Ken's Comments

President Obama went to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and at the podium before the Peace Prize Committee and a room "packed with European dignitaries" President Obama said: “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms,” Obama said. “The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans.” I disagree with Obama on a lot of things, but our President got up in front of the world and said something that needed to be said. My hat is off to President Obama. If you need proof that it was the right thing to say, Gary Trudeau, the author of the Doonesbury cartoons, drew a strip condemning President Obama for his speech. A full report of the President's speech can be found at: http://news.yahoo.com/s...

Giving credit where credit is due, Frank Rich, a columnist with the NY Times, had an outstanding suggestion: "In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by asking that same audience this question: 'Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’ I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves." Mr. Rich is right on with his suggestion - President Obama is the perfect person to call out the Muslim com...

When health care reform started, a key goal was to lower the cost of coverage. Here is the Democrats idea of how to lower health care coverage costs. First the "facts" (the text below is taken from the NY Times): "Before taking account of federal subsidies to help people buy insurance on their own, the [Congressional Budget Office or C.B.O.] said the [Senate health care reform] bill would tend to drive up premiums. But as a result of the subsidies, it said, most people in the individual insurance market would see their costs decline, compared with the costs expected under current law. The subsidies, a main feature of the bill, would cost the government nearly $450 billion in the next 10 years and would cover nearly two-thirds of premiums for people who receive them. "For most people who get health insurance through employers — five-sixths of the total market — the budget office concluded that there would be little change in their premiums relative to the amounts pr...

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 ...

Recently, a question was asked on Yahoo Answers about whether the Republicans are ignoring the fact that there are significantly more African Americans registered as voters than ever before. Here is my answer: The mere fact that someone raises the question indicates that whatever the Republicans are doing, it's not effective. The fact is, the Republicans are not ignoring the fact that there are more black voters than before. However, as the question indicates, the efforts being made by the Republicans to address this are not working. Furthermore, the Republicans are somewhat hindered in those efforts by the vitriolic conservative talk show hosts. The result is that unless something dramatic happens we will probably see minorities like the Hispanics community and the African American community continuing to support President Obama in large numbers in the next election. Fact - the Republican Party has tried to address the issue of race with the voters. After the last election, th...

Rush Limbaugh got fooled by an internet scam but his handling of the matter afterwards concerns me. Rush was fooled into thinking that a phony document on the internet was President Obama's college thesis. What concerns me is how Rush handled the matter after learning the truth. For someone who was badly treated due to internet lies, Rush apparently did not do unto others as he wanted done unto him. Apparently Rush Limbaugh got hold of a document that was on the internet which supposedly was President Obama's college thesis. The President's College thesis was never released by the Obama campaign and seems to have disappeared. The paper and the mysterious circumstances around it were things many conservative talk show people spent a lot of time discussing. After receiving the document alleging to be the President's thesis, Rush Limbaugh read the document on the air and spent time analyzing it. Later Rush Limbaugh found out that the documents were fakes. Hey that h...