The Commentariat -- August 13

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... Here's the transcript. ...

... Karen Garcia has an excellent post, followed by excellent comments, on Obama's speech at Johnson Controls, a speech which Obama effectively repeats here in his weekly address.

In a fit of optimism, I've posted a comments page on the Republican candidates debate on Off Times Square. Ever a realist, I've posted the same page on Reality Chex Annex. Try Off Times Square first, please (a plea that's subject to change).

Matt Bai of the New York Times on Thursday's Republican debate when all the candidates vowed they would never raise revenues even in a 10-to-1 cuts-to-spending ratio: "what any independent-minded voter saw in that moment were eight people who were not, in fact, serious about governing. They were serious about pandering to the marginal elements of their party. That’s about it." Then Bai goes on to write that Democrats would do the same thing if asked about Social Security. CW: Bai's evidence? Nothing. This mindless insistence on pushing the "both sides do it" meme, even when it isn't true, is an egregious assault on actual journalism. This is one of the worst examples I've ever seen: since Bai couldn't cite an actual case of Democrats "doing it," he just made one up. No wonder some of our commenters feel free to be fact-free; they see it on the pages of "the paper of record whatever." Update: I checked back later and a lot of the Times commenters called out Bai for his false equivalency. I find that pretty encouraging. ...

... CW: Now here's something we like to see moving into the MSM. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity.... Among those calling for a mix of cuts and revenues are onetime standard-bearers of Republican economic philosophy like Martin Feldstein, an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary to President George W. Bush, underscoring the deepening divide between party establishment figures and the Tea Party-inspired Republicans in Congress and running for the White House.... Democrats are too cowed to counter much, given polls that show many Americans believe Mr. Obama’s 2009-10 stimulus package did not work, despite studies to the contrary."

** CW: I'm moving this forward from yesterday's Commentariat because it's such a worthwhile read: Weekend Reading. Don Peck writes a long essay in The Atlantic that won't cheer you any: In 2005, Citigroup analysts wrote that "America was composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn’t matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent put together; they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent [emphasis added]; and with each passing year, a greater share of the nation’s treasure was flowing through their hands and into their pockets. It was this segment of the population, almost exclusively, that held the key to future growth and future returns. The analysts ... had coined a term for this state of affairs: plutonomy.... Income inequality usually shrinks during a recession, but in the Great Recession, it didn’t. From 2007 to 2009, the most-recent years for which data are available, it widened a little."

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress examines the 11th Circuit Court's decision to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional. The bottom line is, "... the only real question in this case is whether the government is required to first take your money and then buy health coverage for you, or whether the Constitution allows Congress to cut out the middle man." You have to read Millhiser's post to grasp his logic. He also explains that the Clinton-appointed judge who ruled against the individual mandate is a conservative to the right of Supeme Court Chief Justice Roberts & Justice Scalia. ...

... E. J. Dionne on what dissenting Judge Stanley Marcus of the 11th Circuit got right. Marcus wrote, "The approach taken by the majority has also disregarded the powerful admonitions that acts of Congress are to be examined with a heavy presumption of constitutionality, that the task at hand must be approached with caution, restraint, and great humility, and that we may not lightly conclude that an act of Congress exceeds its enumerated powers."

Liz Goodwin in Yahoo! News: "Three recent [New York] Law School graduates are suing their alma mater in a $200 million class action, alleging they were deliberately misled about their future career prospects.... The plaintiffs say they were told the employment rate for NYLS alumni 9 months after graduation was between 90 and 95 percent. They say they had no idea that figure included people who were employed in jobs that don't require a law degree, or even a college degree. The percentage of recent graduates who are in jobs that require or prefer a J.D. may even be below 50 percent, they allege."

Contra the conventional wisdom, Nate Silver says the Ames straw poll "has a pretty good predictive track record." With graphs & tables, naturally.

Most Protests Are Astroturfed. Prof. David Meyer in a Washington Post op-ed: "Ostensibly spontaneous eruptions of political protest reflect the hard work and investment of organizers who cultivate grass-roots activism."

