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Superheroes Are Everywhere, a childrens book celebrating ordinary people, by Vice-President Kamala Harris, has landed, like so many things in American politics today, in the middle of a very childish controversy. It began when residents of Long Beach, California, organized a toy-and-book drive for unaccompanied child immigrants being housed in a convention center there. Someone donated a copy of Harriss book, and a journalist touring the facility saw it on a cot and took a picture of it. Partisan mayhem ensued, with headlines in the New York Post and on Fox News and complaints from sundry Republicans about an imaginary scheme to put a copy in a welcome kit for every immigrant, as if it were the Little Red Book, or an enrollment brochure for the Democratic Party. Was Harris paid for these books? Is she profiting from Bidens border crisis? Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, asked on Twitter.

Such fantastical pettiness is not confined to the immigration debate. As the new Administration enters its next hundred days, children are poised to be at the forefront of President Joe Bidens agenda. The address that he delivered to a joint session of Congress last Wednesday night included the American Families Plan, a set of transformative programs, amounting to almost two trillion dollars, largely directed at children. With that move, Biden launched his next major legislative fight. In the months to come, the child wars are likely to grow more intense and, in some quarters, more detached from reality.

Bidens proposals include one that would make pre-kindergarten programs for three- and four-year-olds universally available. You know who else liked universal day care, Senator Marsha Blackburn tweeted, before the speech was over. She linked to a Times story from 1974 about state-run nurseries in what was then the Soviet Union. Of course, our Western European NATO allies tend to like universal pre-K, too, and, in any event, nobody would force parents here to take advantage of the option. The question is not whether people will be allowed to raise their children as they wish, rather than handing them over to the commissars, but whether the U.S. will invest in children in the same way that other wealthy countries have.

The pandemic has made this a brutally hard year for American children, in large part because their situation was already precarious. One in every six children lives below the federal poverty level, which is an income of $27,501 for a family of four. For Black children, the rate is thirty per cent; for Latinx children, twenty-four per cent, according to the Childrens Defense Fund. (For adults, the rate is just under eleven per cent.) Biden said that his proposal to extend and increase the pandemic-relief child-tax credit to thirty-six hundred dollars for each child younger than six, and three thousand dollars for each child aged six to seventeen, would help more than sixty-five million children and help cut child poverty in half. Big gains like that are possible in a single swoop precisely because the numbers are so bad to begin with.

Children in this country are, in many respects, the focal point in a nexus of poverty. A lack of affordable, high-quality day care keeps women out of the workforce, and many people in the child-care field are also low-wage earners. The Biden plan would insure a fifteen-dollar-per-hour minimum wage for employees of the pre-K programs it envisions. Those programs would be developed in partnership with the states, a detail that does not jibe with Blackburns fears or with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthys warning, after the speech, that Biden wants to control your life. (McCarthy continued, Hes going to control how much meat you can eata reference to an invented claim that Biden will limit Americans to one hamburger a month.) Similarly, Senator Tim Scott, in the official Republican response to the address, complained that Biden wanted to put Washington even more in the middle of your lifefrom the cradle to college.

Biden will have to act quickly. The Democrats control Congress, but just barely, and the task of holding on to the House in the midterm elections became harder, last week, after the reapportionment of seats following the 2020 census. (New York and Pennsylvania each lost a seat; Texas gained two, and Florida one.) Turning the plan into legislation that can pass Congress will require a debate among Democrats about priorities; Biden also has a two-trillion-dollar infrastructure package to get through. Meanwhile, the implications of the conservative shift of the Supreme Court are becoming increasingly clear. Last month, the Court made it easier to sentence children to life without parole, meaning that they could die in prison. (Brett Kavanaugh wrote the 63 decision; Sonya Sotomayor wrote an angry dissent.) Like the discussion around young migrants, that decision alternately reflects a distorted fear of children and an indifference to them. The ruling may also be a harbinger of the Courts stance should elements of the American Families Plan appear before it, as was the case with Obamacare.

The Biden plan, in fact, includes tax credits to help reduce the cost of Obamacare premiums (although not an expansion of Medicare, which Senator Bernie Sanders had sought). There is also an investment of two hundred and twenty-five billion dollars, in the next decade, to build a program that provides twelve weeks of parental and family leave. Indeed, the plan addresses the problems facing children and families from so many directionsa hundred billion dollars to guarantee two years of community college; eighty billion dollars for Pell Grants; forty-five billion dollars to expand school-based anti-hunger programsthat it is hard for Republicans to protest that, while they would like to do something for children, that something isnt in this plan. So they are left with disingenuous attacks and warnings about socialism.

