Wal-Mart Watch: A judge certifies the class-action status of the suit against Wal-Mart for pervasive gender discrimination in promotions and pay, making it the largest class action lawsuit in American history:

The lawsuit, brought three years ago in San Francisco, asserts that Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest company, systematically discriminated against women in pay and promotions. The lawsuit noted that while 65 percent of Wal-Mart’s employees were women when the lawsuit was filed, only 33 percent of Wal-Mart’s managers were women. Judge Martin Jenkins, of the United States District Court in Northern California, wrote that the case was “historic in nature, dwarfing other employment discrimination cases that came before it.”

Thousands of workers and pensioners marched through London this weekend for retirement with dignity:

The “Pay Up for Pensions” rally – organised by the TUC – called for a decent retirement for all and a new pensions partnership. Research by the union shows that low-income workers have been hit hardest by cutbacks in work-based pensions. A third fewer of those earning under £200 a week now have any pension compared to six years ago, it said. Scotland Yard estimated 3,000 people took part in the march through central London, but organisers said the number was closer to 10,000.

Meanwhile, Britain braces for the first national rail strike in a decade:

The left-led Rail, Maritime and Transport union yesterday announced that it had scheduled 24-hour stoppages beginning at 6.30pm next Tuesday. The strikes were condemned by employers, passengers’ groups and the government. Signallers, station staff and maintenance workers at Network Rail are in dispute with the infrastructure company over plans to close its final salary pension scheme.

Network Rail said the strike would inevitably cause “major disruption”, despite contingency plans to use more than 200 retrained senior executives to keep signal boxes open. A simultaneous stoppage on London’s tube system will take place as part of an RMT campaign to secure a four-day working week. The underground carries 3 million passengers a day – more than all of the country’s overground trains put together.

Republican Jack Ryan’s campaign for Illinois Senate against Democrat and LWB-Idol Barack Obama takes another hit:

The ex-wife of Jack Ryan, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, alleged in court papers filed in 2000 that he took her to sex clubs and asked her to engage in sexual activity in front of other patrons. Portions of the documents, which related to a visitation dispute over the couple’s son, were released Monday, after a judge in Los Angeles ordered them unsealed. At a news conference Monday, Ryan reiterated the denial he made in his initial legal response to the charges by TV actress Jeri Lynn Ryan, in which he called the allegations “ridiculous” and “smut” and insisted he was “faithful and loyal to my wife throughout our marriage.”

…Jeri Ryan said her then-husband took her on three “surprise trips” in the spring of 1998 to New Orleans, New York and Paris, during which he took her to sex clubs. She said she refused to go in the first and went into the second at his insistence. “It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling,” she said in the court document, adding that her husband “wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused.” She said on arriving at the third club, in Paris, “people were having sex everywhere. I cried. I was physically ill. [He] became very upset with me and said it was not a ‘turn on’ for me to cry.”

Ralph Nader taps Peter Camejo, Green Party veteran and gubernatorial candidate, as his running mate:

“Camejo shares my concern for economic and social justice, as well as the urgent need to protect the environment,” Nader said in a statement yesterday. The announcement, which came just days before the Green Party selects its presidential candidate, will likely boost Nader’s efforts to win the group’s backing, said some political observers. “It seems like a very smart move, tactically, to select Camejo now, in order to extend Nader’s reach to another political organization like the Greens,” said Ross Mirkarimi, a longtime Green activist who worked on Nader’s campaign in 2000. Camejo is “well-regarded, and he’s not new to the scene.”

Nader has been endorsed by the Reform Party. He twice ran for president with the Green Party’s nomination before announcing earlier this year that he would strike out on his own. He said he would not accept the Greens’ presidential nomination, because he does not want to be too closely associated with any party. But Nader said he would accept its endorsement, a less formal expression of support that could give him access to the party’s ballot lines in 22 states and the District of Columbia. His decision has deeply divided the Green Party between those who support the longtime consumer activist and those backing a little-known party activist named David Cobb. The party is expected to make its decision this weekend.

A new Washington Post poll finds public trust of Bush slipping on what was supposed to be his strongest issue:

Exactly half the country now approves of the way Bush is managing the U.S. war on terrorism, down 13 points since April, according to the poll. Barely two months ago, Bush comfortably led Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, by 21 percentage points when voters were asked which man they trusted to deal with the terrorist threat. Today the country is evenly divided, with 48 percent preferring Kerry and 47 percent favoring Bush.

Out of sight, out of my mind:

A federal report says that a shortage of operating funds from the Bush administration is crippling this park, where 3.2 million people last year visited rain forests, alpine trails and one of the nation’s longest wild coastlines. “Core operations of the park are not funded sufficiently to meet the basic goals and mission of the park as defined by Congress,” says the report, called the Olympic National Park Business Plan. It says the park receives only about half the money it needs. But the business plan — a detailed enumeration of the kind of chronic budget shortfalls that are forcing cutbacks in national parks across the United States — has not been released to the public. Handsomely printed copies are gathering dust here at park headquarters.

