Ken's Comments

 In the previous post, I talked about how I think the Republicans are in trouble going into the 2026 elections.  Now let's talk about what I think they should do about it. Start by recognizing there is a problem.  I've heard Republican officials and some pundits say "well these were Blue states so its not surprising Democrats won."  I'm sorry - a Democrat AG candidate won after it was revealed he wished death on a legislator and the legislator's two kids.  I don't care what color is assigned to the State of Virginia - Republican Red or Democrat Blue - that shouldn't happen unless Republicans have a problem. After we admit we have a problem, look at why Democrats won.  In the New York Mayor's race, and the Governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, the winning candidates promised to fight President Trump.  We need to give people a reason to ask - why would you oppose what Trump is doing?  In NY and NJ, candidates promised to fix higher costs facing...

The Republicans are in big trouble in 2026.   The Election night just passed is a harbinger of the problems Republicans face.  Republicans got spanked royally.  The epitome of that was a Democrat candidate Attorney General who threatened death to not just a state legislator but also that legislators children won election against a Republican incumbent in Virginia. In New Jersey, electric bills are skyrocketing due to the policies of the outgoing Democrat Governor.  The Democrat candidate's solution - declare a state of emergency on day 1 in office and then.... who knows.  That was all her advertisements offered.  The Republican candidate had a specific list of solutions he proposed.  Result - Democrat wins by a significant margin In California, Proposition 50 was offered by Governor Newsom to redistrict the state so more seats would be Democrat.  When that was first announced, Prop 50 was way behind in the polls.  Voters had previously a...

Biden's document scandal is worse than Trumps.  Let me define "worse" for the purpose of this discussion. Worse means President Biden's document handling should be viewed as a greater risk to national security and closer to a violation of the law than President Trump's.  That said I think the Hilary Clinton precedent is such that neither should be prosecuted for their actions. Let's start with where the documents were found.  The documents in President Trump's possession were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and in a Florida storage unit.  The documents in President Biden's possession were found in locked garage, with his Corvette, at his Wilmington home, and in a locked closet at his former office at the University of Pennsylvania.  Let's compare those. President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home is secured by the United States Secret Service, along with any other private security measures that come with a secluded location like that.  The Florida s...

Tuesday's election produced dramatic results.  As political experts around the country try to explain what just happened, here's my point of view.  The lessons to be learned by Democrats are different than the lessons that should be taken away by Republicans.  The stage is set for political upheaval at the Federal level in 2022 but how big that will be will be influenced by which party derives the right messages from the election that just occurred.  But to start, if you want a real understanding of what just happened, evaluating the Governor's race in Virginia is important but that is only the tip of the iceberg - you have to look deeper into the races at every level and across the country.  If Democrats focus solely on the Virginia Gubernatorial election and buy into the media claims that Glenn Youngkin's win is indicative of white racism, influence of President Trump, or inability to get President Biden's agenda passed*, they'll be crushed in the upcoming ele...

The late Gov. George Wallace said "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican parties."  That may have been true in the 1960s but it's not true today.  Let's look at some of the differences. On stimulating the economy - Democrats believe they know best how to spend my money.  Example: the $900 billion stimulus package enacted by Democrats in 2009 and the proposed $3 trillion stimulus offered by President Joe Biden now. Republicans believe I know best how to spend my money.  Example: tax cuts by President Reagan, President George W. Bush, President Donald Trump, all resulting in booming economies rebounding us out of recessionary periods. On racism - When Republicans heard the racist comments by US Representative Steve King (R-Iowa), they urged him to resign and stripped him of his committee assignments.**   Democrats?  Recently a Texas party leader made a racist comment about Sen. Tim Scott.  He offered to resign,...

It has only taken 60 days to see the difference in the Biden Administration's relations with China and Russia versus the Trump Administration's relations. For four years, we heard that President Trump was too nice to dictators, referring in particular to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.  When Trump met the leaders he was cordial and friendly and did nothing to embarrass them publicly.  This was met with great criticism and, on at least one occasion, it was justified such as President Trump's fumbling of a question about Russia's interference in the 2016 election.   On the other hand, while President Trump was cordial to these leaders, the Trump Administration did things the Obama Administration didn't to curtail Russian expansionism.  The Obama Administration refused to provide military weapons to the Ukraine to help them fight the Russians invading their country, the Trump Administration delivered that aid.  Where President Obama drew a line in the sand when...

