JIM TREACHER: Speaking of doghouses, John Edwards sure is in one. What does it say about the judgment of the Democratic Party that it was ready to put him one heartbeat away from the Oval Office? Meh, to be fair, nothing that the selection of John Kerry for the top slot didn’t already say . . . .

ROLL CALL: n Wake of GSA Scandal, Senate Passes Agency Travel Reforms. “The measure, championed by Sen. Tom Coburn, was passed as part of a larger amendment agreement on a postal services bill and represents one of the most significant reform efforts on the issue to date. The Oklahoma Republican was able to advance the measure without a roll call vote because of newfound and widespread support for reform in the wake of a scandal involving a lavish 2010 General Services Administration conference. . . . Coburn’s measure would cap the total cost of individual events at $500,000 and slash the total amount spent on conferences annually by 20 percent. The amendment also would require government agencies to publish detailed spending reports on conferences supported or attended by those agencies every three months on their websites.”

HERE WE SEE THE RESULTS OF OUR MEDIA HATEMONGERING: Man Beaten, In Critical Condition, Told “Now, that’s justice for Trayvon.”

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “The Martin case and its fallout are part of a narrative of racial tension, class division, social exclusion, and all the other catch phrases associated with social activism, that many representatives in the media hold dear as a portrait of an America seething with discontent just below the surface. Don’t be surprised if, as Obama’s fortunes wane, incidents like those of Mobile are insinuated to be a future consequence of his electoral defeat: any weapon to hand, even fear. It will be a long, annoying, summer and fall. November can’t come soon enough.” Indeed. I think, however, that all of this stuff hurts him more than it helps — first by contrast with the postracial narrative of 2008, and second by making him look more like a corrupt, demagogic big-city mayor than a President.

WASHINGTON D.C. INCOMES SKYROCKET SINCE 1980. “The percentage of Washington area households with impressive, if not eyepopping salaries, has grown as well. In 1980, just 3 percent of households in the region had incomes that were the equivalent of $200,000 or more in today’s dollars. Now 13 percent do.”

The Capital City prospers while the rest of the country suffers.

FLASHBACK: In 2008, Barack Obama Promises a “Pay As You Go” Approach To Spending. I also love the way he talks about a 4 Trillion increase in debt over 8 years as if it’s so inconceivably huge. Ah, those were the days. . . .

BYRON YORK: Romney braces for ‘vast left-wing conspiracy.’

By those words, many observers thought Romney, speaking to Breitbart News, meant the press. After all, the Republican nominee is likely to face some pretty tough coverage from left-leaning outlets in the months ahead.

But Romney meant much more than the press. In fact, “vast left-wing conspiracy” refers to a set of institutions whose work helps shape the coverage that ultimately appears in the press.

That’s what Breitbart questioner Larry O’Connor was trying to get at in the Romney interview. Mentioning Think Progress, a pro-Democratic war room that is part of the lefty think tank Center for American Progress, and the left-leaning media watchdog organization Media Matters, O’Connor said to Romney, “You really are going to battle with the media and these nonprofit groups who are all working together. Are you guys ready for that fight?”

“I think you’re absolutely right,” Romney said, noting that he’s fully aware that a vast left-wing conspiracy will be arrayed against him.

In the past few months Romney aides have watched closely as Think Progress, Media Matters and others have hit the former Massachusetts governor both on important issues like jobs, taxes, the deficit, and foreign policy, and also on flap-of-the-day stories like the “war on women” and Romney’s dog. Accusations that originate with those organizations sometimes make their way into lefty publications like Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post, and then into the bigger organs of the establishment press.

“There is a network that seems to coordinate and push the liberal agenda, which then gets picked up by the mainstream press,” says a Romney aide. “We’re working to combat that.”

Son of JournoList.

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT MANAGERIAL COMPETENCE WE WERE PROMISED: Megaupload Trial May Never Happen Because of Possible FBI Error. “They destroyed 220 jobs. Millions of legitimate Mega users have no access to their files.”

Plus an explosive charge:

“This Mega takedown was possible because of corruption on the highest political level, serving the interests of the copyright extremists in Hollywood,” he says. “Mega has become a re-election pawn.”

Ouch.

#NARRATIVEFAIL: Mickey Kaus: “Growing Latino Vote” Not Growing: “Psst! Don’t tell anyone, but according to RCP‘s Sean Trende the Hispanic share of the vote has been virtually stagnant (“almost perfectly flat”) since 2004. … Latinos are a rapidly growing part of the population, but actually turning out to vote is another matter. . . . Don’t tell this to mainstream reporters busily hyping the need for Mitt Romney to shift his positions in order to appeal to allegedly immigration-obsessed Latinos.”

Related: Mexican immigration to U.S. at a standstill: report. “The flow of immigrants into the United States from Mexico has come to a standstill and may have reversed, bringing a stunning end to a four-decade surge of newcomers from the country’s southern neighbor, according to a study released on Monday. The report by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center found that an influx that brought 12 million immigrants to the United States since the 1970s, more than half of whom came illegally, began to slow five years ago and may have reversed in the past two years.”

