Day: February 7, 2025

Elmo Has Your Records

I read that Musk has now been given access to Medicare and Medicaid…..is this a good idea?

Elon Musk’s access to the operations of the federal government appears to be only accelerating. On the heels of his Department of Government Efficiency gaining access—though it may be only “read-only” access—to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system:

  • Medicare/Medicaid: Representatives from DOGE have gotten access to the payment and contracting systems for the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, reports the Wall Street Journal. The reps are looking to identify fraud and waste at CMS—the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—and study the agency’s structure and staffing.
  • Musk: “Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening,” Musk tweeted in response to another’s post about the development.
  • CDC: DOGE reps also visited the Centers for Disease Control and requested a list of employees who have been there less than a year or are within a two-year probationary period, reports the Washington Post.
  • Labor: The reps also visited the Labor Department to discuss access to sensitive data there, per the Post. Labor unions are seeking a restraining order to keep DOGE’s hands off department info, saying the non-government department’s work is “illegal” and has “already been catastrophic.” (Musk has successfully gutted the US Agency for International Development.)
  • VA: Democratic senators are worried about what might happen at the Department of Veterans Affairs. “Musk and his associates already have the personal financial information of every veteran receiving disability or education benefits because of their illegal data mining at the Department of Treasury,” tweeted Sen. Patty Murray. “Will they now look at private health records of veterans?” Sen. Richard Blumenthal raised a similar alarm, calling it “reprehensible an unelected billionaire can freely access veterans’ sensitive and personal information.”

I do not like the idea of this douche bag having access to my medical stuff.

Fraud?

What about the fraud and games the wealthy play with the stability of this country?  These ‘people’ will target individuals while allowing insurance companies and Pharma get a free ride.

At what point are you fuckers going to wake up?

You have a screwing coming and you just bend over and take it like a submissive alter boy.

Pay attention!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Cruelty The New Norm?

Since the swearing in very little has been done by the Trump admin to “Make America Great Again” and even less is being done to show some empathy and/or support for the people of this nation.

Within the first two weeks of President Trump’s 4 year term, his disdain for ordinary citizens and preference for billionaires and wealthy people is already evident. We can’t say that we didn’t know it was coming, as throughout his campaign he associated mainly with affluent contributors and tech gurus instead of ordinary citizens. But his messages castigated the liberal elites (his elites weren’t liberal) and promised to improve the lives of average citizens. These rants attracted less educated white men, some Blacks and Hispanics, religious extremists and those who were disgruntled with the state of American society. Trump constantly emphasized the two I’s – inflation and illegal immigration, which greatly appealed to the working classes.

But once attaining office, Trump’s early executive orders have hurt the middle classes and the poor, benefiting his billionaire buddies and corporations. His playbook is Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation which he disowned during the campaign but is now following after the election. Another lie. He wants to continue or expand the tax cuts he gave the rich in his first term which did nothing for ordinary Americans. We can expect more of the same in the future.

And his obsession with tariffs will hurt ordinary Americans who will pay more for imported products and raise inflation further. Trump says the exporting countries will be paying for the tariffs but the rise in costs will be shifted to Americans. Trump also wants to cut health care benefits to poor people by slashing Medicaid. This will not only result in worse medical care but will also hurt the many nursing home residents who cannot afford to pay the costs of the nursing home. Trump has made an offer to 2 million federal workers to resign and receive a severance package that includes about eight months of pay and benefits. It remains to be seen how many federal workers will take this package and quit their jobs, but the offer is not dependent on a worker’s competency or performance. Trump just wants to cut federal spending so he can give out those tax cuts to his high earner friends. It may make the federal government even less efficient, but Trump doesn’t seem to care. He also wants to make the government bureaucracy more politically oriented and loyal to him, rather than neutral.

Trump’s Disdain for Ordinary Americans

His disdain is starting to look like a theater of cruelty….while his supporters keep drooling and ranting all the while are being lubed up….

Donald Trump’s re-election marks not just a political turning point but the ascendance of a corpse-like order, a nation stiffening under the weight of its own decay. His second coming is less a victory than a death march, a spectral procession of hollow men in red ties and stiff gaits—zombies with ice in their veins. Videos of Trump dancing evoke images of  him moving in a style that is jerky, lifeless, as if his body resents rhythm itself. A wooden plank with a painted sneer, twitching to the anthem of reaction, soulless and mean. No body on fire here. no slow bend toward desire, no trace of the supple grace that lives in a world still capable of love. Instead, the image signals the aesthetic of a new order of crudely celebrated as the manosphere—puffed-up bodies, drunk on steroids and grievance, exuding the acrid scent of sweat and power.

