First president in a skirt?

[Judah14]

How about Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?
And in the coming election, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Grace Poe?

[dillon]

How about Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?
And in the coming election, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Grace Poe?

Filipinos are clearly more socially advanced than Americans; we are trying to catch up. Obama's election was the moment in history when I was most proud to be American. It represented a small triumph of our better social aspirations.

But reality is often like watching a Star Wars episode. We have to decide if this moment in time will be The Emire Strikes Back, or whether we can leap to Return of the Jedi. And whether Trump or Cruz will be The Emperor. Rubio is more like an ewok. But I have a hard time picturing Sanders as Luke Skywalker. Though a much younger Hillary might have looked hot as Leia in the slave girl outfit!

leia.jpg

[crfriend]

Rubio is more like an ewok.

Thank the lords of Providence I didn't have a mouthful of beer when I read that!

Is there any way they can all lose?

I voted for Obama in '08 -- the only time in my life that I have voted in the affirmative for a candidate -- and filled in the oval next to his name, as a vote against Romney, in '12. In the intervening years I have felt that my '08 vote was betrayed and that we are in, in effect, Dubya's 4th term in office. Not one whit of policy has changed (save the passage of Romneycare -- Romney's gift to his elite pals running "insurance" companies in Massachusetts), the middle class is much worse off, and the pace of worsening of the economy has accelerated. Quite honestly, I see no change coming with the next occupant of the White House save for, "more of the same".

[moonshadow]

[0] If nothing sticks to Teflon (PTFE), how do they get it to stick to pans?

They indoctrinate Teflon to pans before the age of 4.....

[Fred in Skirts]

It was once said by a famous orator "that politicians like baby diapers need to be changed quite often".

This is something I totally agree with!

Fred

[Kilted Musician]

It was once said by a famous orator "that politicians like baby diapers need to be changed quite often".

Yes, and for the same reason!

--Rick

[moonshadow]

But reality is often like watching a Star Wars episode. We have to decide if this moment in time will be The Emire Strikes Back, or whether we can leap to Return of the Jedi. And whether Trump or Cruz will be The Emperor. Rubio is more like an ewok. But I have a hard time picturing Sanders as Luke Skywalker. Though a much younger Hillary might have looked hot as Leia in the slave girl outfit!

At the risk of standing in the extreme minority, I know lots of people in the media poke fun at Hillary for her physical attributes.... but personally, I think she has aged very well to be 68 years old. I understand that for photo ops there is probably a LOT of makeup, and maybe even a little photo shopping. But even back in the 90's, I thought she was a very attractive first lady.

Don't get me wrong... I'm sure as a career politician, she's probably got the personality of a porcupine. Most likely cold as ice. But I don't really know, I suppose I could be wrong. Just not really sure if I detect a soul in there or not. Would be neat to meet the "real" Hillary... Not the one made for the press. Weighed against the "real" Trump, I'd bet she (Clinton) would be easier to talk to, probably no where near as obnoxious.

[moonshadow]

Obama's election was the moment in history when I was most proud to be American. It represented a small triumph of our better social aspirations.

It was good to see someone other than the same old, same old take the office of president. And I don't take issue with most of his policies, however he lost me on health care. I believe that to be one of his biggest blunders. The resulting fiasco, and the lack of a light at the end of the tunnel has disgusted me with regards to American political policy.

It's always comforting to know that should my job terminate for whatever reason, I get to look forward to being fined for not having health coverage. Everything about the ACA reeks of rotten fish. It has only reduced health care cost for a small minority of people, has created a sea of paperwork for those who are covered. It's damned near impossible to find a doctor anymore, hospitals are closing up left and right, virtually everyone that I talk to has only seen their insurance premiums INCREASE since the passing of the ACA, and the value of the benefit DECREASED, with higher deductibles, higher out of pocket, etc. And may God have mercy on you if you live in one of these republican controlled conservative zealot states. An ideal that continues to baffle me.... because that's what Jesus would want.... screw the poor right?

The passage of the ACA proves to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt where the loyalties of American politicians stand. They are working for the rich elite. Not that it hasn't always been this way, but the ACA is just an outright blatant example.

I know people consider it a wasted vote... but for the last several elections, I've always went with the Libertarian candidate.

[dillon]

Obama's election was the moment in history when I was most proud to be American. It represented a small triumph of our better social aspirations.

It was good to see someone other than the same old, same old take the office of president. And I don't take issue with most of his policies, however he lost me on health care. I believe that to be one of his biggest blunders. The resulting fiasco, and the lack of a light at the end of the tunnel has disgusted me with regards to American political policy.

