Category: Medicare

Trumps Claim – Liberation Day is Tomorrow April 2

April 1, 2025

Well, today is April Fools Day, and it is truly a day for fools. What’s being liberated is your wallet, your paycheck and the economy. In the few days up to ‘Liberation Day’, the stock markets have been very unsettled. On Thursday last week, the markets crashed with a 700 point fall. But on Friday and Monday, the markets responded positively. This is known as the ‘Calm before the Storm’.

Now, idiot Donald Trump is putting his tariff wars on a worldwide scale. Chaos is visable for everyone to see. His reciprical tariffs as he calls them are meant to hurt just about every country that does business with the United States. As if the markets haven’t suffered enough, Trump’s aim is to deliver ‘PAIN’ around the world. And Trump claims he doesn’t care about anyone or their personal wallets. He claims that he doesn’t watch the stock market, but everyone knows that’s a lie. If he really does not, that in itself is a tragedy, proving the point that he doesn’t care about Americans and their well being. He doesn’t care if inflation goes up. Maybe all he needs to do is talk to his co-commander and chief Elon Musk, and ask him how the trade wars are effecting his Tesla business.

Markets, traders and brokers react in advance of things. They calculate their decisions before the big event to be able to capitalize on what’s going to happen.

Just so you realize this, Trump has already destroyed the tax base of the Internal Revenue Service. To run our government, to pay on social security, veterans benefits, medicade and medicare, student loans, there are regulations surrounding how things operate. Donald Trump is destroying all the norms and protections that the American people have enjoyed since World War II.

Trump thinks he can tariff his way to liberate America to eliminate debt, but instead, he is doing just the opposite. He wants to tariff to the tune of 4 trillion dollars. That’s what the economists say, and people who understand better than I what Trump is trying to do here. The only thing I understand from all of this is that he wants the money to give tax breaks for the rich, although he claims that he will also balance the budget, which is impossible, mainly because of the tariffs he is now imposing on the American people.

The American people are SUCKERS. At least the people who voted for him are. Many who voted for him are now out of work. Their lives destroyed from the king they thought would save our economy. Now where is it?

Automobile reciprical tariffs posed by other countries to the U.S. will cripple the U.S. economy. Trump claims that we don’t need help from Canada or Mexico. Really!!! Does he not understand that EVERY American car today can not be assembled in America without parts that are made in Canada and Mexico? Reciprical tariffs from other countries will expode the cost of American cars. Goods and consumeables that come from both Canada and Mexico will soon be priced out of reach. Gasoline prices will soon explode. Canada now plans to cut off oil exports to the U.S. while they also plan to cut hydro-electric power to a few northern states that depend on Canadian power. But even before they completely cut off the power, they will tariff their energy to American consumers. Prices of energy have already gone up. So tell me where Trump is saving our economy.

Doesn’t Trump realize that Ford and GM make their cars in MEXICO? You can’t built an American made car using American made parts. World trade has evolved in such a way that all countries are dependent on each other. Maybe that’s not the vision that Trump has, but it’s the reality that we face at this moment. You cannot just turn off Canada and Mexico if you plan to build American made cars.  There is a high percentage of foreign imports, including from Japan, parts that are installed in American made cars. Foreign and GM cars that go across the border during producion are subject to tariffs and the cost of these vehicles will skyrocket. Even if all of the Assembly lines for American made cars were in the United States, which they are not, car productions would cease, because the United States is not tooled up at the moment to produce all parts that go in American made cars.

Now personally, I don’t believe that Trump will go through with this ‘liberation day movement’. Why do I believe that? Because Trump is watch the stock markets, even though the liar that he is says that he’s not watching. The world economies and stock markets are reacting negatively to what Trump is doing with tariffs.

Consumer confidence is down at its lowest in three years. Manufacturing confidence is down at its lowest in more than ten years. Most major investent banks have raised their expectations considerablly that a recession is coming. The odds given by these banks  put the odds now at about 40%. It’s hard to imagine that just 70 days ago when Biden was still President that the markets were booming and the United States economy was the envy of the world. Now, the world is nervously watching the U.S. economy crumble, and is looking for a new leader in world markets, sidestepping the United States as the country to envy.

