Today’s edition of quick hits:

* Terror rocks Oslo: “Norway suffered two shocking attacks on Friday, when powerful explosions shook the government center in the capital and, shortly after, a gunman stalked youths on an island summer camp for children of members of the governing Labor Party. Police were treating the assaults, which together killed at least 16 people, as connected, according to Norweigian news media, though it remained unclear who was behind them.”

* Massive protests in Syria: “Hundreds of thousands of Syrians across the country took to the streets on Friday, defying a brutal crackdown by security forces and demanding the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s government.”

* Oh, to be a fly on the wall for this one: “Officials from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury met Friday to discuss what would happen if the nation defaults on its debt, a scenario that could occur next month if Congress doesn’t raise the nation’s borrowing limit.”

* Murdoch media scandal: “Testimony by James Murdoch about Britain’s phone hacking scandal came under renewed scrutiny on Friday with Prime Minister David Cameron saying that Mr. Murdoch still had ‘questions to answer’ and a lawmaker calling for the police to open a new inquiry.”

* Murdoch media scandal, stateside: “The Justice Department is readying subpoenas as part of a probe into allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. attempted to hack into phones of Sept. 11 victims.”

* Will the FAA face a partial shutdown, starting tonight? Apparently, yes. Thanks again, congressional Republicans, for hating unions to such an irrational level.

* Europe: “It took a year and a half of politicking that pushed markets to the edge more than once, but Europe’s leaders this week may have reached an elusive goal: Make sure that what happens in Greece stays in Greece.”

* The U.S. ownership role in Chrysler is no more.

* Will Maryland be next for marriage equality? It will be if Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has his way.

* Great piece from Amanda Marcotte on Rep. Allen West’s (R-Fla.) “anger issues.”

* I’m thrilled to see David Leonhardt become the new Washington bureau chief for the New York Times. He’s one of my favorite journalists.

* And the prospect of the Obama administration covering contraception as a standard for preventive medical care has apparently made conservative media absolutely furious. Bill O’Reilly argued that universal coverage of contraception would not lead to fewer unintended pregnancies because “[m]any women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex and not going to use birth control anyway.” What a classy guy.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

Congressional Democrats passed, and President Obama signed, legislation in December to repeal the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. And while that was the major hurdle in this civil-rights breakthrough, there was still one more step to go on the process.

The legislation began a process that allowed Pentagon leaders to oversee a transition period. Once the Defense Secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally told President Obama the military is trained and ready to implement the change, then the new policy could be officially certified.

That finally happened this afternoon, soon after Pentagon Chief Leon Panetta was sworn into office. President Obama issued a statement about a half-hour ago.

“Today, we have taken the final major step toward ending the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law that undermines our military readiness and violates American principles of fairness and equality. In accordance with the legislation that I signed into law last December, I have certified and notified Congress that the requirements for repeal have been met. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will end, once and for all, in 60 days — on September 20, 2011.

“As Commander in Chief, I have always been confident that our dedicated men and women in uniform would transition to a new policy in an orderly manner that preserves unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effectiveness. Today’s action follows extensive training of our military personnel and certification by Secretary Panetta and Admiral Mullen that our military is ready for repeal. As of September 20th, service members will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country. Our military will no longer be deprived of the talents and skills of patriotic Americans just because they happen to be gay or lesbian.

“I want to commend our civilian and military leadership for moving forward in the careful and deliberate manner that this change requires, especially with our nation at war. I want to thank all our men and women in uniform, including those who are gay or lesbian, for their professionalism and patriotism during this transition. Every American can be proud that our extraordinary troops and their families, like earlier generations that have adapted to other changes, will only grow stronger and remain the best fighting force in the world and a reflection of the values of justice and equality that the define us as Americans.”

In accordance with the law passed in December, today’s certification verifies that military readiness and recruiting will not be harmed by the change.

In 60 days, the law will be gone for good, and openly-gay servicemen and women will be to reveal their sexual orientation, enlist in the military, and in states with marriage-equality laws, even live with same-sex spouses in military housing.

The arc of history is long, and it’s still bending towards justice.

Before moving on, I’d also like to note recent remarks from Marine Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett, the Command Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, and a decorated combat veteran.

“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.

“You all joined for a reason: to serve,” he continued. “To protect our nation, right?”

“Yes, sergeant major,” Marines replied.

“How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” Sgt. Maj. Barrett continued, raising his voice just a notch. “Right?”

Sgt. Maj. Barrett then described conversations with U.K. troops, who saw a similar ban lifted a decade ago, with little disruption. And to drive the point home, he produced a pocket copy of the Constitution.

