Senate progressives held up their end of the bargain, voting in lockstep to pass a scaled-down bipartisan infrastructure deal. Now it’s on to the fun part: Preventing Joe Manchin from dipping the companion reconciliation package in cement and dropping it over the side of his houseboat, drowning the first bill along with it.
 

• After Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) thoughtfully upstaged the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure deal with his belated resignation on Tuesday, Senate Democrats quickly turned the page to their $3.5 trillion budget blueprint, and passed it on a party-line vote in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. That lays the groundwork for them to pass a big, chonky bill through the reconciliation process, where the filibuster rules don’t apply, and touches off negotiations on what the legislative text of that chonkster will actually look like.
   
• Enter Sen. Joe Machin (D-WV), who has some “serious concerns” about the $3.5 trillion price tag: “Given the current state of the economic recovery, it is simply irresponsible to continue spending at levels more suited to respond to a Great Depression or Great Recession—not an economy that is on the verge of overheating.” (What if it was spending to fight climate change on a planet that’s already overheating? Would that maybe be responsible?)
   
• Manchin joins Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who previously announced her objection to the size of the package. Their statements have Republicans drooling over the prospect of scuttling President Biden’s agenda: The Obstruction Caucus won’t have a direct say in the reconciliation process, since their votes won’t be needed, but they can try to persuade Smanchinema to pare it down for them. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t rule out lowering the price tag on Wednesday, but did dismiss Manchin’s inflation concerns, noting that the package will be fully paid for.

Senate Democrats will now have just over a month to draft a bill with a degree of chonkiness they can all get behind. 
 

• As the Senate departed on its August recess (without making any 11th hour progress on voting-rights legislation, alas), Schumer said he wanted the reconciliation bill on his desk by September 15, the week senators return. The House will come back from recess on August 23 to approve the budget resolution, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her members on a Tuesday call that she absolutely won’t hold a vote on the bipartisan bill until the Senate has passed the reconciliation package, even as moderate members pressure her to take it up right away. In other words if Mansinemachin kill the reconciliation bill, they’ll take Biden’s whole agenda down with it.
   
• Meanwhile, Democrats’ spicy bet that Republicans will help them raise the debt ceiling next month continues to get spicier. After Democrats left a debt-limit increase out of their budget, and announced that they would tie it to a must-pass government funding bill instead, 46 Republicans have signed a pledge not to provide the votes needed to increase it. Biden said their threat doesn’t worry him: “They're not gonna let the U.S. default.” On the one hand, it would be batshit crazy for the GOP to tank the economy rather than agree to pay off Donald Trump’s bills. On the other hand, the GOP seems pretty comfortable with batshit crazy lately.

Democrats spent months of valuable time letting Republicans whittle down a bipartisan infrastructure deal, all to ensure that moderates would be there to help pass a much more ambitious proposal on the other side. So far, Democratic leaders look set on holding moderates to the spirit of that arrangement; the next few weeks will tell us whether they intend on holding them to the letter of it, too.

2022 is around the corner, and in order to win elections in the face of GOP power grabs, we are going to have to dig deep and work harder than ever before, and that work needs to start early. Vote Save America’s brand-new No Off Years program will support the groups and organizers laying the groundwork in key states through remote volunteer opportunities, targeted donations, and education on what’s at stake in upcoming elections. Sign up today at votesaveamerica.com/NoOffYears.

Senate Republicans have been stalling the confirmation of President Biden’s highest-ranking Muslim nominee on an Islamophobic pretext, turning what should be a boring economic panel into the latest culture-war battleground. Biden tapped Dilawar Syed for the second-highest post at the Small Business Administration back in March, but Republicans have blocked the Senate Small Business Committee from advancing his nomination over his association with a Muslim American group that’s been critical of the Israeli government. In an email circulated among Republican committee staff in June, an aide to Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) also pointedly noted Syed’s Pakistani roots. Both Muslim and Jewish organizers have denounced the GOP opposition to Syed as nakedly Islamophobic and xenophobic, and the White House has stood by his nomination.

• Former U.S. Attorney Byung “BJay” Pak told congressional investigators that he abruptly resigned in January because then-President Donald Trump planned to fire him for refusing to say that there had been rampant voter fraud in Georgia. 
   

• The CDC gone from recommending that pregnant people get vaccinated to enthusiastically urging them to do so, citing new safety data that found no increased risk of miscarriage among those who got the jab in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
   
• A federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump’s accounting firm must turn over two years’ worth of his tax records to the House oversight committee, but not the earlier records that the committee also subpoenaed. 
   
• Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most outspoken accusers, has sued Prince Andrew in New York, saying that he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.
   
• YouTube has suspended Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over a video in which he claimed that masks are ineffective, preventing him from uploading more information for a whole entire week.
   
• This year’s Sturgis Rally in South Dakota has all the makings of another disastrous coronavirus superspreader, as hundreds of thousands of unmasked, unvaccinated bikers join forces with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) to overwhelm some hospitals.
   
• Two Wyoming GOP county boards have voted to no longer recognize Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as a member of their party, as the fallout for her refusal to go along with the Big Lie continues.
   
• Southwest, American, and Delta Airlines won’t require their workers to get vaccinated, providing an alternative to customers who might have felt alienated by United’s announcement that only passengers would be permitted to spread disease with abandon.
   
• Jeopardy has announced its two new hosts: Executive producer Mike Richards, who’s been implicated in discrimination and harassment lawsuits at another game show, and actress Mayim Bialik, who once wrote an op-ed about how she’s never been harassed because she dresses modestly. There, now everyone’s happy.

Leaked IRS records show how Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut created a windfall for a handful of billionaires who helped shape it. Take this fun anecdote: Shortly before the bill’s passage, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) announced that he would vote against it unless it included a tax cut for pass-through companies—businesses that pass profits directly to the owners—framing it as relief for small businesses. His ultimatum worked, and two families worth billions, Dick and Liz Uihlein (who own ULine) and Diane Hendricks (the queen of roofing) immediately walked away with $215 million in savings. Those two families together had poured around $20 million into Johnson’s 2016 re-election campaign. They weren’t the only billionaires to reap the rewards: In the year after the legislation passed, just 82 of the country’s wealthiest households collectively saved more than $1 billion in new deductions. The tax overhaul is a case study in how the ultrawealthy are able to mold the tax code for their own benefit, with the help of the truck drivin’, elites hatin’, working man’s GOP.

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The FDA is set to approve a third vaccine dose for immunocompromised adults on Thursday.

That third dose seems to be safe and effective for organ transplant recipients, according to a Canadian clinical trial.

California will become the first state to require that all public school teachers and staff get vaccinated.

The National Park Service has announced more than $700,000 in grants for the preservation of historic sites in underrepresented communities.