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Jonathan Capehart:

What stays with me, Judy, is what I told you Wednesday night, the idea that we have a president of the United States who speaks to the country, doesn't go on about grievance, doesn't go on about personal grievance, doesn't sprinkle his speech with white nationalism, isn't all me, me, me, me, me.

What we saw on Wednesday night was a president of the United States who was focused outward, many times in his speech, because of you, meaning because of you, meaning the American people, because of all of you, the folks in the room. It was about working together, solving the country's problems, or at least trying to.

And that, for me is the enduring image. And, also, you got the sense that, even with the sparse crowd in that room that could hold 1,600, but there were only 200, and socially distanced, at least for me, watching on television, there was still that energy there. There was still this optimism coming from President Biden, who, after, at that point, 99 98, 99 days, had accomplished a lot.

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Brooks and Capehart on Republican ideals, Biden's joint address and agenda - PBS NewsHour

Its the only strategy for a Republican Party that would rather lie than legislate.

That mendacity strategy has reached an insidious pitch. The New York Post, the conservative tabloid owned by Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, recently published a cover story about children at migrant centers receiving copies of Superheroes Are Everywhere, a picture book authored by Harris when she was a senator. Other media outlets fact-checked the story to pieces turns out there was a single copy at a center in Long Beach, Calif., donated at a book drive and Post officials acknowledged the story as fake. The reporter, who claims she was ordered to write it, resigned.

That only came after the GOP Outrage Machine cranked it up to 11. Various Fox News hosts yapped about it on their shows, including white supremacy avatar Tucker Carlson. Republicans including Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana posted angry tweets accusing Harris of profiting from the border crisis with books bought with taxpayer money.

At the same time, Larry Kudlow, Trumps former economic advisor, was spewing lies that Bidens Green New Deal targets would mean that America has to stop eating meat, stop eating poultry and fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats. Overheated and ridiculous, that fake news was kept afloat for days by right-wing media.

Yet even when the lies are debunked, the damage is already done.

And thats the goal. These mistruths have a social media afterlife unencumbered by facts. Its about lies fashioned to reinforce ideology and confirmation biases. Harris didnt put copies of her book into migrant centers for profit, but for those who already dislike her, it sounds like the kind of calculated thing they imagine she would do. Biden isnt taking away meat, seafood, or eggs, but it sounds like the sort of nanny-state nonsense that conservatives often accuse Democrats of concocting to curtail American freedoms and independence.

Taken at face value, it all seems silly, even harmless. Yet that obscures the darker underside of these constant falsehoods.

On Jan. 6, Michael Fanone, a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer, was pummeled by insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol in an attempt to thwart the certification of the 2020 presidential election. He suffered a heart attack and a concussion, but what has happened since the seditious riot has been no less painful.

Its been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened, Fanone told CNNs Don Lemon in an emotional interview. Without mentioning the former president who incited his supporters to go to the Capitol, Fanone called his rhetoric dangerous.

Some Republicans, like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, claim that the insurrection, which killed five people and injured more than 130 police officers, was not an insurrection at all. That misdirection is working. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that about 50 percent of self-identified Republicans say the insurrection was a mostly nonviolent protest or was fueled by left-wing groups to make Trump look bad. And 60 percent are still clinging to the Big Lie that the election was stolen.

Of course, Republican disdain for the truth is nothing new. When Vincent Foster, a Clinton White House staffer and longtime friend of the president and first lady Hillary Clinton, died by suicide in 1993, conservatives accused the Clintons of murder. With Barack Obamas presidential candidacy came the racist birtherism movement falsely claiming that he was ineligible to run because he was born in Kenya. Then came the alarmist lies about so-called death panels, an attempt to derail passage of the Affordable Care Act, President Obamas signature achievement.

Its not an alternative reality. Its anti-reality, a fractured narrative of rumors and conspiracies designed to justify white fear and stoke its attendant rage.

GOP lies will only grow more grandiose and provocative in an attempt to upend the Biden presidency. And the closer we get to the crucial midterm elections next year, what Republicans may do or say to retake majority power in the House and Senate could make the Big Lie look like a dress rehearsal.

Rene Graham can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham.

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The Republican Partys big little lies - The Boston Globe

Washington Republican lawmakers were critical of President Biden's first address before a joint session of Congress, arguing that the president did not offer enough bipartisan outreach in his speech. Mr. Biden outlined his ambitious legislative agenda on Wednesday, calling on Congress to allocate trillions of dollars in spending to improve infrastructure, health care and education.

