Stephen Colbert and Father James Martin: Preserve Separation of Church and State

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1. quikwrit says:

   July 16, 2025 at 1:30 pm

   MEDICARE GETS CUT!!!

   Don’t feel relieved that Medicare wasn’t mentioned in Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” because Medicare will be CUT BY MORE THAN HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS because of Trump’s bill.

   HERE’S WHY: Both law and congressional rules require “pay-as-you-go” (“PAYGO”) budgeting.

   PAYGO law and rules require that whenever there is a federal deficit, programs — like Medicare — MUST BE CUT BACK.

   The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by the Republican Congress creates a HUGE DEFICIT of more than THREE TRILLION DOLLARS.

   That means that Medicare and other important federal programs are going to be SLASHED.

   Because of PAYGO, MEDICARE WILL BE CUT BY AT LEAST $53,000,000,000 in EACH ONE of the next 10 years.

   That’s a total cut of more than HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS over the next ten years.

   THE TRIPLE WHAMMY ON HEALTHCARE: Because of the Big Beautiful Bill’s cuts to Medicaid and to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), those cuts combined with the cuts to Medicare are going to be a TRIPLE WHAMMY on America’s entire healthcare system — hospitals, doctors, and all healthcare providers are going to see Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA payments slashed!!!

   Hospitals in big cities, as well in small towns, will close…doctors and other healthcare providers will refuse to accept Medicare and ACA…the availability of healthcare will dry up everywhere — and where you can get it, healthcare will cost you A LOT.

   So, don’t fall for the lie from your Republican federal Senator and federal Representative that “Medicare wasn’t cut because it wasn’t in the Big Beautiful Bill” — those politicians knew very well that Medicare didn’t have to be specifically mentioned in the bill in order to be cut.

   They are lying to you.

   The Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” is a lie.

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   • retired teacher says:

     July 17, 2025 at 8:14 am

     Trump’s bill is a well orchestrated plan to undermine and perhaps destroy existing social safety nets including social security, not because Trump is a “stable genius.” It is because The Heritage Foundation has had its evil think tank perfecting its attack on any social benefits for years. The privatization of Medicare has already started as it was built into the ACA under the ACO “pay for success” scheme. Likewise, the feds are doing a trial on requiring prior-authorization for certain types of treatment under Medicare. They are slowly turning a public program into a for-profit corporate program like Medicare Advantage in a sneaky slide into privatization that most will not even notice until the problems emerge. https://medicareadvocacy.org/medicare-prior-authorization/

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     • quikwrit says:

       July 17, 2025 at 12:25 pm

       THE TROJAN HORSE NAMED “ADVANTAGE”

       From the get-go, the purpose of creating Medicare “Advantage” plans in the first place was to create a Trojan Horse of private insurance in the Medicare system to gradually replace government Medicare with all-private or mostly-private health insurance. It was Congress’s gift to the insurance industry from which campaign money flows.

       At first, these private plans were called “Medicare Risk” plans, but that name made it difficult to market the private plans, so at the request (demand) of the private insurance industry the M+C program in Part C of Medicare was renamed the “Medicare Advantage” under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), which was enacted in December 2003.

       Giving the Part C program the name “Advantage” was designed to give private insurers the ability to present their plans as offering some “advantage” to original government Medicare. In reality, the “advantages” of lame, minimal added features only masks the problems that enrollees encounter with being limited to “in-network” doctors and hospitals, pre-authorizations, and denials of claims.

       It was, and remains, the purpose of Part C to almost entirely replace original government Medicare with private Medicare Advantage plans…and then watch premium prices increase and restrictions and denials of service soar. A fundamental question that America has not yet faced, let alone answer is:

       Is healthcare an inalienable human right that is to be provided within our constitutional context of The Common Good?

       The answer to that question is most certainly “yes” because good health and freedom from worry about health issues are fundamental to all other inalienable rights. BUT…it is most unlikely that the United States, in its current oligarchical structure, will answer the question in that manner.

