Commentary on "The Health Insurance Exchange a.k.a Obamacare a.k.a waste of money."

On reading, "The Health Insurance Exchange a.k.a Obamacare a.k.a  waste of money," I noticed that the writer wrote only on her experience with current transformations in the Health Care industry, however, she provided no facts, did not cite any sources, and her experience sounds shallow. Although I do believe her story of her father paying a high monthly premium since I have heard similar stories on the side-effects of Obamacare, she still does not provide a strong argument for me to side with her. I know Obamacare is not perfect and there are people who have had bad experiences with health insurance because of it but I do believe it is an improvement from where we were before its inception. Since Obamacare began more than 20 million people have gain coverage and the country's uninsured rate dropped to an 8.6% from a 16%. More people have health insurance than ever before. Overall, I believe that Obamacare has done more good for the country and instead of repealing it the politicians in Washington D.C should try to improve it as the law progresses. We have to remember that a massive change like Obamacare will have to be tweaked because nobody can anticipate all the expected results, so to me repealing it would be a step backward.

Is going to war with North Korea a good idea?

North Korea continues to test their missiles and their nuclear bombs while making claims that it could nuke the U.S. at any moment, which has caused a lot of countries to become alarmed. With tensions increasing between North Korea and the U.S., the outbreak of war is becoming more of a possibility. I personally do not believe that North Korea poses a real threat to the U.S. since none of the operational missiles North Korea has in its arsenal can reach the U.S. or its territories. Although North Korea is developing the Taepodong-2 and the KN-08 which could reach the continental U.S. none of them have had successful launches.  However, Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies believes that within five years North Korea will have intermediate to long range missiles which mean that within five years they will be able to pose a direct threat to the U.S. The current administration appears to want a direct confrontation with North Korea but this idea is a poor idea at best. The U.S. military is currently undermanned and stretched throughout the world and with a conflict of this magnitude, these issues would only be intensified. Also, the possibility of a quick victory is not possible without of the use of nuclear weapons and the chances of winning are bleak. According to CNN, North Korea has more than 1.2 million active duty soldiers and 7.7 million in reserve and 70 percent are near the 48 parallel. In addition, North Korea has the largest artillery in the world with most of it pointing towards Seoul a city of 25.6 million residents and the capital of South Korea. According to the National Interest, a war game predicted that Seoul could be, "hit by over half-a-million shells in under an hour." Another simulation in 2005 by Atlantic predicted that over 100,000 residents of Seoul would be killed in the first few days from the outbreak of war. Simulations, statistics, and the current state of the U.S. military demonstrate that attacking North Korea is a bad idea. I hope the current administration is fully informed and understands the gravity of the situation and decides to de-escalate. 

Commentary on "Federal government should defund Planned Parenthood which offers abortion service."

I chose the Blog "From an Immigrant's Perspective" because I wanted to understands the perspective of someone with a different background who most likely has a different point of view than I do. In the article," Federal government should defund Planned Parenthood which offers abortion service." he states that he endorses Donald Trump's idea to fund Planned Parenthood as long as it stops offering abortion services. His first argument for supporting Trump's idea is because he believes that Planned Parenthood is violating federal laws by using federal funds to provide abortion services. The problem with this argument is that abortions are not illegal in the U.S., therefore, the use of funds to provide abortion services are not violating any federal or local laws. Another issue with that argument is that the federal government does not fund Planned Parenthood. They are just like any other private organization whose vast majority of clients use Medicaid and Title X to pay for their services.

His second argument is that he believes that women should not have easy access to abortion services because it encourage young people to be irresponsible and the other life should be taken into consideration. I understand his point of view but he nor I know the number of people that abuse the abortion services. For all, we know a very small number of women abuse it and it would be unfair to take it away from millions of women that need it. Just like anything else, a very few will always abuse it while the vast majority won't just like the laws. He points out that the life of the fetus should be taken into consideration which I agree with him however since the woman is the one carrying the baby and in my opinion, the baby is part of her body and no one should tell her what to do with her body.

The Russian investigation needs to be more bipartisan

We all knew that Trump's administration was going to be different in many ways, however, most of us could not anticipate the stark difference from the other administrations.  Since the inception of the Trump's presidency, his administration has been embroiled in many scandals. Yet, one scandal has lingered on longer than the rest and that is the Russian Scandal. During the primary and the general election, there were rumors that many of Trump's top campaign members were in constant contact with Russian diplomats.  Then there were the reports that Trump had financial ties to Russia and according to the reports that was the main reason why he refused to release his tax returns. When Trump was confronted with such accusations he was quick to categorize them as "lies" or "fake news". While trying to discredit the Russian rumors, Donald Trump continued to praise Vladimir Putin on many occasions throughout the campaign trail and publicly discussed his desire to meet Putin. In the final days of the election, Donald Trump even invited Russia to hack the E-mails of the presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

