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.

The Commentariat -- August 10

After nearly a week without Off Times Square, I've opened a blogspot site -- Reality Chex Annex -- for comments. The URL is

     http://www.RealityChexAnnex.blogspot.com

     If you click on the link, Reality Chex Annex will open in a new window. The easiest way to post your comment, I think, is on the "Select Profile" dropdown menu, choose the "Name/URL" option & type your name (or pseudonym) and, if you don't have your own Website, use http://www.RealityChex.com as the URL.

     This isn't a good solution, but as a temporary solution, it's okay. Sorry for the inconvenience, everybody.

MoDo lets Obama have it today: "The president has been ... spectacularly unable to fill the leadership void in Washington... His inability to grab a microphone and spontaneously assuage Americans’ fears is strange.... He long ago should have gone out into the country to talk to Americans in person and come up with a concrete plan.... His withholding and reactive nature has made him seem strangely irrelevant in Washington, trapped by his own temperament. He doesn’t lead, and he doesn’t understand why we don’t feel led." Write on this or something else. ...

     ... Karen Garcia & I have posted comments.

** Guess Whose Job the President Cares about -- Yours or His? Robert Reich: "... rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama – to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia. When I first heard this I didn’t want to believe it.... The President is being badly advised. "

CNN: "According to a new national survey, for the first time ever most Americans don't believe their own member of Congress deserves re-election.... And the CNN/ORC International Poll released Tuesday also indicates that while Republicans may have had the upper hand in the recent battle over raising the debt ceiling, they appear to have lost a lot of ground with the public and the party's unfavorable rating is now at an all time high.... Read full results (pdf). ...

     ... Steve Benen made a chart! ...

     ... Not that Benen is optimistic. In a later post, he writes: "Come a year from now, Rove and the Koch brothers will pump secret money into key races; Fox News will rally the troops; and voter-suppression tactics will keep Dems from the polls. It’s tough for a wildly unpopular party to win, but Republicans would almost certainly rather take their chances than govern."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill of Sen. Harry Reid's appointment of Sens. Patty Murray, Max Baucus & John Kerry to the deficit reduction Super Committee: "Labor unions and liberal groups lobbied Reid vigorously not to appoint members of the Senate’s Gang of Six to the panel because they unveiled a framework last month calling for significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Those liberal groups were leery of Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), members of the Gang of Six, because they also voted for a deficit-reduction proposal from the Simpson-Bowles commission." ...

... David Dayen of Firedoglake is not all that pleased: "Meet Your Catfood Commission," he titles his post.

** Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "... the Fed is a good target for liberal organizing, and it’s all too often overlooked. Liberals should be pressing Obama to immediately name people for the two open seats on the Fed, and to threaten the Senate that he will recess appoint them if they are not approved in, say, 30 days. It’s outrageous that the Senate filibustered Nobel Prize winner Peter Diamond when Obama nominated him, but even more outrageous that Obama did little to fight for him [emphasis added] — and that liberals didn’t appear to care very much about it. Beyond pressing Obama, liberals should be actively campaigning against the do-nothing Fed."

Margaret Bogenrief of the Business Insider: "Last month, and pre-U.S.-downgrade, S&P put out the notice – to not much effect, of course – that a downgrade of 7,000 American municipalities was in the works. And while S&P's announcement yesterday that these downgrades weren't 'guaranteed' (that is, some municipalities will escape S&P's wrath), some ARE coming. It may not be 7,000. But there will be a significant number of them."

CW: back before Off Times Square went on glitch-enforced hiatus, one conservative commenter opined that poor people in the U.S. were fairly well-off. You can read the thread here. I also urge you to read Barbara Ehrenriech's essay, a follow-up to her 2001 book Nickle and Dimed on poverty in America. ...

... Jeffrey Brown profiled Philip Levine, the new American poet laureate, for PBS in 2010. Transcript of Brown's interview of Levine here. Beneath the video on the linked page are links to related videos, including Brown's extended interview of Levine & Levine reading some of his best-known works.

Dan Primack of Fortune: "Lucy Nobbe, a vice president with Wedbush Morgan Securities, had this to say to S&P. (She would have said it to Congress, but planes can't fly over Washington, D.C.):

The banner reads, "Thanks for the Downgrade. You Should All Be Fired." Photo via the New York Observer.     ... Foster Kamer of the New York Observer: "She's a single mother of two ... who does not have a lot of discretionary cash...."

Less corruption, more speech. Robust campaigns leading to the election of representatives not beholden to the few, but accountable to the many. The people of Arizona might have expected a decent respect for those objectives. Today, they do not get it. -- Justice Elena Kagan, Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, dissenting opinion ...

... Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic: Elena Kagan is a really good writer. "In her first year on the Court, she wrote three dissents, two of which combine Scalia’s gift for the sharp aphorism with John Roberts’s powers of analytical dissection. But she also has something more: an ability to puncture her colleagues’ bloodless abstractions and tendentious arguments, and to explain the constitutional stakes in plain language that all citizens can understand."

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s attempt to crush dissent through a massive military offensive appears to be backfiring, with fervent condemnations both at home and abroad undermining his government’s chances of survival. The bloodshed of the past 10 days has drawn the ire of regional powers that had stayed silent throughout the nearly five-month-old uprising but were outraged by the killings of fellow Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. It has also prompted calls for a tougher stand in the West, particularly from Washington."

Right Wing World *

Wrong about Everything. Paul Krugman on Tim Pawlenty: "... as far as I can tell he's Sarah Palin in a suit."

