Tag Archives : News

Comment on UNM weighs COVID-19 vaccination mandate to return to campus by labraham_incoln

I support requiring vaccines. It can get students back in school to resume real learning sooner without risking another outbreak. However, there may be an issue with this since it is requiring individuals to give information about their medical history. I think it is reasonable however, since its only a small part of one’s medical history, and is just a yes or no on whether one has been vaccinated, not detailed personal information. We all got vaccine cards after getting vaccinated, so it would be very simple and convenient to check for this. This also offers incentive to more people to get vaccinated so they can return to campus, which is a good thing.

Source: US Government Class

Comment on UNM weighs COVID-19 vaccination mandate to return to campus by SuddenlyPineaples

I believe that a requirement vaccine is a smart thing to do. Having the majority of people on campus vaccinated would allow students to return to classes as normal and would provide a safe working environment for both students and staff. However, I am curious about what they would consider “special accommodations”. I would hope that it would be a more difficult process to get those accommodations so that people can’t cheat their way in without getting a vaccine.

Source: US Government Class

Comment on UNM weighs COVID-19 vaccination mandate to return to campus by i.am.a.brick.

I believe the requirement is reasonable for students, teachers, and staff to return to campus for the fall semester. However, “a reasonable accommodation” may have its negatives. I can understand how it gives the people some type of freedom if they have some sort of negative thing happening to them, like being allergic to a specific item in the vaccine, however, there may be people who will not have a good reason to avoid the vaccine, or those who could be in danger of the vaccine may not have a good enough reason for schools to accommodate them. What is a “reasonable accommodation?” What resonates as a “reasonable accommodation” and what doesn’t?

Source: US Government Class

Comment on UNM weighs COVID-19 vaccination mandate to return to campus by TDbaseball

I think that there should not be a vaccine mandate at any university. If you were denied of getting your education that you paid for, or earned through scholarships, because of something you don’t feel comfortable getting how would you feel? Online school might be the option for them, but I also think that online school is 10 times harder to learn from.

Source: US Government Class

Comment on UNM weighs COVID-19 vaccination mandate to return to campus by NotMeLol

I think it’s a good idea to require people to get the vaccine and show up to in person school. Teachers are going to be able to go back to teaching the way they were before, and the students will be able to experience all that college has to offer.

Source: US Government Class

UNM weighs COVID-19 vaccination mandate to return to campus

Santa Fe New Mexican – The University of New Mexico may require students and staff to be vaccinated for COVID-19 to return to campus in the fall.

Source: US Government Class

Facebook Oversight Board upholds Trump suspension but orders company to review

CBS News – The Facebook Oversight Board on Wednesday upheld the suspension of former President Donald Trump’s account, four months after Facebook suspended him following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Source: US Government Class

Intel plans to invest $3.5 billion to modernize New Mexico plant

Santa Fe New Mexican – RIO RANCHO — How big was it?

Source: US Government Class

Biden’s 1st 100 Days: A Look By The Numbers

NPR –  As far as artificial milestones go, few dates seem to carry as much weight as a new president’s 100th day in office. It’s a date that former Obama adviser David Axelrod once referred to as a “Hallmark holiday.” In other words, it gets lots of attention but has no actual significance.

For better or worse, marking the first 100 days has become a time-honored tradition in Washington. For that, President Biden has Franklin D. Roosevelt to thank. Over the course of his first 100 days in office, FDR not only helped shore up a rapidly deteriorating banking system — helping to bring an end to the Great Depression — but also laid much of the groundwork for what would become the New Deal.

Presidents have been measured by the 100-day standard ever since. As Biden inches closer to crossing the milestone on Thursday, here is a look at where he stands on nine key benchmarks.

Bills signed into law: 11

When it comes to a yardstick for measuring a president’s first 100 days, political scientists will say to focus on the significance of the bills the president signs, not the number. In part, that’s because the first 100 days have become far less productive on the legislative front for modern presidents since the high-water mark of 76 laws set by FDR. Biden’s early record is a case in point for this theory. The 11 bills he has signed into law are among the fewest for any newly elected president dating back to FDR. At the same time, if there is one piece of legislation that Biden’s first 100 days will be remembered for, it will be the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed in March.

