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Unhealthy Entrepreneurship?

Monday, April 3, 2017

Despite their recent failure, efforts to repeal Obamacare are already negatively affecting our economy, including job creation. It’s the uncertainty, stupid!

For example, one person who has been planning on starting her own business says:

If Obamacare gets repealed, I’m anxious. What do I do? Right now, there is just so much instability. I don’t know how that will shift the market and what that will mean for health insurance costs in terms of small businesses … This could be the thing that deters us from moving forward.

According to an article in Health Affairs:

Lawmakers who dream of gutting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) do not seem to care about its importance to small business owners, particularly those who are solo entrepreneurs. What these politicians fail to understand is that the health care law is the first meaningful insurance reform available to entrepreneurs in decades. In fact, for many self-employed business owners, their firms would not exist without it. That’s why repealing the law is going to be a sizable setback for entrepreneurship.

Interestingly, this is happening at the same time that the meaning of employment is undergoing a profound shift. In places like California, more and more people are not working in traditional permanent full-time jobs. Instead, they are part of the “gig economy”, relying on temporary jobs, freelance gigs like Lyft and Uber, part-time work, and entrepreneurial ventures. None of these forms of employment offer health care and other benefits.

What this means is that the repeal of Obamacare (or even the threat of it) will result in “job lock” because people won’t leave their current jobs for fear that they will lose their health insurance.

And all of this points to a fundamental problem. In the US, health insurance is tied to big employers, in an economy where fewer and fewer people are earning their living that way. Indeed, our current health insurance system is an accident of history:

How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don’t pay for our groceries or our gas.

It is time to separate our health insurance from our employment. For the sake of our economy, and our health.


© Ruben Bolling

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Late Night Political Humor

Monday, April 3, 2017

[Jokes from Feb. 9, 2017]

Today the East Coast was hit with a major snowstorm and it forced New York City public schools to close. When she heard that, new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was like, “Hey, my plan’s working already.” – Jimmy Fallon

A snowstorm in the Northeast today caused many schools in the area to close. Said Betsy DeVos, “What? The school closures weren’t supposed to start yet.” – Seth Meyers

A federal court has ruled against President Trump’s travel ban, and at 3:35am Trump tweeted in all-caps, “SEE YOU IN COURT.” Then again, Trump tweets “SEE YOU IN COURT” to someone every day at 3:35. – Conan O’Brien

Florida firefighters yesterday rescued a man who was trapped inside a garbage truck. “Thank you!” yelled Steve Bannon. – Seth Meyers

Yesterday, without mentioning Donald Trump, Pope Francis urged everyone to build bridges, not walls. So today, without mentioning the Pope, Donald Trump said, “Francis is a girl’s name.” – Conan O’Brien

President Trump will host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House next week. Are you sure that’s a good idea? That’s like your wife bringing Margot Robbie home for dinner. We’re not gonna hear anything you say for a month after that. – Seth Meyers

Nordstrom’s stock went up after President Trump attacked them on Twitter for dropping Ivanka’s clothing line. Then RadioShack said, “Would you mind attacking us?” – Jimmy Fallon

A recent study found that the number of monarch butterflies migrating to Mexico from the U.S. has dropped by 27 percent. Apparently the butterflies are afraid if they go from the U.S. to Mexico, they won’t be allowed back in. – Conan O’Brien

According to a new poll, 72 percent of Americans are either very concerned, or somewhat concerned, about climate change, while others [shows photo of laughing Obama kite-surfing] are just making the best of it. – Seth Meyers

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office recently reported that it gets around 1.5 million calls from constituents per day, but most of them are just people asking him to push up his glasses. – Seth Meyers

Facebook has just added a new tool for finding help during disasters. Unfortunately, then Facebook shows you photos of your friends having a much better time during their disasters. – Conan O’Brien

Shaquille O’Neal says that he’s trying to eat healthier. He’s cut soda, bread, sandwiches, and fast food out of his diet. When asked what he’s eating instead he said, “Mostly trees.” – Jimmy Fallon

For Valentine’s Day, some KFCs are letting you send a loved one a heart-shaped bucket of fried chicken. And even better, if you really hate someone, you can send them two buckets. – Conan O’Brien

The Baltimore airport just got a gym where you can work out while you wait for a flight. Finally combining the two things Americans love most — waiting in airports and exercise. – Jimmy Fallon

There’s a fitness center at the Baltimore airport. So now instead of just sitting around during long layovers you can spend that time feeling guilty about not going to the gym. – Jimmy Fallon

Nintendo is releasing a video game that lets you simulate taking care of a baby. When they heard this, gamers said, “Hey, call me when you have one that simulates MAKING one.” – Conan O’Brien

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April Fools

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Yesterday, on April Fools Day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on their Facebook page that they had set up an automated telephone switchboard for embassies. So the message that would play when you call them was (in English and Russian):

You have reached the Russian embassy, your call is very important to us. To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1. To use the services of Russian hackers, press 2. To request election interference, press 3 and wait until the next election campaign. Please note that all calls are recorded for quality improvement and training purposes.

