Ken's Comments

I am in favor of measures that will ensure the safety of our schools and the children who attend them and for that reason I'm opposed to just about everything recommended by the students speaking at the March For Our Lives.  What they recommend will accomplish nothing to further safety in the schools while they ignore ideas that will work.  Furthermore, I find their bullying tactics of insulting and ridiculing on anyone who opposes their ideas deplorable. At the CNN Town Hall, the NRA spokesperson was called a murderer.  At the March For Our Lives event, US Senator Marco Rubio was labeled a "Kid Killer."  These high school kids are trying to portray themselves as the adults in the room but they are engaging in juvenile name calling that alienates people rather than bringing them together.  Do they really think they have a better chance of success attempting to insult and intimidate or is that really intended to promote themselves into more publicity? Th...

If you don't like President Trump's tariffs give me a better alternative.  I've listened to the naysayers, the free marketers, and no one is suggesting China isn't subsidizing their companies to enable them to dump steel and aluminum at below market prices or enabling the theft of technology.  But I don't hear them offering any new ideas for enabling American companies to compete and for American workers to regain the quality jobs that go with these industries other than for our companies to compete better.  I do have an alternative to tariffs but it probably would not be enacted.  But before I get there let me start by poking holes in the arguments of the naysayers, including those who complain that the price of products will rise and consumers will be the losers here.  Let's start with the point on which I believe there is little disagreement.  We do need to do something about the trade imbalance and China.  China has been waging economic war on th...

The speech by US Representative Joseph Kennedy III was remarkably divisive and partisan.  Rep. Kennedy misrepresented the President's comments while excluding the interests of a number of groups.  The irony is the goal of his speech was to say Democrats are uniters while it is Donald Trump and Republicans who are the divisive ones. Let's go down some of the points in Rep. Kennedy's speech.  He started by reflecting on some things that happened in the past year.  "A government that struggles to keep itself open."  Passage of a budget lies with Congress not with the Executive branch of government.  Furthermore, Democrats were equally to blame for the brief shutdown, providing no votes in the Senate initially to overcome the filibuster and pass a short term budget. "Russia, knee deep in our democracy."  Wait - didn't the Russian interference in our election happen during President Obama's Administration?  In fact, the Obama Administration had ha...

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...