C'mon man, get your shots

Speaking at a televised town hall in Cincinnati, Oh., last night, President Biden expressed pointed frustration over the slowing COVID-19 vaccination rate, as the virus surges once again in the U.S., largely due to the spread of the Delta variant. It's "gigantically important" for Americans to step up and get inoculated, Biden said, as the public health crisis has turned into a plight of the unvaccinated. "We have a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination—it's that basic, that simple," he said. —MarketWatch

• — Mitch McConnell is on Biden's side. You read that right. At least as far as Covid vaccinations are concerned, the Senate minority leader agrees with the president. "These shots need to get in everybody's arms as rapidly as possible, or we're going to be back in a situation in the fall that we don't yearn for—that we went through last year," McConnell said at a news conference this week. "This is not complicated." —The Hill
•  
• — They don't trust...themselves? More than two-thirds of state and local government employees responding to a MissionSquare Research Institute/Greenwald Research survey reported that they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But more than 20% have not received even a single dose of any coronavirus vaccine. Among the vaccine-resistant, 33% cited "lack of trust in the government" as their reasoning. That's...interesting. —Route Fifty
•  
• — In like a Delta, out like a Lambda. The Lambda variant of the virus has been identified in about 700 Covid cases in the U.S. Lambda is a "variant of interest," because it has genetic changes that affect the virus' characteristics and has caused significant community spread of COVID-19 in multiple countries. However, public health experts say it remains too soon to tell whether the variant will rise to the same level of concern as Delta. —USA Today

Berman: The next step for infrastructure

"As much as Biden would love Republican votes for the infrastructure plan, he wants the roads and bridges even more. If the GOP senators won't seal the deal they struck or dawdle too long in finishing it, Democrats are already planning to take the bipartisan infrastructure framework and add it to their own $3.5 trillion measure. That's the leverage [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer is using by forcing an early vote on the bipartisan proposal; Democrats don't want to repeat the mistake they made in President Barack Obama's first year in office, when they allowed Republicans to drag out negotiations over a healthcare bill for months and squandered the new president's political capital." —Russell Berman in The Atlantic

Russell Berman is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering politics.

MORE: Infrastructure bill blocked by Senate Republicans as lawmakers haggle over details —USA Today

Taking back the power

Deciding when the U.S. military should go to war is one of the most weighty powers of the federal government. Now, a bipartisan group of senators is seeking to restore a measure of democratic accountability to these consequential national security decisions. On Tuesday, Sens. Chris Murphy, Mike Lee, and Bernie Sanders introduced war powers reform legislation as part of the larger National Security Powers Act of 2021. The bill would reset the balance of power between the political branches and restore Congress' constitutional role in determining when the nation goes to war. It may gain traction with President Biden, who, as a senator, expressed the need for such reforms. Stay tuned. —Just Security

MORE: 'Not one time': Milley says Joint Chiefs did not violate oath in handling Trump —Defense One

DOJ will review Trump's constitutional challenge

Donald Trump's recently filed lawsuits against social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube contain a constitutional challenge to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, meaning the Department of Justice has an opportunity to intervene. Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida formally requested a response to the challenge from Attorney General Merrick Garland. Under Section 230, platforms are allowed to remove posts that violate their terms or standards as long as they are acting "in good faith." Inexplicably, Trump's suit argues that the social media platforms are abusing those protections, while at the same time claiming the protections themselves are unconstitutional. Both lines of argument have failed in previous lawsuits. A response from the DOJ is expected by mid-September. —Newsweek

MORE: White House reviewing Section 230 amid efforts to push social media giants to crack down on misinformation —CNN

Will: Treading the 1st Amendment fine line

"The city government of Anaheim, Calif., recently announced that a private venue that was to have hosted an 'America First' rally—featuring two of the dregs of Congress, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, both Republicans—had canceled the event. The private venue had a right to do so and said it did when it learned who the speakers would be. However, an Anaheim government spokesman said, 'We as a city shared our public safety concerns' with the venue. This supports the suspicion that Anaheim said it could not, or would not, protect the event from protests threatening 'public safety.' This suspicion is strengthened by the city's statement that 'we respect free speech but also have a duty to call out speech that does not reflect our city and its values.' Anaheim has no such duty, and the 1st Amendment has no exemption allowing communities to connive at impeding speech that does not 'reflect' the community's values." —George Will in The Washington Post

George Will is a conservative political commentator and columnist for The Washington Post.

MORE: Henry Olsen: Biden is venturing into dangerous territory by pushing Facebook to censor anti-vaccination speech —The Washington Post

State roundup

Pennsylvania's top elections officer has decertified the voting machines of Fulton County (Pa., not Ga.), after officials there agreed to requests by Republican lawmakers to allow a software firm to inspect the machines as part of an "audit" of the 2020 election. Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid notified Fulton County officials this week that the inspection violated state law, as it was done in a manner that "was not transparent or bipartisan," and the firm had "no knowledge or expertise in election technology." —GoErie

• — Delaware. Yesterday, Delaware Gov. John Carney signed into law a bill that requires all police officers in the state to wear body cameras. Carney said while some departments have already been using body cameras, it was important to make it a statewide effort. "It's more about the trust that something like this is creating between law enforcement and the communities in which they serve—particularly communities of color—that is so critically important for law enforcement to do their jobs and for our communities to be safe," he said. Lawmakers voted unanimously last month to approve the legislation. Well done, Delaware. —WHYY
•  
• — Missouri. Health officials are alarmed by a public Facebook discussion between two Republican lawmakers in Missouri that they say demonstrates why it's been so difficult to get the population vaccinated against COVID-19. In the exchange, State Rep. Bill Kidd revealed he had been infected by the coronavirus, adding that he didn't get the vaccine because "we're Republicans. 😆" State Rep. Brian Seitz replied that the virus was developed by Dr. Anthony Fauci and billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates. They "knew what was coming," he wrote. Hoo boy. —ProPublica
•  
• — Michigan. Video and photos released yesterday show Barry Croft, a Delaware man charged in the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, carrying a "boogaloo" flag and training with a semiautomatic assault rifle. Messages exchanged between Croft and another individual feature a photo of a bridge near Whitmer's vacation home that Croft and others allegedly planned to blow up. The conspiracy against Whitmer is one of the highest-profile cases in the nation involving individuals angered by state-ordered restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. Croft is one of five people awaiting trial on charges that could send them to federal prison for life. —The Detroit News

Hohmann: The disturbing number of extremists in law enforcement

"Departments can police themselves by strengthening background checks on recruits, weeding out extremists through surveillance of social media accounts, and reducing the power of unions to protect rotten apples. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security can bolster efforts to identify extremism in local police forces. Just as on Jan. 6, good cops can help protect us from bad cops." —James Hohmann in The Washington Post

James Hohmann is a columnist at The Washington Post, covering politics, policy, and law.

MORE: DHS lacks comprehensive strategy to counter violent extremism, report says —Federal Computer Week

At first, I thought Speaker Pelosi should have, in a spirit of bipartisanship, accepted all of the minority leader's recommendations for the Select Committee. Then I heard Rep. Liz Cheney's courageous remarks. It's strange to describe simply telling the truth as courageous, but these are strange times. The committee needs members who really are interested in the truth about Jan. 6. The people of Wyoming should be proud of Rep. Cheney's service and commitment to our Constitution. —Dennis A., Texas

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.