SO, THE TRUMP RECESSION IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER. He will own it. His Republican party will explode because of it. Unfortunately, the American people will feel the ‘PAIN’ from it. But we have just under two years to go before Trump becomes a ‘lame duck’ and his Republican party will crumble. Hopefully by then, it will not be too late for the Democrats again to try and save the country. But I don’t believe it can happen now until a recession happens and if this president is allowed to act as he has done since the election, a depression will come next. Then maybe the only being that can save us the ‘our Supreme Being’, God himself.

Stay tuned for stock market updates starting tonight with the close of the market. But what I can tell you now that just about all the gains the markets gained on Monday has been extinguished, as the futures show  the DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE now down by 231 points or .55%. Stock futures for the S&P and NASDAQ markets are also down. Tariff anxiety lingers which is not a good thing. The markets will preface what the traders will feel on ‘liberation day’ in which millions or billions of dollars will be ‘liberated’ from Americans who support our markets, thanks to a president who claims he doesn’t care how we feel. Also, you may want to check your 401K value as the week goes on. If I’m right, it’s not going to be pretty.

Donald Trump is a WEAK COWARD !

March 6, 2025

You might get the impression by the title of this article that I’m a little upset. Well, you are right.

Trump backed down again,  and of course I’m glad that he did, just one month after he backed down the first time over tariffs. I’m not mad because he backed down. I’m mad because of the chaos he has personally created, the pain that people have already suffered, and now he can stop the pain by HIS choosing, when he didn’t have to inflict it in the first place. He thinks he is more than a king. He thinks he is God. He feels he has the right to play with our lives at his whim. That’s why I am mad. TRUMP IS EVIL.

The second thing I’m mad about is because the U.S. Congress is allowing the president to initiate tariffs, when in fact POTUS does not have that power. It belongs to Congress and ONLY Congress can initiate a tariff. So why are we going through this? It’s because Republicans control all three branches of government so they continue to be silent and let Trump do his damage because they themselves are also COWARDS.

Wall Street was the greatest example today that has caught on to Donald Trump’s tactics and what it would take to get him to back down from tariffs. Trump watched the stock market intently today, and just 20 minutes from closing, he makes the announcement that he is suspending his own tariffs. But by then, it was too late. Does Wall Street know that he means that he won’t initiate them again?  The markets still crashed. Well they don’t have to guess, because in his announcement, he stated that he was suspending the tariffs until April 2nd. No big deal right? Even though it just so happens to be a few days before TAX DAY. That is and will be ANOTHER stupid and cowardly move by president Trump if he implements tariffs right before tax day, or ever for that matter.

Wall Street knows that Trump is a pathological liar. When it comes to economics, Trump doesn’t understand a thing. So why did he back down? For one thing, the actual definition of a tariff forced him to back down. SO HE REALLY KNOWS WHAT A TARIFF IS! It doesn’t hurt the countries exporting to the United States, it hurts the American consumer who will use those products. It hurts people who purchase imported goods. That’s who it hurts. When the stock markets started to tank because of tariffs today, and millions of people and major businesses were being immediately effected, Trump backed down and now every country in the world knows that Trump is a COWARD. He stopped the tariffs just one day after he implemented them. It was important for him to inflict “pain”. Donald Trump labeled himself a coward when he initiated tariffs that he knew would hurt the American people and that he couldn’t posibilly continue with them, long term. He now realized that he can’t keep them in place in short term. Everyone knew that Trump would back down. And on April 2nd, he will back down again, but maybe a miracle will happen and he won’t initiate tariffs at all. He knows that the only citizens that will be most effected, especially by our closest neighbor of Canada will be the U.S. citizens. Will he ever apologize for implementing “PAIN” on the American people? Trump doesn’t even know what a simple apology is. He should be on the side of Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Ukraine and people within Europe. But he’s not. He’s on the side of Putin. All democratic countries are outraged.