 Today's headline - "Ford slammed by Union for Plans to Move New Model Production to Mexico." The test for President Biden: What is he going to do about it? During the Trump Administration, a similar event occurred.  GM started scaling back it's operations at the Lordstown Ohio plant and progressively reduced production there until it was ready to close the facility. President Trump condemned the automaker and threatened them with tariffs if they moved production to another country. The outcome was the re-opening of the Lordsville Plant under a new company that will manufacture electric pickup trucks.  This was done with assistance from the Trump Administration, as credited by individuals saying in Trump advertisements that the plant would have been closed for good without Trump's help. Now Ford announced it is moving production of a next generation model from its plant in Avon Lake, Ohio.  They are leaving behind production of pickup trucks, but that's curren...

Some are talking about how the Presidential Election was stolen by the Democrats.  Others criticize those folks as peddling false conspiracy theories.  Just stop.  All of you - just stop. Can't you see our country is suffering not just because of that debate but because you're missing the more important issue that needs to be addressed. The Election is over, Joe Biden is President.  But the way the election was run has left our country badly divided and needing healing.  It's time to change the questions being discussed to ones whose answers can unite the country. Try these questions on for size. 1. Is it good for the United States of America that as many as 74 million people question the integrity of the last election? Can anyone honestly answer "yes" to that question?  Can anyone honestly say it's good that tens of millions think the election was fixed?  Is having doubts about the integrity of our election processes  good for our country? 2. If ...

 We own this.  It's our fault.   The last two months have been disappointing and awful, culminating in a tragic disaster this week.  And if you've been a Trump supporter, as I have been, you need to look in a mirror because the blame starts there and runs from each of us individually to all of our fellow Trump supporters whether regular individuals or elected officials, and onward to the people in the Trump Administration, and finally to the President himself. By the end of November it should have been obvious the President and his legal team were incapable of making a legitimate case about what happened on Election Day either in court or in the court of public opinion.  Instead of continuing an obviously futile effort to change the election our focus should have changed. Job 1 should have been winning the Senate seats in Georgia. Job 2 should have been lobbying our State and local governments to change the rules so we never again experience the shenanigans...

 For the past four years, the media has downplayed, denied, or ignored the accomplishments of the Trump Administration.  Record economy - just a continuation of what President Obama started.  Record low unemployment for all minorities - same.  First President since Jimmy Carter not to start a war or get into a military conflict - ignored.  And now the latest, crediting Biden before he's in office for accomplishments Trump achieved. It started with the media falsely claiming Joe Biden will have the first female senior communications team.  Not true.  President Trump staffed his senior communications team with females.   Then there is the appointment of a gay person to a cabinet position.  The media claims Joe Biden has appointed the first openly gay person to a Cabinet position.  Not true.  Donald Trump appointed Rick Grenell, who is gay, to be Acting Director of National Intelligence.   When called out for their false...

 Prediction: In 2021, I predict President-Elect Biden is going to take steps that will make things worse, implementing his "national strategy," mandating masks across the country, and generally issuing edicts that negatively impacting the economy and make things worse.  All the while Biden will be saying, and the media will be agreeing, that the suffering is President Trump's fault.   After a few months, about May when experts are even now predicting vaccines will be distributed widely enough to create significant immunity, Biden will take credit for the vaccines being distributed and declare victory.  At that point, the media will be praising President Biden for saving us.   Before that happens, let's look back on 2020 at what really did happen, both bad and good. Bad - The Obama Administration depleted the US Govt. supplies needed in the event of a pandemic and the Trump Administration did not replace these in their first three years. Good - Presiden...

  If Joe Biden won, and right now it appears he did, congrats to all who supported him. I'm curious though, if you supported Vice President Biden did you vote for him because you want America to be a country where anyone who disagreed with you and voted against Biden is to be put on a list ( https://twitter.com/trumpaccproject )* and, to paraphrase the recent tweet by Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, be blacklisted from any government or corporate job and not "be accepted into 'polite' society?"** As I said, just curious if that's what you wanted because that's what is actually happening as a result of Mr. Biden being declared the victor. Now some might argue that had Donald Trump won, the same thing would be happening. Perhaps or perhaps not. But if it did I'd be speaking out against it because that's not the America I voted for or want. But Biden won and the question has to be put to those who supported him - is that the America you wa...

 President Trump grabbed one opportunity but missed another during last night's Town Hall on NBC.  The opportunity he grabbed was related to the Coronavirus relief plan.  The opportunity Trump missed was questions about dreamers and DACA.  Both could have been tied together to point out a consistent theme that I think could label the Democrat party for a number of decades - that the Party leadership cares more about power than people. During the Town Hall, President Trump was asked about passing another Coronavirus stimulus package.  He expressed a willingness to approve a bigger package than his negotiating team has offered in the past.  Then President Trump told the American people the obstacle was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying "...she doesn't want to do it because she thinks it is bad for her election..."   The President seized that opportunity by delivering a message to viewers that Speaker Pelosi "couldn't care less about the American wo...

