'Old battles have become new again'

The House passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act last night to strengthen a key component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which mandates federal review of local election laws in states with a history of voter discrimination. The legislation, named in honor of the late civil rights activist and congressman, passed the House with a final vote of 219-212, with no GOP support. House Republicans slammed the bill as a "federal takeover of elections" and a "power grab" by Democrats, who they say will undermine the state election process. The bill now faces a tough road ahead in the Senate, where there is strong Republican opposition in the evenly divided body. —ABC News

• — Arizona. In other voting news, Maricopa County is awaiting the results of an "audit" of its 2020 election conducted by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas. State Republicans are beginning to fret that the whole exercise could backfire on them. No court or election authority has found evidence of widespread fraud, and the election results were already certified. So, will this process—which was supposed to take two months, but has stretched into four—turn off or reassure the centrist Republicans and independents the GOP hopes to win back in 2022 and 2024? Time will tell. —The Wall Street Journal
•  
• — North Carolina. A North Carolina state court panel ruled this week to reinstate voting rights to people who are on parole, probation, or supervised release for a felony. In the largest expansion of voting rights in the state since the 1960s, the ruling restores voting rights to more than 55,000 people—a group that is disproportionately Black. The law previously required felons to complete their probation or parole before being allowed to register to vote; other states allow prisoners to regain the franchise as soon as they leave prison. —Axios
•  
• — Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania's Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman said hearings will begin this week in the state's "full forensic investigation" of the 2020 presidential election. Corman added that he has communicated with Donald Trump, whose baseless claims about election fraud have propelled the Pennsylvania audit, as well as similar investigations in other battleground states that President Biden won. "I think he's comfortable with where we're heading, and so we're going to continue that work," Corman said. How nice. —WSKG

'The biggest, and perhaps the most controversial, initiative that any of us have undertaken'

Capping a dramatic showdown between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a bloc of 10 moderate Democrats that tested her ability to steer her caucus through its slim three-seat majority, the House advanced a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint on a strict party-line vote last night. The spending plan would expand Medicare, set up a national program for paid family and medical leave, and include tuition-free community college, a child allowance, and initiatives to address the climate crisis, among other provisions. President Biden praised the progress Democrats made, saying, "What is important is that we came together to advance our agenda." Republicans blasted the colossal package as "wasteful." —Insider

MORE: House Democrats strike deal to advance infrastructure, voting rights proposals —Axios

Rubin: Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis won't end on Aug 31

"[I]n 2014, when Biden was vice president, the United States signed the Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan, which stated that the two countries 'are committed to seeking a future of justice, peace, security, and opportunity for the Afghan people.' Afghans are facing a humanitarian catastrophe of daunting proportions. The world must take action—sooner rather than later. After 20 years of botched policy, the U.S. has a particular obligation to mitigate the oncoming disaster. Let us hope it can find the will to do what it can." —Barnett Rubin in The Washington Post

Barnett Rubin is a former senior adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the State Department, and a nonresident fellow of the Center for International Cooperation of New York University and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

MORE: Taliban tell Afghan women to stay home because soldiers are 'not trained' to respect them —CNN

'It was a deep dive, but you can only go so deep'

China's persistent evasiveness has been a key reason why U.S. officials are unable to deliver a definitive conclusion on the origins of the novel coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. A new assessment by U.S. spy agencies, ordered by President Biden 90 days ago, was presented to the White House yesterday, but fails to yield a final verdict on whether the virus jumped to humans naturally, or via a lab leak in Wuhan, China. Senior officials blame Beijing, which has refused to provide the detailed information required to make the determination. Above all, the assessment underscores the importance of inducing China to share lab records, genomic samples, and other data that could provide further illumination on the origins of the virus. —The Wall Street Journal

MORE: Ultra-vaxxed Israel's crisis is a dire warning to America —The Daily Beast

Åslund: The case for stronger Russia sanctions

"Russian citizens, including the Kremlin elite, hold about $1 trillion of offshore anonymous funds in the West. Since these fortunes can have a corrupt influence on Western politics, new transparency legislation is needed to uncover them. America's resumption of cooperation with its allies under Biden is welcome. But now, the U.S., the EU, the United Kingdom, and Canada must step up their Russia sanctions. Judging by Putin's recent article denying that the Ukrainians are a real people, worse behavior from the Kremlin is sure to come." —Anders Åslund on Project Syndicate

Anders Åslund is a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum and the author of "Russia's Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy."

MORE: Ukraine sanctions lawmaker accused of meddling in U.S. election —Reuters

Focus on immigration

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Biden Administration likely violated federal law in trying to end a Trump-era program that forces migrants to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S. The high court refused to block a lower court ruling ordering the administration to reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols program, informally known as Remain in Mexico.

• — The administration has "failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious," the court wrote, citing its opinion from last year rejecting the Trump Administration's effort to end another immigration program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
•  
• — Under the lower court ruling, the administration must make a "good faith effort" to restart the program. However, there is nothing preventing the administration from trying again to end it, arguing that the president has "clear authority to determine immigration policy," and that Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas has discretion in deciding whether to return asylum-seekers to Mexico.

1. — The policy has been dormant for more than a year, and the administration says that abruptly reinstating it "would prejudice the U.S.'s relations with vital regional partners, severely disrupt its operations at the southern border, and threaten to create a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis." Stay tuned. —Associated Press

Lachelier & Morrow: The value of democracy learning communities

"Democracy demands informed, skilled, and caring citizens. Good citizens are neither born nor made through the status quo of episodic democracy. Democracy can and should be a lifestyle as much as a governance system. Municipal and regional DLCs can cultivate more good citizens and help Americans overcome political dysfunction. There is no better place to start than in your own town, city, or region." —Paul Lachelier & Mike Morrow in The Fulcrum

Paul Lachelier is the founder of Learning Life, a nonprofit lab devoted to innovating education and citizen engagement. Mike Morrow is a former U.S. diplomat and current senior democracy strategist with Learning Life.

MORE: Select committee probe expands to Trump and top officials in a wave of demands —NPR

By January 2021, U.S. combat strength in Afghanistan numbered about 2,500, its lowest level in 20 years, representing the culmination of a long drawdown in U.S. forces engaged in Afghanistan—from a combat mission in the first half of U.S. and allied involvement to the train-equip-advise mission the U.S. and allies undertook in 2014 to pass more combat responsibilities to the Afghan armed forces. The U.S. suffered no casualties from combat in the last 18 months. While the Afghans were conducting the lion's share of combat operations, and while Afghanistan certainly remained a hostile environment, the "endless war" or "forever war" characterizations became inappropriate as far as Western involvement and role were concerned. Those characterizations have become shibboleths.

While two-thirds of the American public decided the war was not worth fighting, who noticed that the objective of denying international terrorists sanctuary in Afghanistan was being met at relatively low cost of a train-equip-advise mission? While news media rehash analyses recounting the cost of the war—invoking the loss of blood and treasure over the last 20 years—is it not merely reinforcing the "endless wars" or "forever wars" shibboleths? Perhaps the strategists and policy makers in the U.S. and NATO got Afghanistan right. Is that too much to accept for a public nurtured by social media news feeds operating algorithms designed to reinforce confirmation bias?

This is not a government failure of strategy or lack of a plan. It is a failure of the information media marketplace. —Steve J., Pennsylvania

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.