Slow News Day

Watch this program tonight.

Economic Inequality Bill Moyers Journal
Airdate: Friday, August 3, 2007 at 9 p.m. EDT on PBS, (Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/airdates.html.)
Economic inequality. As Wall Street continues to fuel wealth in America, Bill Moyers Journal examines what growing economic inequality means for the middle class and working families.
Big deals on Wall Street mean big gains for the wealthy in America, but is it at the expense of the middle class and working families? Bill Moyers talks to best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich, who has gone undercover as a low-wage worker and as a struggling middle-class job seeker, about the real-world impact of the growing inequality gap. Also on the program, Bill Moyers interviews culture critic Clive James, whose latest book, "Cultural Amnesia," comes after more than 40 years of observing and commenting on arts, literature, culture and politics.
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Congratulations to Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)! He is this year's winner of the Daily Muck's coveted "Most Pork" award. Murtha has requested or co-requested a cool $150 million in earmarked funds.

The House Rules Committee struck down three of Rep. Allan Mollohan’s (D-WV) earmark requests after Mollohan himself asked to remove the earmarks. The lawmaker, who anticipated that Republicans would move to strike the earmarks anyway, is currently under investigation by the FBI for his close ties to nonprofit groups and the earmarks he has directed to these organizations. (The Hill)

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has requested a Pentagon investigation of 21st Century Systems, Inc., a defense contracting company, for alleged misuse of government earmarks. Coburn has set his sights on the company as part of a wider effort to crack down on earmark spending. Sen Nelson (D-NE), who sponsored the earmark, defended his request despite questions raised by the fact that the Senator's son is an employee of the firm. (The Hill)

After two years of listening to complaints that the post-Katrina "disaster trailers" contained dangerously high levels of formaldehyde, FEMA is springing into action. They have finally decided to suspend the sale and donation of these trailers while they review the reports that the trailers are causing respiratory problems for residents. It's a stunning reversal, considering that only a few weeks ago Congress saw documents showing that FEMA lawyers had discouraged the agency from looking into the problem. (USA TODAY)


Valerie Plame worked at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1985 to 2006. I am allowed to write that fact which is now both public knowledge and published in the Congressional Record. But Valerie Plame can't include it in her memoir, according to a new court ruling which says the information was classified and has never officially been acknowledged by the CIA. (NY Times)

Six years ago the Army knew that their promotion exams were vulnerable to cheating. Last year that vulnerability was confirmed when the Army discovered that soldiers were downloading copies of exams off the internet. And yet, the Army has only just moved to close the site most visited for "exam assistance." Don't worry about our soldiers, though: already, three copycat sites have popped up to replace the closing of shamschool.com. (Boston Globe)

"I am hoping that Kyl would not bring it up in an open hearing." Those are the words of an assistant to the Attorney General after Sen. Kyl (R-AZ) privately said he opposed the firing of Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton. Kyl has since publicly voiced his disappointment that Charlton was fired. Via Think Progress. (Arizona Central)

The District of Columbia has agreed to pay $1 million for improperly rounding up 120 protesters who were demonstrating against the Iraq War, the IMF and the World Bank. (Associated Press)
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An Ethical Reflection on Minneapolis

By Todd Gitlin bio
The NYT's stirring piece on the rescue of 61 in the school bus suspended over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis mentions way down that 20-year-old Jeremy Hernandez, the hero who had the guts and presence of mind who kicked out the back door of the bus, "had hoped to become an auto mechanic...but dropped out of a training program at Christmastime because he could no longer afford the tuition."
A conservative, I suppose, is someone who thinks one of these two things: (1) that God must have wanted Jeremy Hernandez to come up short on his tuition, so that, come August 1, 2007, he'd be in a position to save all the kids (the omniscient God view); or (2) Jeremy must have been ethically deficient 8 months ago, and therefore have been undeserving of tuition then, but now that he has demonstrated his mettle, a philanthropist should step up and send him back into mechanic training (the compassionate conservative view)
(2) deserves to be laughed out of the building. (1) has, at least, the virtue of recognizing that history works in mysterious ways.
A serious liberal acknowledges that history works in mysterious ways, and so, God or no God, there is a beauty to Jeremy Hernandez's life that public policy can neither produce nor erase. He or she also thinks that among the many people who have had to drop out of training programs for lack of the wherewithal, very few had the chance to prove themselves heroic later on. A liberal also believes that on the whole it would be a healthier society if young poor people trying to improve their lives through training didn't have to fail by reason of...poverty.