lt cap,

I did not acknowledge those more closely looming issues of medicaid and medicare. It'll be interesting, altho possibly horrifying to watch. I think Alan Simpson (former Sen. Wyoming) quit the Senate because he said things have deteriorated to continual games of 'gotcha'. I don't have much love for Hilary (altho I do think she's a hypocrit and liar, lol) but the political torture she was subject to leads nowhere. In this kind of political atmosphere, it's impossible to propose solutions to those soon-to-arrive problems - what pol wants to give ther other side trunchons to beat them with? I'm really not sure who gets the shaft on the Medicare issue - the elderly? (Maybe - I think it's hard to get far from where the water cannons go off in a walker or a wheelchair.) Means test for Medicare supplements? (I think that the most likely, even though the rich have some bucks to spend politically, and AARP is more oraganized. I personally don't like that one, as it penalizes the people who worked and saved and planned for retirement rather than blowing every paycheck as fast as they could.) Maybe the Medicaid poor are the best targets - a permanent under-class of homeless people don't present much of a political threat, unless you've got a conscience, and city planners can always claim that the concrete beneath bridges was actually intended as an 'urban housing project' for the destitute.) Where I live, the city is probably the friendliest to homeless people I've ever experienced. They get cell phones for free. Busses will come to pick them up if they're in a crisis. Walk in to stores and try to walk out with merchandise - rationale is they're 'liberating' that $3k bike, like in the late '60's. Funniest site is at the Mission that provides food, and maybe shelter. Around dinnertime, the 'park lot' is filled to the gills with very expensive bikes. Walmart and Target have started putting 'lock-up' devices on shopping carts - if they get further than 100 yards from the store, the wheel lock up. I dont' mean to mock them so much as some are real sad cases. But it is considred a kind of 'lifestyle' here. Two shopping carts tied together is known as the 'poor man's SUV'. At least no one has defined police brutality as 'the poor man's 'rolfing'.  Ive rambled on too long. Any solution doesn't look like it ends well.