Time To Talk Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Big congressional hearing today at 2pm. Plus: Right-wingers say the craziest things when they’re jonzing for McDonald’s...T. Boone Pickens gets windy...the upside to crazy gas prices — we’re not getting in as many fatal traffic accidents...New York wants to control your gaming...Italy rules jeans are not the same as a chastity belt (no, really)...and we miss Estelle Getty. It’s Wednesday, July 23 and this is Mic Check Radio. Wait, how much did you pay for that spork?

Celebration Excuse

Ice cream, Harry Potter, Miss America? What’s not to love when it comes to July 23? (Except for that whole entrance into World War I thing, that is.)

1904

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAAAM! Genius Charles E. Menches invents the ice cream cone during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.

1914

Hel-looooo World War I. Austria and Hungary issue an ultimatum to Serbia after Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated.

1984

Vanessa Williams is stripped of her Miss America crown after nudie photos of the 21-year-old beauty queen show up in Penthouse.

1986

Prince Andrew marries Fergie at Westminster Abbey. (Not the Black-Eyed Peas singer. We’re talking Sarah Ferguson.)

1995

Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp discover the Hale-Bopp comet. What a coincidence.

EAT MORE CAKE

1888: Hard-boiled author Raymond Chandler. You know him as the author of the Philip Marlowe detective stories.
1892: Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I. You know him as the god of the Rastafarian movement.
1936: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
1940: The I-Man, Don Imus. You know him as the shock jock in trouble for the nasty comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team
1961: Actor Woody Harrelson. You know him as Woody from Cheers or the lawman in “No Country For Old Men.”
1967: Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. You know him from “Capote,” “Magnolia” and “Charlie Wilson’s War”
1989: Daniel Radcliffe. You know him as “Harry Potter.”

Daybook

POTUS

Signs the “New Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008,” the White House, Oval Office.

Photo op with the 2008 Boys and Girls Nation Delegates, the White House, East Room.

Signs the presidential proclamation in honor of the 60th anniversary of Armed Forces Integration, the White House, Oval Office.

OTHERS

Defense secretary Robert Gates: Delivers remarks at a ceremony which marks the 60th anniversary of President Truman’s Executive Order No. 9981, which integrated the U.S. Armed Forces, Rotunda, U.S. Capitol.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez: Delivers speech at a meeting of the Manufacturing Council.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey: Testifies to the House Judiciary Committee hearing on US Department of Justice oversight.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: Travel to United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa and Hawaii July 20-28.

United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab: Attends meeting of the World Trade Organization’s Doha round in Geneva, Switzerland.

STUMPIN

BARACK OBAMA

Traveling in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

JOHN MCCAIN

10 AM

Town Hall in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

11:45 AM

Appearance in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

12:00 PM

Meeting in Baton Rouge, LA.

ON THE HILL

Senate

9:30 AM

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee: Full committee hearing addressing the needs of returning members of the National Guard and Reserves and expected outreach by the Veterans Affairs Department.

9:45 AM

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee: The full committee hearing will address existing federal programs created to help reduce gasoline demand and new proposals that contribute to this reduction. Key witnesses include Steve Winkelman of the Center for Clean Air Policy.

10:30 AM

Senate Appropriations Committee: Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England will testify in the full committee hearing on defense contract oversight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2:30 PM

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee: The children and families subcommittee will address childhood obesity in this second hearing on the topic.

House

10:00 AM

House Armed Services Committee: Hearing on the Comptroller General’s progress report. The hearing will feature Joseph Christoff and General Gene Dorado.

House Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee: Full committee hearing will be held on getting immediate relief from soaring oil prices from the petroleum reserve.

10:15 AM

House Judiciary Committee: Attorney General Michael Mukasey will testify in the US Department of Justice oversight hearing.

2 PM

House Armed Services Committee: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Review hearing by the Military Personnel Subcommittee.

WATCH MORE TV

TIVO

The View: Jon Hamm, John Slattery
Regis and Kelly: Amanda Peet, Jennifer Hudson
Ellen DeGeneres: Drew Carey, Alicia Keys (R 5/7/08)
Chelsea Lately: Christopher Ciccone

STAY UP LATE

David Letterman: John C. Reilly, Jane Mayer, Grizzly Bear
Jay Leno: Kevin Costner, D.L. Hughley, the Time
Late Late Show: Val Kilmer, survivalist Les Stroud, Curt Smith
Conan O’Brien: Liam Neeson, BJ Novack, the Duke Spirit (R 5/7/08)
Last Call: Eddie Izzard, Rick Ross (R 3/18/08)
Daily Show: T.J. English
Colbert Report: Nas
Jimmy Kimmel: Paul Giamatti, Mitch Rouse, Los Lonely Boys

 

Eavesdrop

STEAL THIS AUDIO

Who: Helga Flores Trejo, Executive Director, Heinrich Böll Foundation, North America; Silke Malorny, Senior Advisor, MEP Rebecca Harms ; Michelle Moore, Senior Vice-President, Policy & Public Affairs, US Green Building Council (USGBC); Rhone Resch, President, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA); Eduardo Santos, Deputy Head of Delegation to UNFCC negotiations, PORT; Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Where: Center for American Progress

What: A Transatlantic Dialog on Solutions to Global Warming

THE AUDIO

  • Bracken Hendricks on Global Citizenship: I think there’s also an opportunity here to think about how the United States can rejoin the community of nations. I think that thinking about how our solutions to this global crisis and our solutions to rebuilding our place in the global economy offers a tremendous opportunity to think about American leadership and American citizenship in a global community.
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  • Rhone Resch on Al Gore: Many of you are familiar with what Al Gore said last week, that, within ten years, we should have 100% of our energy coming from renewable energy resources. The good news, in following up with that statement, is that we can do it; we’ve got the technology, it’s going to come off the shelf, and we have the resources in this country, but do we have the will?
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  • Michelle Moore on indoor toxins:We also have a huge environmental footprint with our buildings: 12% consumption of potable water comes from the places we work, like the place that we’re in right now, where we literally flush drinkable water down the toilet many times a day (some people more than others). And has a tremendous impact on our personal health as well. We tend to take buildings for granted because they’re such an ever-present part of our infrastructure, but as Americans, we spend about 90% of our time indoors. So, the toxic emissions that come from your typical carpet, furniture, paint and other finishes that we’re surrounded by all day tend to aggravate things like childhood asthma and other respiratory ailments. They give you headaches and build up of carbon dioxide in a room like this over the course of an afternoon without proper ventilation is what makes you sleepy.
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  • Michelle Moore on a vision for the future: You know, what we could have is a very different kind of future for our built environment. You know, one where the conversation isn’t just how can we eek out 35% energy efficiency, but one in which our buildings are really serving as a distributed energy generation grid where not just individual homes or individual commercial buildings, but communities are using their waste, are using the sun, are using wind to generate power at the community scale. Where energy is a little bit more like we think of communications with cell phones and we’re able to be much smarter about out construction practices so that we’re not just doing less harm, we’re actually helping to restore environmental quality and restore economic prosperity and community as well. As Bracken has observed so many times on discussions of green jobs, construction, energy efficiency and building management is fundamentally local — you can’t export that job, and it’s also a job that’s never finished.
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  • Eduardo Santos on how you don’t start out perfect: You can start immediately implementing these kinds of mechanisms and you can improve with time. It took us about 1.5 years negotiating the first piece of legislation on emissions trading.
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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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