To think that the USA is a dictatorship now?

[spoonbillstretford]

Trump appears to have ultimate power. Who can challenge him? Who controls him? Presidents should not be dictating what drug companies charge for medicines on a whim, or indeed any other goods, at the drop of a hat. He says jump and the US says "How High?" What on earth have you done to yourselves and the world to let this evil, thick, orange toddler clown represent you? What the hell were you thinking?

Trumps calls Putin "the Boss"

Says it all really.

Surely one of the reasons that Americans pay more for drugs is that the US healthcare system, which comprises a large number of smaller healthcare providers, doesn’t have the collective purchasing power of countries that do have a national health service. UK and EU health services can negotiate directly with pharma companies because they are buying huge volumes. Meanwhile in the US, thousands and thousands of smaller health companies and hospitals negotiate and buy their drugs independent of each other. In the Land of the Free, the answer to the consequence of this free market approach is price controls ;)

The police won't do anything about shoplifting unless the value of £200. You're going to need a lot of lettuce to spend that much.

You might care to consult a dictionary and a few history books before further comment. It will save you more embarrassment.

If I was an American citizen I would have voted for Trump 😑

Who is anti Trump? The woke idiots. The well -to-do middle classes who are afraid that their cheap illegal migrant latina housekeeper will be deported and they will have to hire someone with an actual green card or American citizenship and have to pay her higher wages.

The Hollywood elite is also anti Trump because they don’t live in the real, ordinary world. They don’t experience homelessness, job loss, financial problems, street crime etc. They are barricaded in their multimillion-dollar villas and wash their bums in jewel-encrusted gold bidets.
University students are also anti Trump because what do they know? They are still in the education system that is heavily focused on brainwashing young minds into little woke drones.

Good grief, if the UK has the most communist country with Starmer's lot in charge, what on earth must you think of the Attlee government, that gave us the NHS and welfare state, or Harold Wilson's government in the 1960's?

Even Tory PM Edward Heath must have seemed like a communist to you.

Not my "precious Queen", thanks.

And at least the son in question has no power or authority in the country, and would never have been elected to a position that gave him any.

You are saying you are not a US citizen. It also sounds like you are genuinely ill-informed on the impact of the Trump administration on the less well-off. His Big Beautiful Bill which was recently passed amounts to a tax cut for the top 1% and will negatively impact everyone else. It will also exclude from Medicaid/Medicare 15 to 20 million (depending on estimates) poor Americans who otherwise can't access healthcare. As for the Latina nannies etc, they're sent to fucking 'alligator alcatraz', sometimes abducted from playgrounds whilst looking after toddlers! Who in their right mind votes for such cruelty against ordinary working people?? And wait until the impact of the tariffs is felt in the Autumn. So far, it's just been chaos but they WILL bite, and soon. So many small business owners are already completely screwed because they don't have access to the right manufacturing infrastructure in the US. That can't be built at scale overnight. They have had to outsource to factories in China for the past decades- all of a sudden, they can't absorb the costs of importing their products for sale in the US. So a lot of them are already going bankrupt because they're hit with ridiculous customs bills. And what about the consumers? They are already feeling the pinch. Tariffs are an IMPORT TAX. A TAX. From a man who supposedly claims to put more $$ in American pockets. However, in the real world, all that's happening now is that the cost of pretty much everything is going up. Some big companies like Amazon have the capacity to absorb some of those costs (as mandated by DJT who went after Bezos when he suggested transparency on price increases caused by tariffs). Most independent businesses cannot. So, this is killing a whole swath of US entrepreneurs/ SMEs and causing hardship for American workers.
Such bullshit!

He got close to 50% of the vote in his constituency, and no-one outside of that constituency voted for him, because we have a parliamentary system and not a presidential one.

There are many Labour voters who voted Labour despite not supporting Starmer, who is regarded by many, in the party as the most right wing leader Labour have ever had.

Did you just ask AI and copied the answer here? 🙄

you just don't like what I have to say - all facts though.

And you just don’t like that people voted for Trump and he is the president.
Tough luck.

No indeed, and I have good reasons not to, especially as he is betraying a large part of his own voter base.

He's even managing to ruin America's favourite parks!

https://dispatch-media.com/how-america-sold-yosemite/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Oh and how about poison in the water? We should all love high levels of forever chemicals in the water, right? Those bloody tree hugging wokesters and their regulations... can't have any of that!
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claims to prioritize combatting long-lasting chemicals called PFAS. Despite this, the agency has delayed enforcement of standards and terminated over $15 million in funding for “forever chemicals” research.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-epa-pfas-drinking-water

Addressing the rigged housing market might be a good start.

And the rising costs of living.

And the fact that property, money and power are considered more important than life itself.

Just for starters.

I could go on literally all day. No AI needed.

If you actually read my post carefully I never said that about the gangs. My point was about bodily autonomy and yes we are doing much better on women’s issues than in the US, where Andrew Tate has also been welcomed in and pastors are openly telling women to submit to their husbands in all things, including voting. Way to go backwards.

