AU9377

This is not true. In fact, Covid vaccines all went thru trials and have now been shown to be safe by the hundreds of millions of people that have taken them worldwide. Side effects from a vaccine almost always manifest themselves within 30 days. In fact, most within 72 hours. You mention blood clots and myocarditis. Have you compared the risk of those to the risk of prolonged injury and illness due to having Covid? If you do, you will see that the risk is much greater of having a long term health issue as a result from Covid than either one of those conditions. Also, those conditions are usually reversible, even in the extremely rare event that they occur.

Because, in your mind, you actually think about that when you think about kids at school? Or is this the subject Hannity spent time on today?

If he would only spend the time and energy trying to help people avoid getting sick in the first place..... I'm ok with any treatment that works, but pretending there is not problem and following up with this ........

Why mask mandates in schools? I'll share what a friend of mine that teaches 9th grade shared with me. When you say that it should be up to the parent, what does that mean? That assumes that a parent is with the child all day. Well, that can't be the case because we know parents are not with their children all day at school. Does anyone believe that their child will wear their mask all day while other children do not? The chance of that happening isn't very good. Parents entrust their kids to the teachers and administrators at school for the time that they are on school property. Do they expect teachers to make a list of the students and check a box so that they know the parental choice concerning face masks and thereafter use that list to enforce the parent's choice during class? That isn't feasible. Having a uniform policy of wearing face masks is feasible. Why isn't a dress code considered to be a parental choice? If Jenny's dad says she can wear short shorts, should she not be allowed to wear them? We all know why, yet the ability to enforce a dress code uses the same reasoning as the ability to enforce a mask mandate. There has to be some degree of uniformity in order to enforce the policy. Some masks are more beneficial than others, but all masks provide some positive benefit . If someone's daughter called and said they were driving home and that they had a choice between wearing a seatbelt that worked 40% of the time or to not wear a seat belt at all, what would you tell them?

Your last sentence sums it up. I can't describe it as falling to the Taliban, considering the fact that there is little fighting in most areas as they bow and accept their new leadership. The Afghan army that we built, along with the government we installed, clearly doesn't have the ability to govern by the consent of the Afghan people. As such, I find it hard to justify placing U.S. troops in harms way simply to make the every day lives of Afghans better. They have had over 20 years to see a better way. If they begin training terrorists, we can eliminate that without troops on the ground. Training anyone is difficult to do without electricity.

So true....

I'm sorry, but that thinking is just as dumb as the rednecks that claim people aren't really getting sick and the mypillow guy claiming China changed votes with satellites. Mind numbingly frustrating. All of these things seem to be a side effect or condition caused by social media on steroids. I'll get off my soap box now. LOL By the way, thanks for posting the article. As you know, my rating is not directed at you.

I never believed that we would be able to accomplish something that nobody else has ever accomplished by occupying that country. The British have invaded the country 3 times, the Russians 3 times and every one of those conflicts ended the same way this one is ending. They are easily defeated, but they know exactly how to become an infected sore that won't heal. Over time, every occupying force has made the decision that the return is not worth the investment. We had every right to attack them and bomb them into shreds. I'm just not sure why we or NATO actually believed that this would end differently.

You do realize that there is no economic policy that has changed that would produce an outcome within the first 7 months of 2021 right?

This is so bizarre that the novelists would be hard pressed to make it up. The right-wing media organization One America News presented a Long Island swing set installer as an "expert mathematician" who claimed to uncover evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, according to a new lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems. One America News' Christina Bobb interviewed the swing set installer, Ed Solomon, on January 27 in a segment about the 2020 election, which President Joe Biden had won nearly three months earlier. In the interview, Solomon claimed that he conducted a mathematical analysis showing that the results in Fulton County, Georgia, "can only have been done by an algorithm." He added that the probability of Biden's victory in the county was "1 over 10 to an exponent so large there's not enough stars in the universe, there aren't enough atoms in the universe, to explain the number." Dominion says OAN's 'expert mathematician' who claimed to prove election fraud actually had a job 'setting up swing sets' (msn.com)

Finding a prosecutable charge will be nearly impossible. The woman that claims that he placed his arm under her blouse has the strongest or, I should say only, possible criminal charge. However, even in that circumstance, nobody else witnessed the act and she doesn't remember when it took place. The other claims, like "he ran his finger down the back of my neck on the elevator" just don't amount to sexual assault. Creepy yes, but not assault. Sexual harassment encompasses words, environments, and acts. Sexual assault requires specific acts That said, he did the right thing by resigning today.

