Ronald Reagan was the first president in the modern age who truly understood the importance of television cameras and snappy one-liners to advance his political agenda. This wasn't that big a surprise, seeing as how he had been a minor Hollywood movie actor and learned the impact of visual presence on the screen at an early age. He used this to great advantage both in his campaigns for president and, once he won, in the Oval Office itself. And one of his best lines was a take on a very old joke. Reagan was fond of summarizing his antipathy towards "big government" with the following quip: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help!'"

As mentioned, this wasn't an original thought, it was actually the punchline to a common joke: "What are the three biggest lies in Western civilization?" The first two answers (in case there's anyone out there who hasn't heard this before) are: "I'll respect you in the morning," and: "The check is in the mail." That last one shows how dated the joke truly is, as younger readers might have to have the concept of "check" (if not "mail") explained to them.

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In all the discussion over how to convince unvaccinated Americans to get vaccinated, I have noticed one suggestion popping up repeatedly -- but always down in the comments, never proposed by any pundit or politician (that I am aware of, at least). It's a simple and elegant answer to the problem, although I have no idea whether it could actually be legally implemented or not. Or if it should, for that matter. The idea? If you choose not to get vaccinated, then your health insurance company should inform you that you will not be covered if you get it and are hospitalized. Your insurance would still work for all other ailments and treatments, but not for COVID-19.

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In the midst of all the excruciating (and completely unnecessary) delaying tactics Senate Republicans are now deploying over the bipartisan infrastructure deal, Senator Bernie Sanders today apparently decided enough was enough and released his draft of a $3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill. It is just as breathtaking as promised, although the nature of this first bill means it is still vague on a lot of the details. This is by design, since the bill will pass under budget reconciliation rules which necessitate a first "topline" bill that just has the totals for various different areas of the budget, while later on (Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set a soft deadline of September 15, although this may prove to be optimistic) the details will all be filled in by the various committees on a second (and final) budget reconciliation bill.

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President Joe Biden gave a speech this week on where the country stands with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a timely thing to do, since with the Delta mutation so ascendant, we've now entered a fourth wave which has already grown bigger than the first two waves (but, thankfully, not yet bigger than the third). Right now, 100,000 people are getting sick each day -- which is up from just 12,000-per-day a few short weeks ago. The good news is that fewer people are dying than when the third wave surpassed the 100,000-infections-per-day mark, because now over 70 percent of all American adults have gotten at least their first vaccine shot. But what's changing now is that vaccinated Americans have pretty much lost all tolerance for the unvaccinated among us. When the graph lines were all heading downwards and restrictions easing, it wasn't that big a deal. With them skyrocketing back up again, it is. And businesses and governments and the vaccinated population are at the end of their rope when it comes to making allowances for the anti-vaxxers.

Mandates are fast appearing, from New York City to California's health care workers to private corporations across the country. The message is plain: either get vaccinated or forfeit your ability to fully participate in society. Your intransigence is costing lives, and we are sick of it.

One line of Biden's speech did make the news, for castigating Republicans for being so counterproductive. Biden singled out two states (Florida and Texas) and pointed out that they "account for one-third of all new COVID-19 cases in the entire country." He then excoriated the governors of these states and others for passing laws which ban mandatory mask requirements statewide (removing the power of mayors and local officials to institute such requirements). Biden didn't mince words, which is why he made news: "I say to these governors: 'Please help.' But if you aren't going to help, at least get out of the way of the people who are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives."

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As I write this, it is still unclear whether the Senate will undergo the marathon parliamentary endurance contest known as "vote-a-rama" tonight or not. If so, the Senate will likely be in session until the wee hours of Friday morning finishing up the amendment process on the bipartisan infrastructure deal. This could even lead to a cloture vote and final passage of the bill before the weekend, although that still has to be considered a longshot. Saturday passage might be a lot more realistic, although the chances of at least the vote-a-rama happening tonight appear to be greater [note: former Senator Mike Enzi's funeral is scheduled for Friday, which effectively scratches that day from the schedule].

For the Senate, it must be noted, this is operating at top speed. The bill was formally introduced at the start of the week, and so far the Senate has voted on 22 amendments to the bill. As Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pointed out, under his leadership the Senate has already had the opportunity to vote on more amendments to all bills since January than happened under Mitch McConnell for the previous two entire years (2019-2020). Schumer has opened the process up in a return to more-normal Senate behavior. Many more amendments are expected to get floor votes, which is what the entire "vote-a-rama" process is all about. Now that the Congressional Budget Office has released its scoring of the bill, there seems to be nothing standing in the way of the vote-a-rama getting underway.

