Last week, internal Republican Party divisions spilled onto the floor of the House of Representatives in a way rarely publicly seen in Washington. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew looks at why it took 15 votes to get Rep. Kevin McCarthy elected House Speaker and what that process says about the two years ahead and the GOP more broadly. They also consider how Rep. George Santos’s scandals will affect his tenure in Congress and whether he would have been elected at all if his fabricated biography had received more scrutiny during the campaign.
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An oil production operation is shown in North Dakota. With the U.S. Supreme Court granting more presidential powers to the executive branch, environmental groups warned key agencies will have a harder time going after polluters.
(Adobe Stock)
Presidential powers: Corporate abuses big concern after SCOTUS move
Jul 13, 2026
A U.S. Supreme Court opinion issued last month expands presidential power over independent federal agencies, prompting warnings from environmental advocates about potential implications for states such as North Dakota.
The court’s conservative majority said President Donald Trump had the authority to fire a former Federal Trade Commission member without cause. Legal observers countered the opinion nullifies longstanding precedent involving the role of Congress in insulating certain federal agency officials from direct presidential control.
Doug Lindner, senior director of judiciary and democracy for the League of Conservation Voters, said he worries the decision weakens checks and balances and shifts more power to corporations.
“So many agencies across the government are created by Congress for the purpose of reining in big business and ensuring that it’s accountable to the law and accountable when it does things to the people that it shouldn’t be able to do,” Lindner explained.
Lindner worries the ruling could increase political pressure within the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He added in North Dakota, where fossil fuel infrastructure has a large presence, polluters could be held less accountable.
Supporters of the decision said it aligns with the view the president needs control over the executive branch. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The President must have the assistance of officers he can trust.”
Lindner argued no matter which party controls the White House, giving a president so much control is dangerous for democracy.
“The president is not supposed to have all the power — Congress is supposed to have the most power, and the president takes an oath to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed,” he emphasized.
In addition to environmental concerns, opponents of the decision warned it could lead to fewer consumer protections and more dangerous workplaces.
The court made one exception in its action on the issue. For now, it blocked the firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook while she challenges the president’s move.
Presidential powers: Corporate abuses big concern after SCOTUS move was first published by Public News Service and was republished with permission.
Mike Moen is a producer with PNS.
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selective focus photography of light bulb
Photo by ameenfahmy on Unsplash
Energy Costs Decide Power — Voters Demand Relief
Jul 12, 2026
Politics, for all its stagecraft and saccharine homilies, is not about "service" or "community" or any of the other treacly euphemisms politicians recite like Gregorian chants. Politics, as Christopher Hitchens might have acidly reminded us, is about power.
The taking of it.
The wielding of it.
The keeping of it.
Everything else is embroidery.
And the surest road to political power today is not identity pandering, culture-war theatrics, or the solutions, untethered from economic reality, of much "climate action". It is energy — affordable, abundant, reliable energy. Energy is not a plank in the policy platform. It is the platform.
It is the oxygen of prosperity, the lubricant of peace, the arbiter of survival.
Those who grasp this axiom will inherit the Earth. Those who don't will be reduced to muttering slogans over the ashes of their credibility.
The Revolt of the Overcharged
Consider the improbable rise of two entirely different figures: Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani. Ideological opposites, united by a single brutal insight: voters are furious about affordability.
Trump put it plainly: "I won on groceries." Bacon, eggs, apples — if the price doubles while wages stagnate, you can spend billions on messaging and still lose Ohio. Mamdani, from the opposite end of the spectrum, beat the same drum: "New York is too expensive. I’ll lower costs." Did his proposed remedies make sense? About as much as medieval bloodletting. But he read the room correctly — voters were howling for relief.
This is the lesson. It isn’t ideology. It isn’t clever branding. It’s not even competence. It’s the perception — however implausible — that you can make life less ruinously expensive.
The Energy Elephant in the Room
Which brings us to the elephant crushing the furniture: energy. The cost of keeping the lights on, the servers humming, the food refrigerated, the wheels turning. Cheap, reliable energy is the hinge upon which affordability swings.
The American public knows it intuitively. As Roger Pielke Jr. and Ruy Teixeira have observed, voters broadly support an “all‑of‑the‑above” energy policy. They want fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear — whatever delivers reliability and keeps costs in check. What they do not support is a climate approach that drifts into overzealous or economically detached prescriptions, especially when those prescriptions ask ordinary people to bear steep costs for minimal environmental gain. Most Americans believe climate change is real and worth addressing — but they also believe that solutions must be scientifically grounded, economically sane, and compatible with rising living standards. People will not choose policies that make their lives materially harder when better‑balanced options exist.
Meanwhile, our economic adversary, China, has understood this with the cold precision of an engineer. Beijing has decided that energy abundance beats energy sermons. The result? A kilowatt-hour costs under ten cents there. In the U.S., depending on where you live, you’ll likely pay anywhere from 30% to 250% more for the same electricity — the financial equivalent of shooting ourselves in both feet, then politely handing China the starting pistol.