In the official Republican rebuttal to Mr. Biden's speech, Senator Tim Scott said that Mr. Biden "seems like a good man," but argued that his policies were divisive.

"His speech was full of good words. But President Biden promised you a specific kind of leadership," Scott said. "Our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes. We need policies and progress that bring us closer together. But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further and further apart."

Republicans have balked at the price tags for Mr. Biden's American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, which he touted in his speech on Wednesday. He also called for raising taxes for the top 1% wealthiest Americans and corporations, which most Republicans oppose.

"There's just a lot of talk about new spending and a lot of talk about new taxes, I worry about the economy being able to handle that. So I just disagree with the president on higher taxes," Republican Senator Rob Portman told reporters Wednesday night.

The president promised on Wednesday that he would not impose any tax increases on Americans making under $400,000 per year, but argued that "it's time for corporate America and the wealthiest 1% of Americans to just begin to pay their fair share." He also proposed raising the top tax bracket for the wealthiest 1% of Americans to 39.6%, noting that this was the rate when George W. Bush became president.

"You have pretty expansive spending on top of spending with the only way to pay for it, is to go after taxes," Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters after the speech. "I think it makes it very difficult for it to be truly bipartisan."

Senator John Thune, the Republican minority whip, praised Mr. Biden's delivery but argued that his proposals for government spending would ultimately be unpopular with the American people.

"You're talking about a speech that's got massive expansive new government programs growth of government and lots in new taxes, so there isn't much in there that I can agree with," Thune told reporters. "But I thought he did a nice job, as he always does, of making his argument in a way that I think probably gives him the best chance of trying to win over the American people. But I think when they see when they drill down on the policies, they're going to discover that there's a lot there they're not going to like."

Republican Senator Mitt Romney told reporters that he thought the speech probably appealed to Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent who caucuses with Democrats and is famously one of the most progressive members of the Senate.

"I'm sure Bernie was happy," Romney said. "I think with the experience we've had with the $1.9 trillion rescue plan, he would like Republicans to vote for his plan. But in terms of meeting in the middle, that hasn't something hasn't been something the administration has shown yet."

Congress used budget reconciliation to pass the American Rescue Plan, allowing Mr. Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal to be approved without any Republican votes. Reconciliation is a complicated process that allows legislation to advance in the Senate with only a simple majority of votes, instead of the 60 that is typically required. As Democrats only control 50 seats, it is nearly impossible to garner support from 10 Republicans to advance their biggest legislative priorities. Democrats are considering using budget reconciliation again to pass the American Jobs Plan.

Meanwhile, a group of Republican senators have proposed their own $538 billion infrastructure bill as an alternative to Mr. Biden's plan. In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Biden encouraged bipartisan action, but said that inaction was not an option.

"Vice President Harris and I meet regularly in the Oval Office with Democrats and Republicans to discuss the American Jobs Plan. And I applaud a group of Republican Senators who just put forward their proposal," Mr. Biden said.

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Republican lawmakers critical of Biden's first congressional address - CBS News

