Has President Biden

[Rufus T. Firefly]

He turned 79 the other day, you are tired most of the time at that age.the old fool says he is going to run again.

The other old fool is 75. But maybe gauging their health against your own failings is not a meaningful measurement.

In any case, an upper age limit would be welcomed......except that the folks that would have to put that into play are in that same age group.

[robert.]

I would vote for a upper age limit

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I would vote for a upper age limit

Well, I think that would 1st have to get Congress to amend the Constitution.

Pretty sure that the overwhelming majority will drop kick that thought right out the door and down the steps to the nearest trash can. It's just not in their self-interest.

[Neil]

One thing is incontrovertible. Trump spent four years in the White House with control of the House and Senate for much of that time and could not get an infrastructure bill done. In the first 11 months Biden has gotten an infrastructure bill and will likely also get an economic program for health, education and welfare passed as well. Actually getting things done that help the nation and its people counts for a lot more than the bloviating of the fawning Trump followers and their favorite fascist . Trump and his coterie of slavish followers do make Biden look like FDR.

[robert.]

Easier to vote for younger candidates.

[Neil]

If this next bill is passed, it won't matter which Republican, of whatever age, is next in the White House or whether they control the Senate or House. Nixon couldn't undo the civil rights, Medicare and social justice legislation that came before him, and the next enemy of progress, science and education elected won't be able to undo the two major bills the Democrats will have passed, with some courageous Republican support in the case of the infrastructure bill. Biden's age doesn't matter, he's not going to run for another term in his 80s is my guess, assuming he's still alive. I don't think Trump is going to be around in good enough health to run in 2024 either. He already looks like hell.

[robert.]

Trump is to old by my standards to run. Funny thing is where i live they had a red wave last election. Office’s that had a 20 + year run of Dems went to republicans. It started with school board seats and moved right through the courthouse.

[G3750]

One thing is incontrovertible. Trump spent four years in the White House with control of the House and Senate for much of that time and could not get an infrastructure bill done. In the first 11 months Biden has gotten an infrastructure bill and will likely also get an economic program for health, education and welfare passed as well. Actually getting things done that help the nation and its people counts for a lot more than the bloviating of the fawning Trump followers and their favorite fascist . Trump and his coterie of slavish followers do make Biden look like FDR.

Couldn't get an infrastructure bill done? Or wouldn't burden the nation with the kind of mind-numbing debt this fiasco entails?

Spending money like it came out of a Monopoly game isn't courageous - it's irresponsible. The insane clown posse running the House has doomed the next 3 generations to massive debt - to the point of not being able to adequately defend the nation. Of course, that assumes that this nation will still exist as a sovereign entity. The Chinese are watching us self-destruct.

Gimme a break. I know liberals have an event horizon measured by the last 24 hour news cycle, but pre-COVID this economy was roaring, we were energy independent, we had a working negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan, and we weren't knuckling under to our enemies.

Sleepy Joe changed all that. He owns this cluster-fuck. And the mid-term elections are going to totally repudiate the Lunatic Fringe currently in power (illegitimately, I might add).

George

[Neil]

George, I have too much respect for you and we are living in such different realities that my only response is to say we each have our own views and leave it at that.

[gregj410]

George, I have too much respect for you and we are living in such different realities that my only response is to say we each have our own views and leave it at that.

Well at least one of you is living in reality

[G3750]

George, I have too much respect for you and we are living in such different realities that my only response is to say we each have our own views and leave it at that.

Hi Neil,

I respect you a great deal as well. In fact, too much to let you duck the issue by saying we have 2 different world views. Facts are facts and I want to know the truth (however unpalatable it might be to me). Frankly, I am surprised at your lack of skepticism or even curiosity regarding the 2020 election. You are a man of science, trained to think objectively and critically.

In his last interview, Carl Sagan said:

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us something is true, then we are up for grabs for the next charlatan – political or religious.”

