Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

"DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION
"SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, Democrat of California: “Unauthorized border crossings are at their lowest levels in decades, about one-third of their peak levels two decades ago. If there were an emergency, the president wouldn’t have waited two years to make this political decision.” — tweet Thursday.
"CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: “We are currently experiencing the lowest number of (illegal) border crossings since 1971.” — State of the State speech Tuesday.
"THE FACTS: They’re wrong in saying illegal crossings are the lowest in recent decades, based on Border Patrol arrests, the most widely used gauge. That was true in the 2017 budget year, when Border Patrol arrests along the Mexican border fell to 303,916, the smallest number since 1971. But arrests jumped 31 percent last year, to 396,579. And in the 2019 budget year, which started in October, southern border arrests nearly doubled through January, to 201,497 from 109,543 the same period a year earlier.
"Illegal crossings remain relatively low in historical terms but not as low as the Democrats said."
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-ap-top-news-china-texas-1445fa137db942d3a4771428f6a6b601

In other words, it wasn't "The Wall" which wasn't there that was responsible and there wasn't a reason to build it, that's the Democrats point!!
Read and comprehend the above AP news link.
Oh, and one other fact check you might want to understand:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/31/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-accurately-says-trump-administration-w/

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Actually I'm right behind you there in that list.  

Do you really think you're self aware?

Pardon me while I laugh out loud for a few minutes! 

You're as big a son of a bitch and as I've come across in my time.

The difference between the 2 of us, with respect to this issue is that I'm not a complete fraud.  What you see is what you get here.

"The difference between the 2 of us, with respect to this issue is that I'm not a complete fraud.  What you see is what you get here. "
It seems to me you're talking about yourself and Donald Trump...

"Biden administration to accelerate deportation flights for migrants in south Texas The Biden Administration is implementing a strategy to ramp up deportation flights for migrants in South Texas."
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it plans to secure additional transportation to “accelerate the pace and increase the capacity of removal flights” to Haiti within the next 72 hours."
"The plans come as Haitian migrants have crowded under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas,"
"The Biden administration has largely expelled migrants under Title 42, which allows federal agencies to expel  migrants for public health reasons. The administration is appealing a federal court ruling to exempt family units from Title 42."

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/department-of-homeland-security/572867-biden-administration-to-accelerate
Think will see that on MAGA media?

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

No thank you.....btw this is NOT a pandemic, we are past that and in the endemic phase in my opinion. There is enough evidence out there pointing to this being a seasonal thing much like the regular flu to assume that is probably the case. Watch and see.....the infection rate is looking like it is going to follow the seasons, the more time people spend indoors the higher the rate. Infection rates will fall when more time is spend outside and rise when more time is spent inside......Of course no one is admitting it yet.

And that's why we had a summer surge? Oh, I see, it's because people are inside with their air conditioners going, helping to spread it around. Oh, I see, we've also had and will have a winter surge when people are congregating inside with the heaters going because it's cold inside. Got it!
BTW, we passed the death count of the 1918 flu pandemic a couple of days ago...

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

What part of "No thank you" did you not understand? I will trust in the natural immunity afforded by having had it for the time being as from what I have read is far more effective than the vaccine. For that matter 2 life long friends died in the last week with covid and both had gotten the jab.....1 did have health issues that contributed to it (comorbidities I think it is called) but the other was healthy as a could be till covid hit him. 

While I'm sorry to hear that about your friends, do you know when they got vaccinated and when they got sick? Depending on the vaccine they got, it takes up to a month before it kicks in so while they may have been vaccinated, if they got sick sometime within a month after getting it, it may not have been long enough.

Originally Posted by James Brown

I thought about this aspect of Greg's post a lot last night.  I hesitated to say anything because he has friends who died.  That is rough.  Greg seems OK with discussing it though. 

The fact is that no immunity is 100% effective.  Neither natural immunity nor vaccine immunity.  Any immunity is a lot better than no immunity at all though.

We on the forum will probably never know who infected Greg's friends.  Was it some passerby, or a close family member?  Statistically, it is certainly more likely than not that the carriers who infected Greg's friends were not vaccinated and were in their own first round of Covid infection.   Maybe they were asymptomatic.   I think it is a shame that more people aren't choosing to get vaccinated, because it follows clearly that if more people were vaccinated, fewer like Greg's friends would get serious or fatal disease.

That is a conclusion I reach with sadness and some level of frustration, not anger.  Guilt messaging is ineffective.  I guess I have been applying pressure to people like Greg, because I think he should get vaccinated.  I'll retract that part of my earlier posts.  But Greg has articulated his reasons for not taking the jab, and I respect that.    