“Get over it,” he said. “We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be…. Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.”

As recently as a month ago, dozens of congressional Republicans still hoped to prevent today’s breakthrough. Fortunately, they lost.

Politics isn’t supposed to be quite this difficult. It’s not like the parties have never sat down to negotiate a debt-reduction plan before. It’s happened plenty of times, and while agreements have never been easy, they’ve at least been possible.

But the equation changes when one of the major political parties, especially when it controls one of the relevant institutions, abandons any sense of reason. Jonathan Bernstein had a piece on this today, but it’s a point that’s been circulating for a while.

One really, really important point to remember about House Republicans right now: There’s a very good chance that a whole bunch of them just have no idea what they’re doing. […]

[H]ow do you negotiate with people who just have no idea what they’re talking about? Here’s another example, from the NYT write-up of the party-line vote against [Cut, Cap, and Balance]: “[T]he outcome was a foregone conclusion and leaders of both parties said the Senate needed to dismiss the House plan to show Republicans that the proposal was dead.”

This is just depressing if true; it implies that an unspecified number of rank-and-file Republicans are, I don’t know how else to put it, either too detached from reality or too stupid or too incompetent to know that CCB was DOA without actually seeing the Senate results.

Right. In this case, Jonathan is referring to Republicans who don’t understand the basics of how a bill becomes a law. His piece on this highlighted a GOP House member, who’s likely to run for the Senate next year, who doesn’t seem to realize what it means when the Senate “tables” a bill.

But this keeps coming up because congressional Republicans don’t seem to understand, well, much of anything.

One Republican lawmaker appeared on national television this week, and was asked to defend his pro-default approach to governing. He replied, “I don’t trust the words of any source.”

Another GOP lawmaker said a few days ago that our national credit rating will get better if we fail to raise the debt ceiling. Another Republican House member argued that if the government raises revenue, it will make the debt worse, because taxes lead to “fewer revenue dollars.”

Common norms suggest we’re supposed to simply acknowledge that the parties have sincere, philosophical differences. But eventually, I’d love to see the political world come to terms with the fact that Republicans aren’t just being right-wing; they’re also being dumb. I know that’s impolite. I also know it’s justified.

As Time reported this week, “Democrats are clearly baffled by the challenge of persuading opponents who not only have a different set of priorities, but a different set of facts. ‘There’s a question about how much the facts matter to them,’ says a Democratic official. ‘And I don’t know what to do about that.’”

Jonathan asked how any is supposed to negotiate with people who have no idea what they’re talking about. I wish I had a good answer to that. I suspect the only solution is to ask Americans to stop electing radical, conspicuously unintelligent candidates to positions of power and influence. Indeed, as our current fiasco continues to unfold, Americans would ideally realize that their 2010 votes (or lack thereof) created this mess in the first place.

Someone asked me the other day why President Obama doesn’t just ask for a clean debt-ceiling bill, instead of engaging in these mind-numbing negotiations. The truth is, he has asked for a clean bill, repeatedly. It didn’t get much attention at the time — the White House pushed for this in March and April — but the request was certainly made.

The problem is, it fell flat very quickly. In late May, House Republicans brought a clean debt-ceiling bill to House floor for the express purpose of watching it fail. The point was to let a right-wing caucus thump its chest, telling the White House that the hostage strategy — give GOP lawmakers sweeping cuts or they’ll cause crash the economy on purpose — wouldn’t go away.

Regardless, from time to time, it’s worth noting that as crises go, there’s never been an easier dispute to solve. ThinkProgress mentioned today:

Here’s a brilliant plan to end debt ceiling crisis and save the world economy: Raise the debt ceiling.

Atrios raised a similar point yesterday:

Debt-ceiling legislation can be passed in 2 seconds by voice vote

No one even likes to talk about this. The New York Times ran a lengthy item this week, featuring eight separate scenarios to resolve this fiasco, and a clean bill didn’t even make the list.

Let’s set the record straight anyway, in case anyone’s forgotten. Congress could, today, pass a clean bill that raises the debt ceiling. It would immediately end the crisis, reassure investors and markets around the world, and clear the way for Democrats and Republicans to go right back to fighting again. The whole process would take a few minutes. It’s no different than having a car headed for a cliff, only to have the driver realize the brake works. All he has to do is step on it.

Since 1939, Congress has raised the debt limit 89 times. That’s not a typo. The issue has come up 89 times, and in 89 instances, Congress passed a clean bill. In fact, in two-thirds of these instances, there was a Republican president, and no one ever used the vote as leverage for a reward.

