Month: July 2011

Robert Reich is an incredibly smart man whose politics pretty much mirror my own, but he’s got the same liberal myopia that I see from friends and colleagues throughout the blogosphere and the activist community. He wants to know, for example, why we’re stuck debating the debt ceiling, deficits, and debt when we have persistently high unemployment, low economic growth, and increasing income disparity. Here’s how he explains it to himself:

Part of the answer is a Republican Party that’s the most irresponsible and rigidly ideological I’ve ever witnessed.

Part of the answer is the continuing gravitational pull of the Great Recession.

But another part of the answer lies with the president — and his inability or unwillingness to use the bully pulpit to tell Americans the truth, and mobilize them for what must be done.

This is the “lack of leadership’ argument. The premise of which is that the president can use the bully pulpit to educate and mobilize the public so that they can influence Congress and push them to support the president’s agenda. He can provide cover for his vulnerable members and he can scare or cajole his opponents into cooperation or capitulation.

Another variety of this argument puts the onus on the people…FDR’s admonition that organizers “make him to do something” by creating public demand for it. This latter argument is more realistic and useful than the first.

Let’s look at where we stand this weekend. As soon as the ink was dry from the 2010 midterm elections it was clear that we would be seeing something never seen before. We would be seeing a link between raising the debt ceiling and cutting the deficit dramatically. I believe MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell discussed this on the air on election night, or within days of it anyway. So many new members had pledged to make this link that it was inevitable that the link would be made.

How did the president respond? At first he made the obvious argument that such a linkage had never been made before and should not be made now. But it wasn’t something the Republicans could be deterred from doing by mere rhetoric. In fact, raising the debt ceiling polls very poorly and educating the public about it would entail a months-long effort to justify the government’s inability to live within its means. The president’s mission wouldn’t be merely to improve those poll numbers to parity, but to convince an overwhelming number of people so that immense pressure would be placed on Republicans serving in conservative districts to abandon their linkage. This would have been an impossible task, even if his own party remained united behind him. But they wouldn’t have remained united; increasingly they would have become divided.

As should be obvious by now, the new Speaker of the House never had the votes to pass a clean hike in the debt ceiling. He never had the votes to pass any reasonable or acceptable or even sane hike in the debt ceiling. And this wasn’t any great secret. By no later than early spring it was clear that decoupling was impossible and that some deal must be struck. It was also clear before long that the Speaker couldn’t deliver any fair or reasonable deal. What I’m saying here is that our present situation was not avoidable. We should not be debating why we’re debating the debt ceiling. We’re debating it because we lost the 2010 midterms, badly, to a bunch of fire-breathing debt-crusaders. It’s fair to place some blame on the president for those midterm losses, but we have to keep things in context.

It was probably around the time that the president became firmly convinced that what we’re facing this weekend was unavoidable that he did something to protect himself politically. He offered to accept linkage but make it contingent on a Grand Bargain that would involve sacrifices on all sides. He put Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table and asked the Republicans to reciprocate with a willingness to cut tax loopholes on private jet owners and Big Oil companies. As he suspected, and as was soon confirmed for him, the answer to all concessions was no.

He crafted his proposal so that he would get some tangible benefits if the Republicans unexpectedly agreed to cooperate. He would get an extension of unemployment insurance. He would backload the cuts to protect this year’s and next year’s budget, he’d get an extension past next election day, and he’d get tax revenues. But these things just made it less likely that the Republicans would agree to a Grand Bargain.

The president did use his bully pulpit to talk about fairness in the tax code and shared sacrifice. He did talk about protecting the most important investments, like education, research, and clean energy. But, what he didn’t do is talk about the need to stimulate the economy with new government spending. He gave up on Keynesian economics completely and even began making arguments against those principles, like saying that “in tough times the government needs to tighten its belt.” On this last bit, the president can be rightly criticized for triangulation. There wasn’t much point in asking for more money or in complaining about not getting it, but he didn’t need to push an anti-Keynesian argument.

Yet, the central reality presented by the Midterms’ outcome was that the president would not be able to help the economy by injecting money into it through congressional appropriations. He was wise to recognize that reality rather than to fight it.

