@#16 ... So any police office who carries a taser gets to shoot and kill anyone, and get away with it, at least as far as criminal charges, by yelling "taser" before killing the person? ...

That view has crossed my mind...

From the tweet in the summary...

..."I can confirm that the President Of The United States does not spend his time tweeting conspiracy theories. He spends his time working for the American people."...

That was pretty close to the wording that came to my mind as I read Sen Cornyn's, ummm, concern about Pres Biden's tweets.

Sometimes I wonder if, as he saw those words leaving his mouth, he wished he could pull them back inside...

Of crouse, the more frightening aspect of what he said is that it shows that Sen Cornyn considers fmr Pres Trump's tweets as being informative and helpful.

@#19

But Sen McConnell is a very business-friendly person. So long as the businesses are donating to Republicans.

My view is that it is worse than an "accidental discharge" and that that appellation diminishes what happened.

To me, an "accidental discharge" occurs when you have a gun in your hand, you know you have a gun in your hand, but the guns goes off accidentally.

In this instance, the officer was not even aware of holding a gun.

@#2 ... Why do they need more? ...

My guess would be because some (many? most?) the residents of Michigan refuse to use mitigation techniques, and want more vaccine to compensate.

I agree with, "...Masking will help lower the spread. But vaccines are ultimately needed to combat the virus....," but until there is plenty of vaccine to go around, the current recommendation seems to be to ~lower the spread.~

More from the article...

...Shutdowns are needed to control the spike in cases, not more vaccine, said Rochelle Walensky, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a Monday news briefing.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a separate briefing that the administration is "not in a place, nor will we be, where we take supply from one state to give them to another"...

... She says there was no widespread fraud and that her own party is attacking her for refusing to "put my thumb on the scale of democracy." Barbara Cegavske, the only Republican statewide office holder in Nevada ...

A pretty good summary, that she gave there.

At this point, a substantial number of Republicans are beginning to look like cry-babies who throw temper-tantrums (and worse, e.g. Jan 6) when the election does not go their way.

Such leadership abilities they are showing.

@#3 ... In any case, there is a real need for civil forfeiture to be looked at and rule on. ...

Yup.

@#5 ... Better question is how could somebody vote for a person so lacking in character ...

I cut the citation of your comment off in mid-sentence, because I thought the second half was superfluous.

I had been aware of citizen Trump from his escapades in the New York City area.

Since the late 1980's, early 1990's or so, I had read and heard about him on local media. I knew of his abysmal lack of character even before he rode down the escalator.

I tried warning during the summer of the 2016 campaign.

Quite frankly, I was surprised his presidency wasn't worse than it was.

That it turned out as well as it did, can probably be credited to the aides around him who tried to keep him within the guard rails.

More from the article...

...Driving the news: The British variant is driving another surge in cases in Michigan, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has resisted reimposing any of the lockdown measures she embraced earlier in the pandemic.

• Variants are beginning to infect more kids, even as schools are on the fast track back to reopening, making the pandemic "a brand new ball game," as University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm recently put it.
  
• New research confirms that our existing vaccines don't work as well against the South African variant.
  

Between the lines: This is a preview of the longer, darker coronavirus future the U.S. may face without sufficient vaccinations " one that many experts see as pretty likely.

• Although the pace of vaccinations is still strong, there's a growing fear that it's about to slow down. In some parts of the country, particularly the South, demand for shots has already slowed down enough to create a surplus of available doses.
  

How it works: The more widely a virus can spread, the more opportunities it has to mutate. If the U.S. and ultimately the world don't vaccinate a sufficient percentage of the population, we'll be setting ourselves up to let the virus keep spreading, and keep mutating, continuing to give us new variants that will continue to pose new threats....

@#4

That's pretty much the opinion I have.

Any backlash by the corporations against the GOP will live only so long as is needed to quell public discontent.

Yet another view...

Another view...

... what Trump says was a failure to fight harder to help overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. ... ,/i>

a.k.a., fealty to fmr Pres Trump, the man, and not to the Constitution.

More from the article

...Boehner spoke of the rise of hyper-partisan lawmakers who reject any compromise as weakness or selling out, and how it undermined his ability to make deals with the Obama administration when he was Speaker.

"Some of these members, I'm not quite sure what they're for. They're against everything," he said, adding that "when you're in the majority party, you've got a responsibility to govern, not just make noise."

Referring to Jordan, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, he said, "I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart -- never building anything, never putting anything together," he said.

Cruz, Boehner said, was the "perfect symbol, you know, of -- getting elected, make a lot of noise, draw a lot of attention to yourself, raise a lot of money, which means you're gonna go make more noise, raise more money."...

More from the article.

...Meanwhile, recent wildfires in California and Oregon and freezing temperatures in Texas had increased the number of homes needing to be built and limited domestic supply....

Those darn space lasers...

@#2 ... The video is underwhelming ...

Oh, c'mon ... look at those cool lights with the changing colors! /s

... why not install busses or trams? ...

I guess when the "high-capacity" Teslas arrive, they will be like trams. I just hope they are open-top so the riders can enjoy that cool light show. Maybe upgrade the light show to Laserium at some point, and play Pink Floyd music via a sound system in the Tesla....

More from the article...

...Despite Musk's claim that the loop is "way more profound than it sounds," the system may not live up to all the hype.

It is meant to shuttle up to 4,400 passengers per hour, but documents obtained by TechCrunch in October show that the $52.5 million loop may only be able to accommodate 1,200 people due to fire regulations. And although The Boring Company has said it plans to service its tunnels with self-driving, high-capacity Tesla vehicles, the LVCC Loop is starting out with normal Teslas that require drivers.

Detractors say that makes The Boring Company's projects little more than reinvented subways with significantly less passenger capacity.

Critics also point out that The Boring Company's noble aim of building congestion-alleviating tunnels under cities worldwide ignores the phenomenon of induced demand, which says that more roadways -- even underground ones -- will give way to more cars. ...

@#6 ... he had gotten a taste of what the unobstructed power of the presidency afforded him and didn't want to let that go. ...

Power corrupts.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Yet another example of the people who self-selected to determine the outcome of the 2020 election.

The Manhattan DA is really ratcheting up pressure...

@#10 ... Inside of 1400 miles driving is usually the better option. ...

I'd proffer that using that "1400 miles" metric as the approximate target replacement by trains, instead of air travel, may be a better goal.

When I was in The Netherlands on business back in a prior life, it amazed me just how well the train system there worked.

When I travel by airplane, I allocate three hours to get to the airport, and then I have to be at the airport at least an hour before my flight.

That's getting close to 5 hours wasted before I even reach the gate area for the flight.

Give another hour before the flight departs... close to six hours.

Depending upon the traveling I need to do, going by train looks a lot better at times.