       AMERICA HAS BEEN AN OLIGARCHY FOR DECADES:

       After researching government laws passed over 20 years, Princeton University researcher Martin Gilens and Northwestern University researcher Benjamin Page documented that the U.S. is no longer a representative republic because the government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country’s citizens, but is instead ruled by the rich and powerful. The researchers analyzed 1,800 U.S. policies enacted over a period of two decades and compared the laws and regulations that were passed to those favored by average Americans to those favored by wealthy Americans and corporations, and here’s what the research revealed: “EVEN WHEN A MAJORITY OF CITIZENS DISAGREES WITH ECONOMIC ELITES OR WITH ORGANIZED SPECIAL INTERESTS, ORDINARY CITIZENS GENERALLY LOSE.”

       America has become an oligarchy because of the Supreme Court. Today’s Roberts Court will live in the same odious infamy as the Taney Court whose 1857 Dred Scott ruling declared that human beings are mere property, which lit the fuse to the ruinous Civil War from which America has yet to recover. In its 2010 Citizens United ruling, the Roberts Court ruled that mere property is equal to a human being, leading to corporations being given the “human right” to pour unlimited dollars into America’s political system, putting government up for sale to the highest bidder and corrupting the system to the extent that our nation has become an oligarchy that no longer represents or serves We the People.

       Today, America has the best government that money can buy and is an outright oligarchy, serving the interests of corporations and billionaires, not We the People.

       Unfortunately, vast numbers of We the People today don’t really mind this situation, so long as their modest needs are satisfied, because with our nation run by oligarchs the average person can focus on sports and other diversions — who knows, perhaps the oligarchs, like the Caesars of Rome, might even build coliseums offering blood sports. Footfall comes pretty close.

       What we see now in the general populace of We the People is a weariness with the demands of maintaining a republic. When Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall after signing the Constitution, the wife of the Mayor of Baltimore stopped him and asked: “Well, Mr. Franklin, what sort of government have you given us?”

       Franklin soberly replied: “A republic, Madam — if you can keep it.”

       Franklin and our other Founding Fathers knew that keeping a republic requires constant attention from We the People, requiring them to stay fully informed on the essential issues, and to cast a fully-informed vote in every election. But that’s hard work — too hard for vast numbers of Americans today who would rather “enjoy life” and let oligarchs run our nation.

       Ancient Rome had its oligarch-provided coliseums and games to distract people from the fact that the Roman republic had slipped away into dictatorship by the few…today Americans sit in their private home coliseums and just as mindlessly stream football games, basketball games, and dance contests.

       This is the way a republic ends…not with a bang, but with a TV remote control.

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2. Bob Shepherd says:

   July 16, 2025 at 8:30 pm

   In other news, a new poll from The Economist shows that only 8 percent of Americans think that the government is not hiding information in the case involving Donnie Trump’s bosom buddy, Epstein.

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3. Bob Shepherd says:

   July 17, 2025 at 7:55 am

   Even reputable news sources are still mentioning, in passing, that “Epstein killed himself in jail.” Anyone who believes this ludicrous idea, given the other facts reported at the time that have largely disappeared, is breathtakingly gullible or a co-conspirator.

   It’s as if people found the remains of a house reduced to ashes and video of the homeowner–the son of the town fire chief–filling containers with gasoline at a service station the day before and another video of him at a drunken party telling a friend that he was going to “sell his house to the Yankees” and contemporary news reports about the great insurance policy on the house and reports of the enormous gambling debts the homeowner owed to mobsters and other reports about melted remains of gas cans found in the ashes and then, later, newspapers were reporting as conclusive the fire chief’s statement that there was no fire but that the house collapsed under the weight of its roof. The “Epstein killed himself” story is THAT LIKELY and THAT FALSIFIED by the preceding events. But in all the reporting happening today, the preceding, contemporary-to-the-events stories are conveniently forgotten.

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4. retiredbutmissthekids says:

   July 17, 2025 at 11:57 pm

   Aaaannnddd…Stephen Colbert is…out. CBS cancelled his show, for “budgetary reasons,” according to New York Times Breaking News. (Yeah, because CBS is coughing up $16 mill to…guess who?)

   Oregonlive.com’s better lede: CBS axes ‘The Late Show w/Stephen Colbert’ following host’s criticism of T settlement.

   Betting that Colbert wins the Emmy this year…

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