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.

Choice groups, pardon the pun, have a choice.

“[The bill] has many strong elements,” Frist added later. “And those elements, whatever happens, need to be preserved, need to be cuddled, need to be snuggled, need to be promoted and need to be implemented. But how do you do it? How do you do a lot of what is in this law?”

The public believes that the President is sincere in wanting to reduce the budget deficit because he is, in fact, sincere in wanting to reduce the budget deficit. He talks about it being in the medium term, but his opponents in the GOP want that to happen immediately, to cancel out the stimulative effects of this bill.

You’ve probably heard by now about the One Nation Coming Together event in Washington yesterday, which brought either “thousands” or as many as 200,000 people to the National Mall for jobs, justice and education. Regardless of the comparison to the Beck rally in August, One Nation appears to have been a success, getting labor and progressive groups fired up before the midterms.

Next Friday Saturday, on 10.2.10, a large and diverse coalition of over 200 faith, labor, youth, student and civil rights organizations will mass in Washington and cities all over the country for One Nation Working Together. Organizers expect participants in the six figures to “demand the change we voted for” and build a social movement around Jobs, Justice and Education for All. This event contrasts with the spate of Tea Party rallies and events that we’ve seen over the past year.