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Let the chanting begin:

"Hey hey, ho ho, A. Cuomo's got to go!"

At this point, it seems that the only person who doesn't agree with that sentiment is Andrew Cuomo himself, who insists he did nothing wrong and will be serving out the rest of his term as New York's governor. Pretty much everyone else (his fellow Democrats included) are calling upon him to step down.

The New York attorney general spurred all of this with her damning report on the sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations against Cuomo. The report concluded that the allegations were credible and backed up by witnesses and other evidence, and that Cuomo had indeed broken both state and federal laws. Accordingly, criminal investigations have begun against him. The state assembly is now considering whether to impeach him. And this isn't even the only criminal scandal Cuomo faces, as he is also under investigation for multiple other lapses as well.

Personally, I've never been a fan of Cuomo's but haven't paid a whole lot of attention to him (since I don't live in New York). My reasons for not supporting Cuomo all stem from his personal political style, which harkens back to the uglier days of "machine politics." Cuomo was raised in a political family (his father Mario used to hold the office Andrew now does), and has lived his entire life in the bubble of political machinery. Sometimes this turns out to be a good thing (as it has with Nancy Pelosi, for example), but sometimes it leads to chasing and abusing power in naked ways that once may have been tolerated but no longer should.

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There are two interesting special election primaries happening today in Ohio for two vacant seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The winners of the races today will likely coast through the special election itself, since both are in reliably partisan districts (one Democratic and one Republican). They are even more interesting because they are both fierce factional races which will provide a few tea leaves for those looking to see what the future of the two parties might be. Which factions will prevail? Whether it means anything in the grand scheme of things or not, it's at least something for pundits to discuss during the long "silly season" of August.

In the 11th District, the contest is between a progressive Democrat and an establishment Democrat. More on that one in a bit. In the 15th District, the race is between one candidate endorsed by Donald Trump and a whole pack of other Republicans who failed to get his endorsement. No matter which candidate wins this race, it's all going to be about Trump and his relative influence on Republican primary elections. This isn't really "factionalism," though, it's closer to who can show the most rabid form of fanaticism (for Trump).

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There is an abject lesson in the failure to successfully get federal help to renters and landlords in a timely fashion. And I'm not talking about how Congress and President Joe Biden couldn't manage to extend the eviction moratorium deadline, either. That was a preventable tragedy, but what's even more instructive is the fact that of the billions earmarked for rental assistance, only a tiny fraction of the money actually made it to the people it was intended to help. Compared to how the direct COVID-19 pandemic aid payments were distributed, it's pretty easy to see there's a right way and a wrong way to deliver federal aid. With Bernie Sanders now putting the finishing touches on a vast expansion of federal programs to make people's lives better, one certainly hopes this lesson has been learned so that future programs won't get so bogged down in red tape or bureaucracy that they wind up being both ineffective and frustrating.

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President Joe Biden is now getting very close to securing the second leg of his three-legged economic legislative stool. To put it another way: this week we all finally got to experience the almost-mythological "Infrastructure Week" which we had been promised for lo, these many years. Bipartisanship struggled back to life, fulfilling not just a campaign promise from Biden but also his deep-seated desire to return Washington to some sort of pre-Trump normality.

Of course, it's not a done deal yet. It could still be derailed, but at this point the momentum behind it seems almost guaranteed to get the deal across the finish line in the Senate. The vote to open debate on the bill was a lopsided 67-32, with even Mitch McConnell voting to move forward. With a margin like that, when the final details are unveiled, it will probably garner enough Republican votes to pass. It may even get more than that initial vote-count, as all Republican senators realize they can either vote for bridges and roads or be hit with the issue in their next campaign.

Even if it does pass the Senate, there's no guarantee it'll get to Biden's desk, though. Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid down a marker weeks ago and swore she would not bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill up for a vote in the House until the Senate also passed the companion budget reconciliation deal. When this does happen, Pelosi will move the two bills forward together, and both bills will wind up on Biden's desk at the same time. This (hopefully) will satisfy the demands of both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. The moderates may have to hold their noses to vote for the budget reconciliation deal, but they will likely do so knowing it will be the only way the bipartisan deal will make it into law. The progressives will be doing the opposite -- voting for a bill they see as hopelessly inadequate in order to get their "everything else" bill passed as well. Such a balancing act is possible, and it is even looking more and more likely by the day.

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Is Donald Trump's stranglehold over the Republican Party fading? One can only hope....

It is indisputable that Trump's voice is fading. Banished from polite online society, Trump is now reduced to sending out an email blast every once in a while and doing interviews on far-right media outlets. This does get his message out to his base, but with a lot smaller a megaphone than he once wielded to his tens of millions of social media followers.

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