My point on a largely women’s platform is this, the US government have overturned Roe and Wade this has huge implications for women’s bodily autonomy. Children who are raped can’t have an abortion in the US, women who need a medical abortion because they will die and the foetus won’t survive are denied abortions in several states in the US.

women who want their child but are miscarrying are being denied healthcare because doctors are so scared to lose their licenses/or go to jail that they delay treating them. This is outrageous and appalling. The morning after pill is being denied in some states now also.

At least in the U.K. the Labour government have gone some way in ensuring that women here still retain their bodily autonomy. So I will say it loud and proud we’re doing much better than the US on bodily autonomy.

I'm more concerned that he considers that the whole world is his private fiefdom where he can do as he likes under the guise of trying to bring peace to troubled areas, mainly those with something to offer the Amers.

Funny how the Trumpsters think all Brits are keen monarchists, isn't it?

If he damages Yosemite he will have me to answer to!

What a bunch of bullshit.

The bill has something for everyone but it’s clear that you only listen to the democrats talking points.

No tax on overtime benefits lower income

No tax on tips be gifts waiters and others that define on tips.

No tax on social security benefits retirees.

increase in SALT deductions benefits middle class especially those living in high property tax states like California, Illinois etc.

Saying the bill is a tax cut for 1% is just rubbish and shows your just repeating the standard talking points with no facts or understanding.

Medicare’s cuts are targeted are people who are not eligible eg illegal immigrants. Democrat run states like California allow illegal immigrants to get access to Medicaids and then bill the Federal Government which is wrong, heck this California governor pausing Medicare access for undocumented because their finances are a mess:
https://calmatters.org/health/2025/05/newsom-freeze-medi-cal-undocumented-immigrants/

The other major change for Medicare is to put in place work requirements for those with children, now there is no requirement to work when on Medicare if you have children under 18 and they are cutting it to 7 years yet you keep screaming they are excluding 15 million people, that is NOT true. Ask the democrats to break it down for you, it’s easy to scream they are cutting 15 million people without facts or giving the details.

I followed the debates on the bill and have done my research and I for one see benefits for different sectors of the US society and I for one am looking forward to claiming the SALT deduction this year to help reduce the impact of my $14k property tax in Illinois.

And the fact you just dumped from ChatGPT shows you have no clue what you’re talking about.

Alcatraz blah blah blah, go start protesting your home office again raiding illegal immigrants

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/NdgodIJXpQU

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jFsE5g05cTI&pp=ygUTVWsgaG9rZSBvZmZpY2QgcmFpZA%3D%3D

What a bunch of hypocrites.

And you miss the whole point of the tariffs. I see it working so focus on the UK’s myriad of economic problems and leave the US alone. The biggest issue facing the Uk right now is what benefit to cut to try to save money yet your focus is on the US and Americans

Spare me your arrogance. 'Leave the US alone'... no American can ever ask that of the rest of us as long as your administration feels entitled to hector and dictate our nations on how to govern, trade or resist a full-scale military invasion. So that's your price for being a world power. Feel free to give that up, then we can all 'leave the US alone'.

Why am I and many others interested in what goes on in the US? Because the way this administration handles domestic politics is very revealing of its values and much that happens there has a direct or indirect effect on us. You guys tend to think in such an insular way when in fact you are deeply enmeshed with the rest of the world.

To your earlier points

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-current-republican-tax-bill-could-cut-500-billion-from-medicare-this-bill-just-gets-more-and-more-cruel
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the Republican budget bill under consideration would trigger about $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare, the program that provides health insurance to around 68 million older adults and people with disabilities.
This is because Congress is bound by the statutory Pay-As-You-Go (“PAYGO”) Act, which requires any spending to be offset by automatic cuts, to avoid deficit spending. The automatic Medicare reductions are capped at 4% of its yearly budget. Therefore, the cuts to Medicare would total about $45 billion in 2026 and $490 billion between 2027 and 2034, according to the CBO letter. Unless lawmakers otherwise offset the deficit impact of the Republican bill or agree to waive the PAYGO requirements, the cuts would be automatically triggered.
Overall, the Republican tax bill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, according to the CBO.

Will the bill affect the poorest? https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-05/61422-Reconciliation-Distributional-Analysis.pdf
Estimated Effects CBO estimates that household resources would decrease by an amount equal to about 2 percent of income in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution in 2027 and 4 percent in 2033, mainly as a result of losses of in-kind transfers, such as Medicaid and SNAP. By contrast, resources would increase by an amount equal to 4 percent for households in the highest decile in 2027 and 2 percent in 2033, mainly because of reductions in they taxes they owe

And here: https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2025/5/19/house-reconciliation-bill-budget-economic-and-distributional-effects-may-19-2025
The positive economic gains are driven by increases in savings and labor supply, as households face a weaker social safety net associated with reductions in spending. On a conventional basis, households in the first income quintile lose about $1,035 in 2026, reflecting net reductions in taxes and transfers, including cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. The top 10% of the income distribution receives about 65 percent of the total value of the legislation. (Under current law, the top 10 percent of the income distribution pays about 70 percent of all federal taxes). On a dynamic lifetime basis, lower-income and all future households are worse off, despite positive economic effects.

People express strong opinions without much understanding the Constitution of the USA.

O for pity's sake. If the US Constitution had any worth, you wouldn't all be arguing about Bigly, he'd be in prison where he belongs.