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Doctors Prefer Single Payer Insurance

Sunday, April 2, 2017

A new survey of US doctors shows that 48% of them are in favor of a single-payer health insurance system (like Medicare for all), while only 32% are against it, and 21% answered “I don’t know”.

What was especially interesting was that the doctors acknowledged that they might take a financial hit under a single-payer system, but they said it would be worth it because it would relieve them of having to collect money and deal with a plethora of insurance companies, each with their own rules and forms.

Duh. Doctors want to practice medicine and don’t want to spend their time doing aggravating paperwork and collecting overdue bills from patients.
As one doctor put it:

As a doctor, it’s really against my best interest to support single-payer healthcare. It reduces my earning potential. At the same time, it’s about human rights and taking care of people that need help—that is why I do this work.

Costs include the time they spend dealing with insurance companies: getting prior authorization from them, calling when their treatments denied coverage, changing prescriptions when the drugs they have prescribed aren’t covered.

And there are other costs for doctors. Because different insurance plans have different networks of hospitals, specialists, and laboratories, doctors and their staff have to spend hours looking for in-network providers. A single unified insurance plan would avoid that problem entirely.

And then there are costs due to fragmentation of health insurance. As people move from one job to another, often their insurance company changes. The same thing can happen even when they don’t change jobs, but their company decides to change health insurance plans. This can force employees to change doctors to one that is in their new insurance company’s network. In many cases, this will cause tests, procedures, and paperwork to be repeated.

The results of this survey are surprising, given that doctors in the US face a unique problem. Medical school in the US is very expensive compared to other countries and 79% of new doctors here face more than $100,000 in debt from their education. Doctors need substantial income to pay that debt off.

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Late Night Political Humor

Saturday, April 1, 2017

[Jokes from Feb 8, 2017]

This morning President Trump actually went on Twitter to criticize Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivanka’s line and treating her unfairly. While Trump’s tweeting about a department store, a lot of people are wondering what the return policy is for presidents. – Jimmy Fallon

Sean Spicer said that Nordstrom’s decision to stop carrying Ivanka Trump’s clothing line is an attack on the president, and he’s also mad at Men’s Wearhouse, because he does not like the way he looks. – Seth Meyers

Five other retailers, including Neiman Marcus, also announced that they are dropping Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, while AutoZone announced they’ll no longer carry Eric and Donald Jr.’s hair grease. – Seth Meyers

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said today that Nordstrom’s decision to stop carrying Ivanka Trump’s clothing line is “an attack on the president’s policies and his daughter.” Well, that’s what his mouth said; his eyes said, “Help me, my boss is insane!” – Seth Meyers

It seems like every day Trump’s upset about something else. And I guess now — this is real — he is complaining that the hand towels on Air Force One are not soft enough. Then the flight attendant said, “Sir, that’s my skirt.” – Jimmy Fallon

Yesterday, Donald Trump repeated his false assertion that America’s murder rate is the highest it’s been in 47 years. Then someone pointed out to Trump that he was just binge watching “Game of Thrones”. – Conan O’Brien

Another big story is Trump’s travel ban. Earlier today, he defended the ban by saying, “Even a bad high school student would support it.” And Betsy DeVos said, “And thanks to me, we’ll have plenty of those.” – Jimmy Fallon

Last night, CBS anchor Scott Pelley began the evening news by saying President Trump is “divorced from reality”. After hearing this, Trump said, “Oh, great, now I have to start paying reality?” – Conan O’Brien

A Trump administration official said that whenever the media criticizes the president, they will call it “fake news”. And, whenever the media praises the president, they will call it “Fox News”. – Conan O’Brien

The latest polls show President Trump has an approval rating in the low 40s, which means he’s probably about to dump it for one in the low 20s. – Seth Meyers

