 |  | | Washington, Fast. | | Presented by ExxonMobil | | | | | | | Good Thursday morning. Tips, comments, recipes? You know the drill. This is the Power Up newsletter – thanks for waking up with us. 🚨: "The sea-view side of a beachfront condo tower collapsed in the Miami-area town of Surfside early Thursday, drawing a massing response from emergency services," the Associated Press's Wilfredo Lee reports. - "Miami Dade Fire Rescue was conducting search and rescue operations, and said in a tweet that more than 80 units were 'on scene with assistance from municipal fire departments.'"
| | | On the Hill BLUE DOGS STRIKE BACK: Several moderate House Democrats are coming out in favor of the Biden administration's proposed increased level of defense spending. Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), Tom O'Halleran (D-Ariz.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) are issuing a letter to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee and Chair and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee announcing their support for the $753 billion request for national defense programs — a $12.3 billion increase from the 2021 defense budget. - The Coalition's leadership writes that they "oppose calls to authorize or appropriate funding below this level" since the U.S. "faces a formidable array of challenges from state and non-state actors, including from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, the Islamic State, and al Qaeda."
The letter highlights the competing ideological factions within the Democratic conference that may temper just how effective progressive Democrats may be in their push for Biden to slash defense spending.  An aide pulls the door closed where a bipartisan group of Senators and White House officials are holding negotiations over the Biden administrations proposed infrastructure plan. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images) | A group of 50 House Democrats sent Biden a letter earlier this year calling on him to slim down defense spending by 10 percent and redirect the money to domestic needs. Progressives have been critical of Biden for executing a more traditional foreign policy orthodoxy. - "Thoughtful analysis from experts across the political spectrum shows that significant cuts can be achieved without reducing the support, pay or benefits provided to our men and women in uniform and their families," the group, led by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), wrote to Biden. "We could cut the Pentagon budget by more than ten percent and still spend more than the next ten largest militaries combined."
But the Blue Dog Coalition maintains that the 2022 defense budget is needed to counter China, support watchdogs to prevent wasteful spending, and boost the U.S.'s cyberspace capabilities "given the string of damaging cyberattacks on our public and private sectors," the lawmakers write. The fight brewing isn't limited to the House — the centrist-progressive divide over defense spending is happening in the Senate as well and while the defense authorization bill has passed out of Congress for decades, Biden might face a bigger fight than usual this year. The bill isn't expected to get a full House vote until after August recess. A BREAKTHROUGH?: "A bipartisan group of senators tentatively reached an agreement with White House officials Wednesday on hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending for the nation's infrastructure system, giving a significant boost toward one of President Biden's biggest domestic policy ambitions," our colleague Seung Min Kim reports. Senators will brief Biden on the details today. - "Senators declined to disclose details of their agreement but stressed that the group had agreed not just on the spending levels for various infrastructure projects, but also on how to pay for it."
- "Though the agreement could amount to one of the most significant investments in infrastructure in recent years, the tentative bipartisan deal still falls far short of Biden's initial $2.2 trillion vision that he outlined in what he called the American Jobs Plan earlier this year."
- Big picture: "The progress in the talks puts Biden and lawmakers in reach of a long-elusive goal in Washington: a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure spending. An earlier effort between Biden and a separate group of Senate Republicans collapsed earlier this month, with each side accusing the other of not going far enough toward reaching a compromise. Under the Trump administration, lawmakers made halting attempts toward reaching a bipartisan deal, but never found an agreement on financing a package," the Wall Street Journal's Kristina Peterson and Andrew Duehren report.
For planning purposes: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said they would attempt to move both packages in July -- something that would require total Democratic unity, which has been lacking so far. And it would set up a jam-packed July with little floor time sandwiched between two summer recesses," CNN's Hill team reports. - "Both tracks – the bipartisan track and the budget reconciliation track – are proceeding on pace, and we hope to have voted on both of them in the Senate and the House in July," Pelosi said.
 Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, leaves a bipartisan infrastructure meeting on Capitol Hill on June 22. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) | The man behind the negotiations: Steve Ricchetti. "Almost 20 years ago, before he emerged as Biden's enigmatic but indispensable senior aide, Ricchetti and his brother Jeff Ricchetti joined forces with left-wing advocacy groups pushing to preserve the estate tax. It was an awkward fit for some of the advocates because the Ricchettis were doing so as lobbyists for life insurance companies that feared repealing the tax would lead families to buy fewer of their products," per our colleague Jeff Stein. - "The episode reflects the ideologically flexible — some critics say mercenary — style that has defined Steve Ricchetti through his four decades in Washington and is now key to high-stakes infrastructure negotiations crucial to Biden's presidency."
- "The effectiveness of Ricchetti's shuttle diplomacy on Capitol Hill could determine whether many of Biden's key domestic priorities become law, potentially shaping the 2022 and 2024 elections."
| | | The policies FROM 'DEFUND' TO 'RE-FUND': "Responding to a spike in homicides across the country, Biden on Wednesday laid out an anti-crime strategy from the White House that cracks down on gun stores that don't follow federal rules, steps up programs for recently released convicts and provides more support for police departments across the country," our colleague Annie Linskey reports. - "Facing a surge in shootings and homicides and persistent Republican attacks on liberal criminal justice policies, Democrats from the White House to Brooklyn Borough Hall are rallying with sudden confidence around a politically potent cause: funding the police," the New York Times' Alexander Burns writes.
