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We’ll discuss life expectancy in the US vs. historical trends and vs. other, similar countries.

• What’s driving the divergence between US life expectancy and the similar statistic on other countries? Differences in…
  • Health care?
  • Lifestyle?
  • Obesity, diabetes, etc.?
  • Drug addiction/abuse?
  • Mental health?
  • Risk-taking?
  • Economic differentials?
  • What else?
• And what should we do (if anything) to close the gap vs. our peer countries?

Here are a few articles to get you going:

• NYTimes: The Rise of the Haphazard Self (courtesy of Duncan Neuhauser)
• Health System Tracker: How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries?
• Stanford Medicine Blog: Why is life expectancy in the U.S. going down? A Q&A.

With the recent developments in Venezuela, we’ll discuss “what should US policy be with regard to Venezuela?”

• Are we being appropriately supportive of Guido?
• Should we have recognized him as interim President?
• Should we do more? Less?
• How should Venezuela situation affect our relations with Russia and Cuba?
• What patterns can we discern amongst countries supporting Madura? Guido?

Now that Robert Mueller’s work is complete(?) and his report issued, we’ll discuss the report’s contents and implications:

• What does the report actually say vs. what the pundits predicted that it would (or say it does)?
• What (specifically) should be done to protect our elections from Russian (or other external) influence?
• And, seemingly of far more interest to the talking heads, what are the implications for the Trump presidency?
  • Has Mueller provided convincing evidence that the President has committed one or more crimes?
  • Is impeachment necessary, appropriate or just a political stunt?
  • Put another way, if you were a US Senator, would you vote to convict based solely on the evidence in the Mueller report? Would you apply a different standard than for a criminal jury trial (other than the unanimity requirement for the latter)?

If you aren’t super-facile with Google (or your favorite alternative search engine), here’s a link to the full Mueller Report (be aware, it’s a pretty big file (~140MB) because of the way it was produced—but this is the new, searchable version direct from the US Department of Justice).