The Department of Homeland Security plans a tax on internatinal students:

The Department of Homeland Security is weeks away from finalising a rule governing how a $100 security fee will be collected. But universities are mounting a last-minute lobbying effort to change the proposed system, which would require international students to pay the fee with a credit card or a cheque in US dollars. The universities are concerned that the proposed system would create another barrier for students wanting to study in the US.

Tightened visa rules have been blamed for a 32 per cent decline in graduate student applications to US universities this year. The fee would have to be paid before the student entered the US. The students would then receive a paper receipt, which they would show to a visa interviewer. The fees would cover the cost of registering with Sevis, a computer database used by Homeland Security to track international students. The fee is required because the US Congress mandated that the Sevis programme be self-funded.

Connecticut Governor John Rowland will announce his resignation tonight:

Gov. John G. Rowland intends to announce his resignation tonight at 6 in a televised speech to the state, nine days before the deadline for the House impeachment committee to recommend if he should be removed from office. Rowland, 47, the target of a federal criminal investigation and Connecticut’s first gubernatorial impeachment inquiry, made his decision Saturday after consulting with his lawyers, sources said. “We decided there were no options left. [Resignation] was an option that had been on the plate for a long period of time, and I think the [Supreme Court] decision Friday sealed it,” one adviser said today.

Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell was notified this morning of his decision, as aides were asking the television stations for time for Rowland to address the state. WTNH, Channel 8, reported the story first. Impeachment hearings were to resume today. In interviews with The Courant Friday, committee members indicated that, at a minimum, they had concluded the governor was guilty of repeated ethical violations.

Let’s not let Rowland’s shameful personal ethical violations, for which an accounting appears to be on the way, distract us from the shameful violation of ethical principles written into public policy in Connecticut’s budget, a legacy which falls on the rest of us to reverse. I’m yet to see any signs, unfortunately, that Lt. Governor Jodi Rell’s agenda is any more progressive than that of her boss.

Bruce Stockler writes that “Father Outsources Best”:

This Father’s Day will be hard, given that you are waking up to find an incomprehensible letter in lieu of your actual daddy, but remember that most children see their dads only a few hours a week anyway, time usually spent yelling and screaming about where the power tools went. Given the extraordinary quality time we have already enjoyed, you’ve accrued gross hours of paternal affection equal to that of the average 24-year-old. Sure, you can’t hug a statistical model, but Mr. Gupta can e-mail you relevant links, and information is more valuable than hugs. When all else fails, Google “Daddy” and I’ll know you’re thinking of me, because I pull down all the latest data from the 100-Gbit satellite in my refurbished trailer, perched on the edge of a cliff.

A senior US Intelligence official pens an anonymous book condemning Bush’s approach to terror:

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are “on the run” and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer. In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as “Anonymous”, described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would “inevitably” acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them. He said Bin Laden was probably “comfortable” commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

…Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al-Qaida, said: “His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals.” Anonymous does not try to veil his contempt for the Bush White House and its policies. His book describes the Iraq invasion as “an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage. “Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq.”

The Times’ Philip Shenon on Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11:

After a year spent covering the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, I was recently allowed to attend a Hollywood screening. Based on that single viewing, and after separating out what is clearly presented as Mr. Moore’s opinion from what is stated as fact, it seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in “Fahrenheit 9/11” are supported by the public record (indeed, many of them will be familiar to those who have closely followed Mr. Bush’s political career).

…it may turn out that the most talked-about moments in the film are the least impeachable. Mr. Moore makes extensive use of obscure footage from White House and network-news video archives, including long scenes that capture President Bush at his least articulate. For the White House, the most devastating segment of “Fahrenheit 9/11” may be the video of a befuddled-looking President Bush staying put for nearly seven minutes at a Florida elementary school on the morning of Sept. 11, continuing to read a copy of “My Pet Goat” to schoolchildren even after an aide has told him that a second plane has struck the twin towers. Mr. Bush’s slow, hesitant reaction to the disastrous news has never been a secret. But seeing the actual footage, with the minutes ticking by, may prove more damaging to the White House than all the statistics in the world.

The article details the lengths Moore’s team has gone to in vetting content and marshalling empirical backing for each allegation in the film, and describes his commitment to take a more aggressive approach to rebutting critics of this film than his last one. More power to him (although it would have been easier to rebut the scurillous criticisms of the Bowling for Columbine if he hadn’t cut corners in unnecessary ways with a few of the facts in the first place). Except for this part:

“Any attempts to libel me will be met by force,” he said, not an ounce of humor in his familiar voice. “The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I’ll take them to court.”

No, no, no. Moore should know better. He should recognize that American libel law (although thankfully to a lesser extent than its European counterpart) creates a chilling environment which threatens free speech, and threats of lawsuits against critics both cheapen the discourse and give powerful ammunition to the opposition where it really matters – in the court of public opinion.