Visual source: Newseum
NY Times:
European leaders, in a significant step toward resolving the euro zone financial crisis, early Thursday morning obtained an agreement from banks to take a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt.
AP:
European stock markets shot higher Thursday as investors waded into riskier assets, emboldened by EU leaders’ pre-dawn agreement to slash Greece’s massive debts.
Oil prices rose above $92 per barrel while the euro gained strongly following the European summit dedicated to fixing a debt mess in Greece before it provokes a bigger debt crisis across the continent.
WaPo:
Rubio on a national ticket could be risky bet for Republicans...
Democrats had already questioned whether a Cuban American who has voiced conservative views on immigration and opposed the historic Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina justice, could appeal to a national Hispanic electorate of which Cubans are just a tiny fraction but have special immigration status. And Rubio’s support in Florida among non-Cuban Hispanics has been far less pronounced than among his fellow Cubans.
That ethnic calculus was further complicated by records, reported by The Washington Post last week, showing that Rubio had incorrectly portrayed his parents as exiles who fled Cuba after the rise of Fidel Castro. In fact, their experience more closely resembles that of millions of non-Cuban immigrants: They entered the United States 21 / 2 years before Castro’s ascent for apparent economic reasons.
NY Times:
Despite a school of thought in Washington that Mr. Obama’s support among blacks has weakened because of the poor economy and a sense of unmet expectations, interviews and public opinion surveys show that his standing remains remarkably strong among African-Americans.
The question now for the Obama campaign is whether it can energize those voters — many of whom were drawn to the polls for the first time in 2008 by the historic nature of his candidacy coupled with an aggressive registration program — even with a rate of joblessness among blacks that far exceeds national figures.
NY Times:
Changes in Black Voter Turnout
NY Times
The 2008 election was the first time that black voters in the United States made up a slightly larger share of the electorate than their share of the population.
Click for bigger pic.
WaPo:
Following the violent clashes that broke out between police and Occupy Oakland protesters last night, some have started to questions the level of force used.
EJ Dionne:
It’s an amazing thing about the Washington Establishment and its obsessions. The Establishment purports to be all serious and concerned about important things. But in truth, its concerns come and go like teenage fashion trends.
What struck me about Rick Perry’s unveiling of his flat tax proposal is how little attention most of the coverage paid to the massive increase in the deficit it would cause – or the enormous cuts it would require. Perry tossed off a ceiling on federal spending of 18 percent of GDP but gave us absolutely no details. And no wonder. A ceiling set at that level would require enormous cuts in Medicare, Social Security and/or military spending.
Great insight on why Very Serious People should never be taken too seriously.
Nicholas Kristof:
Whenever I write about Occupy Wall Street, some readers ask me if the protesters really are half-naked Communists aiming to bring down the American economic system when they’re not doing drugs or having sex in public.
The answer is no. That alarmist view of the movement is a credit to the (prurient) imagination of its critics, and voyeurs of Occupy Wall Street will be disappointed. More important, while alarmists seem to think that the movement is a “mob” trying to overthrow capitalism, one can make a case that, on the contrary, it highlights the need to restore basic capitalist principles like accountability.
To put it another way, this is a chance to save capitalism from crony capitalists.
