In recent years Gov. Rick Perry has said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, that states should have the right to leave the system and even that he believes Social Security is unconstitutional.

Today he walked those comments back. A bit.

I guess this is going to be a pretty interesting election. Rick Perry is now saying that any more emergency efforts by Ben Bernanke to resuscitate the economy would be “almost treasonous.” Watch.

Last week, we compiled a list of all the prominent and elected Republicans who dismissed default by the U.S. government as not that big of a deal — a shocking stance that Standard & Poor’s says contributed to its downgrade of U.S. debt.

We asked for help from TPM readers in fleshing out the list and keeping it from vanishing down the memory hole– and you delivered. Here’s the updated and expanded list.

Thanks for your help.

Here’s key context on the impact of Rick Perry’s entry into the GOP primary contest.

The key thing in my book is that Romney, so far, has been able to leverage the weak GOP field to spin up an inevitability narrative, mainly by ignoring the other candidates and focusing his attacks on President Obama. Perry knocks that whole house down.

If you get beyond the Banana Republic nature of Rick Perry calling the Fed Chair a traitor, you see that this is dangerous ground for Mitt Romney. Romney, who’s generally been supportive of Bernanke’s chairmanship, won’t be able to follow Perry into Paul-like Fed-bashing territory.

People are rightly arrested by the image of a top presidential candidate calling the Fed Chair a traitor. But as Brian Beutler explains, what’s even more telling is why Perry’s calling him that. Not, apparently, because he has zealous beliefs in hard money like Ron Paul. It’s because it would make it harder for him to become President.

President Obama is getting some ribbing today for telegraphing that he’s going to release his ‘jobs plan’ in September. What took so long? The country has been in the grip of historic, catastrophic levels of unemployment for going on three years. All good points. And count me among those who wish he would have come forward with something like this in 2010 rather than 2011. But let’s get real. The President’s mistake is not coming forward with a plan when he — quite rightly — believed that the Congress would refuse to do anything to help create jobs — because of ideology and a desire to see President Obama defeated. Read More

Rick Perry came into the Texas governorship as George W. Bush’s Lt.Gov. But the relationship between Team Perry and Team Bush is not close. Now Karl Rove is piling on Perry’s ‘treason’ swipe at Fed Chair Ben Bernanke.

Gingrich says Republicans will have a hard time resisting President Obama’s demand for a continuation of the payroll tax holiday.

A new poll suggests Wisconsin voters are souring on the idea of recalling Gov. Scott Walker (R). And a successful campaign for Walker’s ouster may rest on recruiting former Sen. Russ Feingold as the Democratic contender.