So why in his right mind does Trump continuously hurt his citizens? He takes pleasure out of it. He thinks it’s right that his people have to experience “PAIN” as he stated more than once and even indicated this admission in his ridicules 99 minute speech to a joint session of Congress last night. He rambled on and on in the longest speech to joint members of Congress, EVER. He always has to do everything more, including the ability to inflict punishment on his people.

Did you notice that he didn’t mention Medicaid and Social Security even once? Again, that will be in another post. Why not? But I’ll briefly touch on it here. Because he didn’t want to say publicly in that speech what he planned to do with those programs.  It’s right out of the 2025 Republican playbook. But it’s no secret. He wants to cut the funds from both programs, and let’s not forget about Social Security. Just before the speech last night, he mentioned Social Security and stated that there would be no cuts. Like I said, Trump is a pathological liar. If he had his way, he would take funds from Social Security and believe me when I say that he will try. Mark my words., or prove me wrong.  If Social Security is still around in another 6 months, your benefit will be drastically reduced, and at the same time Medicaid may not exist, with many slashes to Medicare. Costs for everything concerning medicine, services and anything medical will go up. But of course, Donald Trump just doesn’t care. He has the government take care of his medical needs at taxpayers expense of course.

Regarding imports, let’s talk about  an import that Americans take advantage of every day and cannot live without. I will also discuss this in detail in a later post. That would be about COFFEE. Do you realize that not one ounce of coffee is every grown here in the United States? Really! Think about if the American people couldn’t make a cup of coffee in the morning because we could no longer import coffee. What would happen to Starbucks in the United States and Starbucks World Wide?  Do you know that Starbucks employs almost 500,000 people world wide. People working to support coffee products total into the millions of people. No coffee, lost jobs, and lots pissed off people. There would be massive layoffs and business closings if we didn’t have that simple luxury of coffee. That’s what you would have. But Trump’s idea is that America should not be buying a single thing from another country. Not even coffee beans. He wants America to be completely self sufficient. That would be great in a Perfect World, but we all know that this is not the case. Every country in the world except North Korea, including Russia is involved in international trade, but Donald Trump doesn’t want that, because he wants everything his way or no way. He’s doing a super great job trying to isolate the United States of the America from the world. He’s trying to play God, but what he is demonstrating is that he is a Coward, not a leader that anyone can respect. He thinks he needs to be in the news each and every day. If the news is not about him, it’s not important. Even his Republican base is abandoning him because his policies and his actions are affecting them too, not just Democrats. Many voted for him, and now he’s taking their jobs. Why would he care? He will never run for re-election under the present rules in the Constitution unless he gets the ability to change the Constitution in his favor. And he is such an autocrat that he will try to do that at the end of his term, unless he finally gets tired enough as being the oldest president of the United States. After all, the way he is thinking, because the Chinese President XI now to be  China’s permanent president just because he said he wanted to and has decided never to step down, Trump thinks he can do that too. Who cares what the Constitution says, because Donald Trump doesn’t care what’s in the Constitution. Will anyone stop him. Yes, tough times are ahead, but Americans need to push through all this nonsense and in four years, welcome in Democracy while hopes are up that the Democratic countries around the world will accept us back with open arms.

Final Stock Market update March 6, 2025 – Removal of Tariffs

March 6, 2025

I have never been a great predictor for stocks, but even I must say that my conclusions of what’s happening in todays US Stock Market has been nothing less ‘right on’. Yes, I deserve to pat myself on the back at times, and for the last 6 weeks I’ve been more right than wrong.

So again, at the beginning of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 400 points, by just looking at what happened throughout the night in Europe. And I was hopeful that the market would really pick up. Early in the morning, it picked up most of the value it had but then something happened, which I will detail later when I know what happened.