David Dayen of Firedoglake has an impressive rundown of local stories about ordinary Americans challenging Republican Tea Party members of Congress at townhall meetings. Includes video of a protest against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) -- "Stop voting against jobs!" As Dayen notes, "If this organic movement were happening on the right, it would be front-page news in every national newspaper in the country. We know because the distinctly non-organic movement in 2009 was front-page news."

Rachel Maddow pays tribute to former Republican Sen. Mark Hatfield (Oregon), who died this week and current Republicans who occasionally aren't afraid of arithmetic, science & common sense:

A Crack in the Tea Potty? I did sign that pledge when I was first running [for the House in 2004]. I no longer sign any pledges. [A pledge] restrains your ability to think creatively.... I informed the organization I don't consider [the earlier pledge] binding. I don't care to be associated with it. It's too constraining.... We have a broken tax code that is skewed to the wealthy and corporations [who] know how to move capital around. -- Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), speaking at a townhall meeting, on the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge. ...

     ... CW: Fortenberry still has plenty of dumb economic ideas, like support for a balanced budget amendment, but he's moving in the right direction.

Right Wing World *

Corporations are people, my friend. -- Mitt Romney ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the corporate profits tax isn’t a tax on these organizations. It’s a tax on these organizations’ profits — the share of their income that does NOT go to workers and suppliers. Now, stockholders are people too — but they are, on average, quite rich people, who are doing very well as most Americans suffer." ...

... The Democratic National Committee pounces (figuratively):

... CW: you probably already knew this, but Romney is richy-rich. AP: "The immense fortune controlled by [Mitt] Romney and his wife, Ann, is worth $190 million to $250 million — within the same range as his 2007 presidential financial disclosure records, his campaign said. Romney's financial records, submitted Friday to meet a deadline set by the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, valued his fortune at $86 million to $264 million." Despite a 2008 pledge to divest himself of investments that "would comport with my positions," "IRS records show that between 2007 and 2009, Romney's family charity, the Tyler Charitable Trust, continued to buy and sell other investments in companies that dealt with Iranian businesses, complied with Chinese censorship or aided in stem cell research."

Charles Blow: "... all the [Republican presidential] candidates ... confirm[ed] that they felt so strongly about not raising taxes that they would all walk away from a hypothetical deficit-reduction deal that was as extreme as 10 parts spending cuts to one part tax increases.... No person who would take such a stance is fit to be president of the United States or any developed country. Good governance in a democratic society is about the art of the deal, not fiats and dictum. You want leaders who stand up for principles but not in the way of progress." ...

... Kurt Andersen in the New York Times: "Keeping track of which politician has signed which pledge is head-spinning. These pledges make the politicians more like robots, built to respond in simple, unchanging ways."

Michele Bachmann's campaign team -- and her husband -- roughed up another MSM reporter, CNN's Don Lemon. Print story here. Last month, Bachmann's team "pounced on (literally), grabbed and pushed" ABC reporter Brian Ross when he tried to ask Bachmann a question.

* Where the government represents only the wealthiest one percent. And the Constitution-loving leaders abolish the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.

News Ledes

MSNBC is reporting that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has announced his candidacy for POTUS. No link. ...

     ... AP Update: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined the 2012 GOP race for president Saturday with an announcement sure to reverberate halfway across the country as his rivals competed in Iowa for the support of party activists. 'I full well believe I'm going to win,' Perry told South Carolina voters on a conference call about an hour before he planned to kick off the campaign with a speech in Charleston."

Washington Post: the Ames, Iowa Republican presidential straw poll is today. CW: it is, as Stephen Colbert explains, "a crucial test to see if a candidate can get Midwesterners to put down a food plate long enough to mark a ballot." ...

     ... Update: looks like the Des Moines Register is running a livestream on its front page. It's beginning now at 1:20 pm ET. It's on a teensy image, but you can supersize it. It begins with an invocation of Jesus' name. ...

