I have to backslide a minute though.

About five days ago and by an unexpectedly large majority, the Senate passed a first version of the “Infrastructure Bill”.

Kyle immediately gave this two bright squirrel eyes up:

SHOCK: Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Passes w/ HUGE Bipartisan Support

In fairness, if you watch the whole thing, he does eventually point out some potential downsides, but he calls it a win and buries the lead quite deep.

What he doesn’t mention is that this bill is supposed to be Old Joe’s signature piece of legislation, his legacy, his making up for all the short-shrifting bullshit of his first presidential year, like never even trying to grow the minimum wage, address climate change, or deal with the for-profit health care crisis in the middle of a pandemic, much less corporate rule of everything else besides.

Joe originally floated his dream as costing 10 trillion, and that might have been a good start. But what the Senate passed, this major bipartisan victory, amounts to a tenth of that, completely fails to notice the “human infrastructure” side of things, and reportedly includes a lot of giveaways to the rich, like privatizing big pieces of that critical infrastructure, and gutting certain data privacy protections in the fine print. Which is why it got 19 Republican votes.

Senate Democrats Pass Terrible Infrastructure Bill That Benefits Rich

Mr. Kulinski quickly followed up with a look at a better version of the bill as proposed by one Bernard Sanders:

Bernie’s $3.5 TRILLION Reconciliation Bill Dissected

Yes. Much better no doubt. As far as we know, still no minimum wage, or student loan relief, or renter’s support, or WPA-style jobs programs … but … there’s plenty that’s good. (On a personal note I’ll point out that it would give me Medicare five years early, which is a far cry from M4All, but a selfish blessing nonetheless.)

Perhaps even better is that the shitty Senate bill has engendered a certain outrage, finally, in the Squaddies and allied pieces of the “progressive” wing of the blue-colored half of the one party to rule them all. They’re making the right noises at least, when it comes to there being ANY human infrastructure spending in the final version of Uncle Joe’s legacy achievement.

Moreover, even Chucky the Snake Schumer is making the same kind of noises:

Have Senate Democrats Approved a $3.5 Trillion Spending Plan?

(This is based on an NPR story, and I learned about it from Franc.)

So is there really reason for a tentative and circumscribed hope?

I’m not going that far, because I don’t have to, and I am so tired of having my hopes lifted up only for them to be dashed again.

It feels better to think about trucks and the different shades of home. But … we’ll see.