Executive orders: 42

While Biden may be lagging his predecessors on the number of bills he has signed, he’s far outpacing them on executive orders. Biden has issued 42 to date, more than any president going back to Harry Truman. He may have campaigned on bringing bipartisanship back to Washington, but much of his early focus at least has been on policies he can implement on his own, such as measures to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, requiring masks on federal property and continuing a ban on evictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump orders reversed: 62

Executive action has also been a way for Biden to make good on promises to undo some of his predecessor’s most controversial policies. He has recommitted the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement, halted the U.S. exit from the World Health Organization and paused construction of the border wall. It’s not exactly shocking that a new Democratic president is undoing the policies of his Republican predecessor — it’s what Biden campaigned on after all. What’s notable is the pace at which Biden is working. Through April 23, he had undone 62 out of 219 orders signed by former President Donald Trump, according to the American Presidency Project.

Trump, by comparison, reversed 12 of former President Barack Obama’s orders in his first 100 days but managed to roll back over a dozen more regulations in the early months of his presidency through use of the Congressional Review Act. Because of the way the law is written, Democrats have only a narrow window of time within which to use it. But even without the CRA, Biden’s use of executive action has already allowed him to undo more than twice as many orders in his first 100 days as the last three presidents combined.

Biden’s job approval rating in the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey clocked in at 53% — his highest since taking office. He is already more popular than Trump was on any day of his presidency, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, but his job approval is generally below where most recent presidents have been at this point in their first term. That appears in large part to be a result of increased polarization — 93% of Democrats approve of the job Biden is doing versus only 12% of Republicans. Given that divide, the question is, how much can his numbers move in either direction? While Trump may have left office with the lowest approval rating of any modern-day president, his numbers held more or less steady over his four years in office. Unless partisan tensions ease dramatically, Biden could be on course for a similar trajectory.

Unemployment: 6%

U.S. employers have added more than 1.2 million jobs since Inauguration Day, and while that is certainly welcome news inside the White House, nearly 10 million Americans are still out of work and the jobless rate is stuck about 2.5 points higher than it was before the pandemic. To be sure, most economic conditions are beyond a president’s control, so it can be tough to assign too much credit or blame to whoever’s in office, especially 100 days in. But the strength of the recovery will nonetheless continue to frame the debate around the president’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan — a plan he says is all about jobs.

COVID-19 cases: down 73%

Biden has made confronting the coronavirus his administration’s top priority, but no president in modern history has taken office amid a global health crisis on the scale of what he inherited on Jan 20. Under Biden, new daily cases have dropped from an average of more than 199,000 in the week leading up to his inauguration to about 54,400 cases today — a 73% drop. While that progress has won Biden high marks for his handling of the pandemic, cases have been slowly creeping back up as newer, more virulent strains of the virus have grown more dominant.

Americans vaccinated: 140 million

At the center of the administration’s plan to end the public health crisis is the push to get as many shots into arms as quickly as possible. And if there has been one theme on that front, it has been to underpromise and overdeliver. Biden took office promising 100 million vaccine shots by his 100th day, but after reaching that target on Day 58, he upped the goal to 200 million. He hit that figure last week. Biden similarly set May 1 as the deadline for when all adults would be eligible to receive a vaccine but then moved that target up to April 19. As of Monday, more than 230 million vaccines have been administered. More than 139 million people, or about 54% of the adult population, have received at least one dose, while more than 95 million, or about 37% of the adult population, are now fully vaccinated.

Judicial nominations: 11

Biden has made 11 nominations to the federal bench, but he has a long way to go if he hopes to match the more than 220 judges who won confirmation as part of a historic overhaul of the judiciary under Trump. Biden’s staff says filling judicial vacancies is a top priority, but his window may be a narrow one. If Republicans win back the Senate in next year’s midterm elections, Biden will in all likelihood face the same roadblocks that kept Obama from filling more seats. There are currently 77 vacancies for Biden to fill, plus another 27 judges who’ve announced they will step down or take “senior status” in the next few months.