Given the battleground he faced this year, the best he could do is to protect the recovery by backloading as much of the cuts as he could, getting an extension of unemployment insurance, and getting the debt ceiling debate off the table until after the election. Even those limited goals would have to be extracted at a staggering cost, if they could be extracted at all. So, much of the planning was political. How could he win the public debate over who was responsible for the debt ceiling crisis? How could he keep Democrats united and Republicans divided?

The answer to that was to be willing to compromise while the Republicans refused to do so. This was easy to do considering the Republicans refusal, even inability, to make concessions. To be sure, the president has taken a hit in the polls. His willingness to compromise hurts his standing with his base and makes him look weak. Meanwhile, dysfunction in DC has hurt the poll numbers of all politicians. But, comparatively, the president has done better than anyone else, and his party has largely won the argument.

For every Robert Reich who is carping on the left, there are a dozen unhappy Republicans who think the GOP is acting recklessly. John Boehner’s speakership is in ashes. Michele Bachmann in now polling about evenly with Mitt Romney. The GOP is having a huge internal fight and is loathed and mistrusted by the entire international community. They have been exposed for the radicals that they are, and the people disagree overwhelmingly with their behavior and their approach.

It could have been different. The president could have refused to accept any coupling of the debt ceiling to budget cuts. He could have, rather, argued he needed more money to stimulate the economy. He could have tried to convince people of that. But, in that case, we’d still be here this weekend facing default. And we’d be the party divided and unpopular. Obama, not Boehner, would be the one whose career was a smoking husk. And the people would be blaming the Democrats for their intransigence, instead of the other way around.

The truth is, the 2010 midterms were a catastrophe. They had horrible consequences. This weekend was one of those consequences, and it couldn’t be avoided through “leadership.”

Hello again painting fans.

This week I’ll be continuing with the painting of the Cape May, New Jersey shingle style house.  It is seen in the photo directly below.  (I’m using my usual acrylic paints on an 8×8 inch canvas.)

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.

 

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I’m still rearranging things a bit.  Note that the porch posts are now closer together.  The lower left outer wall aligns with that of the second story.  On the right side, the roof now follows the line of perspective.  Above, the right-facing gable makes its first appearance.  I’ve darkened the body of the house in anticipation of the layers to come.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

That’s about it for now. Next week I’ll have more progress to show you. See you then. As always, feel free to add photos of your own work in the comments section below.

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

 

 

Frankly I didn’t think he had it in him. I thought his high paying gig with Fox would keep him toeing the Faux News Line. So, Kudos for stating the obvious Juan (from Media Matters). Now to the tape:

Okay here’s my best cut at a transcript.

Hannity: You know Juan , here’s the problem. We went over this with Rand Paul. All of these bills short of Cut, Cap and Balance – and you can’t tell me what the President’s plan is because he didn’t have the courage to come forward with one. He didn’t do what the Republicans did because he is in over his head, he’s weak and he’s not a leader. That aside …

Williams (laughing ) Okay.

Hannity: Thank you for conceding that point …

Wiliams: I didn’t, but go right ahead.

Here’s the point. The republicans have put forward their plan. And with all of these plans short of Cut, Cap and Balance, we’re still increasing spending 8% a year. Not only we taking a sledge hammer to our kids’ piggy banks we’re taking a bulldozer to freedom our Constitution and their future opportunity. And that’s why this matters we get this right now and that’s why the President should have led.

Let me just say this to you. The President has been leading and the President has been trying to engage in serious negotiations. When you talk about government spending Let me remind you taxes are at a 60 year low in terms of to GDP Secondly let me remind you something, that the country is growing. We have more people on entitlements than ever, more people Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid an aging population. So there’s going to be increases in spending and we have to provide for our people, especially those who paid in …

Hannity: Every family watching this program right now — every person all around the world watching this program and watch the Fox News Channel -– if they fall short of money and I told them they got to freeze spending for 6 years and just cut 1% a year you think they could do that? Do you think that is possible?

Williams This is a totally false analogy.

