He Speaks  —  Video highlight: Perry says he has decided he wants to be president.  —  Video highlight: Perry on 43's advice to him. Transcript of Mark Halperin's Interview with Rick Perry  —  Halperin: Tell me what being a Texan means to you.  —  Perry: (Laughs.)

Taxes key to Mitt Romney's '04 pitch to Standard & Poor's  —  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.

Cameron's Broken Windows  —  OUR son lives next to a Turkish mosque on Kingsland Road in Hackney, where some of London's worst mob violence has occurred.  When looters rampaged through Hackney last weekend, there were few police officers to stop them and residents had to chase them off with butcher knives, truncheons and baseball bats.

Peter King on Osama bin Laden movie: ‘I hit a sensitive nerve’  —  Rep. Peter King begs to differ with White House press secretary Jay Carney's jab that it's “ridiculous” for the congressman to suggest the Obama administration could be endangering national security by cooperating with filmmakers working on a movie about Osama bin Laden.

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters  —  A few weeks after the U.S. city of Detroit was ravaged by 1967 race riots in which 43 people died, I was shown around the wrecked areas by a black reporter named Joe Strickland.

D.C., Hawaii Most Democratic, Utah Most Republican State in '11  —  North Dakota and Louisiana tilt more Republican than they did in 2010  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Hawaii shows the largest advantage for the Democratic Party over the Republican Party among U.S. states, along with the District of Columbia, in the first half of 2011.

More Educated People Spend More On Booze  —  Your Bureau of Labor Statistics trivia fact of the day is that educational attainment is strongly correlated with alcohol expenditures:

Claire McCaskill Comes Out Against Further Unemployment Benefits [UPDATE] … During a Tuesday visit to a factory in St. Charles, Mo., Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said she opposed extending federal unemployment benefits.  —  “I'm not for extending the unemployment benefits any further …

Citadel in Talks to Sell Investment Bank  —  Ken Griffin is in talks to sell his investment bank and is shutting the equity-research group of his securities unit, ending a three-year effort to build a business he said would rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), according to two people briefed on the move.

America's debt is not its biggest problem  —  For a few days there it seemed like President Obama was the master of the bond market.  This is a Triple-A nation, he intoned on Monday, and always will be a Triple-A nation no matter what some rating agency says.

Wisc.  Results Suggest Recall of Governor Would Be Close  —  Close doesn't count in elections — just ask Al Gore or Norm Coleman.  —  It appeared as late as midnight on Tuesday that Democrats had a chance to win the three seats necessary to give them control of Wisconsin's State Senate in an unusual and expensive recall election.

Anarchy and Austerity: Why London Won't Be the Last City to Burn  —  The Great Recession gave birth to a lost generation across the world, where youth unemployment rates stretch into the 20s, 30s and even 40s.  Those millions have responded with violence.  —  REUTERS

Hear me now?  Union picketers ‘ridiculous’  —  A Quincy mom has disconnected her support for striking Verizon workers yesterday after a group of mouthy picketers surrounded non-union repairmen and turned a phone-line fix at her home into what she is calling a “ridiculous” protest scene.

Poll: Spreading gloom about government; most dissatisfied with political system  —  In the aftermath of the tumultuous debate over raising the debt ceiling, Americans give Washington a strong vote of no confidence, with barely a quarter saying the federal government can fix the nation's economic problems …

Poll: New Yorkers want same-sex marriage law to stay put  —  Washington (CNN) - Just weeks into a new law that recognizes same-sex marriage in New York, a new poll finds a majority of voters in the state not only support the legislation but would resist efforts to overturn it, as well.

Recent Decline In State/Local Tax Revenue Was The Worst Ever  —  Another look at the fact that our economy, far from suffering from an outburst of socialism, is actually suffering from a collapse of state and local government employment is offered by this chart of state and local tax revenue:

White House photo sparks protest  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — A White House photographer was allowed to take and widely distribute a photo from the ceremony Tuesday for the return of the remains of 30 American troops killed in a weekend helicopter crash in Afghanistan despite the Pentagon's claim …

Secret peace talks between US and Taliban collapse over leaks  —  Secret exploratory peace talks between the United States and the Taliban leadership have broken down after details of the negotiations were leaked, Western diplomats have told The Daily Telegraph.

Assemblyman's Vehicle Is Hit by Gunfire in Brooklyn, but He Is Unharmed  —  A sport utility vehicle driven by Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr. was hit by gunfire in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening as he rode with his 7-year-old son, a police spokeswoman said.

George Soros sued by ex-girlfriend for reneging on real estate promise  —  A beautiful Brazilian soap star has the lead role in her own daytime drama, which casts George Soros, the billionaire financier of lefty causes, as a heavy who not only broke her heart, but also reneged on a promise …

John Podhoretz Is Not A Very Intelligent Person  —  I don't normally read books that seem like they'd be terrible, but once upon a time I had a work-related assignment to read John Podhoretz's Bush Country: How George W. Bush Became the First Great Leader of the 21st Century—While Driving Liberals Insane.