The Commentariat -- July 18

Paul Krugman says there's no rhyme nor reason that federal officials are pressing "state attorneys general to accept a very modest settlement from banks that engaged in abusive mortgage practices." ...

... I've posted an Off Times Square page on the Economy. But you have the usual leeway to veer off topic. Karen Garcia, Kate Madison & I have commented on Krugman's column. ...

... E. J. Dionne: "The House Republican strategy to link a normally routine increase in the nation’s debt limit with a crusade to slash spending has already had a high cost, threatening the nation’s credit rating and making the United States look dysfunctional and incompetent to the rest of the world.... What’s even worse is that this entirely artificial, politician-created crisis has kept government from doing what taxpayers expect it to do: Solve the problems citizens care about." ...

Then there is the coming debate over a 'balanced budget' amendment to the Constitution that would limit government spending to 18 percent of gross domestic product and require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes. It’s an outrageous way for members of Congress to vote to slash Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, aid to education and a slew of other things, to lock in low taxes on the rich — and never have to admit they’re doing it. It’s one of the most dishonest proposals ever to come before Congress, and I realize that’s saying something. ...

... David Rogers of Politico: "Turning right with a vengeance, Republicans will bring to the House floor Tuesday a newly revised debt-ceiling bill that is remarkable for its total absence of compromise at this late date, two weeks before the threat of default." CW Note: this story has a new lede:

President Barack Obama and the two top House Republican leaders [John Boehner & Eric Cantor] held an unannounced meeting at the White House Sunday, trying to get debt talks back on track with just two weeks left before the threat of default. ...

... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post explains in terms a child could understand why the Tea Party's three main arguments for not raising the debt ceiling are idiotic. ...

... CW: You know I don't do polls only do polls I really like: "a new CBS News poll show[s] a majority disapprove of all the involved parties' conduct [in the debt ceiling crisis], but Republicans in Congress fare the worst, with just 21 percent backing their resistance to raising taxes. President Obama earned the most generous approval ratings for his handling of the weeks-old negotiations, but still more people said they disapproved (48 percent) than approved (43 percent) of what he has done and said."

... Is Harry Reid Royally Screwing up the McConnell Proposal? Erik Wasson of The Hill: "Liberal and centrist budget experts are joining conservatives in raising red flags about the debt-ceiling plan that is being hashed out by Senate leaders as a last-ditch option for avoiding a national default." Rebecca Theiss of the liberal Economic Policy Institute said it now "appears to involve only spending cuts and not tax increases," making it "a worse option than the original McConnell proposal, which involved a clean debt-ceiling increase." ...

... Chris Bowers of Daily Kos writes a post on the successful "class war" Democrats are waging in Wisconsin, but his opening salvo, which speaks to a larger issue, gets to the heart of what's going on in Washington:

As you read this, rich and powerful people in Washington, DC are trying to determine not whether they should cut programs designed to help low and middle-income Americans, but by how much they should cut those programs. The rich and powerful people in DC are making these cuts in order to pay for tax breaks they recently gave to rich people and large corporations. Additionally, the cuts are being made at the behest of the lobby organizations and media operations owned by rich people and large corporations. If that isn't a class war, I don't know what is.

Elizabeth Warren in a White House blogpost: "There's lots of good news, but make no mistake: this agency still has enemies in Washington, D.C. And they have a plan.... I remain hopeful that those who want to cripple this consumer bureau will think again and remember that the financial crisis -- and the recession and job losses that it sparked -- began one lousy mortgage at a time.... I'm not taking my eye off those who want to cripple this agency. We got this agency by fighting, we stood it up by fighting, and, if takes more fighting to keep it strong and independent, then we can do it." ...

... Elizabeth Warren for Senate! Robert Kuttner of American Prospect: "In Massachusetts, the Democratic field right now is stunningly weak, and Warren is the one candidate who can galvanize voters and take back the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy." ...

... Glen Johnson of the Boston Globe assesses the field of Democratic candidates running against Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R), & writes that Brown is in excellent shape to win a full term.

James Traub of the New York Times writes a nice profile of Sen. John Kerry (R-Mass.), who has used his new position as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee to good effect.

"Obama's Last Lecture." David Dayan of Firedoglake parses the President's remarks to a group of college students. Watch the video, then read Dayan. CW: I think Dayan has it exactly right:

Larry Summers, who did such a fine job saving our economy (oh, don't get me started) writes a Washington Post op-ed in which he advised Europeans on what they can do to save theirs. Sorry to say, I didn't read that genius's advice, but maybe you'll want to.