I don’t live in a different world from you. But my eyes are open. My skepticism is alive. When:

• 95% of the media oppose someone and read verbatim from the same script – I am suspicious
• Late-breaking legitimate news stories are suppressed (NY Post) by liberal outlets like NPR – I am suspicious
• The major Social media platforms actively work to suppress conservative groups and points of view – I am suspicious
• ALL 6 swing states suspend vote counting in the middle of the night (with Trump leading) – something that has NEVER happened before and then resume counting hours later and Biden is suddenly ahead – I am suspicious
• When many courts refuse to hear lawsuits alleging voter fraud (including sworn affidavits) on the basis of “no standing” (a technical definition meaning we just don’t want to hear it) – I am suspicious

Frankly, as a man of science, you should be suspicious as well. If the audits and lawsuits proved that Biden won legitimately, I would be satisfied. But I want to know his election was legitimate. And I don’t believe that. I (and 75,000,000 others) have questions that no one wants to answer. As it currently stands, there is a huge divide in this country. And it can’t be mended with liberal snark or by the media portraying those of us who ask questions as dumb bumpkins. The snark and the condemnation of those asking questions sound a lot like those who condemned Galileo or Copernicus.

All the best,

George

[Neil]

George, as a scientist and rational human being, I believe in evidence. The points you make, if true, would be considered circumstantial evidence. And not necessarily reliable, in my view. I haven't followed the allegations of stopped vote counting, but they have the flavor of conspiracy theories posted by the most out of their mind fanatics. Hiding conspiracies is incredibly difficult, which is why we have no hard evidence of voter fraud. It doesn't exist on a meaningful level. So no hard data, no belief from me. Lots of Republicans who voted for Trump have participated in audits and recounts and found no substantive evidence of cheating, and that should be good enough for doubters, but it obviously isn't. Wishful thinking doesn't make something so.

As for the media, the most popular mass media is FOX News, which has been a major purveyor of anti-vax, "COVID-19 isn't real" nutjob ideas, including lots of pro-Trump stuff unrelated to the pandemic. So how you can say that the mass media is only liberal and only antagonistic to those loonies who oppose modern science is puzzling to me. The amount of completely erroneous medicine and science I hear about through various sources is both amazing and appalling.

I have talked with patients who truly believe vaccines don't work, COVID isn't real and other such total rubbish. I know it's rubbish from personal experience as well as my training as a physician and scientist. But these people have no trouble finding support for their dysfunctional, dangerous and deranged beliefs in the media of various sorts. So do 30% or so of our fellow citizens, whether its the conspiracy theories about the election or conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccines. Conspiracies rarely work (see Guy Fawkes) and even when they do, they never remain secret. A conspiracy of this magnitude would require the involvement of hundreds of people at a minimum. Someone would change their mind, be bought off, etc. out of those hundreds. Probably lots of someones. So if there was a conspiracy to steal the election, we would know about it by now. There wasn't one. And if there was, it wouldn't have succeeded, because conspiracies rarely do, and nothing of this magnitude has ever happened in history. So unlikely to be true, it doesn't merit speculation in the absence of single shred of actual evidence. Evidence would consist of several thousand or more ballots that clearly were for Trump and changed or clearly for Biden but illegally cast. Nothing like it produced to date, just rumor and conjecture. No evidence equals no case.

[robert.]

Do people believe the Russians conspired in 2016?

[Neil]

The Russians are constantly trying to disrupt Western democracies. I doubt their activities made any material difference in 2016.

As for conservative mass media, I read the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, the NY Post, etc. which are no one's idea of unsuccessful enterprises or liberal propaganda . If 30% of our citizens have received information that they don't need vaccines, they are obviously receiving it from very successful purveyors of crackpot anti-science in some media, somewhere. It ain't in the NY Times .

[bob turner]

Last time I bounced through here it seemed so full of hatred I bounced out, a bit ill.

The above few posts, including the one where the poster believes the election was rigged, are at least civil and respectful.

We do have a problem at hand - I personally believe we are headed for a rejection of democracy and the installation of the Trump family as leaders. I am 80, and believe I have seen the very best of the US - I have been privileged to see steam locomotives at work on main lines, to have flown the most advanced jet aircraft, and to have enjoyed essentially free (or affordable) higher education through four degrees. I will be "outta here" by the time the Trump family is firmly in control.

There is a chance that we survive as a republic (we never were a true democracy, or Trump would have never made it in the first place). That chance depends on education.

Study the issues. Read stuff from both sides (I have read all of Ann Coulter's stuff, and am into Boehner's book. I enjoy William F. Buckley's writing). Pay attention to what actually happened -

Or, read some history, and see how great, well-run, educated societies can go terribly wrong.

Good luck to your children. They will need it.