Stay tuned.

Washington (CNN) — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that a deal to raise the debt ceiling is “very close.”

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Kentucky senator said Republicans and Democrats “made dramatic progress” Saturday over a $3 trillion package of spending cuts that would not include tax increases.

McConnell said he is “very very close to being able . . . to recommend to my members that this is something that they ought to support.”

Although all the details are not yet agreed upon, McConnell said the deal would likely be a two-step process. The first step would include an immediate increase in the borrowing limit, a vote in the Senate on a balanced budget amendment and a new bipartisan committee to recommend more cuts. The second step would allow Congress to disapprove of Obama raising the debt ceiling further.

“You’ll see that this is a process that could get him (President Obama) past the election. We’re working on the combinations that will get us there,” McConnell said. “I’m particularly appreciative that we’re now back talking to the only person in America who can sign something into law and that’s the president of the United States.”

A Republican source close to the negotiations told CNN the goal is $3 trillion in savings, and that the deal would include a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling.

He didn’t have the votes to begin with, so this isn’t much of a surprise.

(LA Times) — Efforts to reach a last-minute deal to stave off a potentially disastrous federal default appeared to make progress late Saturday as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called off a scheduled 1 a.m. Sunday test vote and declared himself newly “optimistic.”

Reid (D-Nev.) scheduled a new vote for noon Sunday, saying he wanted to give the parties more time to negotiate. Talks were underway at the White House, he said, and progress was being made toward the Democratic demand for a long-term debt limit increase that would carry the government through the end of 2012.

“I’m glad to see this move toward cooperation and compromise,” Reid said. “I hope it bears fruit.”

Take this with a grain of salt.

ABC News has learned that Republicans and the White House have struck a tenative deal to raise the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline. It’s not done yet, but here is the framework of the tentative deal they have worked out, according to a source familiar with the negotiations:

• Debt ceiling increase of up to $2.8 trillion
• Spending cuts of roughly $1 trillion
• Vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment
• Special committee to recommend cuts of $1.8 trillion (or whatever it takes to add up to the total of the debt ceiling increase)
• Committee must make recommendations before Thanksgiving recess
• If Congress does not approve those cuts by late December, automatic across-the-board cuts go into effect, including cuts to Defense and Medicare.

A senior White House aide pushed back against the idea that a deal was struck.

So we’ve been called extremists, terrorists, suicide bombers, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and now fraggers by the left (I’m sure there’s a bunch I’m missing); what’s next?

July 30, 2011 (CHICAGO) — As time is running out to come up with a plan to raise the debt ceiling, there’s more finger-pointing and more calls for compromise on Capitol Hill.

Republican leaders say they are confident that the impasse will end soon. In the meantime, President Barack Obama called Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to the White House to meet with him Saturday afternoon.

Republican and Democrat lawmakers in Illinois are both expressing their concern and frustration over making a debt-limit deal.

“In battle, when you accidentally shoot your own, it’s called friendly fire. When you deliberately shoot your own, it’s called fragging. Republicans, stop fragging the American economy and the American people,” said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Chicago and North Suburbs.

“My constituents want an end to this crisis, an end to the uncertainly and an end to the cycle of debt that is draining our economy,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert of southwest suburban Willowbrook in a statement.

And while I’m at it, here’s two pics of Schakowsky’s fellow liberals supporting actual fragging.

Allahu akbar!

Tempest in a Tea Party — Maureen Dowd, NYT

. . .The maniacal Tea Party freshmen are trying to burn down the House they were elected to serve in. It turns out they wanted to come inside to get a blueprint of the historic building to sabotage it.

Like gargoyles on the Capitol, the adamantine nihilists are determined to blow up the country’s prestige, their party and even their own re-election chances if that’s what it takes. (Many are worried about primary races with even more dogmatic challengers, which is a truly scary thought.) If they can drag President Obama off his pedestal, even better. They think he looks down on them and sneers at their values.

Democratic lawmakers worry that the Tea Party freshmen have already “neutered” the president, as one told me. They fret that Obama is an inept negotiator. They worry that he should have been out in the country selling a concrete plan, rather than once more kowtowing to Republicans and, as with the stimulus plan, health care and Libya, leading from behind.

When Obama came before the cameras Friday to say that “any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan,” many Democrats wish he had just gone all unilateral and taken Bill Clinton’s advice to invoke the 14th Amendment. They yearned to see the president beat the political suicide bombers over the head with the Constitution. Impeaching a constitutional lawyer for saving the economy would be an even more difficult sell than impeaching a rogue for fibbing about a dalliance.

Hence all of Obama’s accolades for the Democrats’ willingness to “compromise.”

(ABC News) — Moments before being summoned to the White House this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared that his bill is still “the only game in town,” even as it was being voted down by the House of Representatives.

