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For all the hours that people spend at work, stories about working (and working people) rarely get the spotlight. Labor makes headlines mostly when it’s no longer guaranteed. That pattern is clear in the headlines of late, with teachers in Columbus striking for air conditioning and teachers in Seattle striking for raises that barely keep up with inflation; with Minnesota private sector nurses striking to protest understaffing and safety issues that hurt both nurses and patients—all long-standing issues that have seen no national traction for years. Currently, the big labor story is that of the barely-averted freight worker strike, whose demands include such basic requests as not being disciplined for going to the doctor.

There was something of a family reunion vibe at the White House last Wednesday. A couple hundred guests gathered to witness the unveiling of the official White House portraits of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The guests included dozens of former Obama administration staff, many returning to the White House for the first time in years.

On Monday, the Revolving Door Project released a report seven months in the making: a comprehensive look at un- or under-utilized executive branch powers to combat climate change, hold big polluters accountable, and make a tangible difference in the environment and economy for ordinary Americans. Our press release on the report is here, and a two-page summary of some of the highlights is here.

The hyper-politicization of the Senate’s confirmation process, and the manipulation of the procedures by which it is governed, has led us to a dire moment in which Republican Senators have effectively given themselves the power to deny President Biden and the public a fully-staffed federal government. This iniquitous procedural politicking has stalled crucial agencies while denying Democrats rightful majorities at several independent agencies and the long-sought regulatory policies those majorities would bring. 

“They keep thinking like lawyers without applying commonsense notions of right and wrong or trust and accountability,” POGO’s Walter Shaub commented Friday. “This administration is strong on the law and weak on commitment to the underlying aims of an ethics program.”

With the signing of the budget reconciliation deal this week, it’s time to give credit where credit is due to Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin who, in a backroom deal, pulled off what was once unimaginable for 21st century Democrats: getting something done. Of course Biden lifted a hand to sign the bill into law, but what now? As climate activists weigh the outside cost of opening vast swaths of public land for new fossil fuel extraction, the quiet of Biden’s federal agencies is highlighted by the cacophony of the ongoing reconciliation day parade.

We’re in a big moment, as the political landscape liquifies and reshapes beneath our feet. We at RDP expect to be spending significant time in coming months grappling with the vast impact of the 725-page Inflation Reduction Act and its tag-along coal baron wishlist (aka “permitting reform” bill), from the shifts in executive branch authority, funding, and personnel, to the bills’ diverging impacts on millions of people’s lives, and on ecosystems from Cook Inlet to the Appalachian Basin. Here’s a preview of some of the things we expect to focus on…

All signs point to Mayor Pete leaving the DOT station, a worrying trajectory as airline companies continue ripping off consumers while the former Mayor prepares a victory lap over the Department of Transportation’s long overdue announcement on a rule change that could drastically alter America’s air travel. Sneakily for Pete, this DOT rule won’t take effect until after the midterms, when he’ll kick his 2024 bid for high office into high gear according to rumors coursing through Washington. 

As you sit here reading this, a hulking scrum of U.S. Senators is charging towards an underserved August recess, blundering out of Capital Hill exits to do even less work in luxury vacation homes, alpine escapes, and the sullied fundraising retreats of crypto bankers and oil barons. Having failed to pass significant legislation benefiting the American people this year, corporate representatives of both parties have have good reason to rest easy: across the bloodied playing field of the national mall lie the tattered and well-bruised remains of President Biden and his cabinet, a team not of rivals, but do gooders and no getters, struggling for relevance under the sepia-tinged banner of the musty Third Way, proudly proclaiming “We Can’t Govern!”

So the rollercoaster ride continues, deep into the summer. Thankfully, while Congress is in session—and these next three weeks of negotiation are expected to be deeply consequential for the future of the clean energy transition—the Supreme Court is not. (Well, let’s hope they don’t abuse the “Shadow Docket” [pdf]). We shouldn’t have to hear from them again until the first Monday of October. But of course, after months of waiting with heightened anxiety for Dobbs v. Jackson, West Virginia v. EPA, and many other rulings to drop, the Supreme Court had to leave us with something new to worry over as they headed out the door for summer vacation: Moore v. Harper.

In times like this, I find myself suspicious of language. The very act of stringing sentences together seems to aid and abet inertia; there is something far too “business as usual” about paragraphs. On Friday I sweated in a sea of protestors. We gathered to share our grief, our rage, our exhaustion. What was missing was a plan. The sound system wasn’t working, or was too weak to reach most of the crowd; we stood and listened to the distant crackle of magnified anguish we couldn’t quite make out, and we cheered when others cheered, and we read each other’s signs, and we fervently, ironically, sadly, gratefully agreed. But now what?

Punch for punch, the debasement of Attorney General Merrick Garland is without historical correlate. The self-defeating adherence to ideological centrism (often indistinguishable from passivity in the face of elite resistance), paired with his masochistic devotion to the status quo, represents the kind of Blue Dog/New Dem totem that could have only emerged from a lab. Corporatist Democrats believed during the Obama years, as they do now, that through the ritual sacrifice of their Democratic ideals, they could resurrect the corpse of a forgotten age when left and right joined hands to strangle the everyday citizen. That union never happened after the GOP realized they could simply steamroll Democrats like Garland who refuse to open their eyes to the Conservative onslaught, even when it was punching them in the face.

The tortuous game of will-they-won’t-they cancel student debt continues. Biden’s decision this week to cancel $5.8 billion in debt held by 560,000 former students of the systematically fraudulent, now-defunct Corinthian Colleges seems to signal a willingness (finally!) to wield executive authority on higher ed issues. Meanwhile, a historic coalition of over 500 labor, civil rights and advocacy groups continues to press Biden for sweeping cancellation. The labor movement has been ramping up its calls for student debt cancellation, and more unions, including the Amazon and Starbucks unions and several traditionally blue-collar unions, are joining the fight. This show of force from a broad labor base could help Biden overcome his political reservations, with organized labor actively refuting the Republican talking point that student debt relief is a handout to elite university graduates.

If the unchecked blood letting, billowing inflation, foreign conflict, and typhoon of domestic Covid infection wasn’t enough to set Americans on edge the past week, a persistent high pitched whine–not unlike the kind projected outside 7/11s to deter listless teenage delinquents from Sacramento to Scranton–descended on the nation. It emanated not from a thoughtfully angled speaker system, but out of the oval office and into the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News studios. Nonetheless, It has had a similar effect in driving young people away.