Free Republic

Masks - paper and fabric, including those urged to be reserved for medical personnel, provide, at best, minimal protection to the wearer. But masks have the potential to protect people near you from being exposed to material that you would have spread through your own mouth or nose.

I’m glad you find enough to conclude Sen. Cruz is one of the good guys, You don’t actually say you think he meets the “natural born citizen” requirement for President, but you seem to infer it. Just because I don’t think it possible that Sen. Cruz is eligible to serve as President of the United States, do you include me as one of those FReepers who have, as you call it, a hard on for Cruz?

We need to elect many more folks who understand such fundamental American principles as freedom of religion. For most of my life, I tried to identify which of the candidates would be the best for the job. In 2007, a Freeper named Alan Keyes persuaded me of a better approach: bring my own minimum standard for support to bear before evaluating candidates. If none of the existing candidates meet your personal minimum standard, do what you can to raise up one who does. I’ll be happy to work with you to help talk up this approach in your state.

As a radiation protection technician at commercial nuclear power plants, one of the things I got to do was evaluate how various worker behavior affected the “protection factor” achieved by them wearing a full-face mask respirator. We used an 0.2-micron aerosol and were able to measure the effect on protection factor associated with actions such as talking, grimacing, twisting, etc. None of the plants I worked at would let a worker take credit for respirator use if his or her protection factor fell below 50 at any stage of the evaluation. We only tested full face masks, which provide much better facial seal than any paper mask. Someone who wears a paper mask may occasionally get some tiny protection factor, but I suspect most wearers never receive any sustained protection. So when I see most people wearing paper masks, I attribute any purported benefit to some other factor.

I don’t know much about Mike Adams. I’ve listened to him as a guest and guest host maybe a dozen hours or so in recent months on Alex Jones show. It’s true enough that you haven’t made nearly so good an impression in these few posts here as Adams has made on me with his commentary and I love the free spreadsheet tool that lets you check the effect of changing various variables including one you emphasize. I recall him writing about health-related matters on his Health Ranger website many years ago. I think the first time I heard him on Alex Jones was when he was discussing his lab company’s test results that showed Alex Jones’ gravity-feed water purification product was quite effective in eliminating fluoride.

You say it's ridiculous to say that millions could be killed here. Have you done ANY calculations using ANY assumptions for the appropriate variables? Mike Adams has made a spreadsheet-based tool available that allows you to modify your assumptions and see how those changes affect the number of cases and deaths here. In an article announcing version 2 of the tool, he notes that "One piece of good news in this projection is that if you enter an R0 value of 2.4, and use a social distancing suppression value of 25%, there are only 1.1 million deaths in the USA by July 4th." I'm not so bothered that you don't agree with my claim that President Trump's travel restrictions have likely prevented millions of deaths here just looking ahead to May. After that first press conference, I was disappointed that the President didn't criticize our public health officials for the still stunningly poor testing. The Mike Adams quote above and this link to his spreadsheet-based model http://www.pandemic.news/PPM-Adams-Rev-2.zip is from a March 10 article at Infowars.

Death rate is important, but not at all the only important factor. If Ebola victim dies before spreading the virus, it’s tragic enough for the victim, but not nearly so bad as if the virus had been spread to many others. The fact that people can be carriers of coronovirus, for weeks, makes it different. From a public health perspective, is it better to have 100 Ebola cases or 10,000 coronavirus cases? Well, a month later, those hundred Ebola cases may be down to zero or close to it, but the 10,000 coronavirus cases may have increased to millions of cases. The restrictions on air travel to US from China and Europe is absolutely life-saving here - perhaps millions of avoided deaths here just by May.

No, thanks.

You say “... Trump is never inaccurate...”. That doesn’t seem, uh, accurate, even if you only count the insulting comments. For example, one of my favorite moments in the 2016 GOP debates was when candidate Trump excoriated the others for seeking campaign contributions from him over the years. That part was good enough, but former Gov. Huckabee’s immediate response that he never sought Donald Trump’s contribution was a clear example of Trump being inaccurate in even an insult.

President Trump seems firmly convinced that he can and will do socialism better, much better, than the Democrats. Do you recall Trump’s reaction to the court opinion out of Texas which concluded that Obamacare’s “mandate” was unconstitutional? Sen. Sanders is wrong on virtually everything, but he’s right in noting that we’re already immersed in governmental socialism here.

It's a pleasure to meet you. I don't advocate citizenship for the unborn. To be included in the Constitution's guarantee that no person shall be deprived of their life without due process, one need not be a citizen. The President swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution. His obligation is not at all limited to protecting US citizens.

Can the President do anything to support and defend the Constitution in this regard without exceeding his authority? Yes. For example, he could veto any proposed law which says it's ok to kill some. people without due process. All recent presidents, including President Trump, have signed such bills into law.

Can the President do much more than just use the veto power to support and defend the Constitution in this regard? Yes, even if the President doesn't use the type of authority invoked by President Eisenhower during the Alabama, uh, intervention. President Trump last year tweeted that he (and only he, he claimed), knows how to stop abortion. He didn't provide any more details, but he's not the only person who's addressed the ability to abolish abortion from being performed under color of law. In 2012 and 2016, I supported a candidate for president who campaigned on his plan to uphold his oath of office and what he'd do, starting on first day of office, to quickly stop both surgical abortions and the widespread use of abortifacient drugs. Tom Hoefling was that candidate's name. He hasn't been so active on FreeRepublic in recent years, but his screen name here is EternalVigilance.