Good evening. Im Senator Tim Scott from the great state of South Carolina. We just heard President Bidens first address to Congress. Our president seems like a good man. His speech was full of good words. But President Biden promised you a specific kind of leadership. You promise to unite a nation, to lower the temperature, to govern for all Americans, no matter how we voted. This was the pitch. You just heard it again. But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes. We need policies and progress that brings us closer together. But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further and further apart. I wont waste your time with finger pointing or partisan bickering. You can get that on TV any time you want. I want to have an honest conversation about common sense, and common ground. About this feeling that our nation is sliding off its shared foundation and how we move forward together. Growing up, I never dreamed I would be standing here tonight. When I was a kid my parents divorced. My mother, my brother and I moved in with my grandparents. Three of us sharing one bedroom. I was disillusioned and angry. And I nearly failed out of school. But I was blessed. First with a praying mom. And let me say this to the single mothers out there who are working their tails off, working hard, trying to make the ends meet wondering if its worth it. You can bet it is. God bless your amazing effort on the part of your kids. I was also blessed by a Chick-fil-A operator, John Moniz. And finally, with a string of opportunities that are only possible here in America. This past year, Ive watched Covid attack every rung of the ladder that helped me up. So many families have lost parents and grandparents too early. So many small businesses have gone under. Becoming a Christian transformed my life. But for months, too many churches were shut down. Most of all Im saddened that millions of kids have lost a year of learning when they could not afford to lose a single day. Locking vulnerable kids out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future. Our public schools should have reopened months ago, other countries did. Private and religious schools did. Science has shown for months that schools are safe. But too often powerful, grown ups set science aside and kids like me were left behind. The clearest case Ive seen for school choice in our lifetimes, because we know that education is the closest thing to magic in America. Last year, under Republican leadership, we passed five bipartisan Covid packages. Congress supported our schools, our hospitals, saved our economy and funded Operation Warp Speed, delivering vaccines in record time. All five bills got 90, 90 votes in the senate. Common sense found common ground. In February, Republicans told President Biden we wanted to keep working together to finish this fight. But Democrats wanted to go it alone. They spent almost $2 trillion on a partisan bill that the White House bragged was the most liberal bill in American history. Only 1% went to vaccinations, no requirement to reopen schools promptly. Covid brought Congress together 5 times. This administration pushed us apart. Another issue that should unite us is infrastructure. Republican support everything you think of when you think of infrastructure. Roads, bridges, ports, airports, waterways, high speed broadband, were in for all of that. But again, Democrats want a partisan wish list, they wont even build bridges to build bridges. Less than six percent, the presidents plan goes to roads and bridges. Its a liberal wish list of big government waste. Plus the biggest job killing tax hikes in a generation. Experts say when all is said and done, it would lower wages of the average American worker and shrink our economy. Tonight, we also heard about a so-called family plan. Even more taxing, even more spending to put Washington even more in the middle of your life from the cradle to college. The beauty of the American dream is that families get to define it for themselves. We should be expanding opportunities and options for all families, not throwing money at certain issues because Democrats think they know best. Infrastructure spending that shrinks our economy is not common sense. Weakening our southern borders and creating a crisis is not compassionate. The president is also abandoning principles hes held for decades. Now he says your tax dollars should fund abortions. Hes laying groundwork to pack the Supreme Court. This is not common ground. Nowhere do we need common ground more desperately than in our discussions of race. I have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while Im shopping. I remember every morning at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the newspaper and read it, I thought. But later I realized he had never learned to read it. He just wanted to set the right example. Ive also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called Uncle Tom and the n-word by progressives, by liberals. Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my familys poverty was actually privilege. Because a relative owned land generations before my time. Believe me, I know firsthand our healing is not finished. In 2015 after the shooting of Walter Scott, I wrote a bill to fund body cameras. Last year after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, I built an even bigger police reform proposal. But my Democratic colleagues blocked it. I extended an olive branch. I offered amendments. But Democrats used the filibuster to block the debate from even happening. My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they wanted a solution. But Im still working. Im hopeful that this will be different. When America comes together, weve made tremendous progress, but powerful forces want to pull us apart. 100 years ago, kids in classrooms were taught the color of their skin was their most important characteristic. And if they looked a certain way, they were inferior. Today kids are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again. And if you look a certain way, theyre an oppressor. From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we havent made any progress at all. By doubling down on the divisions weve worked so hard to heal. You know this stuff is wrong. Hear me clearly. America is not a racist country. Its backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination, and its wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present. Im an African-American whos voted in the South my entire life. I take voting rights personally. Republicans support making it easier to vote and harder to cheat. And so do the voters. Big majorities of Americans support early voting, and big majorities support voter I.D. including African-Americans and Hispanics. Common sense makes common ground. But today, this conversation has collapsed. The state of Georgia passed a law that expands early voting, preserves no excuse mail in voting, and despite what the president claimed, did not reduce election day hours. If you actually read this law, its mainstream. It will be easier to vote early in Georgia than in Democrat-run New York. But the left doesnt want you to know that. that they want people virtue signaling by yelling about a law they havent even read. Fact checkers have called out the White House for misstatements. The president absurdly claims that this is worse than Jim Crow. What is going on here? Ill tell you. A Washington power grab. This misplaced outrage is supposed to justify democrats new sweeping bill that would take over elections for all 50 states. It would send public funds to political campaigns you disagree with and make the bi-partisan Federal Elections Commission partisan. This is not about civil rights or our racial past. Its about rigging elections in the future. And no, the same filibuster that President Obama and President Biden praised when they were senators, the same filibuster that the Democrats used to kill my police reform bill last year has not suddenly become a racist relic just because the shoe is now on the other foot. Race is not a political weapon to settle every issue the way one side wants. Its far too important. This should be a joyful springtime for our nation. This administration inherited a tide that had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run. Thanks to Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration, our country is flooded with safe and effective vaccines. Thanks to our bipartisan work last year, job openings are rebounding. So why do we feel so divided? Anxious. A nation with so much cause for hope should not feel so heavy laden. A president who promised to bring us together should not be pushing agendas that tear us apart. The American Family deserves better. And we know what better looks like. Just before Covid, we had the most inclusive economy in my lifetime. The lowest unemployment rates ever recorded for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. And a 70 year low nearly, for women. Wages for, hear me, wages were growing faster at the bottom than at the top. The bottom 25% saw their wages go up faster than the top 25%. That happened because Republicans focused on expanding opportunity for all Americans. In addition to that, we passed opportunity zones, criminal justice reform, and permanent funding for historically Black colleges and universities for the first time ever. We fought the drug epidemic, rebuilt our military, and cut taxes for working families and single moms like the one that raised me. Our best future will not come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams. It will come from you, the American people. Black, Hispanic, white and Asian. Republican and Democrat. Brave police officers in Black neighborhoods. We are not adversaries. We are family. We are all in this together. And we get to live in the greatest country on Earth. The country, where my grandfather in his 94 years saw his family go from cotton to Congress in one lifetime. So I am more than hopeful. I am confident that our finest hour has yet to come. Original sin is never the end of the story. Not in our souls and not for our nation. The real story is always redemption. I am standing here because my mom has prayed me through some really tough times. I believe our nation has succeeded the same way. Because generations of Americans in their own ways have asked for grace and God has supplied it. So I will close with a word from a worship song that really helped me through this past year of Covid. The music is new, but the words draw from scripture. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May his presence go before you and behind you and beside you. In your weeping and your rejoicing. He is for you. May his favor be upon our nation for thousand generations. And your family and your children and their children. Good night. And God bless the United States of America.