** CW: Paul Krugman & commenter Calyban highly recommends this article by the New York Times' David Carr on Rupert Murdoch's tactics. So do I. A taste from the top:

Time and again in the United States and elsewhere, Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation has used blunt force spending to skate past judgment, agreeing to payments to settle legal cases and, undoubtedly more important, silence its critics. In the case of News America Marketing, its obscure but profitable in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, the News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away. ...

... CW: I never thought I'd ever link to a Wall Street Journal editorial, but this whiney, everybody's-picking-on-us effort is too good to pass up: "We also trust that readers can see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The Schadenfreude is so thick you can't cut it with a chainsaw." Yup. (BTW, they usually firewall their editorials.)

Right Wing World *

Manu Raju of Politico: Republican presidential candidate "Herman Cain says voters across the country should have the right to prevent Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

* Where there is no First Amendment right to freedom of religion, except, I guess, some voter-approved Christian denominations.

News Ledes

Bloomberg: "News Corp. is considering elevating Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey to chief executive officer to succeed Rupert Murdoch, people with knowledge of the situation said. A decision ... depends in part on Murdoch’s performance before the U.K. Parliament today.... News Corp. executives who watched Murdoch, 80, rehearse for his appearance had concerns about how he handled questions...."

... Guardian: "Detectives are examining a computer, paperwork and a phone found in a bin near the riverside London home of Rebekah Brooks." Brooks' husband Charlie Brooks tried to reclaim it," but a "security guard refused to release it" and "called the police." ...

... Guardian: "Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead.... Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home." The police are treating Hoare's death as "unexplained" but not "suspicious." ...

... Guardian: "The Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates has become the second high-profile Scotland Yard officer to resign over the phone-hacking scandal. The resignation of Yates – the country's top counter-terrorism officer – comes a day after his boss, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, stepped down." More from the Guardian on Yates here. ...

     ... Telegraph: The Independent Police Complaints Commission is "considering Mr Yates's decision in 2009 that there was no need to re-open the hacking inquiry and allegations that he inappropriately secured a job for a friend's daughter." ...

     ... Here's the Telegraph's liveblog of news related to the hacking scandal, which is practically a necessity to keep up with this stuff.

President Obama announced the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He also spoke about the debt ceiling & deficit.

Release: The President formally announces he would veto the House's so-called "Cut, Cap & Balance Act." Jay Carney just called the bill the "Duck, Dodge & Dismantle Act." Here's the Washington Post story.

Reuters: "Ratings agency Moody's on Monday suggested the United States should eliminate its statutory limit on government debt to reduce uncertainty among bond holders. The United States is one of the few countries where Congress sets a ceiling on government debt, which creates 'periodic uncertainty' over the government's ability to meet its obligations, Moody's said in a report."

New York Times: "Gen. David Petraeus handed over command of American and coalition forces to Gen. John Allen on Monday, ending a year that saw the costly counterinsurgency strategy he espoused and implemented coming under increasingly heavy criticism."

New York Times: "Prime Minister David Cameron cut short an African trip on Monday and ordered a special parliamentary session back home just hours after Britain’s top police officer resigned and Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was arrested on suspicion of illegally intercepting phone calls and bribing the police." ...

... Bloomberg: "Independent directors of New York-based News Corp. have begun questioning the company’s response to the crisis and whether a leadership change is needed." ...

... Washington Times: "Speaking on NBC’s 'Meet the Press,' Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Congress should join an FBI investigation into whether News Corp. — the parent company of Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal — engaged in illegal activity."

AP: "Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have taken control of three bases of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in neighboring Iraq, the state news agency reported Monday."

AP (via the NYT): "Egypt's prime minister named 12 new Cabinet members Sunday in a reshuffle under pressure from protesters demanding a purge of remnants of the former regime, state television reported. A lawyer for Hosni Mubarak, meanwhile, said the ousted president had suffered a stroke and was in a coma — a claim that was quickly denied by Mubarak's lead doctor."

More on the Murdoch Mess

Guardian: "Elisabeth Murdoch is emerging as the strongest family contender to take over at the helm of her father's empire after reports that she had pushed for Rebekah Brooks's resignation against the wishes of her brothers James and Lachlan last week. The revelation comes as James Murdoch, the News Corporation deputy chief operating officer and heir apparent to Rupert Murdoch until he was engulfed by the phone-hacking scandal, is facing calls to stand down as chairman of BSkyB."

