Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

 

[unit731]

I got the opportunity to view Donald Trump up close in person at a private party in August.

Quite interesting.

He certainly can get a crowd all worked up.

Certainly a different kind of 'politician'.

Interesting to view all of the media up close.

[Flashermac]

The US should go back to the original system, where the top vote-getter became President and the runner up the Veep. That would keep them on their toes. It was only changed because Thomas Jefferson nearly lost to Aaron Burr and hated his guts. He had it changed to the pres and veep running on the same ticket and chosen as a team.

[cavanami]

Here it comes...

 

Huge Premium Increase Likely For Millions With Medicare

 

http://www.huffingto...kusaolp00000592

 

Every year but two for the last 40 years, people have seen a cost-of-living increase in their Social Security checks, an inflation adjustment. But, they will see no increase at all in their Social Security benefit in 2016. To make matters worse, a new report from the Center for Retirement Research, reveals that, unless there is a work-around, some people with Medicare will see almost a 50 percent increase in their Medicare Part B monthly premium. And, most people with Medicare will have less money to spend on non-health-related expenses.

 

Significant Medicare premium increase for about 15 million people: About three in ten people with Medicare will have to absorb the full 25 percent of Medicare Part B program costs in their premiums that the other 70 percent of people with Medicare will be exempt from paying. Under the law, Medicare premiums cannot increase for most older adults and people with disabilities if their Social Security benefits do not also increase.

 

However, people who are just joining Medicare, or who have an income-adjusted Medicare premium, or who have Medicare and Medicaid, can face premium increases. And, because the law requires Medicare Part B premiums to cover 25 percent of program costs, the 30 percent of people with Medicare for whom premiums can rise will have monthly premiums of at least $159.30, up from premiums as low as $104.90. Couples with incomes of more than $428,000 will have monthly premiums of $509.80.

 

Less money to spend on non-health-related expenses for most people receiving Social Security benefits: Because health care costs are rising faster than non-medical costs, people with Medicare who rely on Social Security for some or all of their income, receive lower net Social Security benefits after health care expenses each year. (People with Medicare spend an average of $5,000 on health care costs Medicare does not pay for.) Also, Medicare premiums have been rising more than twice as fast as the Social Security benefit, even with the cost-of-living adjustment. As a result, each year, people with Medicare have less money to spend on non-health-related expenses.

 

Today, more than half of households 55 and older do not have any retirement savings, and Social Security benefits represent an average of 52 percent of income for people over 65. It's no wonder that the vast majority of Americans want to expand Social Security benefits or keep benefits at current levels. Today. many people are claiming Social Security benefits early, taking a 25 percent cut in benefits to do so, and people with low incomes are being hurt disproportionately.

[Steve]

The electoral college is way, way past its time. At the time, the only people who could vote were white males who owned property. The country was vast by their standards and so the founders feared that not everyone would even know the candidates and also, a great many people with property, were either illiterate or had very little schooling. Especially on the frontier which at the time was parts of the original 13 colonies and they knew it would expand. Many people with landed simply squatted on unoccupied areas and got rights to it.

 

Anyway, it should be ended. What it does these days is make Ohio for example, more important than NY, Texas, California and about roughly 40 other non-swing state. Over 3/4 of all states are definitively red or blue. So the several swing states and their specific issue which may not be the issue for a wide number of states.

[Flashermac]

There have been numerous proposals to make the electoral college proportion - not winner takes all. Unfortunately, neither party has been interested in changing it since at times both parties have benefited from it.

[unit731]

"The House of Representative is in chaos. John Boehner announced his intention to step down as Speaker at the end of the month. There doesn’t appear to be anyone to take his place. The leading candidate, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, abruptly withdrew from the race yesterday. Another popular choice, Paul Ryan, says he’s not interested.

 

What happened? How did we get to this point? One document, produced by the House Freedom Caucus, holds all the answers. Framed as a “questionnaire†the document effectively makes it impossible for any candidate to both: 1) Get elected speaker, and 2) Not send the entire country (and maybe the world) over a cliff."

 

Source:

@2005-2015 CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION FUND

[waerth]

How about a simple ..... one man one vote? Works in Holland

[Flashermac]

Works in Thailand too. One man votes.

[unit731]

What?

The whole “Bengazi†thing was political?

" a partisan investigation"

Good Lord.

 

“Washington (CNN)A former investigator with the House Select Committee on Benghazi is accusing the Republican-led panel of carrying out a politically motivated investigation targeting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton instead of the thorough and objective fact-finding mission it was set up to pursue.

 

Maj. Bradley Podliska, an intelligence officer in the Air Force Reserve who describes himself as a conservative Republican, told CNN that the committee trained its sights almost exclusively on Clinton after the revelation last March that she used a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. That new focus flipped a broad-based probe of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, into what Podliska described as "a partisan investigation."

 

 

LINK