Ken's Comments

I started this a while back - probably during the Election - and never got around to publishing it.  But now with the Weinstein scandal and many others, it is once again timely so I'll publish this now.  The point being that people like Harvey Weinstein are not the only ones responsible for the abuse.  Their enablers are equally responsible. I remember the days when a woman would accuse a man of rape and the defense attorney for the man would shred her - bringing up her sex life, the way she dressed, the way she talked, everything to show that the accuser some how lied or enticed the man into sex.  I also remember the justifiable outrage that a woman who was a victim of such a crime would then undergo that kind of treatment. During the years of Bill Clinton's predatory behavior toward women, we now hear evidence from the women affected and others that Hillary Clinton attacked them personally and threatened them if they had the audacity to come forward about Bill...

I think it was pretty obvious in 2015 and 2016 that the Democrat National Committee (DNC) was trying to rig the primaries for Hillary Clinton.  Then leaked emails provided proof that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and others in the DNC were supporting Hillary.    But I did not suspect how far it went.  Now we have revelations by Donna Brazile who took over as DNC chair after Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was forced to resign.  The title of the article says it all - "Inside Hillary Clinton's Secret Takeover of the DNC."    A comment in the article - which is an excerpt from Ms. Brazile's book - that deserves more attention is her statement that Hillary Clinton had made campaign finance reform a key platform in her campaign.  Ms. Brazile describes how having control of the DNC allowed Hillary's campaign to bypass the restrictions on campaign donations.   A classic case of "do as I say, not as I do," which many Clinton critics say has alw...

Next time someone complains about how long it is taking to get things resolved in Puerto Rico suggest to that the problems are both self-inflicted by the Government of Puerto Rico and by politicians in Washington who put political nonsense ahead of getting problems solved.. I've taken an interest in the story about the Montana firm hired to help restore power in Puerto Rico because it hits close to where I live and today the Government of Puerto Rico cancelled the contract of that Montana firm.  I just have to share some observations. We've heard stories of people dying and of the suffering in Puerto Rico that have taken place since the Hurricane hit.  By all news accounts, the lack of power is a significant contributor to the lack of progress in efforts to fix things down there.  In fact, today's news articles say that 70% of Puerto Rico's population is without power.  The Montana company has 100 people on the ground right now, fully provisioned...

It really grits my buns when people are intellectually dishonest when arguing an issue.  Take for example the Opinion piece in the NY Times titled "Trump Takes Away Fundamental Health Care for Women" written by the Chief Medical Officer for Planned Parenthood, Raegan McDonald-Mosley.  Ms. McDonald-Mosley* starts her article with an insult, saying the "Trump Administration revealed its disdain for women," with the Administration's decision to modify the rules adopted to implement the Affordable Care Act's provision to cover birth control.  Really?  So that is the only possible reason for what the Trump Administration did?  The fact that the original rule was overturned by the Supreme Court and further Court cases are pending has nothing to do with it? Next we move to the real whopper - Ms. McDonald-Mosley claims "Birth control is not controversial."  Really?  Are you kidding me?  Contraceptives are highly controversial in many respects.  M...

Interesting article from Vox.com, a pro-Democrat online publication about how Betsy DeVos (Donald Trump's Secretary of Education) is erasing President Obama's education legacy. (Link at the bottom of this article)   They list a variety of things the Trump Administration is doing to undo policies adopted during the Obama era.  Their perspective is that these things are all negative.  Permit me to offer a contrary point of view.  Let's go point by point:      The Obama Administration issued a rule saying Title IX, a law passed decades ago, protects transgender kids.  The article starts with a horror story about how a transgender child was treated and then laments that the Trump Administration is rolling back the Obama rule.  Then we have a quote from a Transgender advocate saying the message of the Trump Administration is that discrimination against trans people is okay.   But wait, the article points out that the Obama r...

When reading news stories or watching discussions on TV there are things I wish someone would ask and honestly answer.  Here are a couple of examples and I'll offer more over time. 1. What did President Trump really say? The New York Times article shows the clear contrast.  The report writes: New York Times , May 16 : President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting. But President Trump really ask James Comey to shut down the investigation?  The same NY Times article quotes James Comey's memo to say that President Trump really said: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” There is a huge difference between what the Reporter claims President Trump said and wha...

