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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM AUGUST 10, 2007
It is a rare day when the stock market qualifies as Story of the Day without either passing a round-number milestone or suffering a dramatic downturn. After two weeks of volatile trading, Wall Street made headlines because of the extreme measures taken by the Federal Reserve Board to ensure its stability. The central bank made three separate injections of cash to keep the financial system liquid, a total of $38bn. ABC and CBS both led with high finance. NBC returned to that stakeout in the Utah mountains, where there is still no news about those six miners.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR AUGUST 10, 2007: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
STABILITY THROUGH LIQUIDITY It is a rare day when the stock market qualifies as Story of the Day without either passing a round-number milestone or suffering a dramatic downturn. After two weeks of volatile trading, Wall Street made headlines because of the extreme measures taken by the Federal Reserve Board to ensure its stability. The central bank made three separate injections of cash to keep the financial system liquid, a total of $38bn. ABC and CBS both led with high finance. NBC returned to that stakeout in the Utah mountains, where there is still no news about those six miners.
Choose your anthropomorphic metaphor for the Fed's cash infusion. ABC's David Muir (subscription required) chose amphetamines: "It was an emergency shot in the arm for Wall Street." CBS' Kelly Wallace offered Alka-Seltzer: "Wall Street woke up with a hangover and got some much needed medicine from the Fed." After yesterday's decline (text link) of 387 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the index declined by a further 200 during the day's trading before the Fed's pick-me-up was announced. When all the dust was settled Wall Street had a positive week. CNBC's Maria Bartiromo told NBC substitute anchor Ann Curry that the cash injection was "an extraordinary move" and CBS' Wallace pointed out that this was the first such intervention since the aftermath of terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
ABC's Muir warned, however, that the problems caused by falling housing prices and mortgage foreclosures may not be over. Those "easy-to-get mortgages" at one point "seemed like a good deal for Main Street and Wall Street--people with poor credit got homes; investors got profits from the interest." Over the next 18 months, a further $600bn in adjustable rate mortgages are scheduled to reset and three million homebuyers face higher monthly housing payments.
NO SIGNS OF LIFE That two-inch bore hole made contact with the underground cavern in the Crandall Canyon mine where six miners were hoped to be still alive, awaiting rescue. "Nothing was detected," when a microphone was lowered into the cavity, ABC's Neal Karlinsky noted. Furthermore, reported CBS' John Blackstone, "there was not enough oxygen to support life." A grain of hope that the miners were alive was that the bore had been misdrilled and had entered an adjacent sealed-off chamber. So engineers turned to a second larger drill "giving them a better chance of staying on target," according to NBC's Jennifer London. As for trying to reach them by tunneling in, London told us that 440 feet of progress has been made in a 2,000 foot job.
CBS and ABC looked into the safety records of all the mines owned by Robert Murray. ABC's Karlinsky counted 3,300 mineworkers in his employ across five states: at one operation, the Galatia mine in Illinois, Murray's firm has racked up $2.5m in fines for safety violations in two years. CBS' Blackstone picked up on Murray's boast that until now he has had no "major accident" at any of his mines: it depends on the meaning of "major"--even before this cave-in, his workers suffered eleven deaths in twelve years. Industrywide, CBS' Nancy Cordes noted that the majority of mining deaths occur above ground, caused by overturned vehicles and malfunctioning machinery. Underground, "safety equipment that is commonplace in mines from Canada to Tanzania is rarely used in the United States."
BRIDGES TO SOMEWHERE The aftermath of the Minneapolis I-35 highway bridge collapse crossed over into the political arena when a trial balloon was floated on capitol Hill about raising the federal gasoline tax by a nickel a gallon to pay for infrastructure repairs. When George Bush responded--"I would strongly urge Congress to examine how they set priorities"--ABC's David Wright (subscription required) explained that the President was referring to porkbarrel spending. Wright quoted engineers as estimating that annual spending to repair the nation's 70,000 structurally deficient bridges would total $9bn--yet $22bn is collected each years from the existing gasoline tax, before any hike. Some of that is already spent on repair "but billions of dollars also went to special projects in Congressional districts around the country." CBS' Bianca Solorzano reported on the same debate on Tuesday when she noted the new construction is more "politically popular" than fixing up old structures.
