2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'

[rodinuk]

I’m saying he’s cheap compared to Trump’s monetary worth and I maintain he’s just a ventriloquist’s dummy

[Stavros]

I’m saying he’s cheap compared to Trump’s monetary worth and I maintain he’s just a ventriloquist’s dummy

Ok I get your point, but it does raise the question of Trump's wealth, and how to calculate it. Obviously he has real estate assets, though just as in the past he falsified values to get loans on the one hand, tax relief on the other, such is his reputation as a liar and a convicted fraud, on top of the millions of dollars that owes in fines awarded by the Courts -which so far I don't think he has paid in full- plus outstanding debts with Deutsche Bank, we don't know. But I think a devaluation of the real estate is inevitable as buyers or potential buyers will squeeze him if he needs to sell. Given that the stock value of the recent media company has fallen and may continue to fall, Trump's move into fake money ie CryptoCurrency, which he has ridiculed in the past, may be seen by him as a necessary step if he is to find other sources of revenue than trainers, bibles and fragments of his suit. He is a con man and always has been, and I suppose some get away with it, and Trump is clearly treated differently from other Americans, but who knows how this will end? If it ever ends.

As for Vance, he says it is wrong for critics to label Trump and his supporters Fascists because it inspires violence, while choosing to ignore Trump's using the same word about Kamala Harris. He also says he can make up any lies he wants because it is the job of the media to prove he is lying, rather like Trump saying if he wants to he can describe his apartment as the largest in Manhattan and it is up to the Banks to do the due diligence. So I guess I could ask for a loan from my Bank by saying my apartment is worth £1 million and it is up to them to prove it, though I am sure loan agreements have clauses on the truth of the information to which one puts a signature-?

As we see now every day, lies have replaced truth, and is has become an addiction.

[Stavros]

Here in the UK health care was one of the key election issues this year.

So why, in the US election is health care a side issue? I understand that if the election is presented as an existential choice -either candidate X or the US is finished as a country, etc- but for most people, as the article below suggests, health care is one of their priority issues. I assume this is also true of education and housing, two issues that don't seem to exist in the campaigning I have seen, though I concede I only follow it from what we get here, though such is the obsession with Trump (and he and his supporters are obsessed with him too) I don't see much about education and housing as priority issues on channels like YouTube, and it doesn't seem to feature in newspapers like the NYT, though I don't scour most US papers on a daily basis.

Hence this survey

"The United States health system ranked dead last in an international comparison of 10 peer nations, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund.In spite of Americans paying nearly double that of other countries, the system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes."
US health system ranks last compared with peer nations, report finds | US news | The Guardian

By way of contrast- I left school at the age of 16, and apart from the time spent unemployed, or when I became a student, I paid into the NHS on a monthly basis, the contribution (National Insurance) being deducted from my salary in the same way as it deducts Income Tax and Pension Funds. But apart from a few visits to my General Practitioner for minor things like Tonsilitis, for which I needed a sick note for my employers, I did not need to use the NHS until the first signs of a chronic problem in my 50s. Since 2017 I have been in and out of hospital, meaning explorations of my organs in outpatient clinics, followed by operations (five in all) requiring stays or 1-2 days, and on another occasion two weeks of hospitalization due to a crisis, all backed up by medication, which today means a breakfast of six different tablets.

How much has it cost me? In monetary terms, absolutely nothing. My guess is that if I was in the US, I would now be either loaded with debt, or dead.

The US doesn't have to choose the NHS model, there are others, such as the systems in France and Germany or Sweden, where as a matter of principle, health care is a service rather than a business, and that is why the US is now ranked so low, and until the US ranks the health and education of its citizens as top priorities, health care will be a major cause of bankruptcy, anxiety, and in its absence, death.

You can do better, so do it.

[Stavros]

Trump and the Republican Party war on America has put Springfield, Ohio in the cross-hairs of party lunatics and gun-totin' terrorists.
So what about Aurora, Colorado? Same old garbage, courtesy of Stephen Miller and the truth-demolition squads at war with America.

Truth is out there for all to see in Aurora while Trump promotes a dangerous lie (coloradosun.com)

[Stavros]

This is hilarious- Republicans at war over weed!

Republicans Are in a Civil War Over Trump’s Weed Plan (yahoo.com)

[filghy2]

So now we know (but honestly, is anyone surprised?) it was garbage from the start, but nobody in a responsible position could be bothered to do any due diligence but declare before millions of Americans 'I saw it on television'.

Vance's office did do due diligence. He just chose to ignore what they were told, that the rumours were false.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/p...ort/index.html

[Stavros]

Vance's office did do due diligence. He just chose to ignore what they were told, that the rumours were false.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/p...ort/index.html

Thanks for the clarification, but it makes it worse. Perhaps in this situation we can sat V is for Venal.

[Stavros]

I have just linked an article in the Guardian on LGBTQ+ policy in Thought for the Day, and now think I probably should have put it here as an election issue.

[blackchubby38]

Trump and the Republican Party war on America has put Springfield, Ohio in the cross-hairs of party lunatics and gun-totin' terrorists.
So what about Aurora, Colorado? Same old garbage, courtesy of Stephen Miller and the truth-demolition squads at war with America.

Truth is out there for all to see in Aurora while Trump promotes a dangerous lie (coloradosun.com)

Tren de Aragua gangbanger charged over viral video of gun-toting migrants terrorizing Aurora, Colo. — after local cops initially denied group was part of Venezuelan gang

nypost.com/2024/09/25/us-news/tren-de-aragua-gang-member-charged-over-aurora-migrant-crime-video/

ICE Releases Damning Border Report Amid Kamala Harris Visit

www.newsweek.com/ice-damning-border-report-kamala-harris-visit-1960689

[Stavros]

Tren de Aragua gangbanger charged over viral video of gun-toting migrants terrorizing Aurora, Colo. — after local cops initially denied group was part of Venezuelan gang

nypost.com/2024/09/25/us-news/tren-de-aragua-gang-member-charged-over-aurora-migrant-crime-video/

ICE Releases Damning Border Report Amid Kamala Harris Visit

www.newsweek.com/ice-damning-border-report-kamala-harris-visit-1960689

Re the Aurora link, quote

"However, American Immigration senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said online that "millions of people on ICE's non-detained dockets have been here for decades."Alex Nowrasteh, of the Cato Institute public policy think tank added that the ICE report on illegal criminal convictions covers decades and not just the last few years."".

So that includes the years when Trump was President?

Has Aurora been 'taken over' by Venezuelan gangs? Do they stop people in the street and rob them? Visit residents in groups of five with guns to rob them?

At what point does a problem become a catastrophe -and when, and now did the Mafia/Cosa Nostra arrive in the US?