Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Parsifal]

It's November 2016.  The empirical evidence is in. His "Keep you doctor" and "keep your policy" statements were blatant falsehoods.[/i]

I kept my doctor and kept my policy. Just about everyone I know who remained in the same job did.  It appears to me that the pronouncements of the failure of the affordable care act are greatly exaggerated.  Yes, cost continues to rise, as it has for a generation or more.

[San Antone]

I kept my doctor and kept my policy. Just about everyone I know who remained in the same job did.  It appears to me that the pronouncements of the failure of the affordable care act are greatly exaggerated.  Yes, cost continues to rise, as it has for a generation or more.

Sadly other people could not.  In a dozen or more states insurance companies left the market leaving sometimes only one choice.  Some doctors have opted out and yes, premiums have risen dramatically.

[André]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/us/politics/that-supreme-court-stonewall-may-not-crumble-anytime-soon.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

No new SCOTUS for the next 4 years ?

Only in the U.S. of A.  (note the choice of emoticon. Nothing else would be more appropriate).

And to think this is supposed to be the greatest democracy on the planet. What a joke !

[Mirror Image]

I understand the conservative sentiment. We ALL wish there was more order, more respect, more  compassion in today's society. Amen to that.

OTOH the White first, retrograde, anti immigrants, homophobic, gun-toting, punishing, unforgiving, pussy-grabbing, I-can-yell-louder-than-you-can, overbearing kind of America that Trump and the Right promotes is a the kind of puke, puke, puke kind of society that revulses me.

The U.S.A. deserves the best, and so does the world.

Amen to this post! If Trump gets into office, is there room in Laval, Quebec for an American who wants out of his country?

[Madiel]

An American friend shared this thought on Facebook, and I thought it was good enough to share:

It's funny that the party that wants to privatize every public service and sell it to a private contractor is scandalized that a woman decides she'd rather privatize her email server than trust the government one.

[zamyrabyrd]

An American friend shared this thought on Facebook, and I thought it was good enough to share:
"It's funny that the party that wants to privatize every public service and sell it to a private contractor is scandalized that a woman decides she'd rather privatize her email server than trust the government one."

HRC broke the law and she will pay for it.
Privatization in business is always better than a bureaucracy-laden governmental "service".

[Madiel]

It's as if you can't see the inherent problem in reconciling those two sentences. Despite the quote explicitly pointing it out to you.

If you'd said "it's better if it's within the law", you might have had something. But you just glide right over that, as usual. You spit out sentences as completely independent ideas and never attempt to connect them. Your posts consist of a bunch of thoughts that you compartmentalise.

[zamyrabyrd]

It's as if you can't see the inherent problem in reconciling those two sentences. Despite the quote explicitly pointing it out to you. If you'd said "it's better if it's within the law", you might have had something. But you just glide right over that, as usual. You spit out sentences as completely independent ideas and never attempt to connect them. Your posts consist of a bunch of thoughts that you compartmentalise.

I don't accept any of your talking down to me. It's as though you are just waiting for a "gotcha" moment.
HRC breaking the law big time, leaving privileged information open to the public and privatization of business are two different subjects. You're the one who incorrectly linked them.

[San Antone]

FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton's server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information has been taken from it.

#lockherup

That's bad, but this is worse

The Classified Emails Are "Shiny Object" To Distract From Clinton Foundation Corruption

#draintheswamp

[Karl Henning]

I hope you didn't miss the "second degree" irony of my post... Please don't mistake me for one of them. I don't think I deserve that 

I thought it quite clear that you were in jest 

[Karl Henning]

We voted yesterday.

[San Antone]

What if the polls are wrong?

And more: What if Clinton's vaunted data operation and ground game don't deliver? What if there is, in fact, a "silent majority" of Trump fans? What if Clinton's banked stash of early-votes is insufficient? What if, as President Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe not so affectionately describes nervous Democrats, the "bed-wetters" are right?

"The trend lines are clearly going in our direction," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said this week on MSNBC.

