Larry Craig Would Like To Thank Everyone For Coming Out

PLUS: Abu Ghraib’s the new fight club...Insurance? What insurance?..What you need to know about Iraq...The Dark Ages: More fabulous than the Castro...Your kid’s screwing up the SATs...and finally, our favorite astronaut’s at it again. Ladies and gentlemen, Lisa Nowak. Today is August 29th, and this is Mic Check.

Celebration Excuse

CELEBRATE

1922

The very first radio commercial airs on WEAF in New York. Believe it or not, it wasn’t for Oreck vacuum cleaners.

1963

After 200,000 join in a peaceful rally for civil rights for all Americans, Martin Luther King Jr. gives his famous “I have a dream” speech in WashingtonDC.

1996

Princess Diana and Prince Charles are officially divorced

Remember

1955

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy in Mississippi, is kidnapped and murdered for supposedly flirting with a white woman.

1968

The cops attack anti-war protesters in front of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

1981

John Hinkley Jr. pleads “not guilty” to trying to kill President Reagan.

Eat Some Cake

1868: Breeze through War And Peace to celebrate author Leo Tolstoy

1943: Legendary baseball manager “Sweet Lou” Piniella

1965: Country singer Shania Twain

1969: Funnyman Jack Black

1969: The man who made the 90s all about the sideburns, 90210 actor Jason Priestley

Daybook

POTUS

President George Bush heads to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

ON THE HILL

On break. Congress is busy gearing up for labor day weekend by packing all their white suits into their closets and going scarf shopping.

INSIDE THE BELTWAY

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao addresses the Third Annual International Mine Rescue Conference in Nashville, TN.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney holds a briefing to launch a “massive new drive for secure, high quality health care for all.”
Center for American Progress releases a paper “How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Redeployment of U.S. Forces from Iraq.”

TV TIME

TiVo this

Oprah: Special Report on Katrina – What Will It Take to Recover?
The View: Julia Stiles, Zac Efron, guest co-host Chelsea Handler (Rerun)
Regis and Kelly: Relly Nominees: Funniest Guest
Ellen DeGeneres: Barbara Walters, Gym Class Heroes, Serena Williams (Rerun)

Stay up late

Letterman: Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Garlin, Against Me!
Leno: Jeff Foxworthy, Sen. John McCain, Mat Kearney
Late Late Show: Brenda Blethyn, Mike Rowe, Army of Me
Conan: Kelly Preston, Ryan Reynolds, Ozomatli
Last Call: Patton Oswalt, Deerhoof
Kimmel: Mandy Moore, Jon Hamm, Joss Stone, world hacky sack champ Vaclav Klouda

 

Eavesdrop

STEAL THIS AUDIO:

AMERICA’S NEGLECTED INFRASTRUCTURE

Who: Dr. Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation, Dr. Valerie Rawlston Wilson, Senior Resident Scholar, National Urban League Policy Institute, and Scott Lilly and P.J. Crowley, senior fellows at the Center for American Progress. [American Progress]

What: A panel to discuss the worrisome state of America’s infrastructure in the wake of 9/11, the northeastern blackout, Hurricane Katrina, and the Minneapolis bridge collapse.
Why you should care: The great infrastructure projects of the post-war era: highways, bridges tunnels, are crumbling, and America isn’t making the needed investments to repair and improve them. America needs to invest in world class infrastructure to remain competitive in the global economy, be it transportation, alternative energy, utilities, human capital or health care. As the richest country in the world, we can afford it. All that’s required is political will and presidential leadership.

Listen in:

P.J. Crowley:

  • P.J. notes the “risk of infrastructure failure is rising...due to the threats associated with terrorism, severe weather, functional obsolescence and neglect.”
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  • But, unfortunately, political will isn’t there: “It is still more popular to a build bridge to nowhere that is new than to maintain existing bridges to somewhere.”
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Stephen Flynn:

  • The tragedy of the Minneapolis bridge collapse? “this particular catastrophe is it was entirely of our own making.”
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  • We take our infrastructure for granted. We’ve “inherited a mansion and we decide we’re just not going to do any of the upkeep.”
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  • “...elsewhere people recognize infrastructure as an investment, here we seem to think of it only as a cost.”
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  • We have the money. “Our nation was a lot poorer when they built this stuff in the first place. Surely we can maintain it, and we certainly can do the upgrades.”
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Scott Lilly:

  • Privatizing highways just doesn’t work. Tell your libertarian friends. “A guy puts up a bridge and it’s the only bridge around and he charges whatever he wants unless he’s got regulation. If you’re gonna get yourself into that kind of situation, it’s a lot smarter to do it with public funds.”
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Valerie Rawlston:

  • When it comes to random disasters, “those who tend to have the most difficulty recovering from them tend to be the economically disadvantaged.”
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Popularity Contest

NYT: With Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers

WashPo: GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest

USAT: Police called to Wilson’s home for reported suicide attempt

LAT: Man drives with body hanging out of the back of his car

ABC: Arrest Clouds Idaho Senator’s Future

NBC: 1 million Shiites ordered out of Karbala

CNN: Police log: Owen Wilson tried to commit suicide

CBS: Total Lunar Eclipse This Morning

Fox News: Report Lists Reason for Owen Wilson Phone Call as ‘Attempted Suicide’

Masthead

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Mic Check is produced every weekday by Christy Harvey, Sara Langhinrichs and Nicole Murphy, and is a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Read more about Mic Check.

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