The easy target for Republicans (and some moderate Democrats) is the new taxes that will be needed to pay for the plan, which would fall most heavily on the wealthiest Americans. Its a lot. Its a lot, Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat whose vote is crucial, told CNN, speaking of the cost. Its a lot thats worth fighting for. The challenge for the Biden Administration will be keeping the true reality of childrens lives at the center of the fight. Superheroes arent everywhere in Washington.

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Joe Biden, the Republicans, and Kids Stuff - The New Yorker

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Democrats should expect zero support from his party for President Joe Bidens new big-ticket infrastructure and social spending proposals.

Speaking Monday at the University of Louisville, McConnell said Republicans may be flexible on the price tag for a counteroffer on infrastructure made by a group of GOP senators, but Bidens proposals the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan were too expensive.

I think I can pretty safely say none of my Republican colleagues are going to support a $4.1 trillion infrastructure package, only part of which is for infrastructure, McConnell said.

He pointed to the offer made by Republican ranking members of the Senate committees that would work on an infrastructure bill, a plan with a gross cost of $568 billion but which Democrats have criticized as too small and not providing enough new money, in contrast with Bidens plan, which has been described as new money on top of existing planned spending.

Read more: Senate Republicans opening bid on infrastructure: $568 billion

Asked if that amount was a hard cap on how high Republicans were willing to go on infrastructure , McConnell said it wasnt.

If its going to be about infrastructure, lets make it about infrastructure. And I think theres some sentiment on the Democratic side for splitting it off, he said.

Democrats face a variety of choices to make in the coming weeks about how to proceed. Do they use a process called budget reconciliation again, allowing them to pass a bill without any Republican votes in the Senate? Do they pass one bill with both Bidens infrastructure and social spending plans with a gross cost of about $4 trillion but which the administration says would be paid for with tax changes over 15 years or split the proposals up into separate bills?

McConnell said single, big package would not garner Republican support.

I dont think there will be any Republican support none, zero for the $4.1 trillion grab bag that has infrastructure in it but a whole lot of other stuff, he said.

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McConnell predicts 'zero' Republican support for Biden jobs and families plan - MarketWatch

NEWS TO KNOWOur daily roundup of headlines from Virginia and elsewhere.

The percent positivity rate for COVID-19 tests in Virginia dipped below 5 percent for the first time in more than six months.Virginian-Pilot

In Virginia, 2021 was the best chance yet to elect a Black politician and possibly the first Black woman in any state to the governors mansion. But with five weeks until the commonwealths Democratic primary, Terry McAuliffe, its white male former governor, is on track to secure the nomination easily.Politico

Opponents of Del. Glenn Davis in the GOP nomination contest for lieutenant governor are turning to anti-LGBTQ messaging, including anonymous text messages that describe him as a gay Democrat and criticize his support for removing a now-defunct constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.Washington Post

Policing experts are divided on whether police correctly handled a traffic stop in Windsor that went viral after video showed officers pointing their guns at a U.S. Army lieutenant. I understand that they probably got their adrenaline pumped up because he wasnt pulling over right away. But they need to come down off of that high when they get into the gas station.Daily Press

Del. Betsy Carr, D-Richmond, says she plans to reintroduce legislation that would stop local governments from keeping fines collected during traffic stops. Police are incentivized if theyre going to get money from it just to make more traffic stops, and a lot of time Black and brown folks are the people who are bearing the brunt of this.WVTF

Appalachian Power customers could see their monthly bills rise by $22 if it secures approval for a series of future rate hikes.Roanoke Times

Officials at Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George County are disputing a state panels recommendation that the facility be shut down, arguing that inmate deaths are not always preventable for any jail.Progress-Index

A strike at a Volvo plant in Pulaski County ended. Union leaders said workers achieved significant gains toward fair pay, benefits and job security protections, but details of the agreement are not yet public.Associated Press

Researchers from Virginia Tech and the U.S. Forest Service are studying sustainable production techniques for ramps, which are at risk from over-harvesting as their popularity with foragers continues.Roanoke Times

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Statewide percent positivity rate dips below 5 percent, Republican lieutenant gov candidate accused of being 'a gay Democrat,' restoring ramp...

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