Free Markets, Not Fairy Tales
Here’s the part politicians can’t bring themselves to say aloud: free markets work. China — a nominally communist state — is quietly embracing market pricing to generate cheap, stable energy, while America — land of the supposedly free — ties itself into regulatory knots and engages in performative subsidy theater.
Even our supposed tech vanguard is sounding the alarm. Artificial intelligence, for all its promise, is a glutton for electricity. Data centers don’t run on slogans. The sudden, unignorable demand for baseload power has done what decades of climate reports could not: forced lawmakers to confront reality.
The physics don’t care about your narrative. You either provide abundant energy, or you fall behind.
The Path Forward
If you want power — real, electoral, enduring power — promise voters affordable, abundant, reliable energy. And mean it.
Not with incoherent subsidies. Not with punitive regulations. Not with magical thinking that wind and solar will replace baseload overnight. But with sober policies rooted in engineering reality and price transparency.
Give the American voter energy at less than ten cents per kilowatt-hour, and they will give you Congress, the White House, and the keys to the kingdom. Fail, and watch as Beijing writes the terms of the 21st century.
Energy is the root. Prosperity the trunk. Jobs, security, peace, and dignity — the branches. Everything else is foliage.
In politics, as in physics, power is everything.
Ralph Benko serves as co-founder and general counsel to Washington Power and Light, a DC-based policy institute. He is the co-founder and general counsel for F1R3FLY Industries and has worked in or with three White Houses, two executive branch agencies, and the Congress, as well as many political and policy institutes.
Jeff Garzik is the founder of Washington Power and Light and a foundational pioneer of digital infrastructure. He was one of Satoshi Nakamoto’s four core Bitcoin developers, wrote much of the Linux/Android code powering billions of devices globally at Red Hat, and is now the founder/CEO of HEMI.xyz
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flag of USA on grass field
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
The ReUnion
Jul 12, 2026
I was seven years old when President John F. Kennedy delivered the line that lit up a generation: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Even as a child, I felt the electricity of that moment. The early days of the Kennedy administration carried a sense of youth, vitality, and possibility. America stood at the apex of its postwar power — confident enough to promise the moon and bold enough to believe we could get there. It was exhilarating.
There was a swagger to the country then — not arrogance, but a deep, instinctive pride. America had defeated Nazism and imperialism, helped rebuild a shattered world, and emerged as a force for stability and prosperity. The promise of America felt inevitable, and for a time, it seemed the world was better for our being in it.
I begin here because that feeling — that sense of a country working, a country rising — is foreign to many today. Our civic life feels strained. Our narratives feel fractured. The media amplifies division, and our collective anxiety about “being number one” can make the moment feel hopeless. But memory is short. America’s postwar dominance was always going to recede as the world recovered. The extraordinary position we held after World War II was an aberration — a brief window created by the devastation of global conflict. As other nations rebuilt, they relied less on us, and our dominance naturally softened.
But somewhere along the way, we confused dominance with greatness.
America’s strength was never just its wealth or its markets. It was the architecture of freedom laid down in the founding documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — a framework that treated ordinary people as capable of self-government. That idea traveled farther than any army. It reached my family in Castlecomer, Ireland. They didn’t cross an ocean for riches; they crossed it for dignity, for the chance to build something of their own and to stand as equals in the civic project. For four generations, they voted for the Union because they believed in that promise. I stand in that line.
Which is why the ReUnion matters.
What I’m doing now — what all of us are trying to do, whether we name it or not — is gather the pieces back together. Not in some sentimental way, but in the way my people always did: by showing up, by staying connected, by refusing to drift into isolation. The ReUnion isn’t an event. It’s a posture. It’s the quiet decision to keep the line intact, to keep faith with the ones who came before us, and to make sure the next generation knows where they stand.
Today feels like a good day to show up for democracy, because no other country offers what America still offers. To lose that, you would have to tear up those three founding documents — and that won’t happen easily. The memory of what they promise is too deeply embedded in us.
I’m not fretting the moment. When I look at my family, I see the frame for understanding it. America has broken promises before, but my family never broke faith with the idea of America. They endured. They found common ground. They built. And they kept building even when the country faltered. That’s the inheritance I carry.
I don’t need agreement to find common ground. I know who I am. I know what I need. I’m seeking the middle because I’m itching to build something new.
But building something new requires clarity about what the country needs now. Every generation of my family built according to the demands of their moment — farms, communities, civic trust, stability. Our moment demands something different: national projects that strengthen the country for the next fifty years.
Right now, we’re stripping the capacity of our nation. This is not sustainable, and farmers know that instinctively. They understand soil, water, seasons, and limits. They know when the land is tired. They know when a field needs to rest. They know that you cannot take more than the earth can give without paying a price later. I left California because the air became unlivable — a climate refugee in search of breathable days. And when I arrived in Buffalo, I was greeted by the same problem: smoke drifting from the Boreal Forest, settling over the Great Lakes, reminding me that climate is not a coastal issue or a partisan issue; it’s a capacity issue — the capacity of the land, the air, and the people who depend on both.