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Tim Scott Will Deliver the Republican's Rebuttal to Biden - The New York Times

The current 117th Congress is only four months old, but already five Republican senators and six Republican representatives have announced they will not stay in their current jobs. Add in a slew of Republican retirements in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, and a narrative has formed that longtime GOP stalwarts are heading to the exits because they are unhappy with the fanatical turn the party took under former President Donald Trump. We live in an increasingly polarized country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left, and that means too few people who are actively looking to find common ground, Sen. Rob Portman said in January when announcing his retirement. This is a tough time to be in public service.

On the one hand, Portman is right that this is a tough time to be a Republican in Congress. There has been a remarkable amount of turnover among congressional Republicans in the Trump (and post-Trump) era. Of the 293 Republicans who were serving in the Senate or House on Jan. 20, 2017 the day of Trumps inauguration a full 132 (45 percent) are no longer in Congress or have announced their retirement or resignation.

And many of these Republicans lets call them the Ciao Caucus likely did leave due to their disapproval of Trump. Fifty-seven of them retired or are retiring from politics completely including Trump critics like former Sen. Jeff Flake and former Rep. Will Hurd as well as several members of the moderate Tuesday Group. Most obviously, two former Reps. Justin Amash and Paul Mitchell even quit the GOP to become independents before they left Congress. And some representatives among them former Rep. Mark Sanford, who voted with Trump only 71 percent of the time (one of the lowest rates for a Republican) lost to a more hardline primary challenger. (On the other hand, one Republican who lost reelection in the primary did so to a less conservative challenger: Former Rep. Steve King so openly supported white nationalism that the party turned its back on him, throwing its support behind the more moderate Rep. Randy Feenstra.)

Plenty more Republicans have left for reasons having nothing to do with Trump, though. For instance, 21 retired or announced they plan to retire to run for a different office, which they probably wouldnt have done unless they still felt at home in the Republican Party. (Indeed, this list includes some of Trumps staunchest allies, including now-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Rep. Doug Collins and Rep. Mo Brooks, who is running for Senate with Trumps endorsement.) Another 29 Republicans wanted to stay but only left because they lost in the 2018 or 2020 general elections. Whats more, the resignations category which you might think would include some of the most defiant anti-Trumpers of all actually skews toward Trump loyalists because eight of them resigned in order to join his administration. And even of the 57 members who retired completely, several probably did so for more mundane reasons than disliking the direction Trump was taking the party in, like being term-limited out of powerful committee chairmanships.