Hannity: No it’s not a false …

Williams: Let me tell you why it’s different. Your family and my family, as fortunate as they are, we don’t print money in my household. You know what? And we don’t have bonds that we can issue and to get capital and we don’t guide the rest of the world because of the value of our dollar —

Hannity: We are becoming Greece. The debt to GDP ratio is going to be 100% of what we take in. That means that every penny this country takes in is going to go to service the debt, and that means that we will not be able to pay for any programs, so if we can experience a little pain now because they have overspent more than anybody else, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, a little pain now, a little austerity now, it’s going to prevent our kids from working their entire adult their lives to pay off this debt that we’re accumulating …

Williams: Are you working for the Obama campaign, because this sounds like what President Obama was talking to the Republicans about when he said he’s willing to raise the age on Medicaid, right, he’s willing to put more (garbled) this is what he is saying in to republicans in serious negotiations (cross-talk) …

[…]

Wiliams: What we are talking about is trying to work with people. Why don’t you stand up and say: “You know what Republicans, you know what tea party members — we’ve won. We’ve pushed it. You think he’s a liberal, far left President, right? This liberal, far left President is willing to engage in entitlement cuts, spending cuts and what’s it about for tax hikes? — No tax hikes. (garbled)

Hannity: In 2 and ½ years we’ve had an 84% increase in discretionary spending under the most fiscally irresponsible, reckless ideologue that’s ever been in 1800 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Williams: You are so myopic and I can’t believe —

Hannity: I am so honest. I tell the truth.

Williams: You are not honest.

Hannity: I am honest with Obama. He has been a disaster for this country —

Willliams: You know what’s going on, you know what’s a disaster for this country? That charade that’s going on up on Capitol Hill tonight. (garbled)

Williams: Let me tell you something. This is like a bunch of kids playing out in the woods, playing with each other, you say “Kids come in, it’s time to do serious business it’s time to let the adults charge” and President Obama has shown leadership that you refuse to acknowledge Sean.

Hannity: Ah! Ah! I’ve got a headache.

Assuming a deal is struck and actually passes both houses of Congress, how many House Republicans will have voted for it? Keep in mind that the minimum is about twenty-three.

.
Just before his assault in Oslo, Breivik sent an email message to 1002 addresses in Europe. The opening reads:

Western European patriot,

I’m hereby sending you my new compendium (3 books); “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence”, in Word 97 format, which includes the following main topics:

1. The ongoing Islamisation of Western Europe
2. The current state of the Western European Resistance Movements (anti-Marxist/anti-Jihad movements)
3. Solutions for Western Europe and how we, the cultural conservative resistance, should move forward in the coming decades
4. And covering all, highly relevant topics including solutions and strategies for all of the 8 different political fronts

The compendium/book presents advanced ideological, practical, tactical, organisational and rhetorical solutions and strategies for all patriotic-minded individuals/movements. The book will be of great interest to you whether you are a moderate or a more dedicated cultural conservative/nationalist.

Full message here

The adresses have become public to the embarrassment of many. Three addresses in the Netherlands belong to bloggers for a website called “Catholica.” Outside comments and pressure just led to the resignation of lead editor Erik van Goor. The blog has been under suspicion for right-wing neo-fascism and last year’s article explains why …

Is a Catholic magazine “Catholica”cover for the extreme right? [Google translation]

Since the appointment of Erik van Goor editor and editor Tom Zwitser is the Orthodox publication by extreme statements, polarization, toughened frameworks and often little Catholic mercy is shown. But has the magazine an ‘extreme right’ edge?

What is Catholica?
Catholica is a publication of the Foundation and the Foundation Faith Church and IKI (International Catholic Information Office). It is published ten times per year and has a circulation of 2,000 copies. Since early this year Erik van Goor (41, editor, Zwolle) and Tom Zwitser (31, editor, Groningen) are at the helm. Before they took over Catholica, the duo worked together on Bitter Lemon / Nucleus and the now-defunct website Open Orthodoxy .

Who are Erik van Goor and Tom Swiss?
Both Van Goor and Swiss are neo-catholics. Van Goor performed at Christmas 2009 to join the Catholic Church. Open Orthodoxy states that Van Goor, “except for a few years studying history and philosophy,is largely auto-didact”. He is “the initiator of bitterlemon.eu (formerly Open Orthodoxy), writer, philosopher and house paleo-conservative”.

• Why Norway Terror Accused Breivik Says he Loves Israel

 
Update [2011-07-30 13:26 PM EST by Oui]:

Massacre born of ideology or faith?

From his own writings, Breivik has no partnership with Jesus or God. He opposes hate doctrine of Nazi Germany and Islam. He needs religion of the Christian, Catholic and Jewish faith to unite Europe that leads to the third expulsion of all Muslims. The doctrine of “love” of a Judeo-Christian culture in Europe …

Massacre born of ideology or faith?

