Stu - PM
Date: 01 Aug 16 - 03:33 AM "Without an adequate welfare state the poor suffer horribly, unable to afford adequate healthcare and with people forced to work until they die as they have no provision for retirement. Coupled with the fact the political system is totally inaccessible to people without money, with the fact the Presidential system seems to promote political dynasties over genuine merit;"

One of these years some Mudcatters are going to rise out of the pond and spout off on conditions of which we know next to nothing. You appear to be a good bedmate for the Trump- believe it or not, life in the USA by and large is as good as we choose to make it. We are not starving, working ourselves to the bone until we keel over and die at - what? age 50? - or doing without political representation. Listen to President Obama, to Secretary Clinton and to many, many pundits and let it sink in that life here is good. Could be better, of course- isn't that true in your own country?

akenaton - PM
Date: 01 Aug 16 - 10:26 AM "Mr Obama was presumed to be a vehicle for change, lauded here and in most of the media, but his presidency has been a huge disappointment, almost nothing has been achieved which is of any real help to the poor.....Mrs Clinton makes no pretence of changing one damn thing she will do exactly as her masters tell her....but unlike Obama, she will do it willingly and with the greatest of pleasure.
The biggest problem of course is Foreign Policy, her record as a warmonger is abysmal and it will be wound up to the hilt, we could in fact see the start of another "cold War" but under very different circumstances to the first one. "

That goes double for ake.

Bonus from ake: "How can you possibly suggest that I, who have studied politics for too many years, would have given views without listening to all the evidence at my disposal. Of course I have heard the speeches, "

Frankly, ake, I don't believe you. You may have 'listened to all the evidence at my disposal' (How much was at your "disposal"?) but I do not believe that you actually LISTENED.