The week from hell

That's how Rep. Debbie Dingell describes the week ahead for Congress. Indeed it is a momentous week that will have major implications for President Biden's agenda and the country's economic future. Here's what's at play: the House will vote on the $1 trillion infrastructure package that the Senate passed last month and the $3.5 trillion social spending reconciliation bill that is tied to it. The Senate, meanwhile, will contend with simultaneously averting a government shutdown and a potential default on U.S. debts.

• — "I'm never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes." The week begins with a delay. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last night that she would delay the House vote on the infrastructure plan from today until Thursday, in the hopes that she can unite her caucus behind it. They will meet tonight to hash it all out.
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• — Here's the problem. House Progressives plan to vote against the infrastructure bill if the budget reconciliation isn't passed by both chambers of Congress first. That's extremely unlikely, given that not only are Republicans aghast at the price tag, but so are moderate Democrats. The margins are narrow. Only eight House Republicans say they'll vote for the infrastructure bill. Even several members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that helped craft the bill are planning to vote against it, as GOP leaders are urging.
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• — No less tense in the Senate. The upper chamber will have to approve a House-passed stopgap spending bill, which includes funds requested by the White House for Afghan refugee resettlement and disaster relief, before Friday to avert a government shutdown. Tucked into it is a poison pill for Republicans: an increase in the debt limit to pay for spending greenlit, ironically enough, by the Trump Administration. How will it all play out? Stay tuned. —Forbes

Bunch: Pennsylvania could be a serious problem

"If the GOP wins Pennsylvania's open 2022 gubernatorial race to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf—and the governor's mansion has flipped parties without fail since the 1960s—then the secretary of state pick will be made by a Republican who will surely have to curry favor with Trump to get through a crowded primary. One of the front-runners is a mirror image of Arizona's Mark Finchem—State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who organized buses to Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 and was photographed near the insurrection. If Mastriano or one of several other Trump-crazed candidates wins the general election, it's a lock that Pennsylvania's 48th governor will name a secretary of state who will work feverishly to restrict voting rights in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, and—if Trump gets fewer votes, again—cast doubt on the outcome, or work to simply ignore the results, as would be expected in a dictatorship." —Will Bunch in The Philadelphia Inquirer

Will Bunch is the national columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

MORE: Hidalgo calls state election audit a 'sham' and an assault on democracy to appease Trump —Houston Chronicle

New leadership for Germany

Germany's center-left Social Democrats won the biggest share of the vote in a national election yesterday, narrowly beating outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Union bloc in a race that will determine who succeeds the long-time leader. The Social Democrats' candidate, Olaf Scholz, the outgoing vice chancellor and finance minister, said the outcome was "a very clear mandate to ensure now that we put together a good, pragmatic government for Germany." Despite getting its worst-ever result in a federal contest, the Union bloc said it too would reach out to smaller parties to discuss forming a government, while Merkel stays on in a caretaker role until her successor is sworn in. —Associated Press

MORE: German election results herald messier politics and weaker leadership after Merkel —The New York Times

Dickerson: Our unfair immigration laws need an update

"One would be hard-pressed to imagine a scenario in which, following a coup or an earthquake in France, a large crowd of Parisians would show up in Matamoros, Mexico, and face the same treatment as the Haitians—because they would not be required to present themselves at the border in the first place. People from wealthy Western countries don’t need visas to come to the U.S. For a few hundred dollars, they can simply hop on planes and enter the U.S. as tourists. Then, at some point on their 'vacation,' they can show up at a government office and request asylum as part of a non-adversarial administrative process. Or they can simply stay in the U.S. illegally without seeking permission, as thousands of Western Europeans and Canadians do each year." —Caitlin Dickerson in The Atlantic

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

MORE: Biden Administration takes new steps to preserve DACA —CNN

Collings: Are our freedoms waning?

