memeorandum: The Rise of the Chicken Little Conservatives (Conor Friedersdorf/The Atlantic Online)

1:30 PM ET, August 11, 2011

Top Items:

Mark Halperin / The Page:

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.)

Discussion: CNN, Washington Wire, The Hill, Wonkette, National Review, The Washington Independent, Campaign 2012, Weasel Zippers, Pajamas Media, Riehl World View, Politics, GOP 12, Balloon Juice and ABCNEWS

A.Killough / CNN:

New CNN Poll: Perry near top of pack in GOP nomination battle — Washington (CNN) - As Rick Perry moves closer and closer to a run for the White House, a new national survey indicates that the longtime Texas governor is close to the top of the pack in the hunt for the Republican presidential nomination.

Discussion: GOP 12, Hot Air, Outside the Beltway and Joe. My. God.

Joshua Green / The Atlantic Online:

Another Texan for President? — As he prepares to enter the Republican field, Rick Perry's appeal is clear. So is his one glaring weakness. — HOUSTON — There's a debate in Texas over whether or not Governor Rick Perry's prayer rally before 30,000 worshippers in a football stadium …

Discussion: Prairie Weather

The Note:
Rick Perry Speaks: Tells TIME Magazine He Feels ‘Calmness in my Heart’ to Run

Discussion: CNN, HotAirPundit and Balloon Juice

Max Hastings / Daily Mail:

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.

Discussion: AmSpecBlog, Sense of Events, Guardian, Shakesville, Right Wing News, Betsy's Page, The Independent, UrbanGrounds, Wizbang, The Mahablog, Washington Post and BizzyBlog

New York Times:

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.

Discussion: Guardian, Europe, msnbc.com, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, National Review, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS and Boing Boing, more at Techmeme »

Seumas Milne / Guardian:
These riots reflect a society run on greed and looting | Seumas Milne

Discussion: The Lede, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, normblog, American Thinker, Marbury, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Opinion L.A. and Reuters

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:

Romney gets in heated exchange with hecklers at Iowa State Fair — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) exchange with a few hecklers turned into somewhat of a shouting match while he was stumping Thursday in Iowa. — Romney faced aggressive inquiries with a liberal bent at the top …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Dana Blanton / Fox News: Fox News Poll: 44 Percent Would Re-elect Obama; Romney Remains Top of GOP List

A.Killough / CNN:
TRENDING: Palin bus tour to roll into Iowa

Molly Ball / The Politico:
Sarah Palin headed to Iowa

Discussion: nation.foxnews.com, Hot Air, The Caucus, Washington Times, New York Magazine, Wonkette, Connecting.the.Dots, Michelle Malkin, SFGate, Freedom's Lighthouse, The Note, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Rumproast

Brian Tashman / Right Wing Watch:

DeMint: Obama Administration The Most “Anti-American Administration In My Lifetime” — Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday to discuss his new book and his goals to elect more like-minded conservatives to the Senate. DeMint told Mefferd that President Obama is promoting …

Discussion: TPMDC, nation.foxnews.com, Janet Mefferd Show and Daily Kos

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

DeMint calls administration ‘anti-American’ — Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) shared his unique take on the Obama administration yesterday. … Honestly, it's as if Jim DeMint has suffered some kind of head trauma, which prevents him from perceiving reality. None of his condemnation makes any sense at all …

Ben Smith / The Politico:

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.

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, msnbc.com, Daily Kos, Taegan Goddard's …, New York Magazine, TPMDC, Washington Post, The Daily Dish and Weasel Zippers

Jonathan Weisman / Washington Wire:
Romney's Pitch to S&P Boasted of Revenue Raisers

Discussion: Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly, The Page, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Taegan Goddard's … and No More Mister Nice Blog

Jennifer Epstein / The Politico:

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.

Discussion: JustOneMinute and Weasel Zippers

Michael Warren / Weekly Standard:
Sony Hosted Obama Fundraiser, Releasing Bin Laden Movie Before Election

Discussion: NY Daily News and The Lonely Conservative

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

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.

Discussion: Washington Wire, The Politico and The Political Carnival

Matthew Yglesias / ThinkProgress:

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.

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

Matthew Yglesias / ThinkProgress:

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:

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Emily Smith / New York Post:

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 …

Discussion: NY Daily News, Clusterstock, EconomicPolicyJournal.com, Mediaite and The Raw Story

Michael Rubinkam / Associated Press:

Pa. judge gets 28 years in ‘kids for cash’ case — SCRANTON, Pa. — A longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of convictions.

Discussion: TalkLeft and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Matthew Yglesias / ThinkProgress:

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:

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Bill Gross / Washington Post:

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.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Kristin Brown / Fox News:

The Best and Worst Candidates Can Hope for in the Iowa Debate — As the Republican presidential hopefuls prepare to face off against one another at Thursday night's Fox News debate in Iowa, each candidate faces a daunting challenge - distinguishing themselves from the rest of the pack …

Discussion: Maggie's Farm and NewsBusters.org blogs

Arthur Delaney / The Huffington Post:

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 …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, KMOV-TV, ThinkProgress and Washington Monthly

Jordan Howard / The Huffington Post:

Jan Schakowsky Announces New Budget Plan With Focus On Jobs … WASHINGTON — Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, announced on Wednesday that she will introduce a progressive-minded budget outline aimed at putting more than two million people to work.

Discussion: ThinkProgress

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

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

Discussion: The Agonist and Real Time Economics

Yahoo! News:

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 …

Discussion: Questions and Observations, BLACKFIVE, ThinkProgress, Scared Monkeys, Weasel Zippers and Israel Matzav

Mike Lillis / The Hill:

Dem leader wants jobs ‘supercommittee’ — With national unemployment hovering above 9 percent, a leading House Democrat is pushing to establish a “supercommittee” for creating jobs. — Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, wants to amend the recently passed debt-limit package …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Jeff Merkley, ThinkProgress, Open Congress, Washington Monthly and emptywheel

Greg Turner / Boston Herald:

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.

Discussion: RedState

Frank Miniter / National Review:

England Used to Be a Country of Men — With London succumbing to looters and muggers, it's time to ask what happened to the once-manly English people. The August 9 issue of the Daily Mail, for example, includes a photo of a young man taking off his pants on the street as an impatient looter waits …