     ... ** New York Times Update 2: Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll. Here's the Des Moines Register story. The CNN story is here. It ends on this note: "Only one Republican has won the straw poll and gone on to occupy the Oval Office: George W. Bush." 

Guardian: American artist Shepard Fairey, most famous for his Obama "Hope" poster, was beaten up outside a Copenhagen, Denmark bar early this morning, allegedly because of a controversy over his mural installation at a Copenhagen site formerly occupied by a left-wing community organization.

New York Times: "As leaders in the Arab world and other countries condemn President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on demonstrators in Syria, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has struck a far friendlier tone, urging the protesters not to 'sabotage' the state and hosting an official Syrian delegation. Mr. Maliki’s support for Mr. Assad has illustrated how much Iraq’s position in the Middle East has shifted toward an axis led by Iran. And it has also aggravated the fault line between Iraq’s Shiite majority, whose leaders have accepted Mr. Assad’s account that Al Qaeda is behind the uprising, and the Sunni minority, whose leaders have condemned the Syrian crackdown."

The Commentariat -- August 12

Okay, it now appears that my entire site is down. By accident, I was able to get this page up, but I probably won't be able to do so again, perhaps for 24 hours or more. So it may be that everything happens on Reality Chex Annex. This is getting to be more than I can handle....

     ... Update: the site is back in business but I'm still working on Off Times Square. I have learned the identity of an individual who was responsible for taking down the site last night. He apparently was looking for information about where I live. Because he was aware information available publicly was not up-to-date, I believe he may have stalked my neighborhood and may pose a threat to my safety. I have contacted the local police in the city where he resides.

I have put up a comments page on Reality Chex Annex on Paul Krugman's column: "what happens when influential people exploit a crisis instead of doing something about solving it."

The thing is that of course a commission concerned with the deficit should be concerned about jobs, as more jobs = 'free' way to cut deficit.... It's only in our crazy discourse that jobs aren't seen as central to the anti-deficit agenda. -- Atrios

President Obama spoke in Michigan yesterday. He puts some oomph behind this speech, in contrast to his most recent efforts, but he still won't say the words "Republican" or "Tea Party." The transcript is here:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "We interrupt our regularly scheduled conversation about what President Obama hasn't done for the economy to bring you a reminder of what he has. And it comes in the form of a visit to Holland, Michigan.... Like the rest of Michigan, Holland has benefited substantially from Obama Administration policies."

Brian Beutler of TPM takes a quick look at the relevant backgounds of Nancy Pelosi's choices for the deficit super committee, Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). ...

... Steve Benen: "... the key takeaway from the House Democratic selections is that all three are key, close allies of Pelosi, and they will very likely be representing her interests during the negotiations."

... Jack Gillum of the AP: "The 12 lawmakers appointed to a new congressional supercommittee charged with tackling the nation's fiscal problems have received millions in contributions from special interests with a direct stake in potential cuts to federal programs, an Associated Press analysis of federal campaign data has found."

Josh Boak of Politico: "A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans. Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that 'people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,' Mukherji said."

Rosalind Helderman & Peyton Craighill of the Washington Post: with a 14 percent approval rating, Congress is less popular than "Cloning sheep. Cloning humans, even. Caning teen vandals. Believing that aliens have descended from space and abducted humans." ...

     ... In this photo gallery, the Wash Po compares Congress to a few other entities. Here's one: "Congress is about as popular as BP was during the summer of 2010, after an explosion of one of its rigs caused millions of barrels of oil to spew into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil company’s approval rating in June 2010 was 13 percent, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, just one percentage point behind our current Congress."

Right Wing World *

Look, she has done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it is an undisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent.... She’s got a record of misstating and making false statements. -- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, speaking of Rep. Michele Bachmann

When you were governor in Minnesota you implemented cap and trade in our state and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandates and called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance that the government would mandate. You said the era of small government was over. That sounds more like Barack Obama, if you ask me. -- Michele Bachmann, to Pawlenty

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "As they tried to blame President Obama for the nation’s lowered credit rating, the Republican presidential candidates who squared off Thursday night in Iowa made several misleading, incomplete or simply false claims." CW: Cooper takes mild swipes at Romney & others, but he mostly whacks Bachmann.