Today is National Kite Flying Day. Why we have this in February, I have no idea. Having National Kite Flying Day in February is like having National Snowman Building Day in July. This is where the kite lobby put it. See, this is the sort of thing President Trump needs to look into if he wants to make America great again. – Jimmy Kimmel

In a recent interview, President Trump revealed he has only been sleeping four or five hours a night. While Ben Carson is still getting a solid 24. – Seth Meyers

Last night, Sen. Mitch McConnell silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren using an old Senate rule. It’s the 1930s statute known as “No Mouthy Broads”. – Conan O’Brien

We’re now less than a week away from V-Day. Valentine’s Day is a test. It’s a test of your commitment, your preparedness, a test of whether you love someone enough to waste $100 on flowers that on any other day of the year would cost you $30. – Jimmy Kimmel

Even if you don’t spend a dollar for Valentine’s Day, you have to do something. Here’s a tip: If you don’t have money this year, you don’t need money. Go to the store and steal something. Show her that you’re willing to go to prison just to win her love or his love. Either way you’re going to prison. – Jimmy Kimmel

Speaking of prisoners, this should be an interesting Valentine’s Day at the White House. For instance, will Donald Trump get flowers from Vladimir Putin? We don’t know. – Jimmy Kimmel

And what about his wife Melania? Will they spend the night together or will she remain trapped like Rapunzel at their apartment in New York? Melania has a new line of greeting cards. They carry them at CVS: “Happy Valentine’s Day” (open it) “Save Me”. – Jimmy Kimmel

On Monday in Vermont, a barrel of maple syrup fell off a truck and spilled all over the highway. Luckily, it broad-sided a French toast truck. – Conan O’Brien

In North Carolina, a mother is suing a daycare center because one of the workers there breastfed her son without permission. Authorities say she doesn’t really have a case because her son is 32. – Conan O’Brien

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Settling for a Loser

Friday, March 31, 2017

In a presidential debate a year ago, when taunted about the Trump University fraud case, Trump flatly stated “I don’t settle cases. I don’t do it because that’s why I don’t get sued very often, because I don’t settle, unlike a lot of other people. You know what, let’s see what happens in court.”

Of course, we knew that was a lie. Trump had settled lawsuits more than a dozen times.

Indeed, in the same debate Trump also claimed that Trump University (even the name was a lie) had a “Ninety-eight percent approval rating” from its students and received “an ‘A’ from the Better Business Bureau”. But debate moderator Megyn Kelly responded that Trump U had a D-minus rating. After a commercial break, Trump waved a piece of paper and claiming “The Better Business Bureau just sent it” and “This just came in, we just got it.” But the Better Business Bureau said they never sent anything. And why would they have? Trump U was out of business and so their official rating is “No rating”. But the BBB added that “Trump University has never been a BBB Accredited Business.”

As for the “98% approval rating” the BBB said “During the period when Trump University appeared to be active in the marketplace, BBB received multiple customer complaints about this business. These complaints affected the Trump University BBB rating, which was as low as D- in 2010.”

And I haven’t even mentioned Trump attacking the judge in the case because he was a Mexican (even though he was born to Americans in Indiana). Or the many other lies he told about this case.

Well, the punchline of this sick joke is that Trump just settled the case, for $25 million. Students will get back around 90 cents for each dollar they spent on the bogus courses at Trump U. That is an unusually generous settlement, designed to make sure it would be accepted so the case would never get to court. Because it was pretty obvious that Trump would have lost.

In the end, it is us who have to settle for a less-than-honest president. And a loser and conman.

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Immunity

Friday, March 31, 2017

“Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!” – Donald Trump on Twitter yesterday, after his former National Security Advisor (who resigned because he lied about meetings with the Russians) asked for immunity from prosecution. Normally, you get immunity only if you are willing to testify against someone else (usually someone higher up, like, you know, the president) who is even more guilty.

“If you’re not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?” – Donald Trump six months ago, when he was repeatedly complaining about the DoJ granting immunity to people during the investigation into Clinton’s private email server.

“When you are given immunity, that means that you’ve probably committed a crime.” – Michael Flynn in September 2016, also complaining repeatedly about Hillary Clinton and her email server.

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The Government, by Any Other Name

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Jen Sorensen
© Jen Sorensen

The whole meme started by Reagan that government is the problem keeps getting used for all kinds of excuses. Cutting taxes for the rich, getting rid of those pesky regulations that keep our air and water clean, privatizing prisons, you name it. The funny thing is that every time they do that, it is the richest of the rich who benefit, and the middle class on down are the losers.

