Let me show you some fun with polling.

Pew asked a question that reflects what Barack Obama put forward in last night’s address: whether or not, in the debt limit debate, members of Congress should compromise to solve the problem. And 68% said yes, with just 23% saying that lawmakers should “stand by their principles, even if it means the government goes into default.”

Paul Krugman’s blog today laments another example of false equivalence, when he catches Clive Crook claiming that if the shoe were on the other foot, Democrats would behave like the Tea-GOP. They’d take the US credit to the brink, holding the economy hostage to impose the Democrats’ policy objectives, so they’re just as bad as the Tea-GOP crazies who have created the debt limit crisis.

It is unfortunate that as our whole political system comes unhinged due to this current fight, so little has been done to explain to regular people what a preposterous and unnecessary debate this really is.

A man with profound courage and great character, climate activist Tim DeChristopher, went to jail today for bidding on oil and gas leases on federal land when he didn’t have the money to pay for the bids he placed. Sentenced to two years and fined ten thousand dollars, DeChristopher was taken into custody immediately following his conviction of two felony counts of interfering with and making false representations at a government auction.

HALT

Republican Lamar Smith of Texas, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, profoundly wasted the committee’s time today with a junk piece of legislation that would only make matters worse for immigration authorities if passed. The legislation, the “Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation (HALT) Act,” limit the administrative authority the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration Customs & Enforcment (ICE) has to consider waivers and issue cancel deportations, if deemed necessary.

The market may be pricing in the fact that Treasury has more cash on hand than it claims, enough to hold things together past August 2nd, past the Social Security payments on August 3rd and even past the large debt rollover on August 4th.

There’s a great deal of credibility tied up in the imprecise rendering of August 2nd as the drop-dead date. If the Administration actually has the cash to go a bit further, it will confirm the basest suspicions of the conservatives.

That’s why OMB Director Jack Lew was out there today denying that Treasury had the additional headroom.

John Boehner’s plan for raising the debt limit, which would lead to “the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history” according to one budget analyst, cannot pass the House of Representatives because it’s not conservative enough, according to the chair of the Republican Study Committee, Jim Jordan (R-OH). Jordan, who announced his opposition to the Boehner plan yesterday, says that the bill does not have the required 218 votes needed to pass the House.

As the U.S. suffers through catastrophic tornadoes, heat waves, and other climate extremes – no doubt just a small taste of what the climate crisis will bring in the future – polluting industries and the politicians that serve them want to convince you that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually a good thing.

Last December, almost like clockwork, Republican legislators in state houses across the nation sounded the alarm about an “out of control” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). What had the EPA suddenly done to earn such criticism? The EPA had dared to take the first baby steps towards regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Without acknowledging it, Mr. Sorkin is simply giving credence to a favorite Tea-GOP talking point, that Tim Geithner has more than enough revenues coming in to pay the interest and principal on bonds and other sovereign credit obligations. So there is no risk of “default” and it’s irresponsible scaremongering to tell granny she might not see her Social Security checks or get Medicare. The market can do the math, and that’s why investors have not panicked yet.

We have marginal tax rates in this country, so the rich feel all the benefits on the cuts in the smaller tax brackets. These are not well-designed policies, and so just extending them rather than letting them expire and writing a new set of better-distributed policies misses a big opportunity. Anyway, a policy that allows low taxes for people making not enough to live but practically no services for them doesn’t really help them out.