Ken's Comments

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 nor

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 added a fix for. That leaves the questi

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 says "For those w