A Right Wing Cannot Flap Alone, or, Donald Trump Screwed the Putsch

[A Black Falcon]

Numerous senate members voted AGAINST the relief bill. 

I have no idea what you mean by this but it's entirely untrue.  Manchin voted for the bill, that's why it passed.  It passed 50-50, with all Democrats voting for and all Republicans against, with VP Harris deciding the tie.  Joe Manchin doesn't vote against the Democrats when his vote actually decides something important to our party.

Manchin and seven other Democrats did vote against including the $15 an hour minimum wage in the bill and that's unfortunate, if that's what you are referring to, but the rest of the bill passed and it's the largest financial assistance bill America has ever passed and is larger than anything any other country has passed to deal with COVID economic problems either.  It does so many great things that it's kind of insane.

(The only other significant change is that people making over $80,000 won't get the $1400 stimulus check, and I certainly think they shouldn't have put that in, but most people who really need the money make less than that anyway so it shouldn't be too big of an issue overall... frustrating for people who earn over that and really need money, I understand, but most people in this nation make less than that and those are the people who need it.)

This bill is a significant change in American priorities versus our past.  This is the opposite of Trump's tax cut bill that mostly helped the very rich; instead, this bill mostly helps the middle class and poor.   It's very heavily loaded towards helping the people who really need the help.   It's more than double the dollar value of the 2009 rescue bill Obama got passed, and inflation hasn't been anywhere near double since then.  It's a massive bill loaded with good things.  For instance, if student loan forgiveness happens, at least some of it will now be tax free.  It may cut child poverty in half.  Etc, etc.  The complaints are incredibly minor compared to the accomplishment.

And so much more should happen in the next few years, too!  The talk about changing the filibuster to a talking filibuster is extremely encouraging, I hope that happens.  Once that finally gets done the logjam will blow open and we'll get the rest of Biden's agenda through.  But even before that we should get more -- DC statehood is very possible, there will be a massive infrastructure bill (that hopefully will be climate change focused), and more...

My family is desperate.  The dems need to put up or shut up while they actually have the power to act.

I have been very lucky and have been healthy and haven't lost any income (though my anxiety as bad or worse than ever, which is saying a lot...), but a lot of people are struggling, that is true.  And that's why this bill was passed, and I'm sure that its effects will be very noticeable once the money starts being distributed.  Biden's work at getting vaccines out there quickly is also a crucial part of it, of course; he got in in a situation where there was absolutely no plan because Trump didn't care if people kept dying, and managed to right the ship, buy tens of millions of doses, and get vaccines out there for people at a quite impressive pace.  He's blown away his "100 million doses in 100 days" goal, and hit 100 million doses in like fifty days!


As for Cody's video, sure I agree that it's shameful that any Dems voted against the minimum wage hike.  That's an essential thing which we must pass somehow during the next two years.  Otherwise, the video is noteable in how little there actually is to criticize Biden for!  And that's how you can tell how good a job he's doing so far, the criticisms are mostly minor.  There's just not much there to actually criticize him for and you see that in that video.  The right wing is having that same problem, they just aren't able to get people as angry at Biden as they were at the Clintons or Obamas.  Biden is a boringly average person doing significant good things and that's great for America.

Other than the minimum wage the only other major issue he brings up is a pretty complex one, the issue of the bombing in Syria where Biden bombed an anti-American terrorist group with Iranian connections. I am very much antiwar, but I'm not an isolationist.  America should not have to use force, but retreating, saying "I don't care about what happens in the rest of the world so long as my country is safe", not using our ability to do good and make the world a better place... no, I'm not onboard with that.  We certainly need to be extremely careful in the Middle East since most things we do there end up going badly, and I am obviously very strongly opposed to war with Iran -- I really hope Biden can make a new nuclear deal with the Iranians for example, that'd be fantastic! -- but this?  Leftists griping about this attack only help America's enemies.  Biden was extremely careful and even blocked a second attack because of intel that civilians might be present.  He isn't doing the drone bombing campaigns that both Obama and Trump engaged in.  He's being very careful and trying to do the right thing, but the Syrian war is a horrible mess and just going hands off and letting Russia and co. do whatever they want there wouldn't be right, letting Vladimir Putin rule the world would not make things better, it wuold make them worse.  So far Biden seems to be balancing things pretty well there, with very limited use of force but not total disengagement, but we'll see how things go over time.  I have no idea what the solution to the war in Syria is and I doubt anyone else does either and we certainly shouldn't get involved there more, but we need to at least TRY to protect our allies in the region (in Kurdish territories mostly), if nothing else... so yeah I agree with Cody that we shouldn't start a war with Iran, but this action won't do that.

That's kind of the biggest problem with the far left foreign policy-wise -- I mean, if America retreated from the world and became more isolationist, as the far left and far right both want, how in the WORLD does that help liberalism or democracy or freedom internationally?  It would do the exact opposite, it'd mostly help autocrats like Xi and Putin!  The right and authoritarianism would benefit far more than the left would, sadly.  War must be avoided, but international engagement can't be, America can do and has done good in this world and is, I think, while certainly deeply flawed in many ways, overall leads to better things that would happen if we let China and Russia do whatever they want internationally.  I do not support war but sanctions and such can be good tools...