It's always comforting to know that should my job terminate for whatever reason, I get to look forward to being fined for not having health coverage. Everything about the ACA reeks of rotten fish. It has only reduced health care cost for a small minority of people, has created a sea of paperwork for those who are covered. It's damned near impossible to find a doctor anymore, hospitals are closing up left and right, virtually everyone that I talk to has only seen their insurance premiums INCREASE since the passing of the ACA, and the value of the benefit DECREASED, with higher deductibles, higher out of pocket, etc. And may God have mercy on you if you live in one of these republican controlled conservative zealot states. An ideal that continues to baffle me.... because that's what Jesus would want.... screw the poor right?

The passage of the ACA proves to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt where the loyalties of American politicians stand. They are working for the rich elite. Not that it hasn't always been this way, but the ACA is just an outright blatant example.

I know people consider it a wasted vote... but for the last several elections, I've always went with the Libertarian candidate.

The two failures of the ACA are first, the failure to include a public option. Without that, there is no incentive for competition for insurers. Second is that it tried to cover too much; the lobbyists got too many goodies in the act. There are ways it could encourage more competition without allowing the public plan to become a dumping ground for the high-cost patients, such as making all plans national and not regional, then allowing assignment of those excluded by actuarial assessment to other plans to spread the cost around.

A public option, when added, as I believe is inevitable, should be bare bones but continue the emphasis on preventative care, and that should be the minimum standard for all policies. I have faith that insurers can compete, but why does BCBS need 20% overhead when Medicare operates with 1.5% overhead? They need the incentive to prove what the politicians keep claiming, that private enterprise is more efficient than government. But if you want to know where that 20% goes, look at CEO salaries and perks, and the executive jets, fancy mansions, grand office plazas, company-paid junkets for doctors, etc...all gained when these often hybrid giants, like BCBS, are supposedly public interest non-profits.

As for the decline in small local and rural hospitals, that too has more to do with politics and demographics and the increase in health costs relative to the declining rural economies. Municipalities are not making adequate contributions to support them, and small hospitals getting swallowed by big "Systems". The fact is, the collapse of healthcare is a snowball that has been rolling down that mountain for three decades. We could have, perhaps should have let it happen, then rebuilt it from the ground up in the public interest. The ACA only managed to slow it, not stop it, and the inevitable meltdown is still on the horizon.

That's been the case in Eastern NC. Take, for example, the hospital in Kinston, NC...it would have folded a decade ago without public (taxpayer) support. Its finances only continued to deteriorate, because, as in like most rural areas, the demographics are stacked against it. Rural populations are becoming older, poorer, and sicker. Able-bodied young, the educated higher earners, and entrepreneurs are moving to cities, leaving the old and poor behind. Rural America is the new "ghetto" of the seventies. Politicians are refusing to spend on Medicaid or Medicare, and local ones are too timid to collect tax revenues, when it appears to subsidize wealthy doctors. And the camoflaged profit motive that their Big Healthcare contributors have - contributions which now have NO LIMIT thanks to Citizens United - keeps costs rising.

This has providers unhappy, as technology and pharma costs continue to rise far faster than the rate of inflation. Why does Big Healthcare do this? Because they can; people will pay any amount for their life and health. And mostly because we ALLOW them to do it. We keep electing these "blame the poor" and "blame the sick" politicians, simply because they obscure those hideous positions with the smokescreen of homeland security and conservative pseudo-religious and backwater social-conservative causes, feeding "the opiate of the masses". Basically the US has to decide if we want to be one country or devolve into economic feudalism. There is a lot at stake coming up.

[crfriend]

The two failures of the ACA are first, the failure to include a public option. Without that, there is no incentive for competition for insurers. Second is that it tried to cover too much; the lobbyists got too many goodies in the act. There are ways it could encourage more competition without allowing the public plan to become a dumping ground for the high-cost patients, such as making all plans national and not regional, then allowing assignment of those excluded by actuarial assessment to other plans to spread the cost around.

First and foremost, we need to disabuse ourselves of the errant notion that the ACA has anything at all to do with health care. It does not. The ACA is a scheme by which insurance must be purchased, frequently from for-profit companies who charge exorbitant "premiums" for very questionable returns.

Recall the genesis of "Romneycare". This was a gift from the then-Governor of Massachusetts to his elite pals who ran the local Insurance Racket and which essentially conferred unto the Insurers the power to tax. This had the immediate result of staggeringly-increased profits for the Insurers, further erosion into the actual provider-space, and a general decline in overall quality-of-care for the populace. But the insurers loved it, which is why it's now national.

Baldly put, it's a wealth-transfer scheme. There's nothing to do with health care at all in it. It's all about money.