But in its present course, the market will end the day of more than 400 points lost. Just one more day to go and the week of trading will be over and the country will know that what I have been saying all this time is actually what is happening. Investments, savings, and so much more is being lost by investors, who only want the markets to do better so that they can do better, so that their companies and portfolios can grow.

Unfortunately, that’s not what’s on Donald Trump’s mind. Sometimes you wonder what the heck is on his mind. The markets have now officially closed.  The DOW lost another 1% of it’s value. The closing figure is 42,579.08. I can report what I have been seeing each and every day. What is interesting and especially evident at the end of a trading day, if the markets are doing well throughout the day, there will be a spike at the very end before closing. Likewise, if the markets are doing bad, and as of this minute in time, the stock market values of DOW will drop.

So what’s the fallout for today. For the Dow, it spiraled down another 516 points or 1.2% after falling 600 points earlier today. and other major markets, the NASDAQ and S&P500 both fell.

Obviously Donald Trump was aware of the stock market drops today. So what does he do? Our weak president now put on the brakes to Mexico tariffs and Canada Tariffs. But it’s a little to late for that. Canada is already dealing with new trading partners and Mexico said that Trump had until tomorrow before they would decide the tariffs they were going to put on the U.S.

Trump caved, just like he always does. The leaders of other countries now know what he’s going to do. They will always be one step ahead of him to keep him in check. This morning he stopped tariffs from those two countries on just the products the auto makers need to make cars in this country. After his not so teriffic speech to the joint session of Congress, the big three auto makers in the United States gave Trump an ear full.  So he backed down, just like the coward he is and always has been. But to keep chaos on track, he now moved the next tariff implement date to April 2nd. Now that’s just great Donald Trump. Right before tax day, just when everyone has to dip in their savings in some cases just like me to pay their taxes.  He thinks that will help the stock market and his rich buddies who invest in it. Maybe he’s right, but all indications say that the markets will continue to be very volitile until he elliminates them all together. When April 2nd comes around and Trump lets the tariffs kick in again, prices are going to soar in this country.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that he did remove the tariffs,  but it shouldn’t have taken the auto makers to complain or the stock markets to plummit before he would listen to reason. So you may ask if I think Trump is a reasonable man, and of course I would say NO. He doesn’t know what ‘stands to reason’ means.

What’s his first 100 days so far look like. Well that’s a story for another day, but so far, it’s going to be pretty bad. Maybe the people will wake up. Maybe the Repubicans and my friends will wake up and admit that Trump is no good for our economy, after he ran on saying he was going to do so much to bring down prices. Did he say that the country will have to experience some “pain” first before things get better?

Where are we when it comes to “NO TAXES ON TIPS”? Where are we now about when Trump claimed that Social Security Taxes should be eliminated? I can tell you at this moment, Trump is nowhere on those topics. Congress hasn’t a clue on what they want to do. The one thing he kept his promise on was that America will ‘feel PAIN’ before things get better. Did Trump ever say that he was going to gut all the Federal programs and furlow so many Federal workers, gut Medicade and Medicare, which is what he plans to do next? He has the Republican votes to do just that in Congress in the near future, but will they wake up in time like John McCain did during the vote on Obamacare to save Medicade and Medicare? That would free up tons of money that he can use to be able to give a tax break to the rich. Then it’s Social Security on the block. Will it end? Hopefully it will end before everyone looses everything and he completely destroys our country.

 

Trump’s Second Term – Already a Disaster

November 23, 2024

I would like to preface my article here is to say my dear Republican friends have no idea what will be in store for them and for the country as they supported a rapist, a criminal felon, a fraudster and made sure that he reached the White House. It was not a fluke. He not only acquired the electoral votes to become president, he also had the popular vote, so there is no question that he won fair and square in 2024. Project 2025 did not scare the Republicans. Donald Trump’s first term didn’t scare them. His obsession in working with dictators like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin didn’t scare them.