Tweets: 589

As a candidate, Biden said the U.S. needed a president who would lower the temperature in Washington. On Twitter at least, he appears to be doing just that. Since taking office, Biden’s @POTUS account is averaging about six tweets per day. Compare that with Trump, who by one count spent more than nine full days of his presidency on Twitter. Until Trump’s account was permanently suspended in January, in fact, Trump tweeted more than 26,000 times as president, or roughly 18 times per day.

Source: US Government Class

Winners and losers from first release of 2020 census data

AP – More than a year since the 2020 census began in a remote Alaska village, the first numbers to emerge from the nation’s once-a-decade head count were released on Monday, showing how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state is getting based on its population.

Because the number of seats in the House of Representatives is set at 435, it’s a zero-sum game with one state’s gain resulting in another state’s loss — like a pie with uneven slices. As one state gets a larger slice because of population gains, that means a smaller slice for a state that lost population or didn’t grow as much.

Here’s a look at the 13 states that will gain or lose political power — and federal money — through the apportionment process because of changes in population over the past decade:

THE WINNERS

TEXAS — The Longhorn State is the big winner, adding two congressional seats courtesy of 4 million new residents. Demographers say people moving from other states like California have contributed a significant chunk of the growth. The nation’s second most populous state will now have 38 congressional representatives, behind only California.

FLORIDA — The nation’s third most populous state adds one congressional seat because of a population gain of more than 2.7 million. This boosts its House delegation to 28 and Electoral College votes to 30, furthering the Sunshine State’s importance in presidential elections.

COLORADO — Population growth around Denver helped Colorado gain an extra seat, its first new House seat in 20 years. The mostly college-educated transplants have helped Colorado go from being a solidly Republican state to a competitive swing state to, now, a solidly Democratic one — though the state’s districts will be drawn by a nonpartisan commission.

MONTANA — By gaining a congressional seat, Montana goes from having a single House representative to having two. The gain marks a rebound for Montana, which had two congressional seats for most of the 20th century but lost one after the 1990 census.

NORTH CAROLINA — Fueled by retirees and job seekers, North Carolina’s population boom is earning it an extra seat, raising its House count to 14. The gains have been concentrated in the Charlotte and Raleigh areas.

OREGON — Oregon is getting a new congressional seat for the first time in 40 years, going from five House members to six. Although Democrats control state government, they have agreed to give up their advantage in redrawing the state’s political districts for the next 10 years in exchange for a commitment from Republicans to stop blocking bills.

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THE LOSERS

CALIFORNIA — While California is still the nation’s most populous state, its stagnant growth over the past decade causes it to lose a single seat for the first time in 170 years of statehood. Its number of House members goes from 53 to 52 for a state that has been a symbol of limitless growth and endless possibilities since the Gold Rush of the 1800s.

ILLINOIS — Illinois goes from 18 to 17 House members, continuing a 40-year streak of losing congressional seats.

MICHIGAN — The number of House members representing Michigan drops from 14 to 13, particularly because of population losses in the Upper Peninsula.

NEW YORK — There was no question New York was going to lose a congressional seat, but the suspense lay in whether it would be one or two seats. The Census Bureau says New York lost its seat by a mere 89 people. The loss of one seat reduces its House delegation from 27 to 26 members.

OHIO — Sluggish population growth over the past decade causes Ohio to lose a single congressional seat, continuing its streak of losses every decade since 1960. The adjustment reduces the Buckeye State’s House seats from 16 to 15.

PENNSYLVANIA — Although Pennsylvania remains an important presidential battleground, its influence will be diminished by the loss of one Electoral College vote. Its House delegation drops from 18 to 17 members.

WEST VIRGINIA — A decadeslong exodus of residents finally causes West Virginia to lose a congressional seat, reducing its representation in the House from three to two members.

Source: US Government Class