Environmental resilience isn’t a political argument; it’s a stability argument. A country that cannot breathe cannot thrive. We need resilient grids, protected forests, modernized water systems, and regional and global planning that anticipates the next fifty years rather than reacting to the last five.
We also need high-speed rail that knits the regions together and makes the country feel whole again. We need new energy systems that reduce volatility and give rural America a stake in the future economy. We need to re-engineer governing for the 21st century — modern, responsive, transparent, capable of handling the scale of today’s challenges.
These are not partisan dreams. They are the modern expression of the Ring philosophy: endure, find common ground, and build something amazing. This is the work of citizenship today — the work my ancestors would have recognized instantly. And there’s plenty of work to be done.
This year marks the 180th anniversary of the Ring–Delaney–Mackin–Fitzgerald line in America. My genealogical research — casual at first — revealed a spine of civic responsibility that has held firm across nearly two centuries. That continuity is why this moment matters.
We’re gathering this July for a family reunion on home turf in Manhattan, Illinois. It’s already turning into a collaborative affair — of course it is. My cousin Denny has the same genealogical curiosity, and together we’ve uncovered new pieces of our story that will help everyone understand who we are and why. I’ll see relatives I haven’t seen in decades, yet I know them. I’ll recognize their way of being — respectful, curious, steady. We will have a good time because we were raised to find common ground. We carry the instincts of our ancestors into the present moment. We understand the work that needs to be done.
And the Rings would have understood exactly what Kennedy was asking of his fellow citizens. They would have answered wholeheartedly, as they always did: we give our country the support it needs to realize its promises. I’m channeling them today. I’m choosing to believe, as they did, that the American Experiment is worthy — and that our work is to help it rise to its ideals.
This is the ReUnion. A choosing, again. And in that simple act of returning, we become a beacon for the unfinished work of the American Experiment.
Patrick Fitzgerald contributes to The Fulcrum, a nonpartisan publication dedicated to strengthening democracy through informed civic engagement and diverse perspectives. Raised in the Midwest and shaped by farm communities, he later spent 29 years in San Francisco, where the city’s civic diversity and neighborhood culture influence his writing. He focuses on rebuilding trust in one another and environmental stewardship. He now lives in Buffalo, New York, where he continues to write essays grounded in personal experience.
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Cover Photo: Chris Oquist in Black and White.
Chris Oquist
Composer uses music to connect Latino heritage and environmental justice
Jul 12, 2026
CHICAGO — Climate change is often measured through scientific reports and statistics. For Chicago-based composer Chris Oquist, it is something audiences can hear.
On Saturday, Oquist performed “Derivas Liminares” as part of the Chicago Art Department’s fourth annual Contra Corriente Festival. The performance benefited the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO), a nonprofit that advocates for environmental protections in Pilsen, one of Chicago’s largest Latino neighborhoods. Oquist’s performance was one of several events held during the festival, which centers on environmental and racial justice.
For “Derivas Liminares”, Oquist uses a process known as data sonification, converting atmospheric temperature data into sound. While scientists often use the technique to analyze patterns in data, he said he incorporates it into music to tell a story. The composition examines how gradual changes in the climate, society and personal relationships often go unnoticed until they reach a point of no return.
“I think that we’re really not equipped to understand or recognize those long-changing processes the way we do things that we can experience directly,” Oquist said.
“But it’s really crucial that, if we have any hope of controlling the systems that we’ve created and being active participants in the world, that we have to look carefully and deeply and listen intentionally and mindfully.”
That same philosophy influenced Oquist’s decision to support PERRO.
According to Oquist, the organization has advocated against industrial pollution near Benito Juárez Community Academy in Pilsen. He said the group’s work reflects environmental challenges that continue to affect many Latino communities and gives residents a voice in seeking cleaner air and stronger environmental protections.
“There’s super systemic imbalances that make equity harder to pursue,” Oquist said. “I just love that there’s an organization like PERRO that’s working on the ground against crazy odds to try and right some of these wrongs and protect people.”
Environmental justice is only one theme in Oquist’s work.
Born in Puerto Rico to a Colombian mother, he said stories of migration and sacrifice shaped his artistic perspective from an early age. His debut EP, CYCLES / 01, includes a composition inspired by his late grandmother, whose journey from Colombia to Puerto Rico became the foundation for a piece exploring memory across generations. He said those family experiences continue to influence the questions he asks through music.
“My grandmother made a tremendous amount of sacrifices for her family,” Oquist said. “The stories that she would tell me, and that people would tell me of what she had gone through, almost felt like something out of magical realism.”
Oquist continued to say that perspective also shapes how he understands the role of music in Latino communities. He called music “an act of resistance,” saying it has long given artists a way to preserve culture while reclaiming humanity and dignity in the face of injustice.
Chicago-based composer uses music to connect Latino heritage and environmental justice was first published on Illinois Latino News and was republished with permission.
Angeles Ponpa is the Managing Editor of Latino News Network Midwest, overseeing Illinois Latino News, Wisconsin Latino News, and Michigan Latino News. She is based in Illinois.
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