We covered a fair amount of ground over the weekend. Here’s a quick overview of what you may have missed.
On Sunday, we talked about:
* The Republican Party’s approach to the debt ceiling: “A gamble where you bet your country’s good name.”
* John Boehner may be the Speaker of the House, but as his power shrinks, he finds that he’s taking orders, not giving them.
* With GOP leaders rejecting a grand bargain on debt reduction, did the White House score a tactical victory? Probably, but it’s temporary.
* Boehner wanted a grand bargain and thought he had the strength to make it happen. He was wrong.
And on Saturday, we talked about:
* Why is political compromise impossible? Because the Republican Party’s transition to an unyielding hard-right party is complete.
* Those Bush tax cuts are bound to work eventually, right? Right?
* Mitt Romney on unemployment: The Poseur.
* Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is surprisingly eager to force more Americans to pay income taxes.
* “The Marriage Vow” is deeply twisted, even by the religious right’s standards.
* House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) may not understand this, but if tax increases would be bad for the economy, the exact same economic model suggests spending cuts would be just as damaging, if not more so.
* In “This Week in God,” we covered, among other things, religious right leaders coalescing around Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) unannounced presidential campaign.
* The unemployment rate is going up; the interest rate on 10-year bonds is going down. The former is bad news; the latter is good news. Because our process is dumb, Washington is ignoring the former and focusing all of its attention on the latter.
