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Much has been made of recent polls showing the erosion of support for Democrats ahead of the midterms, tied to voters’ profound economic pessimism. As always, wading through the morass of bad takes (looking at you, Ross Douthat) can put many off the task of meaning-making about public political opinion altogether. Our line of thinking in these final weeks before the election remains much the same as it was back in January, when our Jeff Hauser and Max Moran outlined an argument for what Biden’s message should be.

Last week, a new comprehensive study of almost 32,000 populations of 5,230 species around the world estimated that wildlife on earth has decreased by almost 70 percent since 1970. The mind can’t really wrap around the scale of loss conveyed by this number.

October means a lot of things in the political world: the end of a fiscal year and the beginning of a new one; SCOTUS returning from a long recess; and, every two years, the final stretch before a general election. If the congressional appropriations process worked as designed, October would also be the month when federal agencies began implementing their new budgets for the next fiscal year. If only things could work so smoothly.

We certainly haven’t missed parsing the legal hocus pocus of this extremist SCOTUS over the past couple months of summer recess. Tragically, we’re now only days out from the beginning of the 2022-2023 term on October 3. Heedless of John Robert’s pleas to treat his overwhelmingly distrusted council of nine as a legitimate authority, we expect he’ll find as SCOTUS returns to the news cycle that the public has yet to get over the ongoing consequences of the Court’s betrayal of the public interest. Another nightmare term might just hasten Democrats building the power and will to actually reform a broken SCOTUS. 

Few of the pundits who sprang to Jerome Powell’s defense last year have acknowledged that their analysis was exactly wrong.

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.