This is the culture that Trumpism has wrought: stripped of tenderness, of improvisation, of joy. Gone is the world I knew as a working-class kid, where music spilled into the streets, where voices—aching, defiant, untamed—set bodies in motion. Etta James wailing, Billie Holiday lingering on the edge of heartbreak, Nina Simone playing the piano like she was conjuring a storm. Little Anthony and the Imperials harmonizing into the night. This was a world of movement, of bodies ignited by something more than rage—by love, longing, the exquisite pain of feeling too much.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/04/trumps-theater-of-cruelty/

Is this what we as American citizens have to look forward to for the next 4 years…..a bunch of rich pansies screwing the people while enriching themselves?

So yes the cruelty has begun.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Is Trump Pissed At South Africa?

More twisted brilliance from that ‘stable genius’….

Our by Donald seems to have a new target every day….he blasts out meaningless statements and moves on and his boot lickers clean up and define what he means….Rubio tried to ‘clear up’ Trump’s statements on Gaza…

Just temporary: Although the president advocated permanently resettling Palestinians elsewhere, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he only wants to move the roughly 1.8 million Gazans temporarily, so the reconstruction can take place. “In the interim, obviously people are going to have to live somewhere while you’re rebuilding it,” Rubio said.

Ownership: Rubio said Trump just wants to clear out and rebuild Gaza, not own it, though Trump had said his vision is for “long-term” US ownership. “What he’s very generously has offered is the ability of the United States to go in and help with debris removal, help with munitions removal, help with reconstruction, the rebuilding homes and businesses and things of this nature so that then people can move back in,” Rubio said.

That was just to illustrate what I meant by walking back his statements (this will be an ever time thing)

Sorry about this is why Trump is pissed at South Africa….

Add South Africa to the list of nations in President Trump’s dog house. On Sunday, Trump threatened to cut off all aid to the nation after claiming it was confiscating land from farmers, which the South African government says is a distortion of the truth. Another wrinkle in the debate: Trump ally Elon Musk is a native of South Africa who accuses its government of racism against white people. Coverage:

  • Trump: South Africa “is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” the president wrote on Truth Social. As the Washington Post notes, “certain classes of people” in this context is widely interpreted to refer to white South Africans. “I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
  • South Africa: “The South African government has not confiscated any land,” tweeted President Cyril Ramphosa in a lengthy reply. “The recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution.” He added that the only direct aid his nation gets from the US is through the (endangered) PEPFAR program, which accounts for 17% of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS program.
  • New law: The measure referenced by Ramphosa is one he signed into law last month that allows the government to confiscate land in rare cases, reports Reuters. No confiscations have taken place, and the New York Times reports that “analysts say there are many checks and balances in place to prevent abuse” by the government. Future confiscations, if allowed to stand, would likely involve land no longer in use.
  • Context: South Africa’s white government took land from the nation’s Black majority during its apartheid era through 1994, and the government has since sought to get land back in the hands of Black farmers through a “willing seller, willing buyer” system, per the AP and the BBC. The new law is an extension of this policy—which critics say is taking too long—and would likely face legal challenges should a confiscation be proposed.
  • Context II: White South Africans comprise 7% of the population, but white-owned farms occupy roughly half of the nation’s surface area, per the Times. Black residents still own only a “fraction” of the nation’s land, per CNN.
  • Musk: The Trump confidante replied to Ramphosa’s post thusly on his X platform: “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”

Seriously?

Trump is pissed because of South Africa is confiscating land?

But yet it is perfectly okay for Israel to do so in the West Bank.

Then his ‘aide’ Elmo is leading this charge….someone who has no idea what he is doing…..as usual.

I see the butt boy Rubio is as clueless as his master….

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is refusing to attend this month’s G20 meeting in South Africa, days after President Trump accused the country of “confiscating land” from white farmers. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa disputed the allegations, noting no private property has been expropriated (we have an explainer here), but Trump’s top diplomat doubled down on Wednesday. Rubio said he “will NOT” be in Johannesburg from Feb. 19 to Feb. 21, as “South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’

Rubio is an idiot and every time he opens his mouth he proves over and over.

There is NO consistency in this slow thinking dullard….and that will cost the US in the long run.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”