We had a fleeting chance to get it right back in the mid 1990s when Clinton was in his first term and when a single-payer system was actively on the table. This would have meant the death-knell for big "insurance" as it was known then (and still is) and that could not be allowed. So the lead balloon of Romneycare got floated in Massachusetts, was all tarted up and lied about, the masses swallowed the hoopla hook, line, and sinker, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Of note is that one of the front-runners was there in person when this all unfolded -- and it's a completely safe bet that she won't have the guts to take on the moneyed elites in order to make matters right -- not after what got done to Bill over Health Care.

[skirted_in_SF]

[0] If nothing sticks to Teflon (PTFE), how do they get it to stick to pans?

One side is sticky and the other isn't.

[moonshadow]

Of note is that one of the front-runners was there in person when this all unfolded -- and it's a completely safe bet that she won't have the guts to take on the moneyed elites in order to make matters right -- not after what got done to Bill over Health Care.

And that is the source of my dread. One or the other, Clinton or Trump will win. 3rd parties don't matter, and I'm of the opinion that either one will spell disaster. Clinton will just pick up where Obama left off, and I don't expect any major changes in health care. She would probably be the best choice for civil liberties for special interest. Trump, while may be the best shot at repealing the ACA, I don't expect him to replace it with anything worthwhile. At best, we'd just go back to what we had before. At worse.... well who knows. I can certainly agree that Trump makes a few good points on certain matters. But he's just so hot tempered, and he's got the right wing conservative types ready to go for blood!

I honestly expect a full blown world wide nuclear war under a Trump administration. He and his posse, and followers I feel are ready and waiting to bomb the hell out of any nation that doesn't fit the paradigm of western Protestant conservative culture. While that may not be Trump's M.O.... I fear his flock will demand no less should he take office.

[crfriend]

And that is the source of my dread. One or the other, Clinton or Trump will win. 3rd parties don't matter, and I'm of the opinion that either one will spell disaster.

On one hand, we have the Elites' hand-picked hand-maiden in Clinton. She will represent another eight years of Dubya/Cheney (Obama merely representing the third and fourth term thereof, hardly worthy of a footnote), at the end of which the Middle Class will have become effectively extinct. On the other, we have Trump -- a kinky sort of "Putin Lite" whose main asset seems to be his irrationality and volatility. I understand his appeal -- as the veneer of middle-class prosperity is stripped from those who are so used to it, and as the world around them looks less and less familiar, the appeal of the strongman is an easy one; but unlike the one in Russia, this one's deranged, a degenerate rich-boy who thinks the world is his plaything.

Yes, this time 'round, it does indeed look like the country will get the sort of government it richly deserves. It'd be nice to see it go in a nuclear fireball -- sort of a grand final spasm of grandeur. But, it won't come to that; Trump will ultimately declare war on the United States, just as Ronald Reagan did in 1980, and the lot of things here will continue to degenerate apace, just with more violence and less rationality.

What the Hell happened to the future?

[moonshadow]

What the Hell happened to the future?

Just as the doctor said in the 80's movie... "The Day After"

"Stupidity; has a habit of getting it's way!"

[dillon]

So the Republican choices are Trump, a grandstanding vanity candidate whose every hideous thought, having stumbled over his atrophied brain, falls out of his mouth, and Cruz, a sour, self-serving theocrat who embodies the pseudo-Christian version of a Taliban mullah. If that becomes the choice, I'll take Trump, if only because it will amuse me to witness his rude awakening at being stymied by Congress at every juncture. It will be a hard lesson to him to find out that he has far less power in the organization known as the US Government than he did as CEO in any of his sham business ventures. And because his nomination will precipitate a well-deserved meltdown of the GOP.

The Republicans have spent over two decades creating Frankenstein's monster. They did this via Fox News, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Pat Robertson, and a gaggle of theocratic radio evangelists across the Hick Belt. Suddenly the rotting corpse they reanimated is running wild and terrorizing the villagers. Now the GOP, in their best Claude Raines accent is "Shocked, shocked!" to find racism and rampant unashamed bigotry happening in the party. But they shall reap that which they have sown. They cultivated bigotry, racism, cynicism, and the irrational fear and loathing, and their zombie bigots have now turned around and spit in their collective face. They cultivated a culture of disinformed ignorance in their obsessed followers only to find that their hateful ignorami have annointed messiahs of their own ilk. The GOP is the proverbial white-trash who spent years training a pit bulldog to be as mean and aggressive as possible for fighting, and is then surprised when the dog turns around and tears the trainer's genitals off his body. Now they scratch their heads wondering what went wrong with the plan.

I suppose I'll take a well-intentioned, if less than ideological, pragmatist who just wants to be embraced by the commonsense middle of the electorate and chooses to err on the side of more personal freedom rather than less. I've had enough of the extremists. And the whiners.