The Senate actually agrees on something

Yep, it's true. In a chamber racked by partisan division, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate found rare accord last night over Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's sprawling measure to counter China's growing economic and military prowess. The $250 billion Innovation and Competition Act pours immediate capital into U.S. technology manufacturing, paves the way for the next generation of space exploration, opens the door for new sanctions against Beijing for human rights abuses, and authorizes funding to counter the political influence of the Chinese Communist Party. The bill heads to the House next. —The Washington Post

• — Equal wages. Not so lucky was the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation intended to address the gender pay gap, which failed to advance in the Senate yesterday. The bill did not gain a single Republican vote in the upper chamber, after passing the House in April with just one Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voting in favor. Most Republicans support the Wage Equity Act, which would encourage companies to voluntarily analyze employee pay and direct an independent government agency to study the impacts of women leaving the workforce for family-related reasons. —Axios
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• — Infrastructure. It's not dead yet! While President Biden's negotiations with Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito concluded yesterday without a deal, a group of Democratic and Republican House members known as the Problem Solvers Caucus said they had agreed to $761.8 billion in new spending over eight years. Together with $487.2 billion in spending that Congress was already likely to enact, the total would come to $1.2 trillion—not far off the $1.7 trillion package Biden pitched. Stay tuned. —Bloomberg
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• — Police reform. A bipartisan group of negotiators is also making headway on sweeping police reform legislation, as they narrow in on a compromise over qualified immunity. Qualified immunity—protection for officers from being sued for misconduct—has been a major roadblock to reaching consensus. Republicans argue that eliminating the protection would harm police recruitment, while Democrats insist that police officers must be held accountable for serious misbehavior. The negotiators hope to have draft legislation within the next two weeks. —NBC News

Comstock: It's long past time for the GOP to move on

"Republicans need to have more faith in their policies and stop being afraid of a dangerous and diminished man who has divided the country and now divides our party. Reconsider the commission, let the investigation go ahead, and run and win in 2022 on the truth." —Barbara Comstock in The New York Times

Barbara Comstock represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

MORE: Charlie Baker is one of the nation's most popular governors. That isn't enough for the GOP —Politico

White House defends 'vital' summit

He signed a law banning "extremists" from running in elections—on jailed dissident Alexei Navalny's birthday. He left the Open Skies Treaty. He compared the U.S. to the Soviet Union. And that's just in the past week. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin's open belligerence, some are criticizing President Biden's choice to have a face-to-face summit with him during his European trip, which begins today. But the White House insists it isn't a reward but an opportunity. Plus, Biden has reassured President Volodymr Zelensky of Ukraine, long a target of Russia, that he will stand up for the U.S. ally at the summit. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also has indicated that Biden will meet with Zelensky at the White House later this summer. Stay tuned. —CNN

MORE: U.S. ambassador to Russia warned senators that Biden Administration risks repeating predecessors' mistakes in dealing with Putin —CNN

Grier: What will 2024 look like?

"One of the main lessons of the 2020 presidential election was that ordinary officials, partisans themselves, can be among American democracy's most powerful protectors. But to political scientists and many election experts and administrators, the wave of recently passed or proposed state laws sweeping the nation...is deeply concerning. It's not just the provisions in these bills that in some instances would make it harder to vote. It's that many of the bills also target election administration in ways that might make it easier for a losing candidate to jam a stick in the wheels of democratic processes." —Peter Grier in The Christian Science Monitor

Peter Grier is a staff writer at The Christian Science Monitor.

MORE: McConnell opposes a bill restoring a key part of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, dashing all hope of any congressional action on voting —Insider

So what's up with Q?

It's been a rough few months for QAnon adherents. Joe Biden was inaugurated president. No Democrats or other liberals were rounded up in a global Satanic child-sex trafficking sting. And it's been six months since "Q," the anonymous 4chan user who started the elaborate conspiracy theory, has posted. Q's last post came on Dec. 8, about a month before the Capitol insurrection. Many QAnon believers lost faith after that, as their big day was a bust. But others continue to scour old posts for new "clues," propose new dates for the coming of the "storm," and create spin-off conspiracies. Is QAnon truly dying off, or has it simply moved deeply underground? Let’s hope it's the former. —Forbes

MORE: He wore a QAnon shirt while chasing police on Jan. 6. Now he says he was deceived by 'a pack of lies' —The Washington Post

Focus on global democracy

A controversial march by far-right nationalists and pro-settler groups through East Jerusalem, Israel, will go ahead, after the event was initially scrapped due to security concerns. Outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet approved the march at a meeting yesterday. The planned "March of the Flags" through the walled Old City's Damascus Gate and into its Muslim quarter has drawn warnings from the terrorist group Hamas of a renewal of last month's hostilities should it proceed. Israel's new government will be sworn in on Sunday. —Al Jazeera

• — Egypt. A democratic republic in name only, Egypt has been acknowledged by the U.S. for helping to broker the ceasefire that defused the most recent violence between the Israelis and Palestinians. This puts the Biden Administration in an awkward position. President Biden has declared that human rights are at the core of his foreign policy—but they're not something President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi regards favorably. He routinely jails and tortures dissidents and journalists, and has been accused of ordering deadly fire on peaceful demonstrators. —Los Angeles Times
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• — Mexico. Voters in Mexico tapped the brakes on populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's plans to overhaul the country's economy and society by shrinking his leftist coalition's majority in Congress in midterm elections on Sunday. López Obrador's governing Morena party will still be the dominant force in the 500-seat legislature, but the coalition will fall short of the two-thirds majority required to push through the most sweeping aspects his agenda. —The New York Times
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• — Peru. Far-left trade unionist Pedro Castillo has cast himself as the winner of Peru's presidential election, thanking foreign nations for "victory" messages even as election officials have said that the race is not over. With more than 98% of votes cast in Sunday's presidential poll counted by this morning, Castillo retained a leading score of 50.2% over his right-wing populist opponent Keiko Fujimori's 49.7%. —Yahoo! News

Boot: Vaccines prove government can work

"The massive mobilization to defeat COVID-19 has restored some of my faith in the government's ability to solve problems. I hope it will do the same for other Americans. Government isn't always the solution, but it isn't always the problem, either—and corrosive distrust of authority only handicaps our ability to tackle our toughest problems. Now the Biden Administration needs to focus on getting more people around the world vaccinated to reverse the world's loss of faith in the United States." —Max Boot in The Washington Post

Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

MORE: U.S. to buy 500 million Pfizer vaccines to share globally —Associated Press

We should all thank Vladimir Putin for providing us with some clarity. At a June economic summit, he expressed sympathy for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Former President Trump, President Putin, and the insurrectionists seem to all be on the same page. They didn't want Joe Biden to be inaugurated as president. The Jan. 6 insurrection, as per Putin, was just politics as usual. 

In light of Putin's empathy for those who sought to overthrow our government, and the rioters shared goal, perhaps Sen. Mitch McConnell should reconsider his position that no independent investigative commission is needed. If McConnell or any other Republicans thought that Putin had our best interests in mind when he offered his comments, they should be made aware of a previous statement that he made. At a formal dinner in December 2011, he said that he could destroy America in a half-hour or less. —Bill M., 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.