THURSDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Wall Street: “In a moment of uncontrolled selling, major indexes fell nearly 9 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled more than 550 points in about five minutes, falling almost 1,000 points on the day…. Computer programs intensified the selloff as markets fell through trading limits. And then, almost as quickly, the markets recovered most of the decline.”
* Greece: “Greek lawmakers approved drastic austerity cuts Thursday needed to secure international rescue loans worth euro110 billion ($140 billion) and police fired tear gas to repel stone-throwing protesters after the vote.”
* BP Oil Spill: “Oil was lapping on the shores of sensitive barrier islands on Thursday, as crews prepared to lower a 100-ton box they hoped would contain most of the crude spewing from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico.”
* Law-enforcement officials now believe the Pakistani Taliban may have been involved with the attempted Times Square car bombing after all.
* On a related note, the Obama administration is “preparing to deliver to Pakistan a detailed request for urgent and specific assistance on the case.”
* It looks like Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) audit-the-fed measure has a real shot at passing.
* Brown/Kaufman gets a boost: “Harry Reid will make sure that an amendment to break up megabanks and cap their size comes up for a vote, the Senate majority leader said.”
* Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) finally got a vote on his effort to gut consumer financial protections in the Wall Street reform bill. His measure failed badly.
* Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is moving forward with his “Terrorist Expatriation Act.” (Did he have to go with “TEA”?) It’s a little different than what he described yesterday, but it’s still a dubious approach.
* Lifting BP’s liability cap seems like a very good idea right about now.
* Better, but still too high: “The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance fell for the third straight week, according to weekly government data released Thursday.”
* The Obama administration is doing the right thing on net neutrality. How good is the policy? Put it this way — John Boehner hates it.
* Smart move: “Senator Chuck Schumer has just sent a letter to the governor of Arizona, asking her to delay the implementation of the immigration law (SB 1070) in order to give Congress time to implement Federal immigration reform.”
* Syracuse University is surprisingly forward thinking.
* Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) must have flunked his statistics class.
* The White House continues to quietly defend Solicitor General Elena Kagan behind the scenes. I wouldn’t be too surprised if that had a larger significance.
* The RNC’s “Obama v. Constitution” site isn’t even close to being accurate. What a surprise.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