Trump voters just must not have realized that he said that “we” would be winning, by “we” he meant rich people like himself. You know, people who made most of their money by cheating the little guy and bribing (via campaign contributions) the government to give them big tax breaks.

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Bait and Switch

Thursday, March 30, 2017

After claiming that there was no Plan B if they didn’t pass Obamacare repeal last Friday, it is becoming obvious that Republicans had a Plan B all along. In fact, Plan B might have been their Plan A. Let me explain.

When the ACA repeal bill failed, Paul Ryan immediately said that “Obamacare is the law of the land” and “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future”. Why would he say things like that? Do you think he would give up that easily? Of course not.

My guess is that the plan all along was to pretend to try to repeal Obamacare to make the base happy, but have the repeal fail. Then (as I’ve said before) quietly sabotage the ACA so that it fails. That allows them to try to blame its failure on the Democrats.

And today, we learned more about that strategy when Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price testified in front of Congress, and made it clear that he has the power to kill Obamacare. He can do this partially by just refusing to enforce some of the provisions of the law, most importantly the individual mandate, which would drive up costs tremendously. And partially by taking advantage of leeway written into the law, such as eliminating most if not all of the “essential benefits” or reducing cost-sharing subsidies. Reducing the subsidies alone will bring “significant premium increases” for consumers. “Some insurers will drop out, and the remaining insurers will have to seek large rate increases.”

In fact, just by saying that he might do these things introduces uncertainty in the market, which will encourage insurance companies to drop out of the Obamacare marketplaces. The CEO of one major health insurance company said that the cost-sharing subsidies are a major uncertainty hanging over his company’s ability to participate in the marketplaces going forward. Another uncertainty is enforcement of the individual mandate.

Price claims that he will will be doing these things in order to “dramatically lower the cost of insurance for Americans”. And indeed, if Price eliminates the “essential benefits” then insurance companies will be able to offer extremely cheap insurance policies, but those policies will cover almost nothing. The essential benefits that Price can possibly eliminate include emergency room services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, laboratory services, mental health and substance abuse services, chronic disease management, vision care, and even preventative care. What’s left?

Allowing people to buy plans that do not include (for example) maternity care means that the cost of plans that do include maternity will skyrocket, because only people who plan to have babies will buy such plans, and insurance companies are not about to just absorb those costs.

Can we do anything to prevent this from happening? Most importantly, we need to make sure that Secretary Price cannot do these things without anyone noticing, and then blame Obamacare when premiums go up or insurance markets collapse.

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What’s the Big Deal?

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

First Trump can’t make a deal with even Republican congressmen over repealing Obamacare.

Now, Trump has now asked Congress for a billion dollars to build his wall. I guess he couldn’t get Mexico to pay for it. So much for his claimed deal-making abilities.

But wait, it is worse than that. A billion dollars will only cover 62 miles of the wall, and some of that will be repairing existing fencing. I can only imagine what it would cost for the entire 2,000 miles.

Anyone wanna bet that Trump wants this just so he can declare that he started building the wall he promised, and then he will quietly forget about it? A billion dollars is an awful lot of money just to sooth his ego.

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Late Night Political Humor

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

[Jokes from Feb. 7, 2017]

Today, the Senate officially confirmed Betsy DeVos as education secretary, with a vote of 51 to 50. Or as Trump calls that, “a landslide.” – Jimmy Fallon

Vice President Mike Pence today cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm controversial education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos. And if you don’t know what that means, you’re probably Betsy DeVos. – Seth Meyers

It was actually a 50-50 tie vote that was broken by the vice president. Which makes the vote for education secretary the only place where a 51 is a passing grade. – Jimmy Fallon

The Senate confirmed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Now, there are 100 senators. She got the votes of only half of them. So her first act is to make 50 count as a passing grade. – Stephen Colbert

It’s come out that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who many think is unqualified, gave big contributions to half the Republican Senators who voted for her. Or as Betsy DeVos calls it, “75 percent of them”. – Conan O’Brien

DeVos, our secretary of education, has never attended, worked in, or sent her kids to public school. So how did she get the nomination? Well, there’s a tiny chance that money played a role, since DeVos’ family gave around $200 million to Republican causes, including donations to four senators on the committee overseeing her confirmation. Oooh, that reminds me of a math problem! “Betsy has $200 million. She needs 50 votes. How much money can she give to each senator to make sure public schools get less?” – Stephen Colbert

