Rich invites Fr. Thomas Reese, who recently authored a piece entitled "Someone is Killing Republican and Trump Voters" that explores the notion that conservative media's push to downplay  Covid-19 vaccination efficacy are causing the death of their very own constituencies.  Fr. Reese is a Jesuit priest and Senior Analyst at Religious News Service.  He also has a doctorate in political science from the University of California Berkeley.

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Rich talks about his expansion of The Common Bridge program to now include a space on Substack in addition to his successful podcast and YouTube channel.   With this addition at  richardhelppie.substack.com, Rich is further facilitating the growth of his popular fiercely non-partisan policy discussion as more and more people move away from the predictable divisive discussion on cable and network news.

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Rich invites U.S. Army veteran, and executive secretary of The A. Scott Foundation to the Common Bridge, to talk about his incredible efforts traveling around the world in search and recover of the remains of United States WWII missing in action, and prisoner of war soldiers. Since 2009, Mr. Schwimmer volunteers as part of the Florida-based archaeological team, History Flight, Inc., by taking numerous trips to remote islands including Tarawa, Palau and Wake Island.  He's also been on search and discovery trips to the Philippines, France, Belgium, and Germany searching for the MIA and POW.  Since then, he has been part of efforts to find the remains of over 120 MIA and over 20 POWs.

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In a special return episode, we reprise an earlier episode with Harvard professor, and biostatistician, Martin Kulldorff.  Dr. Kulldorff, along with colleagues, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya authored The Great Barrington Declaration in October of 2020 during the onset of the Covid pandemic.  The Great Barrington Declaration advocated letting COVID-19 spread in lower-risk groups to promote herd immunity and concentrating on "focused protection" of older, high-risk groups.  These views in retrospect, appear to have been spot-on, but at the time, were opposed by the World Health Organization and Dr. Kulldorff was kicked off of some social media platforms for his views.

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Rich welcomes back University of Michigan Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine, and Immunologist, Dr. James R. Baker, Jr., M.D., who brings words of both encouragement and warning as the world comes to what he feels is the beginning of the final throes of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Dr. Baker has been a valued guest on the Common Bridge since the beginnings of the coronavirus over a year ago, and brings thoughtful, scientific, data-driven analysis to the most significant health issue of our lifetime.

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Rich brings back the Honorable Milton L. Mack, Jr. for a discussion on Mental Health, Jury Bias, and Judicial Reform.  Judge Mack has been a leading voice on how mental health issues affect over half of the court cases in the US and how this needs to be addressed in judicial reform. He has also been on the forefront of bringing cutting edge technology into the courtroom.

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Rich brings back author, journalist, and political analyst, Matt Taibbi to talk about the circling of the drain of American journalism.   What used to be news has now become affirmation and entertainment programming.  What used to be the search for truth, has now been replaced with glamour talking heads with no journalism background who ignore stories that don't fit that show's narrative, or just revert to outright lies in order to gain ratings and feed their audience what they want to hear.  While Fox, CNN and MSNBC cultivate a national divisive war on television,  Facebook, Google, and Twitter are keeping you fed the same warped messages online.  All in the name of keeping you angry, and coming back for more.  Rich Helppie and Matt Taibbi try to sort this out on this episode of The Common Bridge.

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Rich invites author Habi Zhang whose recent column in the Wall Street Journal regarding the ease of which children in the US are challenged at school compared to those in China, as caused some controversy.  Rich and Habi discuss education, cultural differences, and social differences and how perhaps China is not only taking notice, but also will take advantage.

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Rich and Brian go through viewer mail and answer questions about the Infrastructure bill, congressional challenges, minimum wage, the Rittenhouse case and more.

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Rich talks with attorney Wolfgang Mueller about the accidental shooting on the movie set, "Rust" as well as an analysis of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial currently taking place in Kenosha, Wisconsin and how firearms rules were or were not taken into account.

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