Recently a relative forwarded a post from Douglas G. Frank - Dr. Frank Models.  A person asked Dr. Frank "What would it take for you to support a [coronavirus] vaccine Dr. Frank?" Dr. Frank posted a long response that I won't copy here.*  But I'll summarize and then respond.  Two key premises of his position: 1. The reward has to be worth the risk 2. Polio is not Covid and the reward [for taking the polio vaccine] was worth the risk (and the price). Of course that led into a long dissertation on why the reward for taking the Covid vaccine is not worth the risk, with a lot of mathematical equations on what percent of the US population has been infected and what percent has died and speculating on what value the vaccine will be.  And he also tossed in a suggestion that Covid will just fade away if we don't vaccinate. Let's make one obvious point first.  He's commenting about a vaccine or vaccines that have not yet been approved and for which no side-effects ...

A friend posted a meme on Facebook titled "Trickle Down Economics" and it offers the following facts.  $2.3 trillion was spent in stimulus this year That's $23,000 per working age adult (assuming 100 million such adults) The meme goes on to say but "you got 1,200 per person & big companies got the rest." The meme wraps up by showing President Trump's signature, clearly intending to hold him responsible for this atrocity. I did something I rarely do on Facebook.  I posted a reply to something political.  Here is a version of my answer. In 2008 when 10 million Americans* were losing their homes, how many people got a check in any amount?  No one.  Who did get checks in the bailout packages?  AIG, Wall Street financiers, and the big banks - all of whom were involved in causing the economic meltdown. Contrast that with what happened this year, 2020.  What happened to the average American: Every American with incomes below a certai...

President Trump on Friday announced religions are essential business and that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued guidelines on how to open religious buildings safely for worship.  The President then said he would overrule any State that does not treat religions as essential. Then the fireworks began. In the press conference, the members of the press present peppered the Press Secretary with questions about how religious institutions can open safely and why does the President think he has the authority to overrule State Governments.  At least one MSNBC commentator opined that naming religious institutions as essential is a violation of the separation of Church and State. That the media raised any objection is a measure of how the press reacts in a knee jerk fashion, without any thought, to simply disagree with everything President Trump says. Let's consider these points. The first point - how can churches, synagogues and mosques open safely - was ridiculous....

I believe in fixing the problem, not fixing the blame.  I also believe that when something goes wrong you look at the process not the people because if the process is right the people usually can't go wrong.  A fair review of what happened during the Coronavirus spread will find process breakdowns and many lessons learned that can help prevent a future occurrence like this. But the Democrats and their media mouthpieces don't want a fair review.  They want to put all 80,000+ Coronavirus deaths at the doorstep of President Donald Trump.  They best watch out if they start that game because it may backfire. Now if there is one thing we know, it is that nursing homes are incubators for Coronavirus and a huge number of the Coronavirus deaths are occurring in nursing homes.  So let's look at what is happening in some states across the US. New York - Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Administration early on adopted a rule mandating that NY nursing homes must accept patients wi...

Classic example of the Democrate partisan media at work.  The Trump Administration publishes good news that a drug called remdesivir shows promise in treating the Coronavirsu.  To pour cold water on this, the Washington Post published an article titled "Researchers changed metric to measure remdesivir during clinical trial."*1 I have to give the authors of the article a bit of credit for intellectual honesty and integrity.  The headline suggests something really bad happened.  The article tries to support the headline but the writers, and this is the credit I give them, posted views on both sides of the issue.  Unfortunately for them, any reasonable reader would conclude the Trump Administration was right to do what it did. The original goal of the trial was to see if remdesivir could reduce the rate of deaths.  The new goal was to measure whether remdesivir helps people recover faster.  Under the new criteria, it was shown that remdesivir reduces ...

Second guessing is the order of the day and it's time for me to join in.  This is a look back to what happened wrong and right, and what could have been done better.  To do this, let's use the standards set forth by NY Governor Mario Cuomo during some of his press conferences.  When asked why he was looking for 40,000 ventilators earlier this year when NY needed less than 10,000, Gov. Cuomo said, and I paraphrase you act based on what you know at the time, and a related point would be did you act based on what you knew at the time.  In another press conference Gov. Cuomo speculated on what he might have done differently if he knew then what he knew now.  A fair analysis of the actions of the Trump Administration can be made using those standards. 1. Acting based on what you know. The Administration has a standard cast of characters who are called on when there are epidemics.  This includes the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Contr...