"The Bill of Rights is now 230 years old. Although its promises have sometimes been flouted or applied selectively, it has served us, on the whole, exceedingly well. But it faces novel challenges and unprecedented strains. In the face of those challenges, it is past time for us to renew our acquaintance with, and our commitment to, these precious guarantees. May all Americans, once more and forever, steer by the fixed star of our first and foremost freedoms." —Justin Collings in Deseret News

Justin Collings is a professor at Brigham Young University Law School and a fellow at the Wheatley Institution.

MORE: Texas social media law restricting moderation faces lawsuit —The Texas Tribune

Focus on the insurrection

The Kraken is back. Attorney Sidney Powell, who has filed numerous lawsuits in a failed bid to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory, claims the Jan. 6 insurrection was meant to give Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito time to stop the certification of the election. She says that as the mob stormed the Capitol, her team was seeking an emergency injunction. "We were filing a 12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process that the Congress was about to use under the Electoral Act provisions that simply don't jive with the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," she said. "And Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that." Powell alleges that when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned of the lawsuit, she hurriedly reconvened Congress to certify Biden's victory. No word from Alito as to whether he knew about his intended role in the scheme. —Newsweek

• — No shield for you. Biden does not plan to assert executive privilege to shield Trump-era documents sought by the House select committee investigating the insurrection. "We have been working closely with congressional committees and others as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on Jan. 6, an incredibly dark day in our democracy," White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki said. Donald Trump pledged last Thursday to fight subpoenas for testimony from his former aides "on Executive Privilege and other grounds," though those efforts are likely to fail given that he is no longer president. —The Hill
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• — An inside man. As scores of Proud Boys made their way toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member was busy texting a real-time account of the march…to his FBI handler. Turns out, the bureau had an informant in the crowd, providing an inside glimpse of the action. Affiliated with a Midwest chapter of the Proud Boys, he denied that the group intended to use violence that day or had any advance plans to storm the building. The new information could complicate the government's efforts to prove the conspiracy charges it has brought against several members of the far-right extremist group. —The New York Times

1. — Facing consequences. The Justice Department unsealed charges late last week against a grassroots organizer from the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks for his alleged role in the insurrection. Brandon Prenzlin was charged with four federal misdemeanors for what prosecutors say was just over three minutes spent inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. A confidential source identified him from video shot in the Capitol, and investigators matched the images to his social media posts. FreedomWorks has announced that Prenzlin is no longer an employee of the organization as of Sept. 20. —CNN

Kagan: The insurrection isn't over

"The events of Jan. 6…proved that Trump and his most die-hard supporters are prepared to defy constitutional and democratic norms, just as revolutionary movements have in the past. While it might be shocking to learn that normal, decent Americans can support a violent assault on the Capitol, it shows that Americans as a people are not as exceptional as their founding principles and institutions. Europeans who joined fascist movements in the 1920s and 1930s were also from the middle classes. No doubt many of them were good parents and neighbors, too. People do things as part of a mass movement that they would not do as individuals, especially if they are convinced that others are out to destroy their way of life." —Robert Kagan in The Washington Post

Robert Kagan is an author, a Washington Post columnist focusing on foreign affairs, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations.

MORE: Pro-Trump congressional candidate says 'audit all 50 states' and 'execute all involved' —Newsweek

The headline "Can These Two Play Nice?" last Wednesday irked me to no end. Why? Because once again, as so often in various media, it implies a false equivalence between Speaker Pelosi—who, along with most Democrats, has tried repeatedly to work with Republicans—and Sen. McConnell, a partisan hack who has stated more than once that his aim is to kill any legislation Democrats offer. —Scott K., California

In last Thursday's Topline, I read about what former Vice President Pence has been doing. He said, "We see a crisis that brings us here today, a crisis that strikes at the very heart of civilization itself. The erosion of the nuclear family marked by declining marriage rates, rising divorce, widespread abortion, and plummeting birth rates." Its inclusion seemed to imply that his view was a radical, bad thing when it is not. It is the truth. Abortion, divorce, and the decline of the nuclear family really are eroding the fabric of society. I would hope that Pence's stance on the preservation of family values and restrictions of the abomination of abortion would be praised. It is not a radical idea to support the natural family. —Vance B., Kansas

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