obama campaign picked up on that and was very successful in getting people to believe the story line and it had a lot to do with President Obama getting a significant number of votes from independent voters and conservative Democrats. Here is the link to the article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091130/pl_politico/29993 Comments on a couple of the story lines: 1. One story line suggests President Obama is over-exposed. Interestingly, President John...

A very interesting story from the NY Times about the crisis looming ahead thanks to the Bush / Obama economic recovery plan. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/business/23rates.html?th&emc=th Essentially, the Bush / Obama economic recovery plan is a lot like taking out an adjustable rate mortgage with really low teaser interest rates. When interest rates go up, the Federal government is going to be slammed. The NY Times - not what I'd call a conservative news outlet - article has a quote estimating that interest payments on the money we've borrowed will be as much as $700 billion per year in the future. That is as much as we spent this year on the economic stimulus bill and we will be paying that each year. Now, just to review, what is Bush / Obama economic recovery plan? It involves spending lots and lots of money that the Government does not have including: Economic stimulus - $400 billion under President Bush if I recall correctly, repeated by President Obama at a higher ...

First it was the federal take over of private industries, now it will be the federal takeover of our schools. President Bush started it - working with Congress to have Federal intervention into banks, financial institutions, AIG, and auto manufacturers. President Obama has taken those programs to a new level and wants to usurp state authority over health insurance. Now President Obama is targeting our schools. Has no one read the United States Constitution? Isn't there some point at which President Obama feels the Federal Government does not have authority over us? President Bush and Congress adopted laws and regulations, and provided funding, to begin a massive federal intervention into a variety of private industries - banks and financial institutions, automakers, and AIG - to name a few. Some banks were told they could not refuse to accept TARP funds. Other organizations were told they'd get no help, like Lehman, and they went bankrupt, leaving Goldman Sachs, who had ...

I've been good at criticizing what is wrong with the economy, let me take a moment and say what I would have done differently to try to prevent us from getting to where we are right now. The answer starts in the approach - I would have attacked the problem from the bottom up, not the top down. There are a number of steps that could have been taken back when all this started to isolate the economic harm and create a gradual downturn instead of what did happen, which resulted in the economy falling off a cliff. This would not have been without pain, but a lot of the pain would have been absorbed by the lender, borrowers, and investors who took agreed to the risk of pain in the hope of financial reward. However, I think the result would have been fewer foreclosures and less people out of work. Ironically, both the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration have talked about trying to reduce foreclosures, but neither has any significant accomplishments. That's because th...

If it was not so tragic, I'd have to laugh at the people who are talking about a "jobless recovery" like it is a good thing. I've only seen one mainstream commentator - a former Clinton Administration official - come close to calling out the Obama Administration on the current economy. Instead you've got papers like the New York Times running articles saying that because there were not as many new people unemployed in the last reporting it is a sign of an improving economy. Why can't we call it like it is - all of the money the Government has spent over the last two years, under both President Bush and President Obama is only making the rich richer and it is not helping the little guys. Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Goldman Sachs pay out big bonuses to employees. Warren Buffet makes a mint off of investments he made into companies that got government support. People who can afford to invest a lot of money in the stock market are doing very well again. Chrysler...

Would the situation in Iran - where people are protesting for free and fair elections - be happening today if not for President Bush? Some people praise President Obama for his restraint on this others are condemning him. However, I have yet to see anyone in the media speak to the role President Bush and the United States have played in making this possible. President Obama's comments on the situation in Iran can be called measured. He is trying to not to say anything that might give the Iranian regime ammunition to use in putting down the protesters. Some are criticizing the President for not saying more in support of the protesters. Others believe the President is doing the right thing. I agree with the idea that the President should not provide ammunition for the current regime. However, I recall the days of President Carter and President Reagan. President Carter spoke nicely to enemies and harshly or (at best) not at all to friends, and his Administration was a disaster for ...

The common result of a government spending more money than it earns is devaluation of its currency. The US government's deficit increased during the Bush Administration. The Democrats and the Obama Admiminstration lifted that deficit to an enormous new level. A common effect of currency devaluation is inflation. In a bad economy, that is going to be a real problem - just ask people who lived through the Jimmy Carter Administration. First of all, let's spread this blame in a non-partisan fashion. Republicans during the Bush Adminstration years controlled Congress and the White House and they showed no fiscal discipline. The Bush Administration capped this by spending a ton of money in 2008 to try to prevent or curtail the recession - first having a stimulus tax cut at the beginning of the year and then approving the TARP bailout funds - easily a trillion dollars spent last year to prevent the recession. Now, we have the Obama Administration spending another trillion dollars for ...

Interesting to see how President Obama is following in President Bush's footsteps on a number of important policies. For example President Obama is continuing: To bail out AIG The TARP program for Banks To bail out of GM and Chrysler The withdrawal from Iraq Not releasing photos of prisoner abuse Spending significantly more federal dollars than the amount of taxes collected There are others, but time does not permit me to research them all. It shows that President Bush's policies were not so horrible as was suggested by Democratic candidates on the campaign trail. At the same time, one must admit there are some things President Obama has done differently - environmental issues and cracking down on credit card companies would be two areas of difference that are notable and laudable. There are areas, such as rgulatory reform of mortgage lending or types of stock trading, where President Bush did not have a chance to offer solutions

Denials by President Obama to the contrary, I have some real questions about this Administration's micromanagement of the businesses to whom they are lending taxpayer dollars. Some things they are doing make sense and are consistent with the way business normally operates. But there are a number of things this Administration is doing which exceed the boundaries of normal operations and some are both scary and can create further economic calamity. Unfortunately, no one in the "main stream media" (e.g. not labeled conservatives) are challenging the President on this. Let's start by giving credit, where credit is due - President Bush started us down this path with the bailout of AIG, the $700 million for banks under TARP, and the decision to lend money to the auto makers. President Obama is carrying on programs that President Bush started. Second, if the government is going to provide money to companies then the Government, like any lender, has the right to try to p...

As the Bush Administration's term in office winds down we get to see who is interested in doing what is right for the Country versus who is interested in doing what is right for their party on display. President Bush, by all accounts, has been extremely gracious and helpful to the incoming Obama administration. On the other hand, we see actions that indicate Speaker Pelosi will consolidate her control of the House of Representative so that all dissenting opinions will be pushed down. The Country has not benefitted from the extreme partisanship of the Democrats during the last two years of the Bush Administration and the country will not benefit if the Democrats continue this behavior during the Obama Administration. During the post-election period, President Bush has allowed President-elect Obama to move to center stage on economic issues. A political commentator described it as the U.S. having two Presidents -- one on domestic policy (Obama) and one on foreign policy (Bush). Presi...

Remember when Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber used the "S" word (Socialism) in the election? The media was up in arms. Yet she was not far off, just perhaps Gov. Palin and Joe the Plumber were labeling the wrong person. Consider this story from the NY Times today titled Detroit Bailout is set to bring on more U.S. oversight which says: "Congressional Democrats were drafting legislation Sunday for tight government control of the crippled American auto industry, including the possible creation of an oversight board made up of five cabinet secretaries and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and led by an independent chairman or “car czar.” "Tight government control..." and "...oversight board..." If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... According to the article, this legislation is being negotiated with President Bush. Let's see where he stands on the idea of the Government having tight control over an indus...