Overall, the 132 Republicans no longer in Congress are only slightly more moderate than the 161 Republicans who remain. DW-Nominate uses voting records to quantify the ideology of every member of Congress on a scale from 1 (most conservative) to -1 (most liberal). The Ciao Caucus has an average score of 0.482 while those who stayed have an average score of 0.492. (The more liberal Ciao Caucus score appears to be solely due to the Republicans who lost general elections, who skew moderate. Excluding them, the Ciao Caucus has an average DW-Nominate score of 0.495 more or less as conservative as those who stayed.)

But the question remains: Did those 132 Republican departures open the door for more conservative replacements? In one obvious sense, they did not: Thirty-nine of them were replaced by Democrats, allowing Democrats to take control of both the House (in 2019) and Senate (in 2021) and moving the chambers to the left in the process.

But were more interested in the effect these departures had on Republicans internally. And all this Republican turnover has indeed nudged the GOP caucus to the right: first, by culling a few dozen of its members from swing districts and states, who, as weve seen, tended to be more moderate; and second, by replacing outgoing Republicans with more conservative models.

We should be careful not to overstate this either, though. There are 81 members of the Ciao Caucus who were replaced by a fellow Republican. Together, they had an average DW-Nominate score of 0.504, while their replacements had an average DW-Nominate score of 0.555 so, more conservative, but not overwhelmingly. And while a majority of the 81 (47, to be precise) were replaced by more conservative Republicans, a good number (33) were actually replaced by more moderate ones. The biggest difference, though, is that only five of the replacements were significantly more moderate (a difference of 0.200 points or more) than their predecessors, while 17 were significantly more conservative.

Its not hard to find examples of seats whose members became more conservative. Former Rep. Scott Tipton, a fairly mainstream Republican (with a DW-Nominate score of 0.451), has been replaced by firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert (0.798). The late Rep. Walter Jones (a notable maverick, with a DW-Nominate score of 0.244) has been replaced by a reliable Republican vote in Rep. Greg Murphy (0.547). Even Collins, a Trump favorite who was already plenty conservative (0.610), was replaced by someone even further right: Rep. Andrew Clyde (0.879). The biggest shift of all came in New Mexicos 2nd District, where Rep. Steve Pearce (0.472) was replaced by Rep. Yvette Herrell (0.936), the most conservative politician in Congress. (In case youre wondering, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene actually didnt represent a huge rightward shift for her district: She has a 0.807 DW-Nominate score, but her predecessor, former Rep. Tom Graves, was already very conservative, with a 0.716 score of his own. Of course, Greene has certainly brought more rhetorical extremism to Congress.)

There are fewer examples of seats becoming represented by someone noticeably more moderate, but they exist. DeSantis (0.663) was succeeded by Rep. Michael Waltz (0.416); King (0.613) was succeeded by Feenstra (0.413). Ironically, the two biggest swings to the left came as a result of the departure of two of Trumps loudest critics: Amash and Sanford. (They may have been anti-Trump, but they were still plenty conservative, with DW-Nominate scores of 0.654 and 0.686, respectively.) Their districts both strongholds of old-school conservatism that have moved left in the era of Trump are now represented by Reps. Peter Meijer (0.235) and Nancy Mace (0.305), who are already developing maverick reputations of their own. Mace forcefully criticized Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Meijer even voted to impeach Trump over it.

You could also add the transition from former Sen. Orrin Hatch to Sen. Mitt Romney to this list. Although DW-Nominate doesnt see this as a big ideological shift (from 0.382 to 0.321), Hatch voted with Trump 96 percent of the time, while Romney has become one of the most vocal anti-Trump Republicans in Congress. So even as the GOP is becoming more conservative overall, fresh anti-Trump voices are still getting added to the mix.

The Republican exodus since Trump took office has gotten plenty of attention but the coverage too often focuses on incomplete takeaways like what Republican retirements mean for Democrats chances. But given that the vast majority of states and congressional districts are safe for one party or the other, turnover has far more impact on the ideology and direction of the party itself. That story is a complicated one for the GOP, with some moderates giving way to conservatives and some conservatives giving way to moderates. But overall, it does seem as if the conservative, pro-Trump side is winning out.

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Congressional Republicans Left Office In Droves Under Trump. Just How Conservative Are Their Replacements? - FiveThirtyEight