... Think Progress: CNN has reported on the Murdoch scandal more than the other major news networks, but they aren't covering the part played by "Piers Morgan, the British journalist and talk show host who took over for CNN’s venerable Larry King." Morgan "is a former editor of the now-defunct News of the World.... Moreover, Morgan has been implicated in a separate celebrity phone hacking scandal while he was editor of the U.K’s Daily Mirror." In a book Morgan wrote in 2005, he explained how easy it is to hack a another person's phone messages. ...

... New York Magazine: "Rebekah Brooks ... is said to be in line for a $5.6 million payout. Others likely to leave with a well-padded envelope ... include ... Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton. One condition of the severance deals: gagging orders so none of them get the company in any more trouble than it's already in."

Media Matters: "CNN And MSNBC Report On News Corp. Scandal More Than Twice As Often As Fox News. According to a Media Matters analysis, in the nine days since the News Corp. phone-hacking scandal reignited, CNN reported on the developing story in 108 segments, MSNBC covered the story in 71 segments, and Fox News; covered the story in 30 segments."

The Commentariat -- July 17

Both Maureen Dowd & Frank Bruni write fairly interesting columns, each on a matter having to do with law and order. ...

     ... Dowd laments that the prosecution in the Roger Clemens perjury case made such a boneheaded error that the judge had to declare a mistrial. ...

     ... Bruni discusses an incident in which a gun-totin' Arizona state legislator allegedly pointed her loaded gun at an Arizona Republic reporter. "... the only state that still forbids concealed weapons is Illinois, said Chad Ramsey, Federal legislation director for the Brady Campaign." Bruni notes that "... a cavalier attitude about guns persists and even flourishes." ...

     ... I've posted a "Law & Order" comments page on Off Times Square. I'll add my comments soon.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The Obama administration and Congress must raise the federal debt ceiling by Aug 2. That is all there is to it.... I expect that they will find a way to increase the debt ceiling on time. If they also figure out how to even partially address our long-term fiscal problems during their negotiations over the next couple of weeks, that would be a big plus. But it is not necessary right now." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the idea that if families are tightening their belts, the government should do the same, is as deeply intuitive as it is deeply wrong. But the susceptibility of politicians — including, alas, the president — and pundits to these wrong ideas demands a deeper explanation." That explanation, Krugman suggests, is this:

     ... Mike Konczal: "... there’s been a wide refocusing of the mechanisms of our society towards the crucial obsession of oligarchs: wealth and income defense." ...

... Reid Wilson of the National Journal: John Boehner has been trying to teach Econ 101 basic arithmetic to Tea Party members of the House. He even brought an expert in. With charts! If you only have three apples but you promised Johnny four apples. ...

... David Leonhardt of the New York Times: We're living through a tremendous consumer bust, & the nature of the proposed deficit-reduction proposals is only going to make it worse.

You've Never Heard of Mike Mondelli, but He Knows All about You. Ylan Mui of the Washington Post on the "fourth bureau" -- private companies that track your personal data, including "auto warranties, cellphone bills and magazine subscriptions..., purchases of prepaid cards and visits to payday lenders and rent-to-own furniture stores..., whether your checks have cleared and ... public records [that] mention ... your name." Sometimes the fourth bureau makes mistakes; good luck getting the errors corrected. ...

     ... PLUS, five facts about the fourth bureau. You won't like them.

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times analyzes the sources of President Obama's big campaign fund haul: "More than half a million people have donated to the president’s campaign or his joint fund with the Democratic National Committee..., and the two accounts gained a combined record-breaking $86 million for the campaign by the end of June. But Mr. Obama’s bundlers — 271 in all — accounted for at least 40 percent of the total, according to the campaign’s estimates."

"Murdoch's Watergate?" Carl Bernstein in Newsweek: "The circumstances of the alleged lawbreaking within News Corp. suggest more than a passing resemblance to Richard Nixon presiding over a criminal conspiracy in which he insulated himself from specific knowledge of numerous individual criminal acts while being himself responsible for and authorizing general policies that routinely resulted in lawbreaking and unconstitutional conduct. Not to mention his role in the cover-up." ...

... Don Van Natta of the New York Times: for more than four years, "senior Scotland Yard officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the tabloid." Yet they were sitting on "a treasure-trove of evidence: 11,000 pages of handwritten notes listing nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims whose phones may have been hacked by The News of the World.... At best, former Scotland Yard senior officers acknowledged in interviews, the police have been lazy, incompetent and too cozy with the people they should have regarded as suspects. At worst, they said, some officers might be guilty of crimes themselves." ...

