America goes to the polls

How could anyone take the office of the president seriously after that?

Now he looks like the court jester.

Just seen your post, Bonny. We seem to be thinking along similar lines.....

Just think, when other world leaders were trying to thrash out a peace treaty, he was playing with a frigging camera on a stick to take photos of himself pulling faces.

Can't imagine why he wasn't asked to Minsk.

Let's be honest, it's not as if he has great credentials for the office that he holds. He is a figure head and nothing more as it has to be obvious to the world?

bb1 wrote:Just think, when other world leaders were trying to thrash out a peace treaty, he was playing with a frigging camera on a stick to take photos of himself pulling faces.

Can't imagine why he wasn't asked to Minsk.  

He wasn't invited because European matters are no concern of his, or of any other country outside Europe for that matter. The US is not as popular as it used to be and that has nothing to do with Obama per se, more a general apathy to outsiders. And many of the European countries would like the US to close its' bases in those countries and go someplace else. We have one such base in Austria, the other countries with US bases left over from after WW2 are Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Greece and the Netherlands. 70 years and still they are there. LL

Ah LL, what becomes of the er....'New World Order" then and the march for globalization?

I would prefer your way.....

I genuinely thought it was a lookalike when I first saw them. I thought, No, he couldn't possibly have...

He had.

lily wrote:Ah LL, what becomes of the er....'New World Order" then and the march for globalization?

I would prefer your way.....

I am too old to worry about the future, lily.   And what is the New World Order, missed that one!   I was asked to consider moving to the US when I was working there, offered a fast track citizenship with best quality sponsors; I refused as Europe is my home, and it's too far to commute from LA to Vienna!   Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed being in the US but I really found it too modern, too fast and I just wanted to get back to where I belonged, to walk down Kartnerstrasse, ride the Riesenrad, wander along the Danube - after 3 1/2 years the homesickness got too much and I left.    I will probably never visit the US again, age being one of the factors in travelling huge distances.   Ah, well, that's life!   LL  

Globalism, LL. The idea of a handful of mega-rich individuals running everything, everywhere, while treating the rest of the population as feudal peasants. Which given current debt levels, they may as well be.

You are allowed to vote, for window dressing, but it doesn't make much odds as whoever you vote for, they are in the pay of Monsanto, or the oil companies, or Goldman Sachs, etc.

The whole scheme has come unglued in recent days, thankfully. It's not even some big secret, or in conspiraloon land - some of them, like Soros, openly boast about their schemes.

Well said, Bonny.  Don't blame you LL.

Shouldn't a SWAT team grab him for doing the gun thing with his fingers? Just like US school children have been, because they've scared 'progressive' teachers?

Anyone else, yes.

Is he all there?

Opinions vary from, Idiot doing what his minders tell him and letting him play harmlessly with cameras on sticks, to, Actively evil and working against America.

These days, I am favouring the latter, he has such a spectacular record of foul-ups - I don't think minders would let him make so many.

What's really scary is that some of the stupider US public think him doing this was 'cute' and 'shows he has a sense of humour', etc. They have NO concept of what other world leaders are going to learn from this - Emperor Nero is reborn and occupying the White House.

It's a jusst daft moment, going by the ad. LL
http://time.com/3707652/obama-selfie-stick-obamacare/

He's not fiddling, surely?

Sabot wrote:He's not fiddling, surely?

No, just making an ad for Obamacare. LL

Trouble is, LL, just look at what was going on in the rest of the world when he did that. US presidents aren't supposed to have 'daft moments' in perilous times.

It's as if Churchill decided to do a turn with the Windmill Girls in the middle of the Blitz; world leaders just don't do it.

He was the same when news broke about the horrific death of the Jordanian pilot; made sympathetic noises and then went on to talk about Obamacare.

Which is shaping up to be the straw that breaks the back of the American middle classes; I just don't know how people can pay such huge sums of money.

How much does he want them to pay? I manage to pay my Health Insurance on considerably less income than most.

For middle-class Americans, in average jobs, it's huge sums of money, Sabot, hundreds of dollars every month - far, far more than any European health service, for much less back. And the days are long gone of average Americans earning a lot more than Europeans.

Remember, the US one ISN'T strictly government-run, that money goes firstly to insurance companies. So, the load isn't spread equally. It's also, bizarrely, run through employers, so to save THEIR share of it, companies simply cut their employees' hours, so even fewer people are supporting the whole edifice.

If you'd wanted to design a rotten healthcare system, you couldn't have done better than Obamacare.

Ask Lily, she can explain it better than me....

Hundreds of Dollars? Why? And if I wanted a Bunion Operation, which I don't, I wouldn't have to wait longer than a fortnight for it.

Knee and Hip Replacements come sooner. Cancer is immediate.

Obamacare isn't a patch on the European systems, Sabot - ask Lily, she can explain it better than me.

bb1 wrote:Obamacare isn't a patch on the European systems, Sabot - ask Lily, she can explain it better than me.

I think I'm getting the idea, Bonny, although Lily's input would be useful. But it sounds to me as though somedebody is looking to make millions out of the misery of ordinary people, if they aren't doing so already.

No one in France goes without essential health care, even if they don't pay Insurance. But generally it is just part of what we expect to pay for. Those who can afford it pay for those who can't.
And of course, it is the interests of my Insurance Company to keep me alive. No bloody Liverpool Pathway here.

It's horribly complicated, Sabot - deliberately so, I suspect. It bears NO resemblance to the European systems.

bb1 wrote:It's horribly complicated, Sabot - deliberately so, I suspect. It bears NO resemblance to the European systems.

But why, Bonny? It isn't difficult.

I think it's complicated because it is insurance companies' driven, whereas the UK system is salary driven, You pay as you go, the more you earn the more goes in National Insurance. You can, if you so wish, supplement the state NI with private insurance. As I recall, in the US you have to pay the doctors, hospitals either before or after the treatment. When I was over there I didn't need medical treatment, if I had I was flush enough to pay cash. But if you can't afford the medical bills you have to go without, whereas in the UK you will be treated in a Nat Health hospital whether you have money or not. You are ill, the state will provide. The US should change over to the UK system which, with all its faults still functions and people still get help. LL