Do any of my dear Republican friends have their eyes open? Donald J. Trump, a man that only wanted to save himself from prison, is now President-Elect and will be our 47th President. He gets an out of jail for free card, for now. But in 4 years, when he can no longer run for president of these United States, Donald J. Trump will be sentenced to prison. He has been convicted in a court of 34 counts of felony. It was a unanimous decision. There was no question of his guilt. For the first time in Donald Trump’s life, he was being held accountable for his actions. The only thing left was his sentencing, and I got to give him credit, he pulled the biggest political trick on the American people, mainly Republicans, to have ever been seen in modern times. The Republicans showed their ignorance as at least half of the country voted for this criminal felon as their president. So, the people of the United States will now take a back seat and watch a want-to-be dictator destroy this county and he will have some success.

I made the previous statements because now the American people must deal with Donald Trump’s regained power as president, and they will pay the consequences for at least the next 2 years. In the midterm elections in 2026, I predict that the Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives, and maybe control over both chambers to include the Senate. But what do I know? I was 100% wrong, believing the Kamala Harris could win the election. Since Trump literally beat her in this election as he never once lost the lead when the voting was being held, I’ve struggled since then to try and determine why Kamala Harris lost to Trump. I’ll try to explain my thoughts on this later in this article.

But, let’s start from the top.

Trump’s disastrous pick for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, a test to Senate Republicans, was withdrawn as Republicans in the Senate say NO to Gaetz as the nominee for a position that needed to be confirmed in the U.S. Senate. That was never going to happen. Why? Because the Republicans in the Senate are joining the resistance, and there are a few of them left that will stand up for the right thing, but there IS enough of them. So what did Donald Trump do when he couldn’t get his number one choice to become Attorney General, he then picks a woman who most likely will be confirmed by the name of Pam Bondi, who is just as bad as Gaetz for the position. Remember Trump’s pick for the leader of the next Senate didn’t get chosen, as in a secret ballot, the Senators chose John Thune to replace McConnell who did not want the position in the next Senate.

Another great Trump pick, Pete Hegseth, nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Defense, has been accused of rape  and is a know drunkard.  You can’t make this stuff up, but only Donald J. Trump has the balls to try and pull the wool over the eyes of the American people, but at least for now, the Republicans in the Senate will have nothing to do with it. If he even makes it to the Senate confirmation process, he will most certainly fail. From all the reports that I read about him, he is the least qualified.  Lloyn J Austin III is Biden’s Secretary of Defense is a retired military officer and is very qualified in the position. PeteHegseth left FOX News as co-host of “FOX and FRIENDS” to take Trump’s nomination as Secretary of Defense. If this was a joke, it would be truly funny. But nominating Hegseth as the next Secretary of Defense is not a joke, but very scary. This man will be in charge of all men in uniform.

I thought I would never say this, but Rand Paul, who is a Republican from Kentucky whom I’m no fan of, but over the years he has proven himself to be a principled libertarian. He is a pretty respectable person. He ran for president in 2016, he is a doctor, he’s been vetted in the past, and I doubt if you will find any facts that he raped someone, or anything negative that would force Paul to bend to the will of Trump like the two nominees already mentioned for Trump’s choices. Rand Paul is aware of the fact that as soon as Trump becomes president, he will declare a national emergency and will use the military to round up undocumented people around the country. Trump always gives us an idea of what he is about to do, and just last week he mentioned that he will begin to round up people as soon as he becomes president. Rand Paul is not in favor of having the military go to the cities and hunt for people. It’s actually been illegal for the last 100 years to bring in the Army to our cities.

So going back to my initial points in this article, why were the Republicans so desperate in choosing Trump to become president? Well, they say he is the best person to fix our economy. And I get it. Prices have gone up substantially since Joe Biden has become president. But the ignorant Republicans do not realize that it didn’t make any difference of who became president in 2020, that the economy was going to take a hit.  But economists around the world will tell you that if they had a choice today, they would trade their economy for our economy without question. We literally have the best economy in the world, and we have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to thank for it.

So let’s try and determine how Trump is going to make the U.S. economy better. Let’s start with California.

