oldmanfan

No they aren’t. Other than COVID which is a unique situation demanding public health measures, how are individual freedoms being taken away. Mine aren’t, nor are they for anyone I know. The ones rioting this summer and the ones attacking the Capitol would define extremists for me. As would those who want to overturn our form of government

The current what I will call political crisis seems to center around what people want to claim as the American Life. The extremists on the right seem to claim that their America is being taken away, that for some reason what they consider the American way of life is being stripped from them. And they want to take it back by whatever means they need to use. On the other side you have the left extremists who want to claim to many are being denied their version of America, that the American Way of Life is being denied to minorities and such. So what is America? What is the American way of life? Frankly for people like me, older, white, of good financial means, I don't see my America being taken away by any stretch of the imagination. I have all my rights granted to me by the Constitution, they are not being affected at all. I am happily married, and I know gay couples that are married and that has absolutely no influence on the state of my marriage. I have no problem with all citizens of our country having the exact same rights, no more, no less, than the next guy regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation. Having all have the same rights to me is American - I am not having anything taken away by that. I believe immigration has been great for our country historically, and that legal immigration should be encouraged and illegal immigration be dealt with harshly. I think most Americans agree with that, that somehow that does destroy the American way of life. I think people should have the right to protest peacefully, and when they do so it does not somehow strip away my America. I think when protestors get violent they should be charged, arrested, convicted, and go to jail. So when some say their America is being taken away, how? Why? We are a melting pot, we always have been (although sometimes with destructive consequences especially our treatment of native Americans). How another person chooses to lead their life has nothing to do with somehow stealing anything from my living my American life. I don't get it. Someone explain it to me.

Yes it is if you are elderly and have troubles getting to the polls, or get to the polls and because of insane laws being passed trying to prevent you voting if you don't have the right kind of ID and such. There is a systematic attempt through gerrymandering and other actions to make it difficult for certain populations to vote, and by and large it is being driven in states with Republican legislatures. Rather that winning based on the content of their ideas (then again they did not even have a specific platform of ideas in the 2020 election), they want to win by disenfranchisement. Anyone who believes in the Constitution should support every citizen of this country having their right to vote protected. I agree that appropriate ID should be presented, but we should be encouraging different ways for voters to do their constitutional duty, not less. The fraud in elections is not that there are fraudulent votes being cast in a systemic fashion, the fraud is that people claim there is a fraud to begin with.

About a month ago. Got a little tired the day after but nothing else. Everyone needs to get vaccinated!

I’m ready!

Wish I could agree, but his narcissism and ego won't allow him to have his legacy as losing the presidency. He'd want to try again, but that will be impossible to do from prison. I believe he'll be indicted and convicted for fraud, extortion, or other charges in NYS, probably Georgia, and quite possibly in DC.

Reporters should ask everyone who voted no if their vote would have changed if the trial took place before Jan 20.

I am sure Beane will make a call.

Three Senators met with Trump’s lawyers tonight. They should not be allowed to vote in this trial. They should ideally be thrown out of the Senate. Oaths mean squat apparently.

I still think we should run for President/VP.

Yep. There are very few people in Congress that care about the country anymore.

Impeachment is a political process. I always think of things this way: if the parties being charged were switched, I.e. if it were a Democratic president, would your vote change? If so, you’re a hypocrite and a blight on the Senate, and you should be voted out of office. And we have a majority sitting in the chamber right now from both parties who would be guilty of this. There should be a lot more people charged with some serious crimes based on the events of Jan 6th. And I would include the former president. But it is only about a month out and these things take time, I suppose.

If the Republicans vote to not convict, then I hope federal and/or DC officials do what guys like Rubio want: arrest Trump for what he did.

Right. They negotiated this between the House and Senate. For Senators to now say it’s unconstitutional is disingenuous at best.

I always hated physics!

You don't understand vaccines and their purpose. The purpose of vaccines is to induce immune responses against foreign pathogens. Depending on the pathogen and its ability to mutate among other things, vaccines can be more or less effective. You can have one extreme such as smallpox, which has been effectively eradicated because of the vaccine. Or you can have a virus like HIV that has proven elusive to development of a vaccine. The influenza vaccine varies in effectiveness year to year based on the articular strain that year. The Pfizer and Moderna showing 95% effectiveness in preventing significant disease is really, really good. The J and J showing around 60% prevention of severe disease and essentially 100% protection against mortality is really good. You want a black and white answer for gray questions. it does not work like that.

Because in the clinical trials the vaccines were very effective against the virus. It is not experimental; they have been working on mRNA vaccines for years. We'll be back to normal when the virus is defeated. And that will I presume be based on infection rates, hospital admissions. What epidemiologists normally use. Quit your histrionics.

Thanks for your service. Sincerely. I applaud all who wore the uniform.

First, he was impeached while president and I think the House managers did a good job explaining why the Senate then has to have a trial. I have a gut feeling McConnel is going to vote to convict. And that he'll drag enough with him. I agree this is about politics. And I think McConnel sees that, if the Republican party remains attached at the hip to Trump and is pictured as the party of Rep Greene, that the Republican party of McConnel will be gone. And that the Republican party will have no chance to take back the senate, House, or Oval. Bottom line is that the Republicans lost all 3 of those under Trump. McConnel may make the ultimate power play to rip off the Band Aid and get rid of Trump so he Republican party can act like Republicans again.

This cancel culture stuff is just nonsense. Private companies decide to not publish or support certain political views because they know it will interfere with their profitability. That is called business. The number of people in this country who claim that their constitutional rights are violated who have no idea about the constitution is incredible. Our Constitution stands now as it has stood throughout history. people need to quite bastardizing it to try and fit their political agenda. And defund the police was stupid, and cost the Democrats seats in the House. You really don't understand our Constitution.

I absolutely believe in both. We had a free and fair election. Biden won. And then people tried to take down the Capitol to prevent the election results from being confirmed. The House impeached the president over it while he was occupying the office, and the Senate now tries him as is laid out in the Constitution.

And you're wrong.

Doing good ice. We lost to a better team that day, just like the Pack lost to a better team in their championship game. We'll both be back.

This reminds me of the old math problem: you are standing a certain distance from a wall, and you walk halfway to the wall and stop. Then you walk halfway again and stop. And so on. How long does it take you to hit the wall? And the answer is never, because there will always be a certain distance between you and the wall. The naming will be announced if and when the naming is announced. I'm not holding my breath.

Yes and no. I agree that the elderly should be high priority, and they are getting vaccinated now, at least in my state. But essential workers should be prioritized as well. I got mine already because I work in health care; I consider myself fortunate in that regard. I would argue that teachers should also be high priority because I think we have to get schools open as quickly as possible and this would be a good step in that regard. Also racial minorities are at relatively high risk for Covid and they should be prioritized. The issue to me is not as much prioritization as vaccine availability. Big pharmaceutical companies should be stepping up to take the Pfizer and Moderna technology and start producing more dosages. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine should get emergency use authorization right now. And we need to continue working on ways to ensure widespread distribution to places that are accessible to the public to get their shots. I know these are all being worked on, but Biden needs to push his people hard to get things done.