oldmanfan

We have to decide when to announce our candidacy for 2024.

The discussion needs to start with what is the role of government, on federal, state, and local levels. The people of this country have behaved like spoiled children for decades now; they want all sorts of government spending while at the same time cry about wanting low tax rates. That is inherently absurd and we now are tens of trillions of dollars in debt as a result. I believe we should have be a flat federal personal income tax, with those under a given income, probably around 30k a year not paying. I’d set it at around 10-15%. No deductions for mortgages and such. For corporate I’d set it at about the same flat rate, again with no deductions or playing around. Verizon would pay 10% instead of 0%. There’s been talk of family farms; treat them as corporations. if I were President I would make attacking spending my #1 priority. Outside of emergencies like the pandemic, I would dramatically shrink the federal government’s spending as I believe much of what is done in the name of federal spending is more a state or local issue. I would calculate the amount of debt for each state and each Congressional district and give each senator and Congressman a month to figure out what federal spending would be cut in their area. I would cut Executive branch spending dramatically. Get rid of the Departments of Education and Housing/Urban Development for starters; they are local and state issues. I would work out if the Oval Office; no golf trips and such. Spending is the issue along with a tax structure that allows those with more money to avoid paying anything. My plan addresses both.

OJ first wore # 36.

Always will be Rich Stadium to me. when they build the new one I suggest naming it the New Rockpile Field at Highmark Stadium

I live just outside Indy and I've been to Lucas Oil a few times. it's beautiful, but most times I'm there they have the roof closed and it just seems like too sterile an environment for an old fart like me. My best memories of Bills games are in the snow or rain. worst job to have going forwrad is a commercial real estate broker. A lot of companies realized they don't need all the space they had.

The mortality rate of a disease is calculated by how many infected people die, not the general population. I discussed this earlier in the Covid thread; go read it. As for water, we’ll see how many polling places actually set up regular water stations for those having to stand in lines for hours. How much you want to bet it will be scarce? If this part of their law survives the courts I’ll be there to hand out water. Simple. Come join me.

I’m independent. I have very conservative ideas about law and order and finances. I also have strong belief in Christian principles like helping your neighbor in need. By your approach on this topic and by saying you would have rather had millions more die from the pandemic than using medicine and science you’ve shown us your humanity today, or lack thereof. I’ll live by my Christian principles of how to treat my neighbor. You go ahead and live by whatever those principles are that have so little disregard for others.

The person a mile away from the polling place, standing in line because there aren’t enough polling places in her district vs. others. At this point I assume you are being facetious; no one could truly be as naive as you are pretending to be.

Yes. Because helping a person who is thirsty is a decent and fundamentally human thing to do. Sorry you apparently have lost that part of your humanity, but having seen your thinking about the pandemic and that you would have preferred multimillions of people around the world to die I am not surprised.

People have not been allowed to hand out campaign material at polling places for a while. And yes I’m focused on water. You know why? Because not being able to hand a thirst person a bottle of water violates everything I know about being a basic, kind human being. Not to mention it is an affront to my Christian beliefs.

I would do what Beane did. That wasn’t too much of a coat. There is no way I’d trade say three first round picks to move to draft a guy. I only do something like that for a guy who’s shown he can do it in the league.

Every body is going to overreach for QBs like they always do. Look at Josh's draft. All but him either have had uneven progress or have/are bombing out. Same will happen this year. I project only one of the top 4 will become really good, and the best may wind up being the kid from Alabama who's not in the top 4.

Yes, I seriously think this was to keep people from standing in long lines to get a bottle of water, so that people will decide not to come vote. Most clear thinking people d the same. And if they have to pee I would hope that porta potties are made available, although I suspect that's next on the hit list. When it comes to voting regulations, this was changed because the current Georgia Secretary of State actually stood up for the law and ran a fair election. And now gets punished for it. And will get primaried and voted out quite likely, all because the previous President cannot accept he lost a free and fair election. Again I will read for you; 4 of the 5 people on the board will be Republican. what will you do when they decide a county that votes mostly Democratic they decide is "underperforming" and start invalidating legal ballots? When people have their constitutional right to vote taken away will you stand with them or against them?

Ok, let's read:. Within 150 feet of the outer edge of a building. Great. That means I can come down there and give water to someone standing in line for hours waiting to cast their vote because their voting districts don't have enough polling places because they were taken away because of partisan crap. Oh, but wait, let's read some more... Within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place. Well, that changes things now, doesn't it? I can't now perform a simple humanitarian gesture and hand someone a bottle of water, unless my arms are 26 feet long. I wonder why. As for the link you asked for, read the law. The Secretary of State no longer chairs the State Election Board, he becomes an ex-officio non-voting member. And the board and thus legislature can intervene in counties they deem to be "underperforming", with the board made up of a chair appointed by the legislature, state house and senate each appointing one member, and each party appointing one member. which means in Georgia right now that would be 4 Republicans and 1 Democrat. That's really fair, wonder how long it will take for counties such as Fulton to be declared "underperforming".

How about the part where the state legislature can just go into a county and throw out ballots if they want? How about taking the power away from the Secretary of State to oversee elections.

Not being able to give a thirsty person a bottle of water is absurd. and yes, inner city folks especially the elderly have trouble getting around.

