348 Comments

Hopefully, the effective governing that President Biden has done, and will continue to do as much as possible, will overshadow the screeching lies and faux issues of the feckless Republicans. He has truly been the leader we needed at an inflection point.

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Bolsonaro must go. As a Floridian, I can testify to the fact that our quota of fascists, dictators, and dictator wannabes is more than satisfied.

Truly hoping people see and hear the truth of how this administration is actually accomplishing things for we, the people versus the incessant “blah blah” from the GOP.

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It’s great to think about putting Bolsonaro behind bars, but what about our OWN ex-president who is running free with a thousand crimes for which he is not being prosecuted....

Great that Biden is touting his accomplishments and calling out the nay-sayer Repugnants. They are the most useless humans I have ever seen in my 73 years. I stand ready to fight them to the finish, whatever that may be.

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Thank you Heather.

It's baffling how little press President Biden receives for his speeches.

Is it caused by poor directive from the White House or censoring from the press? Both?

He makes me think of the co-worker you rarely hear from, but gets his/her job done everyday.

Be safe. Be well.

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Cancel Bolsonaro's visa and expel him.

Quiverin' Qevin (R-Okiefornia) hasn't got the brains to find his ass with both hands on a clear day with a two hour advance notice.

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Hard to deny the Trump/Eastman playbook to attempt to overthrow democracy was imitated in Brazil with a similar unachieved goal. Bolsonaro may be the only person planning to "be a tourist" in the USA - the rest of the world is being warned about the extreme violence prevalent throughout the mainland with more guns than people, daily mass shootings, and systemic racism.

Rather than the GOP & Fox propaganda of "open borders," the Biden/Harris administration is demonstrating the adage "if your tub is overflowing, first turn off the spigot." By identifying and addressing some of the causes of immigration, they are attempting to "fight with one hand tied behind their backs" as the GOP continues to complain but not cooperate to address a broken system that obviously needs reform.

Similarly, the disingenuous claims that nothing can be done to reduce gun violence or police brutality as the body count continues to climb and more hashtags mount demonstrate the GOP is incapable of governing and instead are a big part of the underlying problem. The GOP also appears deaf to the keening of grieving families.

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Important that President Biden was in Baltimore celebrating the bipartisan infrastructure law. A huge and successful investment for the people, for jobs, the economy, traffic control, the future. And built with Union Labor. Biden and the Democrats must continue to inform and use their megaphones and billboards to show the citizens of America bipartisan negotiations and governing work. The Democrats get it done. While the repubs waste precious time and resources on investigations, obstruction, abortion, debt, crime and more that would continue without them. Sometimes it seems we are stuck in rerun mode, the Democrats build and the repubs tear down.

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Sad to note that Biden's speeches are getting so little press. Hope the State of the Union gets the point across. It definitely needs to be a barn burner but I bet the Republicans will pull some kind of disrespectful stunt that will take the focus.

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Tourists from Brazil receive 30day visas. Never heard of >30 given to anyone else as tourist. However, Bolsonaro (or "Bozo" as opposition calls him in Brazil) is in FL and has the Orange Supreme around the corner, but I hope he is kicked out of the US, sooner the better.

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Let’s make a deal: we’ll keep Bolsonaro if Brazil takes OUR American wannabe dictator, tax evader, small-handed faux news manipulator!

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This is such good news about Biden taking tours of the progress of his various projects that are beginning to unfold. Positive stuff the American people will feel for some time to come. It's hard to build things up but easy to tear stuff down. The supremacists continue to drag their fingernails across the chalkboard while Biden is giving the average citizen what is needed in order to move forward. Thank you for your observations Dr Richardson.

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My wife & I debate constantly about whether or not there are enough commonsense fact based Americans to keep our Ship of State from capsizing as too many race to the top deck rails looking for the sea monsters and edge of the flat earth that their leaders and media tell them about.

Am reading Steve Pinker's book "Enlightenment Now: The case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress". And hoping for some hope. The book promises some optimism with endless data that life on the planet is improving, that we simply have too many ignoring the progress and wishing for times that are provably worse. Pinker's thesis also seems to be that entropy is toward chaos, and that all human improvement to organize life for the better has been the terrific effort to push back on chaos with order through understanding and intelligent improvement, project by project. But that ordering effort can also be pursued by creating myths which of course does more for the myth makers.

Biden clearly stands on the side of reason leading to actual progress. Republicans with their new poster child, George Santos, falls on the side of myth making.

Pinker reminds us that Sam Rayburn, former Democratic House Leader in the 1950s, once said "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one."  Can enough Americans distinguish between jackasses and carpenters?

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thanks as always for a level-headed, clear view of our world today. While fraught with dis-ease at so many levels of our government and our society, there remains the steadfast undercurrent of common sense and reasonableness that must be the foundation of our way forward.

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I'm not sure all those Republican congressmen and congressmen have consulted their actuarials regarding Social Security and Medicare. The burden of these entitlement programs are particular to their rules, but also the population demographic, which changes from year to year. the Medicare python has stretched to swallow the baby-boomer pig, pretty much has it handled, since 1964, the last birth-year of the boomers plus 65 years of age adds up to 2029, the last boomer year to enter Medicare eligibility. Each subsequent cohort will be smaller, both from the size of the class (each subsequent year's births began declining) and attrition (those who didn't make it to 65). Then, there's the death rate. Longevity in America was increasing, but took a major hit (800,000 excess deaths in the senior cohort over actuarial predictions) in addition to some leveling in the longevity benefits of advancing health care and technology. We largely kicked smoking as a society a while back (down to 15% of adults), so there isn't much more longevity benefit to beat out of that horse. We have the capacity to use early detection and prevention in cancer and heart disease to increase longevity, but our lack of a true health care SYSTEM where everyone gets those services hampers our ability to prevent premature death due to the dominant diseases of advancing age. We can't leverage these advances when many don't, won't or can't participate. More deaths benefits both Medicare and Social Security, since the primary benefits stop and spousal/survivor benefits are reduced. A decreasing birthrate either has already or will soon begin to reduce the entry rate in these programs. The impact of COVID on the health care system itself will have a negative effect on longevity as access to care will be impacted by mass defection from the industry by veteran caregivers who are abandoning ship. Medicare could become far more efficient if it were engineered to assist the advanced elderly with regard to what they really want, rather than simply extending life; focus instead on social independence and care security, rather than high tech medical intervention at very advanced ages. The other obvious solution to solvency, increasing contribution rates, is off the agenda of the GOP because it means taxation. Our societal conversation needs to be more about living well in advanced age rather than living increasingly longer. There are plenty of ways to favorably impact the cost of these systems other than restricting access, but sadly, such innovations require some investment rather than simply spending cuts. Our GOP isn't in the mood to talk investment. Their mantra is less taxes, even less spending, stop worrying about the marginalized and least secure sectors of our society. Why this somehow is sucessfully twisted into a populist message that appeals to the less educated caucasian MAGA adherents defies me, but then I basically don't get irrationality as a world view. It's gonna be a season of silly non-dialogue over there in the district. I'm actually more interested in the minority agenda and their ability to coax the most moderate in the GOP to cross the isle and co-sponsor more reasonable legislation.

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"Actually governing is a lot harder than talking about it."

A lot harder and a lot more work. Republicans offer only stagecraft where what is sorely needed is statecraft.

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Thanks for the synopsis Heather. Hope you are still enjoying your travels.

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