What did the Russians really do? Assuming the Russians did indeed hack the Democrats, then what they did during the 2016 Election was simply reveal the truth to the American public.  Would we have gotten confirmation of the Democrat party organization's efforts to stop Bernie Sanders without the emails coming to light? I once thought the media cared more about getting the facts out to the public than where the facts came from, but the last election proved that's only true when the information being circulated is about Republicans, not about Democrats. Who really inappropriately influenced the last election? Actually that would be the Democrat party officials.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz and a number of others resigned after it was revealed they had orchestrated the Democrat primaries to favor Hillary Clinton over any opponents, particularly Bernie Sanders. Now some might say that Bernie Sanders was far too liberal to succeed in the general election so the Democrat offi...

The Editors at Wellesley College in their response to the critics would have you believe all of them are sexist.  Not true. Here are some articles on the subject with very interesting views.  None of these are sexist (not a single one says the women of the Wellesley News Editorial Board have their pantyhose in a twist) and none of them were addressed in the Editorial response (with an exception on one point).  All of them say it better than I.  :-) This is the article that first caught my attention - it is the one exception mentioned above.  The Editors do claim their call for "hostility" was mistaken to mean a call for violence. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/20/wellesley-students-push-hostility-to-silence-conse/ Written even before the previous article, it severely criticizes the Editorial Board for "justifying violence against anyone who 'either continue to speak hate speech or refuse to adapt their beliefs' to accepted progressive no...

Needless to say the editorial in the Wellesley News created quite a reaction.  I'll provide examples of those in the next part but apparently the opposition was so intense it provoked a second editorial from the Editorial Board at the Wellesley News in response.  The Editors close the second editorial by saying: "Thus, we respect the right to use speech to challenge other views. We will listen to and dismantle arguments and opinions that threaten a person’s ability to speak freely." However, when you read the body of the Editorial you will find they do not respect the right of people other than themselves to use speech to challenge other views and they did not listen to, much less dismantle, the arguments and opinions published in opposition to their views. The Editors clearly did not "listen to and dismantle arguments and opinions" of those who cited the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said: "If there is any principle of the Constituti...

The headline of the editorial in the Wellesley News said "Free speech is not violated at Wellesley." Then the body of the opinion piece goes on to advocate violation of Free Speech. There were two key passages from this Editorial that deserve further attention.  Let's consider the first: "Wellesley is certainly not a place for racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech. Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government. The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging." Regarding the first sentence, who defines what is "discriminatory speech."  Co...

Recently a gentleman named Ken Dilanian wrote a piece that appeared on the NBC news website.  The title was "What is unmasking and did Susan Rice do anything wrong. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-unmasking-did-susan-rice-do-anything-wrong-n742476 Here is the email I sent to Mr. Dilanian after reading the article. Mr. Dilanian: I heard a reference to unmasking and did a search to see what the news was and came across your article. I have to say I'm amazed by what you wrote. You either completely missed the big picture or you deliberately picked one event out of pile and seized on a small point related to that event and were using it to distract people from the bigger picture. The bigger picture clearly is that the revelation about Susan Rice unmasking data is the latest in a series of statements and revelations that suggests we have to investigate more deeply into President Trump's claim that President Obama's Administration was doing something w...

First step, Repeal Obamacare.  As discussed in the previous article, it has accomplished two things - get more people covered and eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions but it failed in just about every other goal. Why did Obamacare fail?  It is too complicated.  The law tries to micromanage every part of the industry.  Need more competition, we'll artificially create it.  Benefits?  The law says what will be covered.  Pricing - the Federal Government adds multiple layers of bureaucracy to the State layers that already existed.  Selling insurance - we'll "supplement" the current sales methods with an Exchange.  And on and on... The Three Stooges had a bit where they were plumbers and Curly goes into the bathroom to fix a leaky pipe.  At the end of it, he's surrounded by a maze of pipes from floor to ceiling and the leak is still there.  Obamacare reminded me of that.  Everything that someone thought was wrong they adde...

Part 1 of a multi-article post.  This is looking back.  The next will look at alternatives for the future. What went right 1. About 20 Million more people have coverage thanks to Obamacare 2. No more preexisting exclusions What is debatable or uncertain 3. More young people have coverage on their parents policy President Obama touted this during his re-election The counter-argument is that proponents of the law were counting on young people buying individual coverage to offset the cost of older or sicker people entering the market.  How do you reconcile that goal with giving young people coverage for free under their parents' policy?  Is it any surprise that people are complaining now that rates are going up because not enough healthy people bought coverage?  And who are the healthiest people you know?  Those aged 18 to 26 who can now stay on their parents' coverage. 4. Obamacare will make people healthier - on this point the NY Times s...