FactCheck reminds us that Republicans are fairly consistently "underestimating" how much of President Biden's American Jobs Plan actually consists of what we'd reasonably call infrastructure spending. Long story short: it's not "6 percent" like they're all repeating like a bunch of robots, but by Sen. Thune's own limited standards it's more like 17%. And everything FactCheck names sounds like infrastructure to me, so really it's more like 65%. I include the $400 billion for long-term care for the aging, for example, since investing in facilities that take care of us when we're older does sound rather like building things our civilization can use.
When I hear that our "liberal" media still calls a thing "divisive" if people like it but Our Glorious Elites don't, I'm reminded that our "liberal" media called "opposing the Iraq war" an "extreme" position even after polls informed us that 60% of Americans held that position, and that the sainted President Obama called those who criticized his 2010 capitulation to Republicans on tax-cuts-for-the-rich "sanctimonious" and "purist," even though well over half of Americans, even then, wanted the rich to pay more in taxes. So this is an old trick, but one that's working less and less, I think. And let's say this one more time: "Every single Democratic incumbent in a swing district who endorsed Medicare for All won reelection in 2020. The same cannot be said for those that did not endorse it."
We mentioned last week that colleges have used the pandemic as (another) excuse to cut their departments, but I'm pleased to note that unions at CUNY and Rutgers have been pushing back, albeit when those universities actually tried to violate contractually-promised pay increases. But that's why we have unions, and it's why we should have more of them. It's also why right-wingers constantly go on about "union dues," when you'll generally make a lot more money in salary at a union shop than you'll pay in dues. I mean, what else they got? "Unions hold back progress" sure ain't working for them, being, as it is, demonstrably wrong.
After a lot of pushback from liberals, President Biden decided to lift the Trump Administration's draconian cap on refugee admissions after all. I guess our "liberal" media will talk about how he "caved" to the left, as if doing the people's will is itself "capitulation" (no, I don't think "the people's will" was ever "try to keep out all refugees"). But perhaps Mr. Biden realized -- unlike President Obama, notoriously known as the "Deporter-in-Chief" during his tenure -- that acting like a right-winger on immigration matters will garner you the appreciation of exactly zero right-wingers.
In a related note, certain right-wing Republicans planned to start an "America First Caucus," devoted, apparently to maintaining "a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions" oh the hell with it waaaaaaaaah. You can always tell when someone's blind to their own privilege: they think the fact that they don't get all the say about everything means they get no say about anything. Naturally one of the ringleaders now denies the whole thing, and just as naturally blames the media for reporting on the matter accurately.
Finally, the interwebs are agog with a clip in which Pat Robertson opposes police shooting Black folks to death without even charging them with a crime. He says a lot of the right things, but he keeps cutting himself off, too; possibly he's trying to avoid saying something he thinks will alienate his audience, and possibly he's angry police shooters put him in this uncomfortable position where he has to say he's "pro-police" while also saying you'd better be able to tell the difference between a gun and a taser. I do feel like I have been describing how to split that knot -- it starts with "stop making our police the Swiss Army knives of our civilization."
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