In Washington today, there was no victory parade for President Trump’s pick to run the Department of Education. The Democrats pulled an all-nighter in the Senate to try to get one more Republican to vote against her. They could not do that and Betsy DeVos squeaked in 51-50, which is terrible news for Democrats and even worse news for grizzly bears. – Jimmy Kimmel

President Trump claimed that the media is not reporting on acts of terrorism on American soil. In response, the media said, “Actually, we think we’re covering your presidency quite well.” – Conan O’Brien

President Trump is mad as a hornet. He tweeted this morning, “I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy. Yet Obama can make a deal with Iran, #1 in terror, no problem.” You know, there actually was a time in our history when if a president used the phrase “haters are going crazy,” we might be alarmed. We might even be told to remain in our homes if the haters were going crazy. – Jimmy Kimmel

Vladimir Putin is scheduled to play an exhibition hockey game against former professional hockey players. Putin is scheduled to win by 12 goals. – Conan O’Brien

Steve Bannon is Donald Trump’s senior strategist. A lot of people are saying that he’s the guy really running the White House, but I’m not sure I believe that, because there’s no proof that anyone’s running the White House right now. – Stephen Colbert

The list is loaded with typos, like “attaker” instead of “attacker” and “Denmakr” instead of “Denmark.” So at least we know Steve Bannon isn’t a grammar Nazi. – Stephen Colbert

According to a new survey, almost a third of people say their co-workers spend more time talking about politics than business. “Thank God that’s not the case where I work,” said Mike Pence. – Seth Meyers

At a closed-door meeting, some Republicans said they fear for their physical safety if they repeal Obamacare. In other words, Republicans are now in the awkward position of needing Obamacare if they get rid of Obamacare. – Conan O’Brien

New research predicts that in 65 billion years, the moon will crash into the Earth. After hearing this, half of America said, “Hey, can we move that up a bit? How about Wednesday?” – Conan O’Brien

The news is currently that spinning image of a newspaper, but it never stops spinning. – Conan O’Brien

Billionaire Richard Branson recently released a video of former President Obama kite-surfing with him in the Virgin Islands. Hey, man, I get that you don’t have to deal with all this anymore, but could you not rub it in? This is why people un-friend their exes on Facebook. – Seth Meyers

This is what President Obama has been up to: kite surfing in the Virgin Islands with Richard Branson. [shows photos of kite-surfing, laughing Obama] Look at him, not an Obama care in the world. – Jimmy Kimmel

That is the smile of a man who had no idea he might not be allowed back in the country. – Jimmy Kimmel

Kylie Minogue won a legal battle against Kylie Jenner over the trademark of the name “Kylie”. Yeah, the judge called the case “not why I went to law school.” – Jimmy Fallon

Merriam-Webster dictionary added over 1,000 new words today, including the word “photobomb”. They didn’t WANT to add “photobomb”, but it jumped in at the last second and kinda ruined the dictionary. – Jimmy Fallon

It is a holiday in Boston because the quarterback for the New England Patriots, Tom Brady, declared it a holiday. I did not know he had the power to do that. He gave everyone the day off today. I don’t think the mayor’s even allowed to give people — has an athlete ever overthrown a city government before? – Jimmy Kimmel

What if he decides to use his powers for evil? You know, Tom Brady is gluten free, what if he makes everyone go gluten free? You order a lobster roll, you get a handful of seafood. – Jimmy Kimmel

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Trump Diaries

Tuesday, March 28, 2017


© Tom Tomorrow

Indeed, Donald Trump must be very unhappy. His approval rating has dropped to 36%, the lowest of his young presidency.

And more questionable Russian connections keep appearing. The latest news is that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the chairman of the Russian state development bank after the election but before Trump became president. The bank chairman was appointed by none other than Vladimir Putin less than two years ago, and he used to work at the FSB (which replaced the KGB), where Putin worked as well. What makes this really questionable is that that is one of the banks that was sanctioned by the US after Russia invaded Crimea. Why was Kushner meeting with them? We may never know.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are in disarray after their repeal of Obamacare fizzled. Adding insult to injury, Trump lashed out at both the conservative Freedom Caucus and at the moderate Republican “Tuesday Group”, pissing them off even more.

And finally, the White House itself is in shambles, with internal factions stabbing each other in the back and blaming each other for a toxic environment of dysfunction.

