If ever you needed proof that Laura Ingraham, Sen. Ted Cruz and Fox News put politics over country, check out the vicious sniveling over 13 House Republicans who voted for the very popular infrastructure and jobs bill because it gave a win to Biden.
To be clear, a late September poll found 56% of voters support the bill and it does a lot of good things for the country. Which is undoubtedly why the 13 Republicans voted for it.
It’s not a huge surprise that Cruz would toss his constituents’ interests under the bus for the sake of GOP politics. After all, a guy who went off to Cancun while his constituents were literally freezing to death last winter – and then blamed his daughters - could hardly be expected to care whether those same constituents have sturdy bridges or decent broadband. But, naïve as I am, I thought Ingraham was at least a smidge better than that. I was wrong.
Sure, Ingraham claimed she was attacking the 13 House Republicans over principles – after she gloated over the coming electoral slaughter of Democrats and non-Trumper Republicans in the upcoming midterms. But her political agenda wasn't exactly hard to spot:
INGRAHAM: At least three of the 13 washout congressmen have already announced their retirement – get out the door. Well, good, because each and every one of them either didn’t read the entire bill, which is a dereliction of duty, or they did read it and just ignored its most egregious provisions, which, frankly, is worse than a dereliction of duty.
…
The fact is, these 13 House Republicans are trusting Biden’s Cabinet secretaries to spend this gargantuan sum of money wisely when the smart move would have been to wait to pass a clean infrastructure bill until the Republicans take back the House next year.
…
And every GOP vote for this bill, which is the companion bill to the next, even worse social spending bill, ensures that current inflation lasts longer and energy prices go even higher.
…
Now, what you all have to understand here – and the phony infrastructure Republicans don’t seem to get – is that rising energy costs are a key part of the Democrats’ agenda. They want costs to go up because they want to build back greener.
Ingraham spent a lot of time mocking the House Republicans who voted for the bill. But she couldn't be bothered to provide any proof for that last claim, probably because it’s a load of BS. While it’s true that Biden’s infrastructure and jobs bill seems to prioritize clean energy over fossil fuels, and with an eye toward lowering everyone's overall energy costs, I might add, I found nothing to suggest a hidden gas-hike agenda there or anywhere else among the Democrats. In fact, during Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, noted that rising gas prices is “one of the reasons why the president said no to paying for a Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill with a gas tax.”
But guess who wanted the gas tax? That’s right, the Republicans.
Somehow, Ingraham forgot that or, more likely, completely ignored it, which I'd call a big dereliction of duty for someone who supposedly cares so much about the folks' gas prices. She also turned into a sudden deficit hawk:
INGRAHAM: Well, the economy is linked with the supply-chain problem, inflation and energy costs. By driving our nation further into debt with spending – well, things are only going to get worse.
Ingraham couldn’t have looked more delighted at the thought of things getting worse. But her concern for the deficit was another load of BS. The fact is that the deficit has shrunk by billions under President Biden after jumping 36%, to a new high, under Ingraham’s beloved Donald Trump. Either she didn't know that, which is another dereliction of duty or she knew it and swept it under the rug, which I'd call worse than a dereliction of duty.
Guest Cruz was less scathing toward his colleagues, calling it “really unfortunate” that they voted for the bill. #CancunCruz kinda, sorta showed some concern for the effect of inflation on Americans, but with this guy, there was a good chance he was only thinking of his own pocketbook: “The price of food is going up, the price of milk is going up, the price of gasoline is going up, the price of rent and homes and lumber – everything is going up,” he said.
Then he got to what we all know was what they both really cared about: “Unfortunately, we saw a handful of House Republicans decide to rescue Nancy Pelosi from the bill crashing on its own,” Cruz sneered. He claimed that did two things “that were really problematic.” The foremost problem? GOP politics. “Number one, it did what the Biden White House wanted to do, which was change the subject from the shellacking they took in Virginia,” Cruz said. After expounding at length on that subject, he got around to the other problem which, according to Cruz is that it “really increased momentum for the really terrible bill,” i.e. the Build Back Better bill, which he called “the Bernie Sanders socialist budget.”
In case anyone missed the point, a lower-third banner appeared in both segments: “WHY DID 13 REPUBLICANS BAIL BIDEN OUT?”
Nobody should let these guys pretend they care about anyone or anything other than their own power.
You can watch it all below, from the November 8, 2021 The Ingraham Angle.
I note that after the GOP regains their majorities, it is likely that they will attack the continued funding for the infrastructure bill and essentially collapse it after the fact. It’s interesting that Ingraham wants anyone to think that the GOP wanted to pass their own infrastructure bill or anything like one. In fact, they would prefer to just do things like the 2017 Tax Transfer, which directly put money into the hands of the wealthy and skyrocketed the taxes of the Middle Class. Perhaps their infrastructure plan is filed next to their alternative plan to the ACA, their alternative stimulus plan from summer 2020, and the incredible evidence that Trump insisted he was finding in Hawaii about President Obama.
Does the Republican Party (excuse the foul language) have its own version of the Overton Window and has it slid right off the extremist edge of the frame in just a few months?