Day: June 16, 2025

For My Fellow Seniors

AS an old fart I watch the doings in Moronic center, DC, for my fellow seniors need to stay informed on how the government will tackle their problems as they grow older….especially the marginal ones that will depend onMedicaid for the health issues.

Below are some of the more absurd excuses for throwing people off the Medicaid rolls…..

In their zeal to deliver a big win to President Donald Trump by passing his sweeping tax and spending bill, Republicans have been coming up with ridiculous ways to defend their plan to strip health care from an estimated 11 million low-income people.

Experts don’t matter. Prove you are worthy of health care. We’re all going to die anyway. Somehow, these are actual arguments GOP lawmakers and officials have been making as they try to gloss over the pain their bill would impose on poor people and families while handing big tax breaks to mostly rich people.

Here are five of the most absurd ways Republicans have tried to defend their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which guts federal health and food assistance programs by nearly $1.3 trillion.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medicaid-cuts-republican-bill_n_6842ebdde4b04a6fce05e8c5

Then there is the whole tax thingy in Donny’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ BS….

Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will slash the household resources of the poorest Americans by about $1,600 while boosting the wealthiest households by roughly $12,000, the Congressional Budget Office said in a distributional analysis released Thursday.

What Happened: CBO analysts in their analysis released on Thursday found middle-income families would gain a more modest $500 to $1,000 a year, but the lowest decile would lose ground largely because the bill pares back Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and adds 80-hour monthly “community-engagement” rules for able-bodied adults.

he package extends many 2017 tax cuts, creates temporary breaks on tips, overtime and car-loan interest, and raises the standard deduction for seniors, yet offsets part of the cost by shrinking safety-net programs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned lawmakers on Thursday that failure to pass the measure could push the nation toward economic disaster, and Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) argued “the solution to our debt crisis is not to tax Americans more, it is to spend less.” He goes on to say that extending “proven tax reform is critical for working families.”

https://www.benzinga.com/news/politics/25/06/45919604/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-pulls-1600-from-poorest-adds-12000-for-richest-annually-shows-cbo-analysi

Nothing about nay of this should surprise anyone for the GOP has been gunning for entitlements for decades and now they have the perfect storm to attack and destroy as much of these programs as possible.

If you are a senior or close to retirement you might want to pay better attention than you have in the past for your future is in their incapable hands.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Immigration: Friends And Foes

Everybody on the Right is absolutely bubbly with the actions taken by Donny and his move against immigrants.

There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason for his deportations other than the misuse of the ‘Enemy Aliens Act’ from our early history.

That Act has been batted around liberally by the Far Right and even some of the dolts in the media….but I do not believe the ‘Act’ says what they think it says.

President Donald Trump claims that the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 grants him the power to deport certain Venezuelan-born aliens without due process, based on the mere allegation of membership in a criminal street gang.

But the text of the Alien Enemies Act does not allow the president to do anything of the sort. “Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government,” the act states, the president may direct the “removal” of “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized.”

The crimes of the alleged members of the street gang Tren de Aragua do not meet this legal standard. There is no “declared war” between the United States and Venezuela, and there is no “invasion or predatory incursion” of the U.S. by “any foreign nation or government.” The gang is not a foreign state, and the gang’s alleged crimes, heinous as they may be, do not qualify as acts of war by a foreign state. Trump’s frequent talk about a rhetorical “invasion” of the U.S. by undocumented immigrants utterly fails to satisfy the law’s requirements.

The fatal defects of Trump’s position are further illuminated when you compare his stance with James Madison’s “Report of 1800,” which critiqued the Alien and Sedition Acts. (The Alien Enemies Act was one of the three laws that comprised the Alien and Sedition Acts.)

As Madison explained, there are two categories of “offences for which aliens within the jurisdiction” of the United States “are punishable.” The first category involves “offences committed by the nation of which they make a part, and in whose offences they are involved.” In this case, “the offending nation can no otherwise be punished than by war.” In other words, the aliens are citizens of an offending nation that has committed an act of war against the United States. The aliens who fall within this category are “alien enemies.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/26/dont-use-the-alien-enemies-act-on-alien-friends/

Of course under normal circumstances this would be a Constitutional issue….but when the legal system is being choked by nothing more than political hacks anything can be made possible.

Was Hamilton Right?

Alexander Hamilton described the judiciary as “beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power.” He reasoned that the court only has the power of judgment. Its authority relies not on coercive ability, but rather on the trust of both the other branches of government and the public in its integrity as an impartial arbiter of the law.

I think he was mistaken…..maybe in his day it may have held true but today it is not for the rulings of SCOTUS seem to indicate that it is one of the power centers of the government.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Little Donny Has A Dream

Donny has this fake dream of making America Great by a security blanket he is calling the “Golden Dome”.

It sounds good for the media and especially those babbling idiots that support him in all things….but is it really all that?

Golden Dome is a golden idol, a false god, one that by making a massive nuclear strike more likely endangers all of us and God’s creation.

Golden Dome is a grotesque example of makework militarism and warfare as welfare for weapons makers. Though it’s unlikely to work, if it did (partially) it would make a massive nuclear strike more likely, not less, endangering the world with the ecocidal terror of nuclear winter.

Golden Dome and the so-called investment in America’s nuclear triad are both examples of socio-technological madness – America’s leaders are like the mutants in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes,” worshipping the bombs that twisted them and which can only destroy what’s left of civilization.

https://original.antiwar.com/William_Astore/2025/06/10/golden-dome-idiocy/

Trump’s goals for Golden Dome are likely beyond reach. A wide range of studies makes clear that even defenses far more limited than what Trump envisions would be far more expensive and less effective than Trump expects, especially against enemy missiles equipped with modern countermeasures. Countermeasures include multiple warheads per missile, decoy warheads and warheads that can maneuver or are difficult to track, among others.

…

Experience going back half a century makes clear that if the administration pursues Golden Dome, it is likely to provoke even larger arms buildups, derail already-dim prospects for any negotiated nuclear arms restraint, and perhaps even increase the chances of nuclear war.

…

Most countries are likely to oppose the idea of deploying huge numbers of weapons in space – and these interceptors would be both expensive and vulnerable. China and Russia could focus on further developing anti-satellite weapons to blow a hole in the defense, increasing the risk of space war.

https://theconversation.com/golden-dome-dangers-an-arms-control-expert-explains-how-trumps-missile-defense-threatens-to-make-the-us-less-safe-258048

Trump wants to go much further, with a defense “forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” with a success rate “very close to 100%.” I believe that this effort is highly likely to lead to still larger nuclear buildups in Russia and China.

This is just an extension of Reagan’s Star Wars dream…..and it was a pipe dream that was abandoned in good sense.

This will be yet another waste of time and cash as is most of Donny’s ‘major’ programs….

How will this play out in Congress….at is if it ever makes it there or will this be just another exercise for the Magic Sharpie?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”