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Late Night Political Humor

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

[Jokes from Feb. 6, 2017]

Ninety-seven tech companies have filed a legal brief opposing Donald Trump’s travel ban. Took a week though because all their IT guys were detained at the airport. – Conan O’Brien

On Saturday, Trump faced his third weekend straight of nationwide protests, including at his Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he was staying. Will the protests get to Trump? Well, a longtime ally, Roger Stone, told Politico, “Donald used to come and go as he pleases, and now he can’t and he has protesters on top of that. Mar-a-Lago is like an oasis for him. But if he feels he can’t go there to unwind, I wonder if it will make him go crazy.” Make him go crazy? Has this been the sane version of Trump this whole time? – Seth Meyers

A president of the United States said, “You think our country’s so innocent?” Has there ever been a president who hates America more? I mean, besides Jefferson Davis. – Stephen Colbert

On Sunday, a deputy White House press secretary told CBS News, “Trump has some meetings and may play a few holes of golf.” Which isn’t a big deal. All presidents play golf. It’s a presidential sport. You wouldn’t want your president playing football.” Though, if Trump did, that would explain the concussion symptoms. – Seth Meyers

President Trump has sworn off McDonald’s and KFC. Not only that, he’s trying to get Chipotle deported. – Conan O’Brien

Drug dealers are now stamping individually wrapped heroin packets with Donald Trump’s face. So finally a Trump-branded product that people actually want to buy. It’s selling like crazy. – Conan O’Brien

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Make America Greater

Monday, March 27, 2017

The New Yorker has a must-read article about health care. If you can, go read it now.

Their point is that conseratives are treating health care as if it is just another business. A way to make a profit. But health care is not about economics, in fact, it is actually anything but.

Health care is better classified as an investment. Money we spent on health care now pays back handsomely in the future, in multiple ways. Everyone knows that treating an illness or injury early is far less expensive than treating it later after it gets worse.

But there is an even more important return on this investment:

In 1993, the economic historian Robert Fogel wrote an influential paper (it was his Nobel Prize acceptance speech) in which he demonstrated that improvements in health accounted for fully half of the economic growth in the United Kingdom in the first two centuries of the industrial revolution. Because of improvements in sanitation, food production, and medical treatment, people were living longer and spending much less time incapacitated by illness and hunger. Health was more important than railroads, electricity, mass production, and every other technology we more readily associate with economic success.

As if it weren’t obvious, I would rephrase this as “the health of a nation is critically dependent on the health of its people”. Healthy people are more productive.

And when people aren’t spending so much on health care, they have more money to pump into the economy.

Donald Trump promised repeatedly during his campaign that he would replace Obamacare with health care for everyone that costs less. It is time for him to keep that promise. It is the best way he could MAGA.

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Do you have regrets yet?

Sunday, March 26, 2017

I’m not a huge fan of Bill Maher, but this one is actually pretty funny. Will Trump voters realize that they have been conned?

And speaking of being conned, consider the case of the Beristains. Roberto Beristain is a respected businessman who owns a popular restaurant, creates jobs, is a well-loved citizen of his town and father of three American-born children, is married to an American citizen, and is so squeaky clean he has never even gotten a parking ticket.

He is also an illegal immigrant, but he has fully cooperated with immigration authorities, who in the past granted Beristain a work permit, a driver’s license, and even a Social Security number so he could pay taxes. He has had a case pending since 2007 to rectify his status because he is married to a US citizen, but immigration is not known for doing anything quickly.

So when Beristain checked in with immigration authorities early this year, as he does every year, he was surprised that they detained him and are now deporting him back to Mexico. The mayor of the town where he lives and works even wrote in support of him, hundreds of people have signed petitions, and members of Congress have tried to intervene, but to no avail.

What makes this situation ironic is that his wife actually voted for Donald Trump. When she told her husband she planned to vote for Trump he was concerned because “He’s going to get rid of the Mexicans.” But she countered that Trump had promised that he would deport only the “bad hombres”.

Now, she regrets voting for him, saying “I wish I didn’t vote at all.” She and her husband were all for deporting illegal immigrants who were criminals, bringing drugs or abusing the system, “but not to get rid of all the people. This is not what America is, the land of the free.”

Also ironic is that there is now a twitter account, “Trump Regrets” that retweets disappointed and angry Trump voters. The account has already amassed over a quarter of a million followers.

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