Corporations are people, my friend. -- Mitt Romney, to an audience member who said Congress should raise taxes on corporations

Disproportionally wealthy people. -- Ezra Klein

It is a shocking admission from a candidate — and a party — that shamelessly puts forward policies to help large corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the middle class, seniors and students. -- Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee

Tim Egan: Gov. Rick "Perry’s tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in the nation’s second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became president."

* Where you have to be even nicer to rich people. And pray a lot.

News Ledes

AP (via NYT): "A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties. The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional."

AP: "Bank stocks jumped Friday after several eurozone countries banned short selling, helping European markets push higher Friday ahead of expected further gains on Wall Street. The advance in Europe follows big gains in the U.S. Thursday, which helped support most stocks in Asia."

Al Jazeera: "Syrian security forces have opened fire at protesters in Deir ez-Zor, Idlib and Deraa after Friday prayers, according to media reports. Al Arabiya television said on Friday there were also demonstrations in the central city of Homs and the western city of Latakia. Earlier, Syrian security forces killed at least 11 people in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni tribal heartland."

New York Times: "A withering critique of President Obama’s handling of the economy was overshadowed by a burst of incivility among the Republican presidential candidates who gathered here for a debate on Thursday night and fought to stay alive in the party’s increasingly fractious nominating race." ...

     ... Washington Post: "The last vestiges of 'Minnesota nice' fell by the wayside during a Republican debate here Thursday night, as the two candidates who have the most at stake in Iowa went after each other in the roughest exchange thus far in the race for the 2012 presidential nomination."

The Commentariat -- August 11

I've posted a comments page on Reality Chex Annex again. Thee's some progress on Off Times Square, so I'm thinking tomorrow we can get back to normal. Maybe.

The Debt: a Symptom, Not a Cause. Bill Gross of PIMCO, in a Washington Post op-ed, gets this right: "It is not the debt ... but the lack of global aggregate demand that is at the heart of the crisis.... Fiscally..., an anti-Keynesian, budget-balancing immediacy imparts a constrictive noose around whatever demand remains alive and kicking. Washington hassles over debt ceilings instead of job creation in the mistaken belief that a balanced budget will produce a balanced economy. It will not. The president and Congress must recognize that an AA-plus country, to remain AA-plus, must focus on growth, not debt reduction, in the short term." CW: what Gross doesn't mention is that in the U.S., there will never be adequate "aggregate demand" as long as most wealth remains in the hands of a few -- a few like Gross. Gross is one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of $2.1BB. How many washing machines and lawnmowers will Bill Gross buy?

The president has shown himself unwilling to just dig in on a position. He’s for jobs. I’ve heard him say that. He’s for being the grown-up in the room. But beyond that, I’m not actually sure what his bottom line is. -- Dee Dee Myers, President Clinton's press secretary ...

... Karen Tumulty & Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "With President Obama’s reelection on the line, Democrats are increasingly anxious about what they see as his failure to advance a coherent and muscular strategy for addressing the nation’s economic ills.... More Democrats are saying it is time for him to scrap his more cautious, conciliatory approach and advocate bolder programs that would generate jobs and economic growth, even though many of those ideas would have no chance of passing Congress." His aides pretty much say faggedaboudit. ...

... AND Matt Miller of the Washington Post on "why the center-left is fed up with Obama" ... Yes, other forces may be 'responsible' for the bad news. But in the end a president has the most power to shape the debate. How could Obama have let the entirely foreseeable debt-ceiling standoff turn into a hostage drama? Why didn’t he have the spine to say 'send me a clean debt limit increase or I’ll raise it myself and see you in court''?" CW: Miller's complaint is great; his solutions need work. ...