Typical Norwegian: Nominal Christian?

In a blog post on religion he states:

“Today’s Protestant church is a joke. Priests in jeans marching for Palestine and churches looking like small shopping centres. I am for an indirect collective conversion from the Protestant church to the Catholic Church. In the meantime, I vote for the most conservative candidates in church elections. The only thing that might save the Protestant church is to go back to basics.”
(Posted 2009-12-09 17:14:41 on a fairly right wing conservative web site.)

The 1500+ page manifesto tells of a young man with fantasies of knights and crusades to defend what he considers the true European culture. Mr. Breivik also belongs to the Free Masons (first grade) and describes himself as a Justiciar Knight in his new movement, which he claims is international – and which borrows from old Norse religion:

“If you want to fight for the cross and die under the ‘cross of the martyrs’, it’s required that you are a practicing Christian, a Christian agnostic or a Christian atheist (cultural Christian). The cultural factors are more important than your personal relationship with God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

“Even Odinists can fight with us or by our side as brothers in this fight as long as they accept the founding principles of PCCTS, Knights Templar and agree to fight under the cross of the martyrs. The essence of our struggle is to defeat the cultural Marxist/multiculturalist regimes of Western Europe before we are completely demographically overwhelmed by Muslims.”

No surprise Mr. Breivik reveals in his rather un-orthodox “CV” (page 1399) that the name of his primary weapon is Mjöllnir while the secondary weapon’s name is Gungnir, both of which are well-known names in Norse mythology. He describes his religion as, “Christian, Protestant, but I support a reformation of Protestantism leading to it being absorbed by Catholicism. The typical ‘Protestant Labor Church’ has to be deconstructed as its creation was an attempt to abolish the Church.”

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

It’s often difficult to understand why people behave the way they do, even people we know well. It’s often far more difficult to understand why people who are very different from us act in ways that we consider inexplicable, particularly when those actions threaten harm to large numbers of people, including themselves. Of course, I am speaking about the current situation where a certain faction of Republicans in the House of Representatives is threatening a second global financial meltdown by shutting down the US government over raising the debt ceiling, despite warnings from economists, Wall Street CEO’s, their own leaders in the House and anyone other than their own small closed off circle of friends and allies.

This is often because we make the logical fallacy of assuming that most people think and reason like we do, or to put it another way, that they will acknowledge what we consider to be objective facts about reality as true and valid. Unfortunately, with people who are fanatics, dogmatic ideologists or whose minds are ruled more by their emotions (especially the negative emotions of fear and anger) than by rationality, this isn’t the case. Your standard “Tea Party” Republican Representative in Congress usually combines all three of these traits.

In these cases, I find it helpful to make up a list of what people who deviate so far from the norm believe to be true versus what the consensus opinion accepts as true. Consider this a thought experiment, though one informed by what we have all heard and seen from these folks over the past year and a half:

Tea Party Member’s Belief versus the Consensus View

1. Why I was elected

TP: I was elected to stop Obama
& Democrats from destroying
the country.

Consensus: While there is some truth that a few
people voted out of fear of the President’s
“Big Government” agenda,” most people voted for the
Tea Party candidate because the economy was bad, unemployment was high, and the GOP candidate was voters only alternative to express their unhappiness with the perceived performance of the President and Dems re: the economy.

2. Biggest Problem

TP: The Socialist Policies of Obama
which have added to the deficit
and burdened business.

Consensus: Jobs.

3. Solution to problem

TP: Cut more taxes on Corporations
& the rich; Cut Soc. Sec., Medicare
and Medicaid; Deregulation; &
Cut Deficits by cutting spending –
lots of spending (except Military).

Consensus View: There is no clear consensus view but most neutral observers agree that increasing gov’t revenue needs to be a big part of the solution, i.e., taxes.

4. How big a problem would
a failure to raise Debt Ceiling
cause?

TP: Not that big a deal.

Consensus: Not raising the debt ceiling is insanity.

* * *

So why do the Tea Party faction in Congress hold these beliefs? First, they include a large number of fundamentalist Christians who view the world in terms of black and white, good or evil.

This caucus is more evangelical than the rest of the House. About 45 percent of the caucus attend an evangelical church, compared to 13 percent of others in the House. Another 30 percent are mainline Protestants, mostly of a largely Southern variety. Several Mormons are also part of the caucus.

