Beautiful quote from the soon-to-be Leader of the Free World™, Sir Donald of the Trump: "It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars."
To be fair though, most of that million dollar loan needed to go on the state of the art toupee he needs. You'll also notice that said toupee has hypnotic powers and is the source of trumps power!
I've just come back from the US and met up with a friend who produces a radio show in Oxnard, CA. The station is non commercial and relies on donations to operate. They rely on average donations of $32 per person. They are one of the few media outlets with a broad liberal agenda and are right behind Bernie Sanders. Most of the Republican candidates are receiving huge sums of money from corporate America to fund their campaigns, although Trump has his personal billions to back him up, there is no 'impartial' BBC and media outlets like NBC, CBS etc are particularly partisan.
Look at Clinton's backers too, if you want to see how they're loading the system. It's nice to see Sanders pushing the debate on that side in a positive direction. As for the media over there, why do you think that certain parties are so keen to get rid of the BBC? They absolutely hate it, as they've got very little control over it.
Clinton is as much a part of corporate America as the other republican candidates (although slightly less mad than Trump) Sanders scares them because he has a liberal agenda backed by the unions (much like Corbyn) and the right don't know what to make of him. As in the UK, the media in the US has tried to slate Sanders as being a 'madman from the left wing'. As for the BBC, as you say the Tories want rid because they don't want them to openly criticise them and whilst I wouldn't describe the BBC as totally 'impartial' they do at least attempt to be. In the US, big media corps like NBC, CBS etc make no claims for impartiality and many of the smaller radio stations will openly admit that they follow and promote a conservative agenda. You have to dig deep in mainstream America to hear the voice of the left. Places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, The Bay area have an openly liberal / left feel to them, but overall even somewhere like California which is renowned for it's hippie culture and progressive ideas, is still a largely conservative state outside of the cities.
Dont forget that most of America's 24/7 media content is funded by pharmaceutical companies continually trying to sell you medicine you dont need. While i used to respect the bbc, it has just become a tory press release channel now. But it will become privitised its onky a matter of when. When that happens (and the nhs gets privitised as well) then the only beneficiary will be sky/news corp as they will out bid everyone for the best channels on terrestrial tv while racking in huge amounts of money through pharmaceutical advertising. Combined with the up and coming constituent boundary changes, the removal of up to 1.9m voters from the register, the air dropping of more tory peers into the house of lords and a few other tricks they are doing - it could well be that we will never get them out and will have a corporate, neo-liberal government for ages.
Apparently the British economy has slowed yet again (so much for prosperity under Tory rule, and a prosperous economy and reduced national debt). Though lucky it isn't worse to be honest, as if the tax credit cuts had been passed yesterday, then it would have meant millions of people spending a huge amount less over Christmas - and considering national retailers like Argos are only hanging on by their fingernails because of good Christmas sales boosts, then you'd have to imagine there would be a good chance of shop closures/people made redundant if there was a poor Christmas (sales wise) this year.
http://www.thecanary.co/2015/10/19/...on-we-dont-want-to-live-in-a-selfish-society/ Great open letter to cameron
The first paragraph: In the dying embers of World War II, a new social contract was drawn up in Britain. Freedom from poverty was made a right – a condition of citizenship. A person paid their national insurance and their taxes, and was safe in the knowledge that that they would not be made destitute by the vicissitudes of this so-called ‘market’. Furthermore, a person who was physically or mentally unable to participate in the jobs market, would not be abandoned to the mercy of philanthropy, but be the responsibility of all. In short, a compassionate society where we take care of ourselves and each other. No problem with that, but the rest should be left to fend for themselves.
http://www.conservativehome.com/pla...n-nhs-doctor-will-be-voting-conservative.html Some truths about the NHS under a Conservative government.
I usually ignore your posts but i wabt yo ask one question how is posting an article about a former tory candidate on a tory website saying that the torys are best for the nhs 'the truth'? Surely you need some sort of facts and impartiality to get a version of the truth?
Just seen a comment by an American on a BBC thread about the US candidate debates saying the republican debate that just happened was pay per view on TV. Paying to be informed about what choices you have.... Just ridiculous.
It won't be long until stuff like that happens here. As soon as bbc is privatised (which is happening) then sky and bt will clean up and make everything subscription. Channel 4 is already talking about selling up and only making programs for other channels.
Does she really have the gall to criticise Labour's plans to reorganise the NHS in that pre-election spiel? The Tories said that was exactly what they weren't going to do in the previous campaign, then they changed their minds after they got in. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
You also need to want to see the truth, and not simply ignore it because you dislike the messenger... There is a link in her blog that provide facts if you care to look at them: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror There are also stats that support the fact that health services run by Conservatives out perform those run (into the ground) by labour: A&E waits (percentage of patient seen within 4 hours) England: 92.5 per cent (Week to 12 April 2015) Wales: 82.3 per cent (Month of March 2015) Labour run Wales hasn’t hit its A&E target for five years (House of Commons Library, NHS Wales Statistics, 30 December 2014). The percentage of patients treated within 18 weeks of referral, (for Wales it is a longer wait target of 26 weeks). England: 93.1 per cent (Month of February 2015). Wales: 85.3 per cent (Month of February 2015). The number of patients waiting more than 26 weeks for treatment has multiplied by nearly six times in Wales whereas it has gone down by over a third in England since May 2010. Cancer Waits (62 day referral to treatment) England: 83.8 per cent (Q3 2014/15). Wales: 82.7 per cent (February 2015) The Welsh NHS last met its cancer waiting times in 2008 (Welsh Government, Statistics and Research, NHS cancer waiting times).