CBS' Wyatt Andrews introduced a different take on collapsing bridges--gephyrophobia. "After the Minneapolis collapse, it is only natural for drivers to approach a bridge with at least a second thought. But for drivers with a true bridge phobia, it is a lot more than a second thought; it is an overwhelming fear." Phobic motorists facing mid-span panic attacks use a crossing service, drivers without clammy hands who take over behind the wheel. The anti-vertigo service is available at the Tappen Zee over the Hudson River, the Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake, Del-Mem at the mouth of the Delaware River and the Mackinac on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
WORK UNDONE Cabbages rotting unharvested in the field--that is the specter agribusiness invoked, according to NBC's Pete Williams, as the Department of Homeland Security announced a crackdown on immigrant workers with phony working papers. Immigration & Customs Enforcement will double check the Social Security numbers on workers' job applications with federal files: "Employers who cannot resolve the mismatches must fire workers or risk fines and criminal penalties." Williams noted that the crackdown will be disruptive "given the shortage of legal workers" and "may bring a hit for the economy." Besides agribusiness, Williams suggested housing may go unconstructed, hotel beds go unmade, gardens go unwatered and dishes go unwashed.
REPUBLICAN ROUND-UP All three networks turned to Campaign 2008 and all three focused on the Republican field. NBC's Ron Allen is still at the Iowa State Fair in Ames where the straw poll for GOP faithful is held this weekend: it is "non-binding like a pre-season exhibition game, a scrimmage to see who can get their people out to vote." Mitt Romney is "hoping to slingshot forward" having spent $2m on TV advertising "more than the rest of the field combined." There are three candidates for failure to show strongly means early elimination--Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tommy Thompson--and two candidates who have discounted a poor performance in advance by declining to participate--Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain.
ABC's Jake Tapper (subscription required) examined Giuliani's record on immigration on Wednesday, now he turns to his claims about his record after the World Trade Center collapsed. Tapper (subscription required) noted that the former mayor "has staked his political reputation on his performance during 9/11." So one claim--"I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more than, most of the workers…I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense I am one of them"--was replaced by a more modest one when contradicted by workers who inhaled toxic fumes working 16-hours-a-day in the debris. "What I was trying to say is: 'I have exactly the same concerns,'" he clarified on Mike Gallagher's talkradio show.
Romney's religious faith was examined by Jeff Greenfield on CBS after his network published a poll showing the just 25% of American voters have a positive impression of the Mormon Church. Greenfield's explanation was that weird theological belief systems in world religions that date back millennia are not perceived as "unusual enough" to give voters pause. The doctrines of Latter Day Saints, however, are from 1827, what Greenfield calls "the recent past." So believing in golden tablets in upstate New York, and in Jesus Christ's American ministry, and in the location of the Garden of Eden near Kansas City--not to speak of their onetime polygamy--may not pose difficulty for Romney among western voters where the religion is based, "but in a national election Mormonism may be a key issue."
FIRST MINISTER Religion and the Presidency was the topic of anchor Charles Gibson's primetime documentary for ABC on the ministry of the evangelical Christian preacher the Rev Billy Graham. Gibson (subscription required) laid the groundwork for his reporting by being the only anchor to attend the opening of the library devoted to Graham's career in Charlotte in May. Pastor to Power examines the now 88-year-old Graham's counsel to the last eleven Presidents of the United States. "Graham has always had an unerring eye for politicians who would succeed. He befriended Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, when they were all quite young. Graham was fascinated with politics and realized knowing Presidents would enhance his ministry."
FREEDOM CLAMS For a summer treat, NBC's Mike Taibbi found himself at Wolfeboro NH, "America's oldest summer resort." Taibbi tried to find the serious angle in the vacation of Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, to the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee: "Since his election the 52-year-old has drawn cheers for his workaholic agenda," Taibbi intoned, "to cut taxes, hire his political opponents and stretch France's 35-hour workweek." But he really seemed to be there to enjoy the delights of the Dockside Grill not to cover geopolitics: "Can we even say 'fried clams' in French?"