A couple things come to mind immediately. First, under current law, the Federal government doesn't have oversight authority to the extent that they review state criminal cases to that degree. Also, doing so would create an impossible system of oversight and appeal. The voting rights oversight was needed when the law was enacted, but by the time it was thrown out by the Supreme Court, it had become a massive agency within itself where groups would challenge any action suggested by local officials simply to increase their bargaining position. It was severely abused. For example, there could be a precinct with 10 registered voters. If the elections supervisor wanted to close that precinct and have those 10 voters vote a half mile away, they first needed to get clearance from the Federal government to do so. It had become an insane waste of resources. I would fear that the same level of oversight over state convictions would end up being the same type problem. Of course, I really don't believe it would be constitutional for the Federal government to have that level of state oversight. Personally, having worked in the criminal justice system, I believe that one thing that could help greatly would be to term limit district attorneys. What happens is based at least partially on human nature. Prosecutors work on cases closely with law enforcement., Over time, the begin to work as a team instead of a check. They also become very conditioned in terms of their assumptions. Whey they see some pattern of behavior over and over, it is extremely difficult not to allow that experience to influence their assumptions in the next case. Our rate of incarceration is the highest in the world. We desperately need to draw distinctions between violent and non violent criminal behavior. As part of that, we need to remove the felon label that we attach to someone and truly allow them to get a fresh start when they have served their time or otherwise satisfied their sentence.

There is so much bloat at every level. Some degree of reform is needed. That said, government will never run like a business, because it isn't a business. A benevolent dictator is the most efficient form of government. It also more closely resembles the role of a CEO in authority. Unfortunately, we know that those dictators eventually give in to desires of self preservation and all forms of civil liberties get thrown out the window.

I will say this about the subject. The issue is really not a uniquely American issue. I have traveled extensively. I will never forget the first time I was in Europe for the summer taking classes and backpacking. By the way, it was the late 90s, not the 60s... lol. At a bar one night I happen to start talking to a guy from Maryland. His name was Michael and he happened to be a black guy. Michael ended up traveling with our group over the next couple of months a good bit. I believe there were 6 or 7 in our group. We all had the same U.S. Passports and we were roughly all the same age. There was one difference. Every time, without fail, we entered a country or went thru a checkpoint, only Michael was asked for his passport. Sleeping on a night train, all I had to do when they opened the door was hold up my passport. They didn't open it or stamp it. They just closed the door and went to the next door. If Michael was there, they asked him to step out and they examined his passport carefully. They had every right to and that isn't the point. The point is how starkly different their assumptions were, whether in Hungary, Prague, France or Italy. To make light of the situation, we all started joking about him needing his papers. Usually, if we spoke up and said that he was with us, they would make it brief and let us be on our way. To be fair, their primary immigration issues are from North Africa. Add to that the fact that, especially at that time, their profile of what an American looked like didn't include a black guy in cut off shorts and a t-shirt. I get all that, but it was the first real time that I totally understood the frustration from a young black guy's point of view.

It is the last sentence that is based on an assumption. There are laws broken every day at every level in this country that are not prosecuted due the reasons Comey specified. If there was no judgment needed, there wouldn't need to be a recommendation one way or the other. The truth is that this was the first time that some people thought they had her. They didn't honestly think that what had happened was some great threat to national security. They simply thought they had her based on what had happened. The Trump justice department could have filed charges when they took over. They did not for the very same reasons that were detailed by Comey in addition to the fear of public backlash had they done so.

You know why there have never been charges made against Hillary for any crime? Because there is no there there. The underworld that so many of you believe exists.... it is imaginary. Politics is a brutal game. If evidence of prosecutable crimes existed, she would have been prosecuted like anyone else. The problem is that you don't want her treated like anyone else, you want her prosecuted for spite.

