Happy Monday—

Well, Joe Biden is signing the infrastructure bill into law today. The question now becomes how quickly the shovels get in the ground. There’s probably no hope for the midterms, at least as far as the House is concerned, but one would hope that there will be lots of projects well underway by 2024.

Will the House pass Build Back Better this week? That’s the alleged plan. Speaker Nancy Pelosi can afford to lose three Democratic votes. Two Dems, Jared Golden of Maine and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, haven’t committed to supporting the bill. So keep an eye on them, as well as the Josh Gottheimers of the world. He’s apparently committed, but Congress is weird that way.

We’re already seeing the price of congressional dithering. Politico reports, for example, that the insulin cost cap in the Build Back Better bill won’t kick in until 2023 (assuming the bill becomes law). It’s a good provision—it caps the monthly cost of insulin at $35. Insulin now costs $100 per unit in the United States, as opposed to $12 per unit in Canada. This is what Republicans call destructive radical socialism. But again, at least it will kick in before the next presidential election.

The Congress has damaged Biden badly. If you read one column today, make it James Downie’s in The Washington Post. Writing off Sunday’s Post-ABCpoll that showed pretty brutal numbers for Biden and the Democrats generally, Downie notes that “just 35 percent of voters say Biden has accomplished much during his first 10 months, while only 31 percent believe he’s keeping his campaign promises. Both are worse scores thanBill Clinton, Donald Trump and Barack Obamareceived ahead of midterm drubbings two years into their presidencies.”

Steve Bannon is going to surrender and appear in federal court today after being indicted last week. Charges of contempt of Congress will be read against him, and he’ll have a chance to answer them. Whether he’ll say anything, who knows?

Meanwhile, some Republicans are openly plotting their revenge for this supposedly unfair indictment. I mean, it’s truly beyond belief. Here we have a guy who helped plot a coup against the government of the United States and who then thumbed his nose at Congress. And this indictment is somehow unjust?

To some people it is. Here’s Jim Jordan, in the Post: “Joe Biden has evicerated [sic] Executive Privilege,” Jordan wrote on Twitter. “There are a lot of Republicans eager to hear testimony from Ron Klain and Jake Sullivan when we take back the House.”

Interesting if depressing piece by Ben Smith in the Times today on the resignation of Marvin Olasky as editor of The World, an evangelical magazine. Under Olasky, the magazine has done investigative journalism sometimes aimed at Republicans and conservatives, which proved to be a bridge too far. Smith: “Mr. Olasky’s departure is just another example of the American news media sinking deeper into polarization, as one more conservative news outlet, which had almost miraculously retained its independence, is conquered by Mr. Trump.”

Today at NewRepublic.com, speaking of interesting if depressing, Matt Ford explains how Amy Coney Barrett’s presence on the Supreme Court, as the sixth conservative vote, has emboldened conservatives to try things “they might have hesitated to consider when Chief Justice John Roberts or former Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote.” Molly Osberg looks at Dr. Oz’s potential Republican Senate candidacy and figures he’d fit right in with that bunch. And I wonder why more Americans don’t see that the Republican Party has lost its mind and is a danger to democracy.

Hang in there,

Michael Tomasky

Friday’s trivia question: Dutch footballer Vivianne Miedema is only 25 years old but has already run up a substantial number of career achievements, including two Frauen-Bundesliga titles with Bayern Munich and the 2017 Women’s European championship with the Dutch national team. She was named the Professional Footballers’ Association Women’s Player of the Year and shortlisted for the Ballon d’Or Féminin in 2019, as well as being named Women’s Player of the Year at the London Football Awards and by England’s Football Writers’ Association in 2020. What career achievement did she notch on September 9, 2021, and which city was she in when she did it?

Answer: Viv notched her 100th goal for her current club, Arsenal, in UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifying action at Sinobo Stadium in Prague, Czech Republic.

Today’s political history question: Trouble is brewing in Bosnia, where the Serbian faction, led by genocide denialist Milorad Dodik, is threatening to secede and break the country apart. This would repeat, in a horrifying way, the move made by the Bosnian Serb leader in the early 1990s, who withdrew from the multiethnic government (Serb, Croatian, Muslim) to set up his own government. Who was that person? And about how many people were killed by Serbs in the Bosnian genocide?