MENTIONED IN PASSING The network newscasts do not assign correspondents to all of the news of the day. If Tyndall Report readers come across videostreamed reports online of stories that were mentioned only in passing, post the link in comments for us to check out.
Today's examples: another suspect is being sought in the execution of three college students in a Newark NJ schoolyard…a major hospital in Los Angeles, the Martin Luther King Harbor Hospital, has been closed, defunded for emergency room abuses…FEMA will no longer use formaldehyde-tainted trailers for emergency housing…the summer heatwave has broken in northeastern states.
Choose your anthropomorphic metaphor for the Fed's cash infusion. ABC's David Muir (subscription required) chose amphetamines: "It was an emergency shot in the arm for Wall Street." CBS' Kelly Wallace offered Alka-Seltzer: "Wall Street woke up with a hangover and got some much needed medicine from the Fed." After yesterday's decline (text link) of 387 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the index declined by a further 200 during the day's trading before the Fed's pick-me-up was announced. When all the dust was settled Wall Street had a positive week. CNBC's Maria Bartiromo told NBC substitute anchor Ann Curry that the cash injection was "an extraordinary move" and CBS' Wallace pointed out that this was the first such intervention since the aftermath of terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
ABC's Muir warned, however, that the problems caused by falling housing prices and mortgage foreclosures may not be over. Those "easy-to-get mortgages" at one point "seemed like a good deal for Main Street and Wall Street--people with poor credit got homes; investors got profits from the interest." Over the next 18 months, a further $600bn in adjustable rate mortgages are scheduled to reset and three million homebuyers face higher monthly housing payments.
NO SIGNS OF LIFE That two-inch bore hole made contact with the underground cavern in the Crandall Canyon mine where six miners were hoped to be still alive, awaiting rescue. "Nothing was detected," when a microphone was lowered into the cavity, ABC's Neal Karlinsky noted. Furthermore, reported CBS' John Blackstone, "there was not enough oxygen to support life." A grain of hope that the miners were alive was that the bore had been misdrilled and had entered an adjacent sealed-off chamber. So engineers turned to a second larger drill "giving them a better chance of staying on target," according to NBC's Jennifer London. As for trying to reach them by tunneling in, London told us that 440 feet of progress has been made in a 2,000 foot job.
CBS and ABC looked into the safety records of all the mines owned by Robert Murray. ABC's Karlinsky counted 3,300 mineworkers in his employ across five states: at one operation, the Galatia mine in Illinois, Murray's firm has racked up $2.5m in fines for safety violations in two years. CBS' Blackstone picked up on Murray's boast that until now he has had no "major accident" at any of his mines: it depends on the meaning of "major"--even before this cave-in, his workers suffered eleven deaths in twelve years. Industrywide, CBS' Nancy Cordes noted that the majority of mining deaths occur above ground, caused by overturned vehicles and malfunctioning machinery. Underground, "safety equipment that is commonplace in mines from Canada to Tanzania is rarely used in the United States."
BRIDGES TO SOMEWHERE The aftermath of the Minneapolis I-35 highway bridge collapse crossed over into the political arena when a trial balloon was floated on capitol Hill about raising the federal gasoline tax by a nickel a gallon to pay for infrastructure repairs. When George Bush responded--"I would strongly urge Congress to examine how they set priorities"--ABC's David Wright (subscription required) explained that the President was referring to porkbarrel spending. Wright quoted engineers as estimating that annual spending to repair the nation's 70,000 structurally deficient bridges would total $9bn--yet $22bn is collected each years from the existing gasoline tax, before any hike. Some of that is already spent on repair "but billions of dollars also went to special projects in Congressional districts around the country." CBS' Bianca Solorzano reported on the same debate on Tuesday when she noted the new construction is more "politically popular" than fixing up old structures.
