I do this because we all matter.

It is after midnight. I must get up early to prepare my equipment for the Citizens Against Tyranny rally tomorrow. And I have a few articles to finish up. But I needed to write this.

This morning, right after my Politics Done Right program on KPFT 90.1 FM, I drove to the middle school where my daughter will be teaching to help her unload all her material for her science classroom. She and her mother spent all day setting up her room. I left them there and headed to the gym, trying to hold back tears without any success. You see, my daughter had two strokes during her third and fourth years of medical school. The second stroke was massive, and I had to move to DC to care for her for almost a year. She was determined to finish medical school despite her left side being compromised, and she did it. She would never be a doctor. But she worked hard to build her strength up over the last three years.

I lived vicariously through my daughter. She accuses me of having PTSD because of my helicopter stance with her. I saw her pain, depression, sadness, loss of her career she worked for, and just the hurt of “why me.” Over the last three years, she has obtained certification as a personal trainer and has utilized her medical education to become a science teacher. If you follow my rants and articles, you know I have pointed out that teachers are the most essential profession bar none because they are the ones who ensure humanity’s knowledge moves forward. My daughter recently told me that while she will not be a practicing doctor, she will help create doctors. Exactly! She gets it.

The path to Ashley’s and my continued healing from the trauma of the years since her last stroke was not rugged individualism but instead the acknowledgement that I had a village. While writing this post, I got a text from a member of our PDR Posse. Why was she up so late? I did not cover something she thought I needed to cover. As we spoke, the village vs rugged individualism came up. I reminded her that she, along with many others in our created village, were there virtually and some physically, which made the ordeal bearable.

A former business partner called me three days ago. He told me he was diagnosed with a severe case of clinical depression when he had thoughts of taking his life while driving home. What likely took him over the edge? He is an executive at a company division and was forced to lay off some of his least productive programmers. One of the names on his list came down with a bad cancer. My friend tried to get his boss to keep the employee who had over 30 years of service at least until after the treatment. The corporation said they wanted to hear nothing of his illness, and his layoff would go forward. Since the man was nearing 65, my friend devoted considerable time to helping him enroll in Medicare. They had convinced him to get Medicare Advantage. After explaining to him that Medicare Advantage was an ever-expanding scam, he immediately got his former employee to get Traditional Medicare and MediGap. The Medicare Advantage company would have used the man’s cancer to up-code him to pilfer more money from the government while giving him substandard service.

A day later, a friend who is about to turn 65 called for Medicare advice. While he was getting Traditional Medicare, he wanted to use his union insurance as secondary to cover the 20% Traditional Medicare does not cover. I told him since he does not know with whom unions and other pension plans would link, it is safer to get your Medigap to ensure if you get sick, you would not have to go through the actuarial tables, which could make Medigap inaccessible. At 65, insurance companies must sell you Medigap supplemental insurance at the standard price, regardless of your health status. After six months, you must qualify.

A few years ago, a Tea Party caller to my show berated Obamacare. She had a disabled son and had no clue that Fox News had misled her. When I pointed out that her son could get a policy at no cost given her condition on the exchange, she was incredulous. But she was a convert who never went back.

And then there is a MAGA character who watches my Substack and KPFT programs diligently with a constancy of hateful objections. I never block these guys nor answer them. But this day he got to me and I used him to point out why I use my platforms to speak to everyone, progressives, MAGA, conservatives, right-wingers, anarchists, and anyone in between, to illustrate that we are country of manufactured hate and only if we step back and realize that it is our oligarchy that needs us to hate each other to hide the culprits responsible for our strife. You can watch that rant here.

I receive many more emails and calls than I can handle promptly. But I always try to prioritize those that I can discern need a timely response.

After my three o’clock program, I spoke at a conference on how to communicate with the other side effectively. I gave a lot of advice, including the importance of listening more and practicing self-examination and restraint. It went over well, but after all of that, one woman asked if I had hope for healthcare in Texas. My answer was an emphatic yes. But, we must be willing to do the work.

The Ivy League, the mainstream media, and corporations are succumbing to a flawed president. Trump is terrorizing our government, and most are willing to oblige. Here at Egberto Off The Record, we won’t. We will make sure to keep growing our virtual and physical village. We will continue to inform you as we monitor both the right and mainstream media, and misinformation from them all. We will continue to use my various platforms unabashedly to promote truth and encourage peaceful but impactful civil actions. I humbly ask you to be a part by becoming a paid subscriber today. Check out our about section for the perks our paid subscribers get. The Right, corporations, and the mainstream media have a limitless supply of funds, most of which they have plundered from us. We have you! And your support is not only invaluable, but necessary. Thank you in advance.