- "The back-to-back developments signaled a shift within the Democratic Party toward themes of public safety … At the highest levels of the president's party, there is a developing consensus that Democrats need to treat crime as an urgent political issue, and that they cannot allow voters to see the 2022 election as a choice between a liberal party that supports police reform and a conservative party that supports the police in the name of a broader law-and-order message."
- "It is not clear how universally Democrats will adopt that approach. While a majority of the party appears to welcome a message of being simultaneously tough on crime and stringent about police abuse, there is also significant resistance among liberals to policies that might bolster police departments, of which they are deeply distrustful."
| | | In the agencies The beginning of a reckoning. U.S. "Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced plans to investigate the history of Native American boarding schools that, decades ago, aimed to assimilate native children to white culture across the U.S.," People Magazine's Sean Neumann reports.  Flowers, shoes, and moccasins sit on the steps of the main entrance of The Mohawk Institute, a former residential school for First Nation kids, to honour the 215 children whose remains were discovered in a mass grave in Ontario, Canada on May 31. (Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images) | - "The Interior Department says its review — called the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative — will focus on creating a comprehensive report on the schools, including identifying 'cemeteries or potential burial sites' where indigenous children may have been buried."
- "I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know that this process will be painful. It won't undo the heartbreak and loss we feel," she said. "But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we're all proud to embrace."
- ICYMI: Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, wrote an op-ed for The Post about her great-grandfather who was taken to a boarding school, where its founder coined the phrase, "Kill the Indian, and save the man."
HUNDREDS OF SECRET SERVICE MEMBERS WERE INFECTED WITH THE CORONAVIRUS: "Almost 900 Secret Service members have tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020, according to a watchdog report, and many of those infected had protection assignments that included the safety of the president and vice president," our colleague Timothy Bella reports. - "The nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington published a report Tuesday detailing how 881 Secret Service employees had tested positive between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021. The data, which came from a Freedom of Information Act request to the Secret Service, found that 477 members of the special agent division had been infected."
- "The watchdog placed much of the blame on former president Donald Trump and former vice president Mike Pence for holding 'large-scale rallies against public health guidelines.'"
- "The group also slammed the Trump family's regular travel during the pandemic and Trump's photo op last year outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center 'in a car with secret service agents while being treated for COVID, further putting agents in danger.'"
| | | From the courts SCOTUS BACKS HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADER: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled for a Pennsylvania cheerleader whose profane off-campus rant cost her a spot on the squad, saying the First Amendment rights of public school students are not to be easily cast aside," our colleague Robert Barnes reports. - "The court ruled 8 to 1 that the school district's punishment was too severe, although it declined to adopt a broader rule saying schools never have a role in disciplining students for off-campus speech."
- "It might be tempting to dismiss [Brandi Levy's] words as unworthy of the robust First Amendment protections discussed herein. But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in the majority opinion.
| | | The campaign FORMER DNC CHAIR ENTERS MARYLAND'S GUBERNATORIAL RACE: "Former Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez, who served as labor secretary in the Obama administration, is running for Maryland governor in 2022, joining a crowded field of candidates vying for the Democratic Party nomination," our colleague Ovetta Wiggins reports. - "Perez points to his accomplishments at various levels of government, from crafting laws to combat the foreclosure crisis during the Great Recession to supporting a program in Montgomery County to provide health care to pregnant women who lacked citizenship documentation," the Baltimore Sun's Pamela Wood reports.
- "Among his campaign pledges are promises to restart the canceled Red Line rail project in Baltimore, work toward having 100% of Marylanders with health insurance and to push forward on offshore wind energy."
| | | Viral #FREEBRITNEY: "After 13 years of near silence in the conservatorship that controls her life and money, Britney Spears passionately told a judge Wednesday that she wants to end the 'abusive' case that has made her feel demoralized and enslaved," AP News' Andrew Dalton reports. - "Speaking in open court for the first time in the case, Spears condemned her father and others who control the conservatorship, which she said has compelled her to use birth control and take other medications against her will, and prevented her from getting married or having another child."
- "This conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good," the 39-year-old Spears said. "I deserve to have a life."
- "She went on to say she was forced to take lithium — which made her feel 'drunk' — after rehearsals broke down for a Vegas residency in 2019, which was subsequently canceled. She said all she had done was disagree with one part of the show's choreography."
 | | | Jamie and Britney: "Theirs has long been a difficult and dysfunctional relationship, according to the court records and interviews with many people who know the family. But that dynamic grew even more complicated after Mr. Spears — a recovering alcoholic who has faced accusations of physical and verbal abuse — took the lead in wrestling what he saw as his adult daughter's demons," the New York Times' Liz Day, Samantha Stark and Joe Coscarelli report. - "Ms. Spears said her father was 'obsessed' with her and wanted to control everything about her. She could not make friends without his approval. [And] even as she earned millions from a successful Las Vegas residency, she said she was limited to a $2,000 weekly allowance."
- "Experts say conservatorships should prioritize the wishes of the conservatee and help them regain their independence. The arrangements are supposed to be a last resort for people who cannot take care of their basic needs, such as those with significant disabilities or older people with dementia, yet Ms. Spears has been able to perform and profit for more than a decade."
- "What the court records make clear is that the battle over the conservatorship is rooted in the family's troubled history."
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