Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has written a letter to Attorney General Eric J. Holder expressing concern about an investigation into antiwar activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. The congressman is the latest member of Congress to send Holder a letter on this matter.

In a statement today, the White House announced that the President would speak at 9pm tonight about “the stalemate in Washington over avoiding default and the best approach to cutting deficits.”

Tonight’s movie, Florent: Queen of the Meat Market directed by David Sigal, chronicles the history of one of New York City’s most beloved–and notorious–restaurants.

I don’t think the President is a weak negotiator. He wants different things from the people who elected him. And people are beginning to see that. There was no reason to yoke deficit reduction to the debt limit, building a doomsday device that could blow up in the country’s face. Obama had to make that decision, or at least accede to the Republican request. He wanted a grand bargain to “take deficits off the table” and burnish his image. He was willing to compromise plenty to do that, enough so it confused the entire notion of what was a compromise and what was a belief.

One year ago, WikiLeaks released the Afghanistan war logs. Around seventy-six thousand previously classified military reports were released in collaboration with the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel. The contents of the documents revealed several dark realities of the war. And, the release drew condemnation from the Washington establishment that made certain the war logs had a minor impact.

Here’s a slick little two-step from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He knows that he has caused himself and his party tremendous damage by pursuing a radical right-wing agenda. He is desperate to cling to power so these policies don’t get rolled back. So one of his ideas was to pass a voter ID law to help suppress the vote in future years (this mostly won’t affect the recall elections next month). Responding to the virtually non-existent scourge of voter fraud, the bill disenfranchises low-income voters and the elderly who don’t have a picture ID like a driver’s license. Of course, Republicans could say, these voters need to merely go to any DMV and obtain a picture ID there. Simple, elegant and secure, right? Except Walker is closing down a bunch of DMV’s …

You can hardly blame the growing number of decent folks, long respected, admired writers like Elizabeth Drew, who are now, or still, calling on Barack Obama to stop being a wimp, a disappointment, a terrible negotiator, or a betrayer to his people, principles and Party and become a better President. But he won’t, people, so what’s plan B?

As I noted in my last post, there aren’t a whole lot of differences between Harry Reid and John Boehner’s deficit reduction plans. As far as I can tell, there are two main differences…

Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer presented their plan for how to deal with the debt limit, which they expect to introduce in the Senate ASAP. And now that we have more of the details, I really don’t know what the two parties are arguing over at this point. Because the Reid plan and the Boehner plan are substantially similar, for one main reason: Reid’s plan includes a “Super Congress,” a 12-member, bicameral, bipartisan “Catfood Commission II” that would deliver recommendations for further deficit reduction by the end of the year.

To maintain his role as head of the Republican caucus Speaker John Boehner can’t cut just any old deal with the Democrats, at least not now that so much rides on this particular fight. Even if Boehner and most of the Republican leadership want to cut a deal, and that isn’t a given, the only way Boehner can sell a deal to his caucus is to claim he pushed the Democrats to the edge and got the best deal they can possibly hope for. Yet with the Democrats sweetening the pot with new concessions almost daily, there is no way the Republican caucus would think they have reached the Democrats’ final offer.