Jim

While I'm sorry to hear of Greg's vaccinated friends dying from covid, I believe there's more to the story than they were appropriately vaccinated, then contracted covid anyway and died. I can understand the circumstance of one of the victims being ill with reported comorbidities but I find it difficult to believe another individual, fully vaccinated and otherwise healthy, actually died from covid. I know that such individuals may get sick with breakthrough infections and may even end up hospitalized because the vaccine isn't perfect and, of course, nothing is, but I haven't seen or heard of vaccinated healthy persons actually dying from covid.  So, I've looked into it and here's what I've found:
"Do people die from COVID after getting the COVID-19 vaccine?
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests 99.999% of people who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 did not have a severe breakthrough case that led to hospitalization or death, CNN reports.
"Per the CDC, more than 166 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The new data suggests 1,507 people (about 0.0001%) of those fully vaccinated people died from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, 7,101 people of those fully vaccinated people (about 0.005%) were hospitalized from COVID-19."
"According to the CDC, most of the severe breakthrough cases — about 74% — had been among seniors who were 65 years or older, CNN reports.
About 20% of the people who died from COVID-19 after a breakthrough case died from something other than COVID-19, though they had a breakthrough case when they died, according to CNN."
https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/8/10/22618163/covid-deaths-vaccinated-data-how-many-die
In consideration of the above, there's a statistical possibility that Greg's otherwise healthy friend may have have died from covid despite being vaccinated even though the odds are exceedingly low. 
Beyond that, I remain skeptical of the degree of accuracy of the reporting by Greg that this is one of those cases based upon his following statements:
1. Greg doesn't think we're in a pandemic. We're in a GLOBAL pandemic and stating that we're in a endemic at this time is just plain wrong! And that's not splitting hairs here; there's literally a world of difference between the two!
2. Greg doesn't think the vaccine is a vaccine! I'd put that in the same category as people who believe the vaccine has somehow magnetized them or those who believe they're being connected to the 5G network so the government can track them! 
So, again, while I think it's unfortunate that any vaccinated person can possibly die from covid statistically speaking, it remains quite rare. My point is that, in lieu of the above in total, I'd want more information than what Greg has stated with regards to either of his vaccinated friends passing and especially the one who was stated to be otherwise healthy. 

Originally Posted by James Lacey

We know that it is safe with as much certainty as we ever could. If they were not safe tens of millions of people would be affected by now.

Except that they're magnetic and connected to the internet(5G)...

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

Ridiculous.....declaring something safe 2 years before the large scale trials are complete is wishful thinking. I hope with all my heart it turns out to be safe but claiming we know now is just plain stupid. Not even the government is willing to bet on it being safe at this point or they would not have disallowed lawsuits by those adversely affected.

If it is so safe then why are Congress, Congressional staffers, the judicial branch, white house staff, CDC employees, FDA employees, USPS employees, NAIAD employees, Pfizer employees, Moderna employees AND illegal aliens all exempt from Biden's vaccine mandates? 

The CDC says it's safe and effective. Don't believe them? John Hopkins says it's safe and effective. Don't believe them? The Mayo clinic says it's safe and effective. Don't believe them? Let's go international: the  state of Israel says it's safe and effective. Don't believe them? The UK says it's safe and effective. I could go on but you even you should begin to see the shining light...

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

So basically you are saying you are being just as stupid as James is......you do realize that basically what they are saying is "it looks like it is safe as far as we know now, we believe it is so you should too" with the trials 2 years from being over they damn sure dont KNOW it is safe.......this is not religion, it is not about faith, this is science and science is NOT based on faith, science is about what you can prove and we are not there yet.

The physicians and scientists are stating it's safe and effective based upon the science. Obviously, you can't connect the dots...

Originally Posted by Brian McFarland

Prove what, exactly?

That it needs to be 100% safe?  That will never happen.
That the risk associated with getting the vaccine is safer than the risk associated with contracting Covid? We are way past proving that.

What exactly are you arguing? Please tell me you aren't arguing that getting Covid is less risky than getting the vaccine. Or contracting Covid is a better way of immunizing yourself against Covid than getting the vaccine in order to.... wait for it..... keep from getting Covid??? LOL

Well, I guess that craziness is pervasive in the hard core Republican right: here's the Kraken lady lawyer claiming that Democrats killed former Georgia Kelly Loeffler's aide by blowing him up in his car (he died in a multi-vehicle car crash): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UeydmjZXZE
It's no wonder they don't believe in covid vaccinations...