Progressives need to send a strong message that a COLA cut is unacceptable, no matter what it is called and most especially when it is being used to show that Democrats are willing to give up their historic support for Social Security in exchange for getting Republican sign-on to a disastrous deficit-reduction deal.

The American myth of the rugged, self-sufficient individual is ever-present in our culture. Think of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, a character based on the nameless “Continental Op” of Dashiell Hammett’s noir thriller, Red Harvest. The characters abandon the very concept of community. They no longer even want a name that could be known by others.

The myth, of course, is just a fictionalized reflection of a belief held by many Americans: the self-contained individual is all. The furtherance of individual liberty, with little regard for the fate of the community at large, is the only legitimate role of government. The belief comes with magical thinking (or cynical slight-of-hand) that unrestrained selfishness will produce more for all than selflessness, altruism, or compassion.

Charles Portis’s True Grit and the 2010 film version by the Coen Brothers turn the myth on its head.

Explaining why the President was putting so much effort into trying to reach a grand bargain with John Boehner that would include trillions in spending cuts on worthwhile government programs, White House Chief of Staff William Daley essentially said that Obama was doing this not merely because we need to raise the debt limit, but because, “this deficit is a serious drag on the economy.”

Think about that: “The deficit is a serious drag on the economy.”

Among all of the right-bloggers who had a major musgasm upon hearing the initial reports out of Oslo (Professor Mustard recovered nicely going from Norway – The Warning Signs Were There to Sometimes news moves too fast for our own good with scarcely a rumple in his cravat) none deserve more special consideration then the amusingly named Astute Bloggers for their 3-part demonstration of how the Self-Correcting Citizen Journalist plies his craft.

The Bank of America settlement with investors on their legacy mortgage-backed securities issues may be coming apart. The Federal Home Loan Banks are now bolting from the deal, saying that investors deserve three times as much as the $8.5 billion settlement.

Surprise! We have the debt ceiling looming, some bipartisaniness and a dash of equal marriage.

Stop back for FDL Book Salon, The Illusion of Free Markets, and Monday’s movie, Florent “Queen Of The Meat Market.”

Ready, Woolen and Able featuring Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. This Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. Merrie Melodies cartoon was released on July 30, 1960.

Starting at midnight EST, the first official same-sex marriages will take place in New York.

Jake Terpstra is an octogenarian who has led the fight for child welfare as a career administrator in both Michigan and Washington. He is widely known as an authority on the subject and his counsel is still sought by civic leaders and government officials – and the foregoing only begins to touch on his diverse career and staunch activism for old-line Progressivism.

After the short White House meeting today, Congressional leaders of both parties met on Capitol Hill to work out an agreement to increase the debt limit. Earlier, House Speaker John Boehner held a conference call with his caucus, where he said he wanted a debt limit plan in place by tomorrow to avoid causing a drop in the Asian markets.

This concern about the markets has happened very suddenly. All of a sudden there’s a belief that a clean increase or a small debt deal with a minor amount of spending cuts would not be enough to avoid a downgrade. Standard and Poor’s basically forced this by saying that they would downgrade if there wasn’t a $4 trillion deficit deal in the next 90 days.