“We have until midnight tonight,” Reid said. “If my Republican colleagues, acting in good faith, come to me with a proposal that is what we will do.”

Reid dismissed a letter Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and 43 Senate Republicans sent him today declaring their opposition to his bill.

In it they state that Reid’s plan “completely fails to address our current fiscal imbalance and lacks any serious effort to ensure that any subsequent spending cuts are enacted.”

“Most of the proposal’s alleged savings are based on a false claim of credit for reductions in war-related spending that were already scheduled to occur,” the letter says. “These savings are the sort of widely ridiculed accounting gimmick that breeds cynicism about our ability to tackle our fiscal challenges.”

Reid noted that “a number” of those people who signed the letter of opposition have been in contact with him, indicating they’d be open to compromise.

“I don’t know what the 43 letter was meant to be, whether to stall things, I really don’t understand,” Reid said brushing off the Republican’s letter. “The fact is we have 43 people on this letter, Republicans, who a number of them have already agreed to work with us. Whether it bears fruit we will see.”

Surrounded by a group of what he called the “real Americans” that will be affected by Congress’ action (or inaction) to raise the debt ceiling along with the majority of his Democratic caucus, Reid expressed his frustration over Republicans refusing to compromise.

Asked why he and McConnell cannot sit down when they’re working under the same roof, Reid quipped back, “I have a little trouble understanding that myself.”

“We can’t do this alone; we need Republicans to join us,” he said.

Update:

(Washington Examiner) — On Saturday, the House of Representatives rejected Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s proposal to hike the debt limit, 246 to 173, with 11 Democrats voting against it.

The vote was expected, and was held to demonstrate that Reid’s plan can’t pass the House, just as last night the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to hike the debt limit last night to show it can’t pass the Senate.

At 1 am, Reid’s bill will face a cloture vote in the Senate, where it is expected to fail to reach the 60 vote threshold, because 43 Senate Republicans have already signed a letter opposing it.

“We either save this country or we do not. And to save it, we must seek solutions.”

Complete awesomeness.

Marco Rubio’s WSJ op-ed from March.

HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez @ NRO

I can’t wait to miss it.

(Examiner) — Rosie O’Donnell and Oprah Winfrey are teaming up to promote a new show on Oprah’s OWN network simply titled “The Rosie Show.”

Canoe reports that the announcement was made during Winfrey’s surprise visit to the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills earlier today.

Canada’s Corus has said it will air “The Rosie Show” as well as Winfrey’s new series “Your Own Life” — a retrospective of 25 years worth of material from Oprah’s award winning, daytime talk show.

As for O’Donnell, she says she is totally thrilled to be working with the media mogul and said that working with her “feels like being knighted in a way. I still get nervous when (Winfrey) calls.”

Keep reading…

I actually agree with her but not for the reason she cites.

(POLITICO) — Right before the House voted to reject a Democratic debt-ceiling plan, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t mince words.

Pelosi pulled out a Star Wars reference on the House floor, saying that Speaker John Boehner “chose to go to the dark side” and court the most conservative members of his conference, rather than work on a bipartisan compromise.

“It’s time for us to end this theater of the absurd,” she said. “It’s time for us to get real.”

The House struck down the Democratic measure, 173-246, in a vote that was designed to fail. Boehner brought the measure up under a special rule that required a two-third majority for passage.

“This thing is not on the level,” Pelosi said before the vote.

Keep reading. . .

It just goes to show that some people can have their cake and eat it too.

(ABC News) — The White House remains confident that a deal to raise the debt ceiling will be reached by next Tuesday, so much so, that the president is still scheduled to spend next Wednesday in Chicago, celebrating his 50th birthday at two DNC events.

“We’re confident that this will be resolved. Obviously, if it’s not, we’ll address the schedule accordingly,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters today.

The president, whose actual birthday is next Thursday, August 4th, will not, however, be spending the night in his hometown. For now, he is set to return to the White House Wednesday evening.

“You know that we’ve adjusted our schedule throughout this process as necessary. But we believe Congress will act, do the responsible thing, pass bipartisan legislation that gets to the president’s desk and is signed into law, so that we can lift this cloud that’s hanging over our economy,” Carney said.

So far, the president has no other events scheduled for next week.

See Obama Charging $35,800 Per Couple To Attend His 50th Birthday Party

(Daily Mail) — Ministers have abandoned an inquiry into the rise of secretive Sharia councils that deal in Islamic justice — because the Muslim courts refused to help.

The failure of the Ministry of Justice probe has generated new fears among politicians and pressure groups about the increasing influence of Sharia courts.

They are worried the courts’ decisions may run against the law of the land, particularly in divorce settlements for women.

The scrapping of the inquiry comes in a week when Islamic extremists have launched a campaign to declare ‘Sharia-controlled zones’ across Britain.