... NEW. Max Read of Gawker notes that Rebekah Brooks' arrest today, just two days ahead of her scheduled testimony before a parliamentay committee "helps her more than hurts her," & it helps Scotland Yard, too, who could not have been looking forward to any testimony that suggested their complicity o participation in aspects of the scandal.

Right Wing World

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on the Bachmann Formula: "... he political rise has its roots in her dogged pursuit of an amendment to the State Constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage ... and her mixing of politics with her evangelical faith. The 'Bachmann marriage wars' ... offer a case study in the congresswoman’s ability to seize an issue and use it to circumvent the party establishment — the same tactic, analysts say, that made her a Tea Party star in Washington and a hot commodity on the campaign trail.

Local News

Rick Ungar of Forbes: one outcome of the "fake" Wisconsin Democratic primary forced because the state Republican party mounted "fake" Democratic challengers (they're called Republicans): the little ploy cost taxpayers $400,000, in a state which Gov. Scott Walker has claimed was "broke." Ungar writes, "Walker’s willingness to blow taxpayer money in so cynical a fashion ... speaks ... to Mr. Walker’s true character and convictions...." CW: Americans know elections cost money, and it's a cost of governance we're generally glad to pay, but this was, as even Republicans admitted, a "fake" primary, since all of the challengers came from the GOP. It was, by every account, a GOP stunt. The taxpayers should not pay for it; the Republican party should. Maybe to help pay for it, "Fake Koch" will write them a check.

News Ledes

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post maps out what steps Congress is likely to take next in relation to raising the debt ceiling. Actually raising the debt ceiling does not seem to be one of the steps.

New York Times: "President Obama said Sunday that he would nominate Richard Cordray, the former attorney general of Ohio, to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mr. Cordray came to national attention for his aggressive investigations of mortgage foreclosure practices during his one term as attorney general. He has already joined" the CFPB "as the head of its enforcement division."

Guardian: "Rebekah Brooks has been arrested by police investigating allegations of phone hacking by the News of the World and allegations that police officers were bribed to leak sensitive information.... An arrest by appointment on a Sunday is unusual." The Telegraph has a liveblog on scandal developments. ...

     ... The New York Times reports some of the media responses to Brooks' arrest. Here's the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal report.

     ... ** UPDATE: "Britain's top police officer, Sir Paul Stephenson, announced his shock resignation as he was brought down by his failure to tell senior figures, including the prime minister, that Scotland Yard had hired a former News of the World executive as an adviser while refusing to reopen inquiries into phone hacking." AND this from the Guardian on what precipitated Stephenson's resignation. ...

     ... Telegraph: "The News of the World allegedly hacked into the mobile phones of [actor] Jude Law and his personal assistant while they were in New York, opening the way for News International to be prosecuted in the United States.... The Sun said it has carried out an investigation and found there is 'no foundation' to the claim." ...

     ... Telegraph: "A senior Scotland Yard officer has told The Sunday Telegraph that News International executives – including Mr Murdoch’s son James – are being investigated for any alleged role in covering up the extent of “industrial scale” phone hacking." ...

... Telegraph: " Pressure on News Corporation to make fundamental changes to its business increased last night after it was revealed that members of the BSkyB board are to meet in special session to discuss James Murdoch’s future as chairman and leading shareholders said the company should sell off its UK newspaper business."

Haaretz: "Wishing to avoid an American veto at the Security Council, the Palestinian Authority is considering turning directly to the United Nations General Assembly in September in order to gain international recognition of Palestinian statehood."

Reuters: "Temperatures averaged up to 15 degrees above normal, with most peaks in the 90s but triple digit heat expected to strike from Montana to New Mexico, according to lead meteorologists for The Weather Channel and The National Weather Service."

** The Hill: "House Republican leaders have missed a 36-hour deadline President Obama set during a Thursday meeting for lawmakers to give him a plan to avert a national default. The deadline came and went Saturday morning without a response from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Instead, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) plan to move the Cut, Cap and Balance Act on the floor next week, which would require passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution before the debt limit is raised." ...

     ... CW: perhaps this CNN story -- that Tea Party oganizations are ramping up pressure on members of Congress -- explains the House leadership's irresponsibility. ...