First time that’s happened since the Great Depression. How’s that Hopey-Changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

Also related: GOP Winning “War On Women:” “More voters think Mitt Romney and the Republican Party respect women who work outside the home than think President Obama and the Democrats respect women who stay at home, according to the latest The Hill Poll.”

SECRET SERVICE UPDATE: GOP senator wants details of White House review of staff in Colombia.

JIM TREACHER: Keith Olbermann is as honest about Obama eating dogs as he is about everything else. “Funny how an issue the Democrats brought up over and over for years suddenly stops being important when it starts making them look bad.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: We found love while waiting for new hearts: Young couple awaiting transplants at same hospital fall for each other.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Obama Selects Woman Who Wanted to Invade Israel As Chair of Genocide Panel.

CHRIS CHRISTIE on organ donation.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: To Pay Off Loans, Grads Put Off Marriage, Children.

Between the ages of 18 and 22, Jodi Romine took out $74,000 in student loans to help finance her business-management degree at Kent State University in Ohio. What seemed like a good investment will delay her career, her marriage and decision to have children.

Ms. Romine’s $900-a-month loan payments eat up 60% of the paycheck she earns as a bank teller in Beaufort, S.C., the best job she could get after graduating in 2008. Her fiancé Dean Hawkins, 31, spends 40% of his paycheck on student loans. They each work more than 60 hours a week. He teaches as well as coaches high-school baseball and football teams, studies in a full-time master’s degree program, and moonlights weekends as a server at a restaurant. Ms. Romine, now 26, also works a second job, as a waitress. She is making all her loan payments on time.

They can’t buy a house, visit their families in Ohio as often as they would like or spend money on dates. Plans to marry or have children are on hold, says Ms. Romine. “I’m just looking for some way to manage my finances.”

One of the main functions of higher education has been to facilitate marriage among the middle- to upper-middle class. If instead it results in debt that makes one unmarriageable, I suspect its appeal will decline significantly.

And note this:

Both private and government loans, however, lack “the most fundamental protections we take for granted with every other type of loan,” says Alan Collinge, founder of StudentLoanJustice.org, an advocacy group. When borrowers default, collection agencies can hound them for life, because unlike other kinds of debt, there is no statute of limitations on collections. And while other kinds of debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, student loans must still be paid barring “undue hardship,” a legal test that most courts have interpreted very narrowly.

Deferring payments to avoid default is costly, too. Danielle Jokela of Chicago earned a two-year degree and worked for a while to build savings before deciding to pursue a dream by enrolling at age 25 at a private, for-profit college in Chicago to study interior design. The college’s staff helped her fill out applications for $79,000 in government and private loans. “I had no clue” about likely future earnings or the size of future payments, which ballooned by her 2008 graduation to more than $100,000 after interest and fees.

She couldn’t find a job as an interior designer and twice had to ask lenders to defer payments for a few months. After interest plus forbearance fees that were added to the loans, she still owes $98,000, even after making payments for most of five years, says Ms. Jokela, 32, who is working as an independent contractor doing administrative tasks for a construction company.

By the time she pays off the loans 25 years from now, she will have paid $211,000.

Any other industry that did this sort of thing would be denounced as predatory, but government and higher education get a pass.

THEY SAY THE DOGS YOU’RE SADDEST ABOUT are the ones you never ate.

SO MUCH FOR THE FIERCE MORAL URGENCY OF CHANGE. Former Justice official: Obama worse than Bush on civil liberties.

SEEMS LIKE THIS WOULD BE A BIG DEAL: Democrats Set To Break Spending Cap Agreement.

JOURNALISM: NPR Fails to Disclose Reporter’s Ties to Activist Group.

THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY: Quantum Rainbow Photon Gun Revealed.

AT AMAZON, top deals in the Automotive Outlet.

ANOTHER READER BOOK-PLUG REQUEST: Reader Donna Gordon writes:

My friend Steve Hyle has self-published a children’s book on Amazon. It is called:

The Baby Moose and His Undersea Friends.

He made up this story when his children were little. It’s a fantasy about how a baby moose falls to the bottom of the ocean, meets Clem the Clam, who in turn introduces him to an assortment of sea creatures.

Steve is an interesting guy. He is a retired Air Force pilot and was member of the Thunderbirds. He was appointed by President Reagan to be on the panel investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. He is the co-founder director and secretary/treasurer of the Support Our Soldiers Foundation. He also helped me organize my first two tea parties. He is a true member of the “Army of Davids” :)

Is there any chance you could give his book an Instaplug? It would mean the world to him.

Done!

NEWS YOU CAN USE: There Is No War On Women. “But with great certainty, we can identify the losers in this battle: boys.”

CLUES: Disappearing Net Names Hint at Amazon Data Center Expansion.

BUT IT’S FINE TO WEAR A “CHE” T-SHIRT: Nebraska Investigates Fraternity March With Confederate Flag.