Many of them come from rural communities, small towns or reside in the exurbs. A large number owned farms and ranches, or small businesses.

A quick examination of the 60 official Members of the Tea Party Congress clears that up: most from very rural and exurban states like Alabama, Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri, Kansas, etc. These are the folks currently setting the tone and direction of debate on a number of critical policy issues. […]

These are folks coming from states or locations where only 16 percent of the population resides – telling the other 84 percent of us, mostly from cities, what to do.

They are antagonistic to gay rights, more than Republicans in general, and more than past Republicans in Congress:

Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s leading gay-rights advocacy organization, has studied the records of the members of the 112th Congress and it finds that the House of Representatives has flipped from a pro- to anti-gay-rights majority. (HRC uses the acronym LGBT, which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender.) […]

But this new Republican majority is definitely anti–gay rights, according to HRC. The report ranks 225 members of the new House as “anti-LGBT,” up 53 from 172 in the 111th House.

Their ideology is informed by Ayn Rand, and her dogma that government can only harm the elite individuals whose intelligence, creativity and ambition make society possible. This makes them not small government Republicans but anti-government Republicans:

When she died almost two decades ago, Ayn Rand was considered a fringe figure whose philosophy was derided by both Left and Right. But in the “Greed is good” era and the ascension of her disciple Alan Greenspan to chairman of the Fed, Rand became an inspiration for those who needed justification for extreme selfishness to look down at the rest of humanity as “looters” and “moochers.” Money, according to the Rand scripture in the turgid 1200-page novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” is the root of all good. […]

[H]er ghost has migrated to Washington as a prophet for Tea Party members and will hover over the attempted demolition of Obama health care reform and other social measures of the past two years.

Even George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speechwriter Michael Gerson is a bit nervous, complaining that “Paul and other libertarians are not merely advocates of limited government; they are anti-government. Their objective is not the correction of error but the cultivation of contempt for government itself.”

For that reason, they don’t view their own leadership (who are after all long term members of Big Guvmint) as radical enough or tough enough, and they have demonstrated open defiance of their Speaker, John Boehner. They believe political “chaos” is a good thing. He said as much himself on Wednesday during an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s radio talk show:

The caucus, Boehner says, has been infiltrated by a cabal that hopes to take the US economy hostage in order to force political concessions from President Obama and Congressional Democrats. […]

So “why,” Ingraham asked, were House Republicans resisting the deal that President Obama has offered—a deal that is ridiculously deferent to Republican demands for cuts to needed domestic programs and for tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

“Well,” Boehner said of the most belligerent members of his caucus, “first they want more. And my goodness, I want more too. And secondly, a lot of them believe that if we get passed August the second and we have enough chaos, we could force the Senate and the White House to accept a balanced budget amendment.”

In short, they come from a very different background than you or I. Not only are they predominantly white, but they come from rural or small town communities that were either not very diverse, or where racism was an acceptable viewpoint and an “accepted fact of life.” They dislike their own leaders nearly as much as they hate the President. They trust no one who has any experience with making government work because they don’t believe in government. Their life experience has led them to adopt an ideology of radical individualism, though they are certainly willing to help themselves to federal largesse when its been made available to them.

Shocker: Anti-government activists are all welfare queens! But they accept the “wealthy white person” version of welfare, which is “farm subsidies.” (The “wealthy white person” version of welfare is also lots of other subsidies and tax credits and government spending.)

According to ABC, “at least 23 current members of congress or their families have received government money for their farms.”

They will not compromise: certainly not with the President (despite his many attempts to find “common ground), not with Democrats and not even with the other Republicans in the House and Senate who, while extremely conservative by past standards, are not extreme enough by Tea Party standards. These are people who have usually gotten their way before in life, have little if any experience with people whose life experience or political views differ from there own and who view government, in all its forms, as evil.

I imagine they identify most strongly with as Samson in the Temple of the Philistines, destroying his enemies in a bloody mass murder in order to save his own “people.” They don’t look at liberals, Democrats, African Americans, Hispanics, the disabled or members of the LGBT community as part of America, part of the people who need saving. They imagine that government is rigged to benefit these groups and harm their own followers, the “Real Americans” as Sarah Palin so unabashedly called them: overwhelming small town, white, Fundamentalist Christian, “hard-working” and most of all not city dwelling liberals.