CBS' Wyatt Andrews introduced a different take on collapsing bridges--gephyrophobia. "After the Minneapolis collapse, it is only natural for drivers to approach a bridge with at least a second thought. But for drivers with a true bridge phobia, it is a lot more than a second thought; it is an overwhelming fear." Phobic motorists facing mid-span panic attacks use a crossing service, drivers without clammy hands who take over behind the wheel. The anti-vertigo service is available at the Tappen Zee over the Hudson River, the Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake, Del-Mem at the mouth of the Delaware River and the Mackinac on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
WORK UNDONE Cabbages rotting unharvested in the field--that is the specter agribusiness invoked, according to NBC's Pete Williams, as the Department of Homeland Security announced a crackdown on immigrant workers with phony working papers. Immigration & Customs Enforcement will double check the Social Security numbers on workers' job applications with federal files: "Employers who cannot resolve the mismatches must fire workers or risk fines and criminal penalties." Williams noted that the crackdown will be disruptive "given the shortage of legal workers" and "may bring a hit for the economy." Besides agribusiness, Williams suggested housing may go unconstructed, hotel beds go unmade, gardens go unwatered and dishes go unwashed.
REPUBLICAN ROUND-UP All three networks turned to Campaign 2008 and all three focused on the Republican field. NBC's Ron Allen is still at the Iowa State Fair in Ames where the straw poll for GOP faithful is held this weekend: it is "non-binding like a pre-season exhibition game, a scrimmage to see who can get their people out to vote." Mitt Romney is "hoping to slingshot forward" having spent $2m on TV advertising "more than the rest of the field combined." There are three candidates for failure to show strongly means early elimination--Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tommy Thompson--and two candidates who have discounted a poor performance in advance by declining to participate--Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain.
ABC's Jake Tapper (subscription required) examined Giuliani's record on immigration on Wednesday, now he turns to his claims about his record after the World Trade Center collapsed. Tapper (subscription required) noted that the former mayor "has staked his political reputation on his performance during 9/11." So one claim--"I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more than, most of the workers…I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense I am one of them"--was replaced by a more modest one when contradicted by workers who inhaled toxic fumes working 16-hours-a-day in the debris. "What I was trying to say is: 'I have exactly the same concerns,'" he clarified on Mike Gallagher's talkradio show.
Romney's religious faith was examined by Jeff Greenfield on CBS after his network published a poll showing the just 25% of American voters have a positive impression of the Mormon Church. Greenfield's explanation was that weird theological belief systems in world religions that date back millennia are not perceived as "unusual enough" to give voters pause. The doctrines of Latter Day Saints, however, are from 1827, what Greenfield calls "the recent past." So believing in golden tablets in upstate New York, and in Jesus Christ's American ministry, and in the location of the Garden of Eden near Kansas City--not to speak of their onetime polygamy--may not pose difficulty for Romney among western voters where the religion is based, "but in a national election Mormonism may be a key issue."
FIRST MINISTER Religion and the Presidency was the topic of anchor Charles Gibson's primetime documentary for ABC on the ministry of the evangelical Christian preacher the Rev Billy Graham. Gibson (subscription required) laid the groundwork for his reporting by being the only anchor to attend the opening of the library devoted to Graham's career in Charlotte in May. Pastor to Power examines the now 88-year-old Graham's counsel to the last eleven Presidents of the United States. "Graham has always had an unerring eye for politicians who would succeed. He befriended Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, when they were all quite young. Graham was fascinated with politics and realized knowing Presidents would enhance his ministry."
FREEDOM CLAMS For a summer treat, NBC's Mike Taibbi found himself at Wolfeboro NH, "America's oldest summer resort." Taibbi tried to find the serious angle in the vacation of Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, to the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee: "Since his election the 52-year-old has drawn cheers for his workaholic agenda," Taibbi intoned, "to cut taxes, hire his political opponents and stretch France's 35-hour workweek." But he really seemed to be there to enjoy the delights of the Dockside Grill not to cover geopolitics: "Can we even say 'fried clams' in French?"
MENTIONED IN PASSING The network newscasts do not assign correspondents to all of the news of the day. If Tyndall Report readers come across videostreamed reports online of stories that were mentioned only in passing, post the link in comments for us to check out.
Today's examples: another suspect is being sought in the execution of three college students in a Newark NJ schoolyard…a major hospital in Los Angeles, the Martin Luther King Harbor Hospital, has been closed, defunded for emergency room abuses…FEMA will no longer use formaldehyde-tainted trailers for emergency housing…the summer heatwave has broken in northeastern states.
