Jingthing

That's a fair point. Some of the more successful ones are truly horrible people.

Not sure what your point is. Democracy isn't only about what people do at election times. Trump is a severe threat to the future of American democracy and future real elections. Putin runs "elections" in Russia. They are meaningless. That is Trump's goal as well and they via Project 2025 are actively working on it. The maga movement is unfortunately bigger than just Trump.

I side with Canada. I hate BULLIES.

So at this point Thailand doesn't allow trans people to change gender on IDs? I recall they were working on that issue. In any case, it's not surprising that border officials in any country would give attention to a person whose ID gender doesn't match their appearance but obviously ridicule and disrespect is uncalled for.

Hilarious that people with ignorant and bigoted views would feel superior to her. Two million subs puts her among a small elite of youtubers.

Sounds very Putinesque. Ukraine's economy doesn't exist. Ukraine doesn't exist. Yet Ukraine keeps on resisting Putin's genocidal war of choice Trump or no Trump.

I get it. You're in a Putin is invincible bubble. He isn't. Not worth my time engaging with someone who narrow mindedly actually believes there is only one factor in wars. Most wars are not decided on the battlefield, btw.

Such as -- the economy internal political pressures external pressures such as the now proposed BONE CRUSHING secondary sanctions which will dry up revenue that Russia needs to do wars Black swans

The proposed secondary sanctions are not only about oil. For example, financial transactions.

Because he wants to be Putin's friend (for various mysterious reasons).

There are other factors than the battlefield.

No, they are not. But I think there is economic cooperation in other industries that might be impacted by the proposed bone crushing secondary anti-Putin sanctions.

Why?

After hello.

What are they supposed to start with? How are you coping with the post truth world?

January is a slow travel season so the passport office has low volume then.

Trump is Putin's poodle and very weak. Yet a strong majority of Americans support helping Ukraine defend itself against Putin's genocidal aggression. Let's all hope the senate does the right thing and sends a VETO PROOF bone crushing sanctions bill to the criminally corrupt grifter in the oval office. It's also possible Trump will quietly agree not to veto as long as he can blame congress as he will always still want Vladimir to be his friend, even though Vladimir was never his friend, and sees Trump as the weak clown that he actually is.

Criminally corrupt reality tv grifter birds of a feather stick together.

Probably not, but as far as Putin the man is concerned, if he falls from power, he'll die too. So a better question is whether people will follow Putin's orders to launch, While I generally agree caving to Putin's nuke threats is folly, but the nukes are still real so can't be fully ignored either.

I really wouldn't worry about that. It probably won't happen and even if it does we have no idea what the rules would be or level of wealth they would decide to target. On the other hand a real thing to worry about niow are automatically triggered deep benefit cuts for all unless the government can make reforms in time. The most likely fix is probably just raising the payroll cap on SS taxes. Something like this although this specific bill is probably more than republicans would ever go for: New Bill Eliminates Cap on Social Security Payroll Taxes ww.thinkadvisor.com/2025/05/21/new-bill-eliminates-cap-on-social-security-payroll-taxes/ New legislation would extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare by at least 75 years by eliminating the cap on Social Security payroll taxes and increasing the net investment income tax, which supports Medicare, by 1.2% (to 5%) for taxpayers earning over $400,000 a year. The bill, the Medicare & Social Security Fair Share Act, is sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa.

It may be missing the point that's true. It's much more of a social insurance scheme against severe poverty mostly for the aged. However the reality is that for better or worse most Americans do view SS as more of a pension account that they own because they paid into it. Politically it would be extremely difficult to buck those perceptions. That's why I think the US passing means testing for SS is very unlikely.

Not only the super rich. According to the referenced proposal as high as 30 percent of potential benefit collectors.

Not true. Self employed Americans are required to pay both the employer and employee SS payroll tax parts.

This has happened to me many times in Thailand. I don't really understand why they would say that. I just look at them funny, and repeat ONE and it usually goes OK. I did have an incident years ago at a non-English speaking Chinese restaurant in the U.S. where there was similar issue about numbers although I don't recall the exact details. So they brought EIGHT of a dish that we only wanted one order for a group of three. Yes, there was a conflict from that and they were sure they were right. It wasn't a scam just a weird miscommunication. BTW, that restaurant was on the verge of banning me after during a subsequent visit I accidentally spilled an entire jar of chili oil on their floor. Good times. But again if the ONE happens to you in Thailand and I find it weird that people are saying it hasn't I think just repeating ONE will be OK.

Interesting about Canada. This would be new to the USA for SS if it ever happens. There is also the question of income vs. net worth assets that could or should come into play in any means testing plan.