Tony Fabrizio, one of Trump's pollsters, tweeted a provocative question this week about that. "What if the turnout models are wrong and turnout looks more like 2014 than it does 2012?" Fabrizio asked. For instance, Fabrizio floated the impact if "African-American turnout is down 1 or 2 points (which early vote suggests)?"

Pollsters are dubious a big hidden shift is underway, especially as more than 30 million have voted early, giving a snapshot of the electorate. "I don't see evidence that turnout is going to be at an all-time low in terms of key Democratic groups turning out," Murray said.

But every day that the words "FBI," "email," and Clinton" continue to be splashed across front pages of websites, newspapers and cable chyrons is another day of concern for Democrats that Trump could somehow be sneaking up on Clinton.

[Herman]

We voted yesterday.

Me and my daughter are getting party hats, for Wednesday.

Not because I feel 100% sure, but it's the best I can do.

[Turner]

Good luck to all.

[71 dB]

Privatization in business is always better than a bureaucracy-laden governmental "service".

This is not true. It depends on the business what kind of model works best. For example, natural monopolies should be public services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicly_funded_health_care

Many countries are seeking the right balance of public and private insurance, public subsidies, and out-of-pocket payments.

Many OECD countries have implemented reforms to achieve policy goals of ensuring access to health-care, improving the quality of health care and health outcomes, allocating an appropriate level of public sector other resources to healthcare but at the same time ensuring that services are provided in a cost-efficient and cost-effective manner (microeconomic efficiency). A range of measures, such as better payment methods, have improved the microeconomic incentives facing providers. However, introducing improved incentives through a more competitive environment among providers and insurers has proved difficult.

A 2009 Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health found more than 44,800 excess deaths annually in the United States because of Americans' lacking health insurance, equivalent to one excess death every 12 min. More broadly, the total number of people in the United States, whether insured or uninsured, who die because of lack of medical care was estimated in a 1997 analysis to be nearly 100,000 per year.

[Herman]

This is not true. It depends on the business what kind of model works best. For example, natural monopolies should be public services.

The Privatization is Best has become a matter of faith and ideology.

Free Market fundamentalism is killing the planet.

[Karl Henning]

Me and my daughter are getting party hats, for Wednesday.

Not because I feel 100% sure, but it's the best I can do.

We're hoping you have the happiest occasion to wear them!

[Rinaldo]

I can understand why badly educated unemployed rednecks with an IQ less than 90 will vote Trump. Of course they do! Trump says what they want to hear. Trump plays with their fears and fears is the best way to manipulate people. Trump's campaign has been a overwhelming masterpiece of populism and controversy.

I can't understand how anyone on this board would vote Trump.

That's what truly scares me.

[San Antone]

Now it is all about turn out.  Everyone knows the issues, the accusations, the character flaws, and alleged crimes of each of these candidates.  If there are still undecided voters out there, they can't be many.  The candidate who gets more of his/her voters to the polling station will win.

When a few European members of GMG cast aspersions against me or others, nearly half of the US electorate, who will vote for Donald Trump - I can't help but laugh to myself.  Liberals, especially foreign Liberals, appalled by Trump's popularity is one bright spot in this otherwise dreary election.

[71 dB]

The Privatization is Best has become a matter of faith and ideology.

Free Market fundamentalism is killing the planet.

Pure sosialism does not work, we know it from history, althou sosialism never got a good chance to show it's virtues. Pure capitalism doesn't work either, because the class differencies become too large. The social problems prevent a fully functional society.

My own idealogy is that an optimized combination of capitalism and socialism is the best solution. I call it 75/25 system. About 75 % capitalism and 25 % socialism. The optimal figured can be 85/15 or 60/40 and vary from country to country, but 75/25 is a good starting point I think.

When a few European members of GMG cast aspersions against me or others, nearly half of the US electorate, who will vote for Donald Trump - I can't help but laugh to myself.  Liberals, especially foreign Liberals, appalled by Trump's popularity is one bright spot in this otherwise dreary election.

Nations can learn from each other. Americans (and us Europeans for that matter) are only a small fraction of the population on this planet.