During the Bush presidency, Republicans raised the debt ceiling, without strings or preconditions, seven times. The current GOP leadership in Washington has voted to raise the debt limit 19 times.Bush’s former budget director said this “ought to be treated as the housekeeping matter it is.”

But we’ve now reached the point at which routine housekeeping, which didn’t even give conservative Republicans a second thought as recently as 2008, is considered beyond the pale. This is madness.

One effortless vote makes the entire problem disappear. I can’t think of any potential crisis that’s so serious and yet so easy to resolve. But this isn’t even a possibility because the Republican Party has lost its mind.

President Obama hosted a town-hall event in College Park, Maryland, this morning, and much of the discussion naturally turned to the debt-ceiling fiasco unfolding on Capitol Hill. Of particular interest, though, was an exchange about the so-called “Constitutional Option.”

Mr. Obama for the first time addressed — and ruled out — the idea that the Constitution empowers a president to increase the debt limit to prevent default and, as he put it, “basically ignore” the federal law requiring that the debt ceiling be set by statute. The argument of “the constitutional option,” which President Bill Clinton — like Mr. Obama a former constitutional law instructor — endorsed in an interview earlier this week, is based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s provision that the validity of the United States debt “shall not be questioned.”

“I have talked to my lawyers,” Mr. Obama said, and “they are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.”

This wasn’t quite the “first time” he addressed the question. It actually came up briefly a couple of weeks ago, during the White House Twitter Town Hall, and Obama said at the time, “I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue. Congress has a responsibility to make sure we pay our bills.”

Taken together, it certainly doesn’t sound as if this is the approach the president intends to pursue.

That said, I’m probably reading too much into the text, but I can’t help but note that Obama hasn’t categorically ruled out the constitutional option. He’s said he doesn’t want to rely on this tactic, and he said this morning that the lawyers aren’t “persuaded” this is legitimate, but notice that the president hasn’t gotten around to saying, “No, I reject this approach.”

Is this evidence of Obama leaving himself just a little wiggle room, in case push comes to shove? It’s hard to say with any certainty, but it’s one additional angle to keep an eye on.

Of course, there’s no telling how markets or the credit-rating agencies would respond to such a move, and there’s already been some chattering from far-right Republicans that they’d consider impeachment if Obama tried the move.

But I’m wondering what happens on, say, Aug. 1, when President Obama is sitting in the Oval Office, and his team presents him with a narrow set of options. One is an unpredictable economic crisis, which would begin the next day. The other is an unpredictable political crisis, which would prevent the economic catastrophe.

Would Obama simply rule out the latter? I hope we won’t have to find out, but his public comments on the matter suggest he hasn’t entirely closed the door on the possibility.

Senate Democrats explained quite a while ago that the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act,” the patently absurd House GOP budget plan, had no chance of passing the upper chamber. But House Republicans needed to get this out of their system, and test to see just how far they could get with this ridiculous measure.

The GOP got its answer this morning.

The Senate on Friday rejected a House plan to substantially cut government spending and raise the federal debt limit contingent on a balanced budget proposal, leaving Congress up in the air about how to resolve its impasse over the federal debt ceiling and avoid a government default.

It wasn’t a straight up-or-down vote on the House plan itself, but rather, a vote on whether to table the GOP bill. The final tally was 51 to 46, with exactly zero members crossing party lines. Some Republicans tried to put a positive spin on the five-vote margin, but no one should be fooled — CC&B would need 14 additional votes to break a filibuster and 21 additional votes to approve a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.

This little right-wing fantasy, in other words, is finished, at least for this Congress.

Now what? The plan was to get the ball rolling in the Senate with the McConnell/Reid back-up plan. That’s apparently not going to happen — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this morning that he would simply wait to see the results of the negotiations between President Obama and Speaker Boehner. Whereas Reid expected the Senate to work all weekend to advance the emergency “Plan B” fall-back option, those plans have been scrapped, too — the Senate, like the House, will take the weekend off, and hope for the best.

“The path to avert default now runs through the House of Representatives,” Reid said.

If those words strike you as ominous, you and I are on the same page.

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* A new CNN poll shows a very competitive race for the Republican presidential nomination, at least at the national level. Mitt Romney leads with 16%, while Rick Perry is just two points behind him at 14%. Of course, one may want to approach this poll with some skepticism — it has Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin tied for third with 13% each.

* Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman’s campaign manager resigned yesterday. It’s generally not evidence of a campaign that’s on the right track.

* A measure to repeal Ohio’s SB5, which restricts collective-bargaining rights, will be on the statewide ballot next year. Polls, at least at this point, show strong support for removing the law from the books.