The ambassador had been warned to remain at the embassy. Instead, he chose to travel outside the embassy. The scenario you mention above wasn't brought out at exhaustive hearings that took place. Am I supposed to believe that Jim Jordan just didn't want to go there? The FBI specifically pointed out that they had not been able to find a breach in her home server. If they had, why would anyone assume that this had anything to do with that? I am not in the habit of defending Hillary, but sometimes it gets so bizarre that things need t be pointed out. Hillary has never been one to shy away from the use of force. If anything, she was consistently in favor of the use of force whenever it was necessary. That is, in part, why she was so disliked by many in the Arab world and far East. They also find it difficult to respect women in that kind of leadership role. By the way, wasn't her health so bad that she was supposed to be dead by now? It is amazing how that narrative went the way of the dinosaurs once the campaign was over.

That is such a Fox point of view circa 2016. Take the time to read the explanation in this Time piece. Hillary was never my favorite candidate, but the extent to which the far right has gone to paint her as some kind of criminal that has no concern for this country, was somehow responsible for the death of the U.S. Ambassador in Benghazi and was running a corrupt foundation that did nothing but collect money in exchange for influence is downright pathetic. The Foundation was given the highest rating for transparency by independent charity watch groups (and supported causes all over the globe helping people), Benghazi had nothing to do with her, which she clearly pointed out during a couple of days of hearings in which she made Jim Jordan and company look like fools, and the FBI had no evidence that even showed an actual breach leading to confidential information being shared. Obama should have pulled a Trump in retrospect and just declassified anything on the system at the Clinton's home, the same home that is protected 24/7 by the secret service and will be until she dies. https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,” Comey said. Intent is not part of the espionage act, but it is an element considered when deciding when and when not to prosecute someone. They found 8 items, emails etc, that were labeled as containing highly or top classified material. Did you know that several of them were later found to have been contained in published articles that a staffer had emailed to her? That would automatically remove a portion of the violations. It was petty, just like the Benghazi mess. Petty. How many violations do you think they wold find if they took Trump's personal cell phone and did a forensic examination of every text and communication? His kids as well? I was never in favor of doing that because just like with Hillary, it would have been petty.

Why would good policing include placing these people in hand cuffs? I can assure you that if I am peeking in the windows of a house that I am considering buying and the cops show up, they are simply going to ask what I am doing there and then possibly verify my story. Same goes if I am inside. If the homeowner had called, the entire situation is understandable, but it wasn't the home owner.

No reasonable prosecutor would charge the crimes because they didn't have the requisite intent to obtain a conviction. Doing so would have seemed as petty as it truly was and even more so now that we have been subjected to a 4 year term of grift and self dealing on a scale never witnessed in the history of American politics.

I do recall public hearings conducted by the Republican controlled House of Representatives going on for months and finding nothing.

Not in the slightest. I do, however, find it to be imperative that when large groups of people believe something that is provably false, that the question of why they would believe the falsehood is explored. When a large group of people, capable of intelligently making conclusions based on facts, choose instead to ignore those facts in favor of political propaganda, the very core of the principles this country was founded on are in danger.

What I am pointing out is this... For the act of interviewing his brother to be considered an unethical conflict of interest, there would need to be competing interests and those interests, as well as the personal relationship, not disclosed. For example, if Chris Cuomo was interviewing his brother today, the conflict would be obvious (CNN's being to ask informative questions concerning the current controversy vs the governor's political standing and Chris Cuomo's off the air involvement in advising his brother) and the ethics of doing so rightly questioned. However, when interviewed at that time in 2019/2020, there were no competing interests and the family relationship was fully disclosed. The governor's role was informing the public during a public health crisis. Add to that the type of editorial journalism and opinion based show within which the interview was conducted and finding an ethical problem is difficult. When interviewed outside that hour show, they had other anchors question him.

Violence in any form is unacceptable, but the Jan 6th cluster F*** was intended to stop the constitutional process of electing a new President and the peaceful transition of power. That is a few levels above the what about Antifa nonsense.