First, let’s talk about the settlement. The good news here is that the Justice Democrats aren’t jumping off the boat just yet. Delaware’s Beau Biden reaffirmed his stance against the settlement because he wanted to pursue his own investigations. And California’s Kamala Harris reiterated her stance last night.

This isn’t a victory. Schneiderman may be trying to work from within, but he’s saddled with a panel full of co-chairs tied to banks with a history of obstructing accountability. The united front of Justice Democrats has been nicked. And progressive critics of the Settlement sellout are praising the mechanism that seems structured to fail while letting the Settlement proceed.

Another milestone has been hit by United Wisconsin, the group organizing the recall of Scott Walker. In the first 12 days of the recall – and organizers have 60 days to gather the required signatures – over 300,000 signatures have been gathered, over half of what is needed to trigger a recall.

The effort to recall Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker recall is statewide, which brings in a lot of low-hanging fruit for signatures: the liberal bastion of Madison, for example, or the Democratic-rich city of Milwaukee. So it’s not really a surprise that Democrats are able to gather a hefty amount of recall signatures in a short amount of time. But early results are impressive.

TransCanada, the company in charge of the Keystone XL pipeline, has announced that they would re-route the pipeline away from the Nebraska Sand Hills, where it would pass over an aquifer that provides a good deal of water for much of the Great Plains.

Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement said today on a conference call that the police action to evict protesters from Zuccotti Park will only amplify future efforts, starting on Thursday with a planned day of action that will occur at sites across the country.

Last month, the Administration delayed an EPA rule on ozone standards, part of a capitulation on regulatory rollbacks demanded by the business community and Republicans. For years, the Administration told environmental groups not to sue to force new standards, because they were working on them. Now the environmental groups are taking E.P.A. to court.

Consider what we have here. A bunch of enviro groups were ready to sue over ozone standards. The Obama Administration came in and said “don’t worry, we agree with you, we have the authority, we’ll impose the higher standards you want.” Then they waited for two years, and finally, they punted. It’s a total sellout and a de-fanging of the enviro groups who wanted to go to court to get the rules changed.

As a result, the 2008 rules promulgated by the Bush Administration won’t be implemented either; the EPA already directed states not to comply with them. So most states are operating under the objectively worse 1997 standards. And that is expected to continue. So the Obama Administration is allowing, for his entire first term, ozone standards that are worse than George Bush’s.

This is completely backwards. Progressive organizations have leverage over, or at least an audience with, Democratic lawmakers. They certainly have a greater audience there than over Republicans. The time to use outside pressure is when Democrats are the ones holding up the agenda. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the House Judiciary Committee chair, will not be moved by outside forces.

You wouldn’t know it from watching the news, but over the past several days thousands of dedicated activists gathered for a conference in Washington, protested throughout the city, took over several places of business in the process, and even secured a meeting with the President of the United States.