To be fair Romney is of Mexican descent himself, so it would pretty rich to start throwing racial slurs around, but nothing would surprise me in an American election. Interestingly, I read somewhere recently that Obama is likely to receive the majority of the Mex-American vote.

Also I'm pretty sure (although please feel free to correct me) that a democrat hasn't received the majority of the white vote since the 1960s.

Absolutely spot on.



I work for a US company and a couple of years ago I went over for three weeks training. I already have several good friends over there, ex-pats and some Americans who worked over here for a few years so I had plenty of nights out while I was there. On one of those nights we met up with some people who my friends socialise with who used to work for the company but who had been made redundant. Their biggest concern? Healthcare.

I bet they will be voting for Obama. They have to wait until they are 65 to get Medicare and in the meantime could not afford treatment of various ailments. They were middle aged and so were finding new jobs hard to get.

The company paid their health insurance and once you left than that ceased and you had nothing. One of my friends was actually made redundant the day I arrived in the office. He had the option to continue his health care plan as provided by the company at the cost of $1000 a month for 12 months. After that nothing.

However he ended up getting a job pretty quick . Another friend had a job at an insurance company in the same city and both had a policy of never making anyone redundant and I believe they never have.

If you have that sort of job security with free healthcare I can see why they might not like a tax hike to pay for others. What they don't understand is that their health insurance is probably limited in some way and "jobs for life" may well be on the way out. And that is before we consider the social conscience side of it.

So I can see why some people won't see Obama's healthcare ideas as a vote winner. A lot of them will be under the misapprehension that they are covered.

If anybody has seen the very good documentary film Inside Job narrated by Matt Damon, you may recall Glenn "give it your best shot" Hubbard, who gave a very aggressive, spiteful account of himself during his interview:



Hubbard is Romney's chief economic adviser.

Gawd knows how I ended up on the site during one night of idle browsing but I found myself looking at a mobile home for sale on a park in Florida for a few ten thousand dollars or so, looked quite nice and then you read the owners reason for sale - they had cancer and their insurance for their treatment had just reached its dollar limit, from that point on they were on their own, you either pay for your treatment now or you die.

So she was selling her home, to pay for her cancer treatment, even though she had health insurance.

Its a f'kin tough old world out there when you go for "small" government and its the big corporations who run it.

I understand that Uhmurrucuns won't vote in a president who isn't a Christian. So maybe this is a groundbreaking moment. Or more likely Uhmurrrucuns wouldn't know the difference between a Mormon nutjob and a Catholic nuttjob.

My American father died alone, in a motel room, of bowel cancer. He was a truck driver therefore self employed. For some reason none of us can fathom, (other than affordability) he didn't have health insurance. I had seen him, suffereing, a few months before he died but because he was a very private man I didn't know the extent of his illness. He was 55 years old.

I do believe, caught early enough, bowel cancer is one of the most treatable cancers. Had he lived here in the UK, I would still have my dad. He died not because his cancer was untreatable but because he didn't have the means to pay for treatment. In a country like America, this is despicable.

It's truly amazing how ed up the place is, I watched Michael Moore's "Sicko" and couldn't believe what I was watching. (I'm well aware MM is biased)

When I hear Romney and his other cronies laugh at the mention of Obamacare I despair.

He's that biased he's telling the truth?

Apart from when he announces on Twitter that the UK is invading the Ecuadorean embassy.

Do Ecuador possess WMD?



We best get in there sharpish, we might only have 45 minutes.

You know perfectly well, my dear WIZEB, that I agree with Desmond Tutu on the issue of Blair and friends over Iraq, and have been saying so for some years.

Doesn't make Moore's comments re the embassy any less stupid, however. Which is a shame, because he's so absolutely spot on on a number of things.

He puts his own spin on things.

He's a political activist mate.

That's what they tend to do.

Have an opinion like.

My own dad is just recovering from bowel cancer, he is 60. It was caught fairly early a year ago and is now well on his way to recovery.
While his treatment and care were by no means perfect he did have access to a very good standard of care for which I am very grateful.

Scarrie;
we may be divided by colours, but all the best to your dad, hope he gets down to the KC next season. some stories on here that show how special/important the NHS is, lets keep it that way. To me, it's very strange how Americans see a NHS style thing can be so bad.

the most fecked up thing about Americans I've spoken to is that they all expected Obama to have fixed everything by now

I haven't a problem with opinions as long as they're based on facts.

It's because they have not known any different and prior to 1948, neither did we.

Before the NHS people died simply because they couldn't afford a doctor, in fact many never even got to become people, simply because there were no trained midwives available, unless you could afford them.

As others have already stated, the seemingly invincibility of youth comes into play: "I'm fine, why should I pay for others?" They conveninetly ignore the fact that they will not always be young, fit and active

Admirably 'utopian'.

Ballocks makes the world go round.
He's probably far more factual than many others in higher political office.

That's why he can be.

Here's one then...........



How many hundreds of thousands of innocent lives were lost because of these two lying?
Suppose it was just them putting their spin on it?

At least we've democracised Iraq.
[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18950706[/url

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/03/tony-blair-the-hague-iraq-war[/url

I never mentioned either of them, are you suggesting he can spin how he wants because others do?

No, just that the world we now live in virtually depends upon it, and that anybody who doesn't get that, is ridiculously naive.

I know it's part of the world, I just don't like it.

And I don't expect to watch films that are virtually propaganda.

I suggest you stick to the status quo of ABC news then if Mr Moore challenges your sensitivies.

Only when he lies.

Lets face it you don't have to lie to make those 2 look like "s".