... "It's Time to Go Blacker." Larry Wilmore solves Obama's debt problem. "If there's one thing black people relate to, it's credit problems":

OMG! Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: Boehner & McConnell lard super committee with right-wing loons -- worst choice: the deranged Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Toomey

used to lead the vehemently anti-tax Club for Growth. He voted against the recent debt-limit deal, which convened the super-committee in the first place and was heavily tilted toward Republican priorities. He also insisted that refusing to raise the debt limit wouldn’t be so bad, since it wouldn’t force default — merely a massive, immediate, uncertainty-inducing and economy-killing collapse in federal spending. ...

... Marin Cogan & Manu Raju of Politico: "... every Republican member of the deficit reduction committee has signed tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes, making it increasingly unlikely that any real tax revenues will be on the table as the committee tries to meet a Thanksgiving deadline." CW: obviously Boehner & McConnell decided automatic cuts would be better than a "grand bargain."

... The Right Idea. Mike Lillis of The Hill: "Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, wants to amend the recently passed debt-limit package to establish a joint select committee on job creation to operate alongside the already mandated Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. In a "Dear Colleague" letter sent to House members earlier in the week, Larson argued that the nation's jobs crisis is only exacerbating its long-term fiscal problems and therefore demands Congress's immediate attention." ...

It is possible that something similar to what has happened in London could happen in America. Sometimes you never know what will spark such an incident. I think that unless we move and move very fast to help that segment of our society that has been left out and left behind ... then we’re really playing with fire. -- Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), civil rights hero ...

... Lessons from London. Profs. Richard Sennett & Saskia Sassen, in a New York Times op-ed: "The American right today is obsessed with cutting government spending. In many ways, [British PM David] Cameron’s austerity program is the Tea Party’s dream come true. But Britain is now grappling with the consequences of those cuts, which have led to the neglect and exclusion of many vulnerable, disaffected young people who are acting out violently and irresponsibly — driven by rage rather than an explicit political agenda.... The two countries today are alike in their extremes of inequality, and in the desire of many politicians to solve economic and social ills by reducing the power of the state." ...

... NEW. Meera Selva of the AP: "Britain is bitterly divided on the reasons behind the riots. Some blame the unrest on opportunistic criminality, while others say conflicting economic policies and punishing government spending cuts have deepened inequalities in the country's most deprived areas. Many of the youths themselves struggle to find any plausible answer, but a widespread sense of alienation emerges from their tales."

Karen Garcia on the "Dark Knights of the Business Roundtable." Garcia notes that S&P is owned by McGraw-Hill, "whose CEO, Harold McGraw III, is also chairman of the Business Roundtable." Coincidence? Hah! ...

... Dennis Kucinich doesn't think so. Peter Schroeder of The Hill: "Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is demanding detailed financials from Standard & Poor's parent company, accusing the firm of having an 'inherent conflict of interest' in its decision to downgrade the nation's credit rating.... He contended in the letter that if the company owns government debt, S&P's decision to downgrade could have an effect on McGraw-Hill's investment portfolio." ...

... AND what about this? Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "S&P’s parent company, McGraw-Hill, has spent more than $11 million on lobbying over the past 15 years, including at least $1 million on S&P-related legislation.... The firm’s employees have also given more than $500,000 in contributions to federal candidates since 1989, primarily to Democrats.... The numbers underscore the unusual political position occupied by S&P and the country’s two other top rating firms, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. Each company issues judgments on government creditworthiness that can move markets while lobbying the government for policies favorable to its core businesses."

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "While last month’s Congressional tangle over the debt ceiling suggested permanent partisan gridlock, signs are emerging that some House Republicans are opening the door to potential revenue increases, as Congressional leaders continued to name their members of a bipartisan committee charged with finding ways to tame the deficit."

Brad Plumer of the Washington Post: the Obama Administration has a plan (CW: I'd call it a proposal; doesn't sound like they know how to implement it) to have Fannie & Freddie sell off foreclosed homes to investors who would turn them into rental properties. Plumer provides a pretty good overview of the pros & cons.