... BUT Washington Post: "Even as President Obama and congressional leaders focus on a fallback plan to lift the nation’s debt ceiling, top Democrats and Republicans have begun to map a new way to craft the same sort of ambitious deficit-cutting plan they abandoned last week. As part of the deal being discussed to raise the debt ceiling, leaders on Capitol Hill are forming an especially powerful congressional committee that would be charged with drawing up a new 'grand bargain,' possibly by the end of the year."

The Commentariat -- July 16

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... AP story here. Transcript here.

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square.

Charles Blow writes a really fine essay on "honest people who do honest work — crack-the-bones work; lift-it, chop-it, empty-it, glide-it-in-smooth work; feel-the-flames-up-close work; crawl-down-in-there work — things that no one wants to do but that someone must." While President Obama talks about "winning the future" with high-tech jobs, Blow points to a more realistic assessment:

As the Bureau of Labor Statistics points out, half of the top 30 occupations expected to see the largest job growth over [a ten-year] period, and seven of the top 10, are low-wage or very low-wage jobs. Only eight even require a degree. Most simply require on-the-job training. ...

... Jake Tapper does a pretty good job of summarizing both an important take-away from the President's presser & the ramifications of a default:

... Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "The rancorous debate in Washington over whether to raise the federal debt ceiling is alarming many of the nation’s governors from both parties, who fear that whatever the outcome, much-needed money will almost certainly be drained from their states."

... Karen Garcia parses President Obama's "Equal Opportunity Pain" and doesn't find it so equal. ...

... CW: Of the several weak arguments Obama made yesterday for deficit reduction, this was the weakest: if we "get our fiscal house in order," then we can start spending on programs to "win the future." Oh yeah, because Republicans will go along with that. As Joan Walsh of Salon points out, that's not the way it worked for President Clinton, even during an economic boom, which brought in enough new tax revenues to create a federal surplus. Walsh writes, "Instead, the conciliating Clinton met increasingly savage political opposition, while a prosperity-addled, value-free media at best enjoyed the spectacle, and at worst joined that opposition." I don't know if Obama's push to reduce the deficit is (a) a bluff, (b) a political ploy, (c) or evidence he's not all that smart. But it's one or more of those. ...

... Worse than Paul Ryan. Bold Progressives in DailyKos: "Today, for the first time, President Obama made clear that he's considering benefit cuts even for Americans who currently depend on Social Security and Medicare. This is something Paul Ryan didn't even embrace publicly." [emphasis added] ...

... Lisa Mascaro & Kathleen Hennessey of the Los Angeles Times: "Republican leaders in the House have begun to prepare their troops for politically painful votes to raise the nation's debt limit, offering warnings and concessions to move the hard-line majority toward a compromise that would avert a federal default.... At a closed-door meeting Friday morning, GOP leaders turned to their most trusted budget expert, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to explain to rank-and-file members what many others have come to understand: A fiscal meltdown could occur if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling." ...

... CW: we've already established that Republicans don't care about deficits & are just using the Deficit Bogeyman to effect tax cuts -- mostly for the rich. But Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post, brings up a point worth noting: most Democrats, including progressive Democrats, do care about reducing the federal deficit.

David Dayan of Firedoglake has some thoughts on the White House Friday night so-called "leak" that President Obama will not nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (See today's Ledes.) The Bureau will transfer to the Federal Reserve July 21, where -- being headless -- it will not have authority over non-bank lending institutions. Very convenient.

James Pethokoukis of Reuters: "Last night in a new report, Democrat-friendly Goldman Sachs dropped an economic bomb on President Obama’s chances for reelection." Goldman Sachs' has cut its outlook for real GDP growth, says unemployment will remain high & doesn't rule out the economy's return to recession. CW: Millions of Americans didn't need a Goldman Sachs report to tell them the economy was in the tank. Yet Pethokoukis thinks the White House would have no idea of the economic outlook unless their friends at Goldman told them what it was. Trouble is, he might be right.

The High Cost of Honor. Whistleblower Thomas Drake, largely vindicated yesterday as a federal judge gave him a light sentence & criticized the government for its egregiously handling of his case, speaks to the press. New York Times story here. Baltimore Sun story here.

Right Wing World *

Oh, never let it be said that Fox "News" isn't covering the Rupert Murdoch empire scandal. Here are "Fox & Friends"' Steve Doocy and guest Robert Dilenschneider urging other media outlets to "move on" & cover "more important things." Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: "... their defense of News Corp. really got embarrassing when Dilenschneider and Doocy engaged in some stunning subject/object slight of hand, comparing News Corp. to companies that have been hacked, while failing to note it was News Corp. that did the hacking in this case.":

James Oliphant of the Los Angeles Times: "Taking a page from President Obama’s political playbook, Michele Bachmann has formally left a church in Minnesota accused of holding anti-Catholic views.... Earlier this week, the Atlantic reported that that the synod’s website contains a statement that equates the pope with the antichrist."