In California, undocumented people comprise up to 2-million people who contribute to the U.S. economy, but they comprise half of the state’s agricultural industry. For example, to demonstrate their clout, 30% of all construction workers in Los Angeles are undocumented. About 18% of all manufacturing jobs in southern California are performed by undocumented workers. Trump made a promise during the election to deport at least 5% of the undocumented workers from this county. THIS ACTION WILL DESTROY THE AMERICAN ECONOMY. The entire economy of southern California runs on undocumented workers.  Is this Trump’s way to punish California for being a sanctuary State?

It is fact, that in 2022, undocumented people paid billions of dollars in Federal, State and local taxes. They pay into Medicare, Medicaid, employment insurance and Social Security, even though they are not entitled to any of it. They subsidize our benefits. Furthermore, they are not the takers of our tax revenue, but the makers of it. They receive very little in return. In my eyes, there is no migrant or an immigration crisis. If anyone believes that the crisis exists, they are believing in lies. This country is a nation of immigrants. Our roots began in other countries. But let’s see what happens to the U.S. economy if mass deportations begin in January, as Donald J. Trump promises. One thing is for sure, he will close the southern border in January. He will begin deporting people from families that voted for him. That’s how Trump is going to show thanks to his voters, because he has nothing to lose while he is in office. He can’t run again, so his decisions will be taken right out of the Project 2025 playbook.  God help us all!

Yes, Donald Trump, who is nothing less than a lunatic, hasn’t even been sworn in yet, but his administration is going to be a disaster. Just for starters, we have 3 sexual assault scandals in one week. Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, and we cannot ignore Linda McMahon who gave a blind-eye of the child rape over the WWE is now poised to be the head of the Department of Education. What a role model. All of Donald Trump’s picks, from Tulsi Gabbard to Robert Kennedy Jr. is a mental defective.  The biggest disaster of them all is Donald J. Trump, and as the saying goes, it takes one to know one. Trump is incapable of nominating decent human beings to run his government.  So this is what the American people wanted, is it? Well, this is what we got, and we got to take the punishment for at least the next few years.

What do we have to look forward to? Well, there is going to be another tax cut for the rich that will add trillions to our national debt. The Republicans are going to try to make cuts to medicare, medicaid, food stamps, aid to dependent children and unemployment insurance and Social Security, even though they cannot benefit from it in their future. Trump will fire at least 50,000 Federal employees, or at least he will try to. The EPA will become part of the Fossil fuel industry. That’s if Donald Trump has his way. He will try and roll back a lot of what Joe Biden accomplished in his four years in office. But his number 1 target will be the undocumented people, because he will want to satisfy the bloodlust of his supporters by destroying the lives of innocent people. Then it’s the LGBTQ community.  What happened to the hearts of the Americans that voted for him. Each one of them is responsible for what Trump will do in his tenure as 47th President of the United States. Most ALL of my friends must take the blame too.

So let’s look back to the past four years. We did not get medicare for all, the oil companies were not outlawed and billionaires were not taxed as they should have been. But my thoughts for why Kamala Harris lost the election is not because of Donald Trump, although I would love to make that argument, but it’s because Joe Biden successfully put in motion the most progressive legislation since Lyndon Johnson and she is Biden’s Vice-President. Biden did most of it within the first 2 years in office. He passed the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the bi-partisan infrastructure deal that Donald Trump claims he was going to do in his first term, but never got done and the Stimulus bill. Joe Biden will be known in history for great things, not like Donald Trump will be remembered for. Some will argue that Joe Biden did more good in his first 2 years as president than Obama did in eight years. Getting back to Kamala Harris, this is one of the main reasons she did not get elected as president. Now in hindsight, she didn’t stand a chance to win. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it pains me to say that. But it’s true. As another saying goes, “Let the Truth Be known”, and now we know it. But we should also know what is about to come. I just hope that this country is ready for it. The disasterous term of Trump’s presidency will be witnessed for the world to see. Hopefully the eyes of my Republican friends will be opened, as another saying goes, “Will they see the light?”.