All_Pro_Bills

If you are concerned about Democracy you should be alarmed by an administration deploying State power against any citizen objecting to the policies of the regime or its benefactors and political allies.

Too much of what passes as "news" belongs on the Op-Ed page or at a minimum should include a warning statement. Like "What you are about to read or hear contains opinions plus subjective and anecdotal pseudo data and conclusions, and personal biases of the writer and others intended to communicate a view of the topic which might be different than that produced by only reporting objective facts".

A distinction could be made for Medicare Part A (pays 80% of Hospitalization) as a casual glance at my pay stub reveals my paycheck is debited each pay period for Medicare taxes which is "paying" into the system. Add in that base Medicare covers Part A w/Part B typically requiring a payment or deduction from social security or a monthly payment by the participant, and Part C and Part D provided through enrollment in a Medicare Advantage type plan (which also covers most of the 20% patient responsibility for Part A and Part B) and its hardly free. Compare that to most "social" programs are government transfer payments or subsidies either from general tax revenue or borrowing of which the recipient contributes nothing specifically earmarked for those programs.

Whether I agree or not I typically respect your ideas and thoughts. That said, I think we currently face a disaster scenario because of several choices. I'll call them priorities, First our society and government has prioritized spending on war and consumption over building out and investing in and developing productive capacity. RFK Jr spoke the hard truth recently saying we spend billions blowing stuff up and China is building infrastructure and productive capacity. Guess which might attract more friends? The leadership prioritizes their personal acquisition and maintenance of political power over a duty and obligation to preside over and lead a productive and healthy society. The political establishment is comfortable with substituting handouts for a system of genuine opportunity. The academic and educational systems have prioritized social engineering projects at the expense of teaching time for necessary skills and knowledge for work in the private sector or in some productive public sector occupation. Corporations have no interest in what's "good" for American and along with the government have prioritized support for globalization at the expense of the middle and working classes. Monetary policy has been a God-send for the financial community. More or less sucking up lots of free money while draining the rest of the country dry. Enabling a high concentration of wealth and glutenous consumption among very few individuals and entities (the .1%). I saw it said best recently that to fix the financial system the Federal Reserve must be willing to allow the wealthy to suffer. That I expect isn't in the cards or the plan. There's just no will to change course or adopt any ideas outside the box. I've concluded we're doomed to a crisis the size of which the world has never seen.

I know its a strange concept but at some point both political parties are going to be forced to work together, take collective responsibility for the debt situation, acknowledge you can't consume your way to prosperity by borrowing and stealing from the future, and bring the finances of the US government under control by making some hard choices. Either that or wait for the system to break. The debt party is over and its time to pay the bill but its a reality neither party wants to acknowledge. So at the end of the day they'll just agree to keep going the way they're going until they can't.

I say it's time to play some hardball and shut it down. If there are consequences and sacrifices that come of it, then so be it. Schummer can shove it.

Gen Z hide in safe spaces and are afraid of the dark. They've been conditioned by the educational system to be timid and docile compliant citizens. If they spent 15 minutes of the first 15 years of their lives unsupervised by adults, it would be surprising. Good for the establishment that they'll believe whatever the authorities tell them to believe.

Everything this chap says is in alignment with the doctrine of the fringe anarchists ruling the party which is denial of reality. Part of reality is that admit it or not, any thinking and rational person doesn't believe any of this nonsense.

Conservative and moderate people of reason and logic that haven't figured out you can't negotiate with these left wing anarchist extremists better come to grips with that fact immediately. They're not interested in facts or figures. Or any kind of consensus. Or solving problems for that matter. Just tearing down all existing cultural and social norms and customs. What rational person would pursue policies such as the soft on crime DA's knowing they're releasing hard core repeat felons into the community to do more harm to citizens? They're malicious and intentionally causing violence and chaos. They need to be crushed into dust.

I'll be honest I kind of lost track of what the conversation is here because I do have other things going on. Some of those other things I get paid to do so those are priorities. Posting here all day long, not so much. But I believe you have two problems here. One is a 24/7 obsession with Trump. The second obsession is believing I have any interest in defending the guy. So I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are you trying to demonstrate Biden isn't the only person in politics with metal impairment issues and speaking gaffes? I'm not sure what that gets us. None of these other people hold the most powerful elected office on the planet. As there's only one President at a time its a good idea to have one that has a sharp mind But we have one that's playing the game with less than a full deck. That puts out country at a severe disadvantage which is causing great harm. It's concerning not enough people acknowledge how much danger having such a weak and feeble leader puts our nation in at the moment.

I stand corrected..

The good news for our younger generations is the "peacekeeping mission" our government is on a course to fight with China will require a reinstatement of the draft to provide the force of a sufficient size necessary to fight such a mission. The Pentagon brass has said as much. That future certainty I expect will dampen the level of enthusiasm for the Washington establishment's foreign adventures.

As JFK Jr. to paraphrase, stated in his 2024 Presidential announcement. "We spend billions blowing stuff up and China spends billions building things". Guess which approach most independent nations will embrace? A lot of people won't accept the concept that when your government's go to move is to pull the hammer out of the toolbox it might be time to wake up and see that might be a problem.

How does that arrangement impact, exonerate, or excuse Biden's corrupt dealings?

So instead vote for a mentally impaired candidate that is compromised by payoffs taken by his family from foreign entities. And you think you're standing on the moral and ethical high ground? Wow..

The next time somebody suggests to you "if women ran the world there would be no wars" simply citing Ms. Nuland will debunk that theory.

My take is the announcement of de facto President Susan Rice leaving the WH next month signals the Obama wing of the party is pulling the plug on Biden's time in office and he's history. That allows the 2024 dem nominee to run on a clean slate. One thing for sure, it won't be VP Harris.

I'm assuming Lemon is much smarter than the other 3 combined.

The sad truth is regardless of their shortcomings this duo would still be more effective than the current Biden/Harris.

If officials won't enforce the law I'm sensing a real life revival of the Death Wish movie series.

First, blame Russia. Then send $100 billion in unaudited aid and offer membership in NATO. Yup, Biden is getting result. Unfortunately, not for Americans.

Are you suggesting politicians would misrepresent the facts and figures in order to portray the opposition as evil and uncaring? Who would have thought?

No doubt there's some race thing to it but there are also many people that accuse others of racism because it's a convenient and acceptable strategy (another is saying somebody's "phobic" of this or that) to cut off conversation and silence people expressing views and ideas they disagree with. Doing so can avoid the need for discussion of facts and figures and other objective indicators and data on various issues. The word has lost its original meaning from overuse and being applied so broadly whether it was justified or not. Rather than truly identifying racists it's a way to signal people to shut up and go along.

The party of chaos once agian championing mediocrity and making losers feel "special". Last I checked that strategy is a certain disaster unless your objective is to make society as unproductive and dysfunctional as possible. What's next? Forcing NFL teams to field teams of old, slow, overweight, and weak players and still call them exceptional athletes?

All it takes is a little logical thinking to conceptualize how elaborate and complicated it would be to fabricate the contents of a laptop complete with e-mail & recipient e-mail records on other devices, data files, and documents. Way too complicated. What is the theory, Ocams Razor? But some posters will never waiver in their allegiance to their cult.