Sometimes it's difficult to keep a straight face when writing a straight news report. Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "Republicans claimed to have struck a blow for freedom on Friday when the House of Representatives voted to strip all funding from government programmes promoting energy-saving lightbulbs.... Michele Bachmann dismissed the 2007 law as an assault on individual liberty and an affront to the memory of the lightbulb inventor, Thomas Edison.... The House also strongly rejected a proposal to ban a website designed to teach children about energy efficiency." The bill doesn't have a rat's chance of becoming law. Thanks to commenter Walt W. for the link.

You won`t see a default because we have plenty of revenue as a Federal government. The Federal government will not quit collecting taxes. They`re going to still be taking it from the American people, still have $200 billion a month in revenue that comes in and plenty of resources to cover Social Security. -- Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.), in a successful attempt to prove he is totally clueless. (See, Tom, that deficit you're all worked up about means the federal government has less income than it does outgo; and no, Social Security doesn't have "plenty of resources" -- it has a shortfall this year of about $45 billion. See also, Jake Tapper's ABC News report & the L.A. Times story above. Evidently Graves doesn't even listen to Saint Paul Ryan.) PBS "Nightly Business Report" video here (interview begins about 2:30 in); transcript here. Thanks to reader Russ C. for the link.

* Where the criminals are the victims, running for office sometimes means having to make a deal with the Antichrist, Thomas Edison generates electricity by spinning in his grave, and "deficit" = "plenty of resources." Quite a world.

Local News

America's Worst Governor. A reader sends me this great article by Lisa Rab of the Miami New Times who recounts Florida Gov. "Rick Scott's dirtiest deeds" in very readable fashion. It's an impressive list, to say the least. Matthew Hendley of the New Times adds a few other recent Scott misdemeanors. in an article about Scott's unsurprisingly dismal poll numbers.

News Ledes

NPR: "President Obama is meeting with the Dalai Lama — a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate — and China isn't happy."

The Hill: "A fall-back plan to avert a national default is under negotiation by Senate leaders [Harry Reid & Mitch McConnell] and is on track to be unveiled by Wednesday or Thursday of next week.... Senate leaders estimate they will have to have the contingency plan ready to go by Thursday to have enough time to get it passed through both chambers by Aug. 2 ... because of expected filibusters." New York Times story here.

Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama has chosen a candidate other than Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the matter. The president’s choice is a person who already works at the consumer agency.... Obama may make the nomination as soon as next week...."

AP: "The military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy is back in place for the time being, with one major caveat: the government is not allowed to investigate, penalize or discharge anyone who is openly gay. A San Francisco federal appeals court ordered the military to temporarily continue the controversial policy in an order late Friday, the court's response to a request from the Obama administration."

Reuters: "A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld the use of full-body scanners to screen air travelers, but said the Transportation Security Administration should have sought public comment before deploying them. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the machines, known as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT), were not an unconstitutional search and declined to halt their use despite TSA's failure to follow proper procedure."

CBS News: "Conservative Watchdog group Judicial Watch on Thursday released White House emails that show an Obama administration official calling Fox News anchor Bret Baier a 'lunatic' and promising to put 'some dead fish in the fox cubby.'"

Guardian: "Europe's new banking regulator [the European Banking Authority] warned that an escalation in the eurozone crisis could pose 'significant' challenges even as it announced only eight banks out of 90 had failed an annual check of their financial strength. A further 16 banks were also deemed to be in a potential danger zone.... However, the tests failed to consider what may happen to banks if a major European country – such as Greece – defaulted on its debt, promoting many analysts to argue the hurdles were set too low."

Guardian: "Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings [in 2009 & 2010] that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, as an adviser.... Wallis, 60, who was deputy to Andy Coulson, the NoW editor at the time of the phone hacking, was arrested on Thursday as part of Operation Weeting. Coulson has also been arrested and bailed." ...

... NEW. New York Times: British PM David "Cameron’s aides released a diary of his meetings with executives and editors of News International... It showed that since taking office in May 2010, Mr. Cameron has met 26 times with Murdoch executives.... His meetings with the Murdoch officials exceeded all his encounters with other British media representatives put together." AP story here.