Dana Milbank: "... the Tea Party movement: It is fueled by populist anger, but it has been hijacked by plutocrats. Well-intentioned Tea Party foot soldiers demand that power be returned to the people, but then their clout is used to support tax cuts for millionaires. They rally for tougher immigration laws, but then their guy in Washington helps corporations to fire U.S. workers and hire foreign nationals." Milbank cites Georgia Tea Party Rep. Austin Scott, who campaigned against illegal immigration, but who just introduced a bill "to defend a company in his district that discriminates against U.S. citizens in favor of Mexican migrant workers."

The Hobbits Revolt. Arizona Republican: "U.S. Sen. John McCain's town-hall meeting Monday in Gilbert broke down into a shouting match at times as 'tea-party' activists directed their anger and frustration toward the senator over issues ranging from his characterization of them as 'hobbits' to the nation's sagging economy.

Still Crazy at the National Review. Judd Legum of Think Progress: "This morning [Tuesday] in the National Review, Stanley Kurtz suggests that President Obama privately supports the violent protesters" in Britain. The leap of logic that Kurtz takes to "support" his supposition is breathtaking.

Still Crazy in Texas. Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Hours after the Dow Jones industrial average closed down more than 600 points Monday, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, heard from local conservatives who were unhappy that ... Burgess was one of seven Texas Republicans in the House to vote for the [deficit] ... deal...." Burgess also agreed with a constituent who said President Obama should be impeached. "It needs to happen," he said. He thought impeachment would help "tie things up" so no more "damage" could be done. ...

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post on "the Rick Perry that Texans know": "Texans say Perry has been underestimated many times. But he’s never faced what will await him if he does jump in."

Blame Leonardo. The Culture Monster of the Los Angeles Times: "Tea party queen and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is convinced that America is sinking into tyranny. Why? In a remarkable profile of the candidate appearing in the Aug. 15 issue of the New Yorker magazine, the artistic flowering of the Italian Renaissance takes a beating for having done away with the god-fearing Dark Ages." Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article, which we linked earlier this week, is here.

* Where populists vote but plutocrats win.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After sweeping declines on Monday were followed by huge gains on Tuesday, stocks on Wall Street finished steeply lower on Wednesday as each of the three main indexes dropped more than 4 percent. Wednesday’s trading completely wiped out the gains of the previous day in the broader market as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 index."

New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas delivered a long-distance jolt to the Republican presidential campaign on Monday by signaling that he intends to join the race and visit South Carolina and New Hampshire on Saturday, the same day his rivals are battling for survival in the Iowa Straw Poll."

Guardian: "A US air strike has killed the Taliban militants believed to be responsible for shooting down a Chinook helicopter, killing 38 US and Afghan troops, the top commander in Afghanistan said. Marine Corps General John Allen told a Pentagon news conference that forces learned where the insurgents had fled to and killed them in an early morning F-16 air strike on Monday."

Guardian: "The United States is poised to shift its position on Syria by calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down because of the violence he has inflicted on his own people and his failure to implement meaningful reforms for the last five months. Barack Obama could issue the demand as early as Thursday...."

New York Times: "With 10,000 additional police officers deployed across London, and trouble flaring in other cities, Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday threatened sustained police measures including the possible use of water cannons to curb the looting and arson that have shaken many parts of Britain for four consecutive days." Here's the Guardian's liveblog.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Democrats won two state Senate seats in Tuesday's historic recall elections, but failed to capture a third seat that would have given them control of the chamber. By keeping a majority in the Senate, Republicans retained their monopoly on state government because they also hold the Assembly and governor's office. Tuesday's elections narrowed their majority - at least for now - from 19-14 to a razor-thin 17-16. Republicans may be able to gain back some of the losses next week, when two Democrats face recall elections."

Wall Street Journal: "Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating has created something few thought possible: a bipartisan consensus in Washington. Unfortunately for S&P, the rating firm is the one in the crosshairs. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are gearing up to put it under investigative scrutiny and do more to restrict the influence of S&P and its peers in financial markets." ...

... S&P Got One Thing Right. Washington Post: "House and Senate Republicans have rallied around the notion of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution as a solution to the country’s dire fiscal straits. But over the weekend, the head of Standard & Poor’s sovereign ratings division dismissed the idea, arguing that it would be more harmful than helpful to the country’s creditworthiness. 'In general, we think that fiscal rules like these just diminish the flexibility of the government to respond' to crises, S&P managing director John Chambers told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer...."

Washington Post: "A three-judge federal panel on Monday upheld a ban on campaign donations by foreigners.... In a unanimous opinion issued in the District’s federal court, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote that it wasn’t even a close call for Congress to ban such contributions. 'It is fundamental to the definition of our national political community that foreign citizens do not have a constitutional right to participate in, and thus may be excluded from, activities of democratic self-government,' wrote Kavanaugh, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit."

Washington Post: "About 4,000 employees of the Federal Aviation Administration ... would receive back pay for the two-week partial shutdown of the agency under a bill introduced in the House on Tuesday. Restoration of the lost pay has been expected but requires congressional action. With Congress away until after Labor Day, it would be September before the workers see the money."

Finally, the Administration Does Something for Ordinary Americans. New York Times: "The Library of Congress will announce on Wednesday that Philip Levine, best known for his big-hearted, Whitmanesque poems about working-class Detroit, is to be the next poet laureate, succeeding W. S. Merwin."

Don't Tattle on S&P. New York Times: "Three days after Treasury Department officials discovered what they called a mistake in the assumptions used by Standard & Poor’s to justify the downgrade of United States debt, the president of S.& P. wrote to securities regulators saying that ratings agencies should not be required to publicly disclose all errors in their calculations."