‘Constant invigoration’
| 'Constant invigoration'  If this were "The West Wing," the president would sweep into Congress at a stroke before midnight, lights on his motorcade flashing, stirring music building, to nail the final wavering vote and push the crucial bill over the line.
Generally though, the real Washington doesn't follow witty scripts like the hit NBC show of the early 2000s. But there has been a sense of something epic unfolding on Capitol Hill today at a pivotal moment for Joe Biden's presidency, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi goes to the wall to try to pass a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
The veteran California Democrat has been going hour by hour and vote by vote to try to build a majority in a chamber where she can lose only three votes and still pass a bill. Her problem is that she is whipping against her own side.
Progressive Democrats are refusing to back the measure that got 19 Republican votes in the Senate unless a much bigger $3.5 trillion social spending bill passes at the same time. That's not happening because moderate Democrats say it's too big; West Virginia's Joe Manchin, for example, says his top line is $1.5 trillion. But every other Democrat in Washington, including Biden, says that's far too small.
Given the impasse, most people expected Pelosi to pull the infrastructure bill — which is seen by many moderates in her caucus as vital to their uphill efforts to cling to their seats in next year's midterm elections. But Pelosi, who is viewed by Democrats as having almost mystical vote-counting powers, refused to admit defeat. Asked at one point this afternoon to describe the state of play of her adrenaline-fueled, eleventh-hour majority-building bid, she said, "Constant invigoration."
As Meanwhile goes to press, anything could still happen. The bill could pass, in what would be one of the most remarkable cliffhangers of Pelosi's long career — and Biden would have valuable validation for his lonely belief that Democrats and Republicans can actually work together. The infrastructure vote could still be postponed if Pelosi can't find the votes. In that case, the progressive left would have made a remarkable statement, standing firm against their own leader and drawing a line in the sand over the party's future. But with the fate of the larger bill still uncertain, Biden's domestic agenda would be hanging by a very thin thread.
Who needs a Hollywood scriptwriter? The world and America A court ordered Canada to pay billions to Indigenous children removed from their families between the 19th century and the 1990s.
Vaccine passports were banned, then reinstated, in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
Advocacy groups are racing to find housing for 53,000 Afghan refugees.
Blind justice Supreme Court justices used to be neither seen nor heard, confining themselves to their well-chiseled opinions, thunderous dissents and little-noticed lectures.
But lately, you can barely turn on the TV without a justice sounding off, as ideological stresses rock the politicized court. For much of the summer, Justice Stephen Breyer, an 83-year-old liberal on a book tour, parried calls for him to retire so Democrats can replace him while they still control the Senate. The current 6-3 conservative majority on the court is bad enough for liberals, but 7-2 would be a cataclysm.
Another liberal justice, Sonia Sotomayor, just issued a doom-laden prediction for the term to come, after the court's hugely controversial decision not to block a new Texas law that effectively curtails women's constitutional right to abortion. "There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount," she told law students.
Some of the conservative justices seem to be fretting that they are beginning to be seen as political operatives rather than blind arbiters of law. "When we begin to venture into the legislative or executive branch lanes, those of us, particularly in the federal judiciary with lifetime appointments, are asking for trouble," Justice Clarence Thomas said this month.
On Thursday, Justice Samuel Alito lashed out at an impression among the media and politicians that it was acting in a "sneaky or dangerous" manner with recent emergency rulings.
And the newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, protested that members of the top bench made decisions based on judicial philosophy rather than ideology. Justices aren't just "a bunch of partisan hacks," she said.
The argument that the court is not political is tough to make with a straight face. After all, the right-wing majority -- of which Barrett is a part -- came about through a decades-long conservative campaign. And it was constructed by Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell adopting very questionable tactics to leverage Republican nominees onto the bench.
So why wouldn't some Americans suspect that the once-nonpartisan branch of government may now be as politics-infected as everywhere else?  A Florida man took matters into his own hands when an alligator walked into his neighbor's front yard on Tuesday. (Roy Bonilla) Thanks for sticking with us through the week. On Saturday, expect marches in Washington and cities around the United States for women's rights and reproductive freedom. Mexicans march to mark 53 years since the Tlatelolco student massacre. View in browser | All CNN Newsletters
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