- Moody’s puts Treasury debt on review for downgrade.
- It’s difficult to summarize this excellent Megan McCardle piece on the mutual misunderstanding between Washington’s debt ceiling politics and Wall Street’s default mechanics.
- Mitch McConnell is incredibly forthright in explaining his escape hatch plan to Laura Ingraham:
The reason that default is no better an idea today than when Newt Gingrich tried it in 1995 is that it destroys your brand and would give the President an opportunity to blame us for the bad economy. Look, he owns the economy. He’s been in office nearly three years now. We refuse to let us entice us in to co-ownership of a bad economy.
- No broad constituency subscribes to 100% no-tax orthodoxy.
- Alan Simpson loses hope.
- Politico digs up an old Kennedy ad hitting Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital:
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- Bachmann’s former church was anti-Catholic.
- Minnesota’s shutdown takes a, ahem, sobering turn.
- And Tennessee lawmaker provides further evidence politicians are puerile.