After Trump was elected to be the next president a former M.I.6 agent compiled a dossier on Trump and his relationship with Russia where the agent claimed that Russia had, "been cultivating, supporting, and assisting," Donald Trump for years. Around the same time, Trump began to attack the U.S. intelligence agencies and he intensified his attacks on the media. Within days Michael Flynn had to resign due to overwhelming evidence that he had been in contact with Russian officials and that he had bribed by foreign nations. After all these scandals and multiple sources confirming or at the very least supporting such rumors, I find it insulting that some Republicans continue to take this controversy lightly. For all, we know the President of the United States could be a spy and a puppet of Russia. To make matters worse he is not alone, multiple members of the administration have admitted to having constant contact with Russian officials. So it turns out that all these "lies" or "fake news" as Trump calls them are actually very real and true. What I want to happen next is for Congress to stop politicizing this issue and to work with the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of this. This controversy is bigger than any person or any party and we need to take this scandal very seriously because the fate of our country is at stake.

Critic on Obamacare Repeal

I just read a Townhall blog post by Guy Benson titled, "Krauthammer to GOP on Obamacare Repeal: 'Pick a Damn Plan' and Unite, or You'll Fail," were Benson recites Philip Klein's column, that it is time for the Republican Party to come up with a plan. In this post, Benson sounds the alarm to the GOP that if they fail to unite to replace Obamacare or what he calls "the failing law," Republicans will most likely be unsuccessful. He believes that a bad health care plan is better than the "crumbling status quo." Now I understand Benson's reasoning behind such a suggestion, however, we are not talking about any ordinary policy. The repeal and replacement of Obamacare has the potential of affecting millions of lives and deciding the fate of thousands of individuals who depend on it. Benson and people like Philip Klein are more concern with how the Republican Party may be perceived, than the impact the policies may have on the average American. Benson continues by quoting Charles Krauthammer," Conservatives are going to eventually find themselves in a similar spot — contemplating whether to support a plan they'd now consider Obamacare Lite in order to avoid preserving Obamacare Heavy." Benson claims that Krauthammer is essentially imploring the Republicans to act, yet nothing in the passage suggest what Benson is claiming. Later in his post, Benson suggest that the new replacement must have many aspects of Obamacare, like protecting people with pre-existing conditions, provide financial assistance to obtain coverage, and so on.  I personally find such a suggestion ludicrous, since conservatives continue to claim that Obamacare is a disaster and the attributes conservatives most disliked of Obamacare are needed to provide insurance to individuals with pre-existing conditions. Guy Benson overall wrote a decent post. His post was obviously biased but not too much to insult the reader, however, I am not surprised of him leaning to the right since his intended audience is conservatives.

Donald Trump's new method of measuring trade

Donald Trump has claim that our current method of measuring economic data is not accurate enough and has recommend a new method.  But according to mainstream economist who have reviewed Trump's suggestion, state that this new method would make trade deficits seem larger, which would make Trump's protectionist policies seem necessary. Charles Lane wrote an article on The Washington Post titled, "Trump's attempt to massage economic data isn't new. But there's a better way," were he tries to normalize Trump's current proposal. He begins by making the claim that Bernie Sanders and possibly Hillary Clinton would have recommended deviating from the way we measure economic data to a new method that supports a political agenda such as the one Trump has introduced. Charles Lane then tries to support his first claim by making another claim, that in 2014 14 Democrats from the House propose to Barrack Obama the "same math" that Donald Trump wants to implement. He then points out that a left-wing activist by the name of Lori Wallach supports Trumps proposal to further his claim that the left agrees with such idea. By now it is crystal clear that his intended audience is the left, which are the democrats and the liberals. The logic behind him constantly claiming that democrats were in favor of the "same math" way before Donald Trump is to convince the readers that this idea originated from the left and not from this new administration. His objective is to normalize Trump's new method and to reduce resistance for such proposal.  Charles Lane provides no real opposing views and some of the sources he cites could not be found, supporting my belief of him being a discreditable source. Overall he blends common knowledge and facts with distorted truth in an attempted to convince or at least confuse the reader.

An article published by CNN titled " Two-thirds of Navy strike fighter jets can't fly", describes the dire state of the Navy's fleet and is another example of the condition the U.S. military is in. Just like that title indicates, almost two-thirds of the Navy's F/A 18 fighter jets are grounded due to needed maintenance.  As a result of the Budget Control Act put in place in 2011, it has left the military with an aging fleet that is being used 25% to 50% beyond its designed lifespan and with an undermanned workforce. With budget restrictions in place and no increase in defense spending, the Navy as well as the other services are having a hard time increasing the number of maintainers as well as obtaining the amount of necessary aircraft parts to put the jets back in the air. The military with a shortage of operational aircraft, an overused fleet, and a lack of manpower have left it unprepared for future conflicts.