Weekly unemployment claims spiked up again today, and the NY Fed’s survey of regional manufacturing, a key indicator of the economy, was down sharply relative to expectations. This is a crisis time in the economy, and big solutions are needed to arrest the slide.

Let’s check in on the debt limit negotiations. Last night’s meeting at the White House was short and somber, with Administration aides still discussing elements of a big deal, even though that looks all but dead, as it includes tax changes. There is no meeting today; the President instructed the Congressional leadership to go back to their caucuses and determine what can actually pass both chambers. He wants to hear back in the next 24 to 36 hours. Both parties in Congress and the President are holding news conferences today, with the President’s coming up at 11am ET. This will be Obama’s second press conference of the week.

It’s a challenge to keep up with the pace of the debt ceiling news, so if you see anything, put it in the comments and I’ll add it. All times EST:

Corporatist Democrats have a sweet scam going. Even when they lose an election, they still win.

Jeremy Morlock, part of the Army Stryker “kill team” in Afghanistan, plead guilty today to killing three Afghan civilians in an Army court-martial case. Photos of Morlock and his colleagues posing with Afghan corpses were published in the German magazine Der Spiegel this week, stirring controversy about abuse, torture and defilement carried out by enlisted men and women during the occupation.

So! H.R.3 supposedly won’t redefine rape anymore, but the fight’s just getting started. We learned last week that the new Congress followed H.R. 3 with H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, which would redefine “conscience” clauses to allow pregnant women to die if saving them would require harming the fetus.

Republicans in the grassroots have become more strident against the bill in recent days, and noted weather vane Mitt Romney has an op-ed today where he slams the bill, mostly because it doesn’t make the Bush tax cuts permanent and because it adds to the deficit (yeah, I don’t get it either). He also wants to create “unemployment savings accounts,” which sounds fine until you realize that would mean that individuals, not businesses, would pay for unemployment insurance with their own money. I don’t think House Republicans will necessarily cater to the base on this one, but you may see some erosion of support. But that only matters if House Democrats use the opportunity.

Bean was a member of the Blue Dog caucus and the New Democrat Coalition. Bean voted in support of President Obama’s health care reform; she was one of only 15 Democrats to support the Central American Free Trade Act (CAFTA), and one of only four Dems to side with Republicans against the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

The bottom line is, either you believe in your theory of change or you don’t. If you believe that progressive policies such as a bigger stimulus package, or more banking regulation will have a greater impact on restoring the economy and creating jobs, then the people who won’t let you do that are hobbling your ability to succeed. Because the public doesn’t really care whether the change is happening because of liberal or conservative policies, they just care that it’s happening. And they make their choices at the ballot box based on what is happening in their lives.

The big-business-worshipping Blue Dogs are (along with Big Media allies like Lawrence O’Donnell) trying to push the myth that they lost big, not because they pressured Obama to go with a stimulus package that every economist worthy of the name said was too small, but because of (get this) Nancy Pelosi.