But the abandonment of the Government’s Sharia inquiry has fuelled fears that such radicals will be able to continue their intimidating activities unchecked.

The Ministry of Justice had launched an inquiry into the operation of Sharia courts in Britain because of rising fears that the secretive system has undue influence.

The number of Sharia courts here is unknown, although an estimate of 85 made by the Civitas think-tank in 2009 is widely accepted.

Adiós Judeo-Christian heritage.

As in most counties in America, the Board of Commissioners of Forsyth County, North Carolina, begins its public meetings with an invocation. These prayers are given by local religious leaders on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Given that 95 percent of local religious houses identify as Christian, it’s not surprising that many of the invocations include specifically Christian language, often closing the prayer in the name of “Jesus Christ” or “Jesus.”

Two non-Christians from the community with a population of approximately 350,000 sued, arguing that an invocation mentioning Jesus Christ during a public prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

Even though the pair acknowledged that the Supreme Court held public prayers — called “legislative prayers” — are constitutional in the 1983 case Marsh v. Chambers, the federal district court in North Carolina sided with the protestors.

In a stunning decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed that judgment in a 2-to-1 decision, holding in the case Joyner v. Forsyth County that prayers unconstitutionally advance Christianity if references to Jesus are more than isolated, or if the content is otherwise too Christian for the court’s taste.

Writing for the majority, Judge Harvie Wilkinson — a respected appellate judge who was appointed by President Reagan – wrote that public prayers are for the purpose of welcoming and including the community to be involved in government. (That’s odd. I always thought it was to ask for God’s blessing.)

The predominance of Christian prayers violated Judge Wilkinson’s novel understanding, and so, joined by Barbara Keenan, who was appointed by President Obama, the court struck down the county’s longstanding practice, calling it “sectarian.”

Keep reading…

When in doubt, blame da Joooos.

(IPT) — A number of anti-Israel organizations have blamed the Jewish state and its supporters for the recent terrorist attack in Norway. The groups suggest that some pro-Israel and anti-Muslim sentiments expressed by Anders Breivik prove that Israel carried out or benefited from the attack, or that all pro-Israel supporters are dangerous.

An article on a Hamas website entitled “The Cancer of Christian Zionist Terror,” makes the case. “Christian Zionism is the new Nazi beast, a kind of a Fourth Reich, looming on the horizon. It is evil, murderous and genocidal,” said anti-Semitic writer Khalid Amayreh. “Just imagine the fact that we are talking about a combination of evil forces at work, including the nefarious powerful freemason cult, which penetrates many societies and governments, the Zionist movement, and neo-fascist Islamophobes seeking to ignite an internecine clash between Islam and the West.”

Similar sentiments were expressed on the website of UFREE, the European network to support the rights of Palestinian prisoners. The group’s statement on the Norway attack linked the summer camp massacre to pro-Palestinian advocacy, and maligned the terrorist for his pro-Israel views. “It has become known to the world that supporters of Israel are the real threat to world security and peace — they are the real source of terrorism,” said the Oslo-based chair of UFree, Mohammed Hamdan.

Liberal Turkish newspaper Taraf published a report stating that the attacks could have been organized by Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad. “It is highly possible that the attacks are the handiwork of Mossad,” reported the Kavkaz Center, a news site for Islamist separatists in Russia. “Norway repeatedly stated at an official level that it would become the first European country to recognize the independence of Palestine.”

Keep reading…

Nice to see the RINO brigade carrying the left’s water.

(Bloomberg) — U.S. lawmakers allied with the “absolutist” Tea Party have put the nation on the financial brink with their aversion to compromise, Senator Lisa Murkowski said.

“I am really worried about where we are standing, and I think part of that has come about because you have individuals that say it is my ‘way or the highway,’” Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s Washington office. “That is not how you govern.”

House Republicans backed by the Tea Party have vowed to support an increase in the $14.3 trillion debt limit only if it’s accompanied by spending cuts and doesn’t raise taxes. President Barack Obama and Democrats propose a mix of tax increases and spending reductions.

“You have folks who are so black-and-white, who are so absolutist, that we are in a process now where we are on the brink,” said Murkowski, 54, who was defeated by a Tea Party supporter last year in a Republican primary and then re-elected as a write-in candidate.

Originality not being high up on the left’s priority list these days.

(Politico, Martin Frost) — Ten years ago, the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed two gigantic figures of Buddha, carved into a hillside 18 centuries before. The world was aghast at this barbarian act taken in the name of religious purity. But was powerless to stop it.

We now have a group of U.S. politicians seeking political purity, who seem to have much in common with the Taliban. They are tea party members; and because of blind adherence to smaller government, they seem intent on risking destroying what American political leaders have constructed in more than two centuries of hard, often painful work. Like the Taliban, they see compromise as an unacceptable alternative.