You mention judicial, legislative and public interest considerations. In this discussion, I'd like to emphasize that each government official - in executive, legislative or judicial branches - swears the oath to support and defend the Constitution. When it comes to the chief executive of any jurisdiction, such as president or governor, they can shut down abortion in their jurisdiction even if every court disagrees and even if most of the legislature is ok with depriving some persons of their lives without due process.

Hah - and tho I didn’t name you, when I spoke of “even the vilest here” or some such, I might well have been including you, even before learning your new disclosure here that you are a “stalker” sort.

I never aspired to wringing anyone's tail, either. As to whether you were one of the tens of millions who voted for Romney in 2012, my point was that many here were amongst them, and those who expressed any criticism of Romney here then were subjected to the same type of ostracism that Trumpeters liberally apply these days. I do include you in that current group, uh, Ms. Skippy.

Do you recall President Trump tweeting that he (and only he, he emphasized, by the way) knows how to stop abortion? He was pretty short on details. He didn't mention anything about having to drain the entire swamp first. That seems like a lot of waiting at the cost of thousands of persons a day being deprived of their lives without due process.

Are more Trump-appointed Justices the answer? I urge even the vilest here not to hold their breath in anticipation. American Right to Life has long offered a nice reward for evidence that even one sitting member of the Supreme Court thinks an unborn child has the right to life.

I gladly confess to being ignorant as to why you said abrogating the oath of office was not an impeachable offense. That’s why I asked you that question. Your choice to not answer the question, but to instead engage in insult is enough to tell our fellow FReepers that I would indeed be a putz to expect anything better from you. I have no further questions for you.

I've had no aspiration to ring your tail (I never even thought about you having a tail). A commenter here made what seemed a clear exaggeration of President Trump's pro-life record. I wrote in sincere disagreement. You're free to disparage my opinion, but I am curious why you focus on what I may or may not discuss about how law is made.

I suspect you agree that Article VI of the Constitution specifies what are to be considered the highest laws of the land. If so, we have at least that understanding in common. I also suspect you agree that Amendments 5 and 14 are clear in stating that no person shall be deprived of their life without due process. If so, we have the basis for a discussion about the unconstitutional practice of abortion and use of abortifacient drugs, and the things that a President can do to support and defend the Constitution in this matter.

I'm 65 years old. I left the Republican Party in 2008 and have seen no reason to return. Some of the Republicans here today are surely flummoxed that their presidential nominee in 2012, whom they enthusiastically supported then, is in their "doghouse" with this week's impeachment votes. You speak of embarrassment, and I defer to your expertise on the subject in asking how embarrassed those who supported Romney in 2012 and Trump today should be?

Here's the link with all the hits for "dissolved" - https://www.govinfo.gov/app/search/%7B%22query%22%3A%22dissolved%22%2C%22offset%22%3A0%7D

I searched Congressional Record archives for “dissolved” - it seemed to be commonly used when ending joint “sessions” or joint “meetings” of House and Senate.

I don't pretend to know whether Barack Obama was eligible to serve as President or not, but any one of the Senators or Reps could have raised a point of information or some such on the day they counted the Electoral College votes and asked the simple question: "Is this person eligible to be President?" None of them did what they could have, on the one day it would have mattered, to support and defend the Constitution in this matter. It was that day that I first realized that NO incumbent in Congress had kept their oath of office. I haven't voted to re-elect an incumbent federal office-holder since.

Some claim that Obama can't be a natural-born citizen because his father was a Kenyan. Well, why must we believe his father was the Kenyan? If his biological father WAS an American, as at least one investigator insists, then this argument falls.

Others claim that Obama can't be a natural-born citizen because he was born in Kenya. The best evidence for this claim seems to be an audio recording of his purported Kenyan paternal grandmother answering the pretty straight forward question of whether she was present when Obama was born in Mombasa. Even this best evidence seems insufficient to conclude that we know he was born outside the country.

If McCain hadn't had his own eligibility problems, maybe he would have elevated the eligibility question during the 2008 campaign. Donald Trump's brief foray into this matter before the 2012 election started strong, but Mr. Trump folded like a cheap suit when that Hawaii birth certificate image was introduced into the public arena.

Places change. I fondly recall the feeling of “belonging” here during FreeRepublic’s earlier days, even long before I “joined” (I did that to participate in the March for Justice event on the Mall in DC). One of the speakers at that event was Dr. Alan Keyes. I went on to support him for President in 2008, first as a Republican and then as an independent, and finally as the nominee of a new party. One of his ideas that really made sense to me was that each of us ought to know our personal minimum standard for supporting any candidate. Fellow FReeper EternalVigilance echoed that theme and I was delighted to support him for President in 2012 and 2016. I don’t see any presidential candidates from Ds or Rs for 2020 who measure up, so I expect to again do what I can to help raise up someone who does.

I appreciate a pithy comment. Imagine the good you could do with your talent if you weren’t so wrong!