Have the Tea Party Caucus members engaged in “Magical Thinking” and “confirmation bias”based on bigotry, ignorance, fear, anger and loathing during the debt ceiling negotiations? Yes.

Perhaps, then, a more nuanced definition of magical thinking would be believing in things more strongly than either evidence or experience justifies. Though I can’t prove the sun will rise in the East tomorrow, because it has every day since I’ve been alive, such a belief couldn’t then be said to represent magical thinking. But because every person who’s ever jumped off a building or a bridge has gone down and not up, believing that flapping my arms hard enough would enable me to float into the sky certainly would. […]

Clear and sophisticated thinkers remain consistently wary of the influences that put them at risk for magical thinking, always cognizant that why they believe what they do is influenced by so many things besides their reasoning minds:

What their parents taught them from an early age.
What they want to believe is true.
What their experience suggests should be true.

The Tea Party Caucus knows what it knows, and refuses to accept any and all evidence to the contrary, no matter what the source. They are not clear and consistent thinkers. They believe economic chaos is better than making government better and more effective. Indeed, they don’t accept the legitimacy of government at all. And “believing” that you can change their minds about what they believe, is also magical thinking.

I watched Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) chairing the Rules Committee as he reluctantly created a rule to allow a vote on Boehner’s latest plan. He said he was unhappy about having to introduce the crappy bill, but he doesn’t want to take a chance of Social Security checks not getting to his constituents or the country losing it’s AAA credit rating. You had to be able to read between the lines a little bit, but Dreier acknowledged that the bill would be totally unacceptable to the Senate but, he explained, the House had to create some kind of “work product” to give to the Senate so that a compromise could be worked out. He further explained that they had to put Balanced Budget Amendment in to pass anything. They’re basically humoring the Tea Partiers just so they can create a “work product.”

Now, I’m a little unclear about whether lifting the debt limit technically counts as a spending bill. Under the Constitution, all spending bills must originate in the House. But the debt limit doesn’t spend any money, it only authorizes the spending of money. So, perhaps Dreier is being disingenuous. I’m pretty sure Harry Reid can get around that requirement anyway by hollowing out a bill that has passed the House and replacing the text with his own bill. I guess I should ask David Waldman about this stuff.

In any case, the Republican leadership is using a scandalous amount of posturing and disingenuousness. They do seem to be fooling the Tea Baggers, though.

It is my sincere hope that this weekend will represent Peak Stupid. To borrow from Hunter S. Thompson, I hope that five years from now we’ll be able to stand on a tall hill in Maryland and look down into Washington DC and see the highwater mark where the Stupid crested before it began to recede. We need this national nightmare to stop. A federal balanced budget amendment is the stupidest, most irresponsible idea to be introduced by the leadership of a party in the history of the country. And, yet, John Boehner is forced to pretend he thinks it’s a good idea. Putting our AAA credit rating at risk is the dumbest, most reckless behavior we’ve seen since South Carolina seceded from the Union. Today, I see Jon Huntsman, a Republican candidate for the presidency, pleading with Republicans to stop pretending that climate change isn’t occurring. It was nearly 130 degrees in Iowa last week and we’re still having a debate on this?

Somehow, someway, this Stupid has got to end.

Things are moving too fast for me to keep up. I think it is correct to say that it’s time for Mitch McConnell to step up and save the day. The only way I can see for him to do that is to negotiate with a small rump of House Republicans who share his complete aversion to a default. And he’s also going to have to work with Reid and Pelosi to find something that their caucuses can almost unanimously support. A Republican-majority bill is no longer a possibility, if it ever was. Unfortunately, McConnell is saying that Senate Democrats, not House Republicans, will be responsible if we default. That’s the opposite of what we need.

Harry Reid is going to try to move something today. The president is going to speak this morning. So, we’ll just have to see if there is a way out of this mess. From all appearances, Boehner is just going to make his bill more unacceptable to the president and the Senate Dems in order to try to blame-shift. No one is going to be fooled.

Let me know if you learn any news.

We’re about to collectively lose a shit-ton of money in our retirement accounts. The stock market is going to hemorrhage value today and there aren’t too many safe places to hide. Bonds will go down, too. Gold will go up. The dollar will lose value. And an outright panic is not out of the question. The bill rings now.