Greg Sargent: "... SEIU is launching a $1.5 million campaign, including TV and radio ads and direct mail, that’s designed to shift the conversation to jobs, and away from austerity, in six key swing states where unemployment is running very high":

This Ratigan Rant is making the rounds, & everybody seems to love it. Personally, I think he's an irritating prima donna:

Jeffrey Gettleman, et al., of the New York Times: "Bancroft Global Development, an American private security company that the State Department has indirectly financed to train African troops..., plays a vital part in the conflict now raging inside Somalia, a country that has been effectively ungoverned and mired in chaos for years. The fight against the Shabab, a group that United States officials fear could someday carry out strikes against the West, has mostly been outsourced to African soldiers and private companies out of reluctance to send American troops back into a country they hastily exited nearly two decades ago."

Well, This Is Appropriate. James Barron & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: beginning October 29 of this year, the Statue of Liberty will close for a year for repairs, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says. CW: October 29, BTW, was the date of the 1929 stock market crash. Now there's symbolism for ya.

Linda Greenhouse remembers former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, "The Man Who Saved New York City." Greenhouse traveled with Carey during his first gubernatorial campaign.

Right Wing World *

Ben Smith: "Gov. Mitt Romney lobbied the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s in 2004 to raise his state’s credit rating in part because Massachusetts had raised taxes during an economic downturn two years earlier.... Romney’s case to S&P is a far cry from the anti-tax absolutism of the Republican Party he hopes to lead. Indeed, it bears a far closer resemblance to the right-of-center grand compromise rejected by House Republicans this year — dismissed because it would include new taxes and end tax breaks President Barack Obama described as 'loopholes' — or the more modest compromise that passed, than to the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan Romney 'applauded.'” ...

AND Stephen Colbert's Super PAC runs its first ad -- for Rick Perry Parry:

BUT, John McCain is back on the "Straighttalk Express." A hobbit is a hobbit is a teabagger & he won't back down:

* Where hypocrisy is a virtue.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas will formally enter the Republican presidential race on Saturday during a visit to South Carolina, an adviser said Thursday, a step that removes any ambiguity about his plans to seek the party’s nomination."

Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday filled out the final three slots on the joint deficit committee by selecting three members of her leadership team to the panel. Pelosi (D-Calif.) chose Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), giving the panel the highest-ranking African-American and Latino lawmakers in Congress with Clyburn and Becerra, respectively. Pelosi reiterated her call for Congress to consider 'the grand bargain' of major entitlement cuts matched with increased taxes."

Washington Post: "Elizabeth Warren is embarking on a listening tour of Massachusetts, a step towards a possible Senate run against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)."

Yo-Yo. New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street surged higher on Thursday, setting the stage for what could be another unpredictable trading session.... Even as new economic data was released on Thursday, showing, for example, that weekly jobless claims were lower at 395,000, there was hesitation to read too much into one scrap of information in the bigger economic picture."

Reuters (Via NYT): "The number of Americans claiming new jobless benefits fell to a four-month low last week, a sliver of hope for an economy battered for days by a credit rating downgrade and falling share prices.... Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 395,000, the Labor Department said, the lowest level since early April. Economists had expected a reading of 400,000."

President Obama toured Johnson Controls in Grand Rapids Holland, Michigan. He spoke this afternoon about jobs & Washington gridlock.

Guardian: British PM David Cameron has called a special session of Parliament on the riots. The Guardian's liveblog also has a livefeed of the Parliamentary session. ...

... NEW. New York Times: "Seeking to reestablish his authority after England’s worst rioting in decades, Prime Minister David Cameron told an emergency session of Parliament on Thursday that the authorities would consider curfews, constraining smartphones and social networking sites, and filling some police functions with soldiers to keep more officers on the street. He also said that he would consult a former New York City police commissioner, who presided over a record drop in crime there in the 1980’s, on ways to counter criminal gangs."

Republican presidential candidates will debate in Ames, Iowa at 9:00 pm ET. CNN will broadcast the debate live, & more than likely will livestream it, too. Here's a Politico story.