As to question #1, inner city folks, especially the elderly that have trouble getting around. Folks living in rural areas. As to question # 2, if they show up without any identifying info and are there simply to give people food and water, more power to them. If they show up with their NRA hats and such and as part of their handing out food and water they try to influence people's votes, then no. If this ridiculous thing stands up after being challenged in court, I will load up my car with water and drive down to Georgia to hand out water their next election.

Smallpox. Polio. Measels. Mumps. Diptheria. Tetanus. Whooping cough. Just to start.

Because a ton of people had to die to get there. You honestly believe we should go back a century and ignore all the advances made in science and medicine since. That is frighteningly misguided.

We should have done a lot more, and had less people die.

First, you are calculating mortality rates incorrectly. You calculate mortality rates based on the number infected, not the general population. The current mortality rate in the US is around 3.2%. But let's just take your approach for a minute. If you do it by the total population, then 550,000 Covid deaths out of a population of 330 million gives you a mortality rate of around 0.16%. sounds low right? well, let's compare it to the leading cause of death in the US, cardiovascular disease, which kills around 650,000 per year in the US. That gives you a 0.19%. So by your logic, can I assume you want to close down all the cardiovascular floors in hospitals, cath labs, stop selling statins, tell the cardiologists to switch to dermatology? Or maybe because Covid and cardiovascular disease kill mainly the elderly, perhaps to reap the most economic benefit we should just kill off the old folks before they get sick. Would save a ton in the long run. What age do you want to select to start? You mention suicide and depression, and I agree that this has been a tough, tough, year. I took the liberty of looking at suicide rates (https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measure/Suicide/state/ALL) and it appears that suicide rates are not that much higher than previous non-Covid years. What struck me is that the rates seems to be highest in the Rocky Mountain states, which are among the ones lower in Covid infection if I'm not mistaken. Whether this is due to the economic impact of Covid or other factors seems hard to determine, but I would caution against randomly making claims that Covid is responsible for a big surge on suicide. You talk about needless isolation of young adults and children, and ignore the fact that one of the more unique aspects of the Covid virus is that it can be carried asymptomatically by young people. You also ignore the potential long term morbidity that might be suffered by younger and older folks that will affect quality of life going forward for these individuals. I do agree that as data was gathered it became clearer that young children of elementary school age do not transmit the virus readily, and I would be right there with you that I believe elementary schools should open, especially as teachers get vaccinated. No question businesses suffered. I have a daughter that is a professional actor/singer, and that business along with restaurants and such has been decimated. No question. The issue was how to get them going again, and that could have - should have - been done by aggressively taking steps to control spread by leadership all banding together and insisting on proper mitigation strategies such as masks, instead of making it into a political football and yakking about your freedom as if wearing a mask is somehow an affront to everything holy. Laboratory and epidemiologic studies all showed the benefit of masks wearing to help prevent - not eliminate, but prevent - spread, but instead you had way too many people act like idiots. We could have this behind us by now, but no. Dr. Birx the other day said if we had doen this we could have saved over 400,000 lives, but no. When historians look back on this years from now, they will ask: why in the face of a global pandemic did they treat this like a political rather than a medical issue? One last word on your comments on the economy, where I agree with much of what you said. We are trillions of dollars in debt because the people of this country screwed up. We demanded two things that are diametrically opposed: low taxes and high government spending. And because by and large we elect gutless cowards to Congress that are more interested in re-election that doing what's right, we have this problem. We have a critical need for infrastructure, Biden knows it, he knows we need tax increase to pay for it, yet now people are complaining about that. The real debate we need to have in this country is on what the exact role of the federal government should be, and once we decide on that (should there be a lot of government programs or not) then define the tax rate to pay for it. But we're too gutless as a country and the politicians are too gutless to have that day of reckoning. And the projection you speak of is we had done nothing to prevent the spread, which would have been ridiculous.

They didn't do a good hire with Rex. They did with McD. It is beyond sickening to blame them for bad decisions and give them no credit for good ones. The Sabres? People crow about the LaFontaine thing. he did the exact same thing with the Islanders and has not gotten a sniff at a front office position since he pulled his disappearing act with two teams. He probably held onto Regier too long, then hired two GMs that were highly regarded in the league in Murray and Botterill. They turned out bad - made bad coaching decisions and bad draft picks. Coaches? Let's look at the last several. Bylsma - Cup winning coach. Players including the boy toy Eichel tuned him out. Housley. another guy highly regarded with many thinking it was time for him to step up. Players didn't play for him. Kruger? Players lauded his selection then the players led by - you guessed it, Eichel - didn't play for him. I have said before if I'm Pegula I go out and get opinions from 5-10 guys that are well connected with a lot of experience in the league. Start by driving out to Dud's house. But for this team to go forward, you can bring in as many caches etc. as you want, but you have to start with players that have some heart and guts that want to play hockey. You saw last night, every player on that team should be embarrassed to have been on the ice the third period and OT. That was inexcusable.

I am so sick and tired of this claim that they were lucky in hiring McD. The NFL has an advisory committee to look at guys they think may be ready for a HC spot. McD was on that list, Pegula interviewed him and liked his plan and hired him. If you’re going to say he was lucky, then so was every other owner in history that hired a winner.

B word about the Pegulas all you want, but the current Sabres are a bunch of heartless, gutless players. No owner can change what’s inside a guy. They need to gut this roster and give Adams the authority to bring in guys that give a damn.

So a century later with all the advances made in molecular biology, virology, epidemiology, pharmacology and so on your answer is to let Mother Nature take her course and have hundreds of millions die. You have got to be kidding.