Bye-Bye, Biden Infrastructure Blowout—Hello, First-Term Lame Duck?

Welcome to Insanity Wrap, your daily dose of the best of the worst. The “Biden Infrastructure Blowout” is today’s big crazy.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

Biden lies, GOP still the bad guys
AOC tacitly admits that Democrats are bad for the environment and other living things
Creep Veep makes us weep

And so much more.

Before we get to today’s headline story, how about we spend a brief moment in the deep end of stupid?

This Is Not a Sane World, Exhibit #1,000,006

AOC blames US climate policy for illegal immigration https://t.co/u24La5JYy0

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 9, 2021

2009-2016: Various border crises.

2017-2020: No border crisis.

2021-20??: Renewed border crisis.

Conclusion: Democrats are bad for the environment.

Biden Infrastructure Blowout

Biden’s infrastructure talks with GOP collapse amid irreconcilable differences

There’s good news and there’s bad news.

The good news is the Porkulus II: Infrastructure Boogaloo appears, at least for the moment, to be dead in the water.

“I spoke with the president this afternoon, and he ended our infrastructure negotiations,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in a statement.

Weeks of negotiations failed to bring the White House and Republicans close to a deal. They remained far apart on a total price tag for a bill, which types of projects should be included and whether to raise any new taxes.

The bad news is that Democrats will certainly try to use reconciliation to pass their dreamboat $2.3 trillion giveaway instead of a more “modest” — if Insanity Wrap can use that word when speaking of hundreds of billions of dollars — $800 billion plan.

NBC News required FIVE reporters — Sahil Kapur, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Julie Tsirkin, Shannon Pettypiece, Dartunorro Clark — to excrete a “report” with so few actual details about either spending plan that it’s impossible to know what all the fuss is about.

Mostly, these FIVE reporters wrote a who-said-what-to-whom kind of thing that would be right at home on the New York Post’s Page Six.

Insanity Wrap would like to correct that deficiency, in the breezy-bitter style you’ve come to love. Or at least to expect.

Republican Senator: We’re willing to spend $800,000,000,000 on infrastructure. You know, things like highways and airports and the power grid.

Democrat Senator: We’re going to need to spend almost three times that much.

Republican Senator: Wow. That’s a lot. Why so much?

Democrat Senator: Because providing carbon-neutral diapers to genderfluid migrant babies is infrastructure.

We hope that clears things up for you.

Somewhat more seriously, it seems to Insanity Wrap that since even reconciliation seems an unlikely path, Presidentish Biden might already be a lame duck.

Full details further down in today’s column.

Previously On Insanity Wrap: Why Did a California County Just Reduce Its COVID Death Toll by 25%?

The Craziest Person in the World (Today)

No wonder Joe Biden tried walking back his decision to put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis

She's laughing and comparing it to… Europe? pic.twitter.com/OLNVIsSNmD

— Chris Martin (@chrisjdmartin) June 8, 2021

Insanity Wrap hates it, we really do, when we’re forced to inflict yet another cringe-worthy, testicle-shrinking Kamala Harris clip on you.

But we really do insist that you watch this one.

Typically, a presidential candidate picks a veep who brings balance to the ticket.

Sometimes, it’s geographical balance. A Southerner will pick a Yankee or vice versa.

Sometimes, it’s Electoral College balance. A candidate from a sure-thing state will pick a veep from a swing state.

Sometimes, it’s ideological balance. A moderate will pick a more ideological veep to provide comfort to the party diehards.

Sometimes, it’s experience balance. A comparative naif will pick an old hand.

And finally, sometimes it’s a personality balance. A one-time TV reality show host will pick a sometimes radio talk show host.

With all that in mind, Insanity Wrap must ask: What, exactly, is an unpersonable and mendacious ignoramus of little relevant experience from a sure-thing state supposed to balance?

If you have suggestions, we need answers, because we’re going crazy here trying to imagine what it is.

Your Daily Dose of Mostly Peaceful Protest

10 people charged in protest-related cases

This seems to us like an awful lot of serious charges against “peaceful protests” conducted by “just an idea.”

Your Daily Dose of Mandated Unity

Very cool that Joe Biden ran on being “the guy who can work with Republicans” and is now unable to earn the vote of a single Senate Republican.

— Jack Califano (@jackcalifano) June 7, 2021

Apropos to today’s lead story about the budget talks collapsing, is it not?

Biden ran as a moderate, or perhaps we should say Biden was caused to run as a moderate.

But you knew better, didn’t you, gentle reader?

There is no left-wing madness, no budget-busting number of trillions, that Biden has not pushed or endorsed. Or perhaps we should say that he has been caused to push or endorse.

And yet, when Republicans stand their ground against Biden governing the exact opposite way he promised he would, the Republicans are portrayed as the bad guys.

Sigh.

Previously On Insanity Wrap: We Finally Found the Russian Collusion! (It’s in the Oval Office Right Now)

And Now For a Brief Moment of Sanity

Joe Biden heads overseas as his prospects darken at home

Correction: Today’s brief moment of sanity is actually a brief moment of schadenfreude.

Insanity Wrap will explain why after this brief excerpt:

Joe Biden is heading abroad, just at the moment when his hopes for a historic legislative legacy at home seem headed for a wall.

For all the talk among Democrats of Biden assembling a Rooseveltian legacy, the moment was always going to come when his vast political agenda would hit the blockade of Washington’s uncompromising political math.

Recent days have chastened Democrats who dreamed of using what may be a brief two-year window of congressional power to forge the most fundamental economic and political change for a generation.

Insanity Wrap urges you not to trouble yourself with reading Stephen Collinson’s entire article, which is filled with tripe and untruths like “Biden had a strong start” and “Trump’s personality cult.”

But we must point out that not even CNN can hide the fact that Doddering Joe — not even six months in office — is already proving to be just as ineffectual as we told you he would be.

Do you know, gentle reader, who usually goes off on foreign visits like Biden’s? Lame-duck presidents who have lost their mojo to get things done on Capitol Hill because no one there fears them anymore.

Biden never had it.

Never will.