As part of the House Republican majority, these uncompromising tea party members present an enormous challenge to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) as he seeks to reach a compromise which can avert an unprecedented U.S. default on Aug. 2.

But . . . but . . . but . . . it’s those extremist House Republicans that are holding the country hostage!

(Washington Times) — Senate Republicans want a 60-vote threshold for a debt-limit bill to pass the chamber, but it’s actually Democrats who are enforcing the filibuster on their own legislation, insisting on delaying a vote until 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

Republicans offered to let the vote happen Friday night, just minutes after the chamber voted to halt a House Republican bill. All sides expect Democrats’ bill will fail too, and the GOP said senators might as well kill both at the same time so that negotiations could move on to a compromise.

“We would be happy to have that vote tonight,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republicans’ leader, offered.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid objected, even though the vote would occur on his own bill. He instead said the chamber would have to run out the full procedural clock, which means a vote in the early hours Sunday morning.

He said he would be willing to move up the vote if Republicans didn’t insist on a 60-vote threshold, which has become traditional for big, controversial items to pass the Senate. But the GOP held firm on that demand, so Mr. Reid said he would insist on the full process, which he said would show the country that Republicans were being obstructionist.

“There is now another filibuster. That’s what this is. It’s a filibuster to stop us from moving forward,” he said.

Mr. Reid complained that if the House had been held to the same super majority rules the Senate often operates under, Republicans’ proposal never would have passed over there earlier in the day.

Obviously, only the most deranged of lefties would make such a ridiculous claim.

(RCP) — Joe Scarborough: “I have got to clear this up. Mika heard two days ago on Capitol Hill Democrats all saying the same thing. And that is, this president has been invisible, he is not a leader. They said this all behind closed doors. Democratic leaders, Democratic rank-and-file. In fact, 40, 50 of the most powerful Democrats on the Hill. I will just stop right there. The complaints were all the same. The president has vanished. He has left us here alone again like he did with health care. Where is he? Now, they didn’t call him a loser, but they sure as hell didn’t call him a leader.”

Video here…

Leading from behind.

(Politico) — Just days ahead of the Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline and as partisan rankling continued on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama urged Congress to show him a plan that would divert the country from national default by Tuesday.

In the weekly address to the nation, the president maintained that House Republicans had wasted too much time passing a bill that doesn’t offer a long-term solution to the debt crisis.

Speaker Boehner’s deficit ceiling bill passed late Friday but within hours was tabled by the Senate.

The House plan, Obama argued, would expose the country to another impasse in a few months. “It would hold our economy captive to Washington politics once again,” he said. “If anything, the past few weeks have demonstrated that’s unacceptable.”

Using similar language he had used during Friday morning’s news conference, the president said a default could only be avoided with a bipartisan plan.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans is not wide, he added, pointing out areas where he said there was general agreement, including on spending cuts, and tax and entitlement reform.

Talking points for idiots.

Transcript below the fold.

(more…)

To remind you, less than four months ago Boehner promised that the “Next fight to be about trillions, not billions.” The only fight I saw, however, was between the Republicans who want to cave and the Republicans who want to cut trillions — just as Boehner promised. The Cavemen prevailed.

(NRO) — These are challenging days for our country and its people.

Americans are worried about jobs. They’re worried about our economy. And they’re worried about our debt. The debt-limit crisis, thrust upon our citizens this summer, has intensified these anxieties.

The U.S. House of Representatives has now sent to the Senate not one, but two bills that would bring the crisis to an immediate end.

Reflecting the will of the people, both bills passed by the House would cut trillions of dollars in spending, advance the cause of a constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to balance its budget, and impose caps on future spending to stop the expansion of government while we give our economy a chance to grow and create jobs.

Both bills also raise the debt ceiling for President Obama past the end of this year, averting the possibility of a damaging national default.

At moments like this, the arrogance of Washington is most evident not in its actions, but in its inaction.

(more…)

To be filed under “White House messaging,” because the Boehner plan, which America cannot afford, did not give Obama enough cash to guarantee insolvency within the next two years.

(WhiteHouse.gov) — The bill passed today in the House with exclusively Republican votes would have us face another debt ceiling crisis in just a few months by demanding the Constitution be amended or America defaults. This bill has been declared dead on arrival in the Senate. Now that yet another political exercise is behind us, with time dwindling, leaders need to start working together immediately to reach a compromise that avoids default and lays the basis for balanced deficit reduction.

Senator Reid’s proposal is a basis for that compromise. It not only achieves more deficit reduction than the bill passed in the House today and puts a process in place to achieve even more savings, it also removes the uncertainty surrounding the risk of default. The President urges Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support from both parties in the House — a plan the President can sign by Tuesday.