* Fascinating piece from Nate Silver on right-wing GOP governors: “If the states are laboratories of democracy, then the Republican Party’s research pipeline has run dry. Moderate Republican governors, a thriving species before last year’s elections, are all but extinct.”

* Hoping to turn his Republican presidential campaign around, Tim Pawlenty will invest about $1 million to improve his chances in the Ames Straw Poll.

* The Democratic National Committee has launched its first ad buy of the cycle, airing a new Spanish-language spot in support of President Obama.

* Not surprisingly, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) appears to be cruising to re-election.

* In Indiana, Sen. Dick Lugar’s (R) primary opponent is running a new television ad blasting the incumbent for having a “bromance” with President Obama.

* And former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer formally kicked off his Republican presidential campaign yesterday with an event in New Hampshire. Roemer is perhaps best known for losing in a GOP gubernatorial primary to KKK leader David Duke. (thanks to R.B. for the heads-up)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) held a press conference this morning, and was peppered with questions about the debt-ceiling process. He didn’t offer much in the way of substance, but the Speaker did raise his voice before storming off.

“We have a spending problem! Somebody’s gotta get serious about cutting spending! Our friends across the aisle aren’t at all serious about doing what the American people are demanding: spend less. Bye!”

I can understand why Boehner is starting to lose his cool a bit. His caucus is poised to crash the economy and his job is likely on the line. But just for the heck of it, let’s take a moment to fact-check this.

First, we don’t really have a “spending problem.” We have what grown-ups and people who are good at arithmetic like to call a “revenue problem.” In fact, federal revenues have dropped to 15% — a 50-year low — and is a driving factor behind the deficit Republicans created and now pretend to care about.

Second, the “American people” are really “demanding” that policymakers spend less. What they’re actually demanding is a balanced approach that cuts spending and increases revenue. We know this to be true, because the American people have been asked about this many, many times.

Here’s a chart I put together that even House Republicans should be able to understand.

And third, “somebody’s gotta get serious about cutting spending”? Actually, somebody’s gotta get serious about raising the debt ceiling so the nation can pay its bills.

As one prominent official recently explained, failure on this issue “would be a financial disaster, not only for us, but for the worldwide economy. I don’t think it’s a question that’s even on the table.”

The official, of course, was John Boehner.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has been seen in front of a lot of empty lots and dilapidated buildings lately, and it’s apparently part of some kind of larger economic message: if the former governor can find businesses that failed, it’s proof that President Obama’s policies don’t work.

It’s best not to think too much about the underlying points of the argument, because they don’t really make any sense. After all, if Democrats point to a business that’s thrived since 2009, by Romney’s logic, it would mean the president is necessarily a genius.

In any case, there are more specific problems with Romney’s little tour. For example, a few weeks ago, he appeared in front of the Allentown Metal Works plant in Pennsylvania. It’s closed its doors, which the GOP candidates blamed on the White House. A closer look showed the opposite — the business had been reeling for year, and was brought down by mismanagement. The plant hoped to get a boost from the Recovery Act, but the spending package wasn’t big enough. This hardly bolsters Romney’s case — it actually does the opposite.

This week, Romney ran into a similar problem, exploiting a dilapidated California shopping center for his own purposes. Benjy Sarlin reports that Romney is once again stuck with a bad example.

Valley Plaza’s troubles began in 1994, when it was badly damaged in the Northridge earthquake. Purchased by developer J.H. Snyder, attempts to redevelop the site in 1999 and 2003 stalled, well before President Obama took over or the recession even began.

The recession dealt Valley Plaza the final blow as Snyder defaulted on their loan this year and decided it was too expensive to refinance. So their creditor, iStar, owned by a major Romney donor Jay Sugarman, foreclosed on the property and shut down the struggling development push.

Romney blaming Obama for this is ridiculous, even for him. Unless the Republican candidate thinks the president can go back in time and prevent earthquakes, this attack is more than a little pathetic.

Look, I realize Romney is embarrassed by his atrocious record on job creation. But these little stunts would be less ridiculous if he and his campaign would just take the time to think things through a litte.

Ezra Klein shines a light this morning on one of my favorite issues: saving money by scrapping tax subsidies.

For instance, we’ve got one government program that hands people money to buy houses that, in most cases, they would buy anyway. They get even more money if they buy a more expensive house. Over the next five years, that program alone will cost almost $500 billion. That can’t be the best use of taxpayer dollars.

Another federal agency will spend more than $400 billion to reward people for making money by investing and earning capital gains and dividends rather than by going to work and taking their income in wages. I like investors and I participate in the market, but is this really the sort of activity that requires a $400 billion subsidy? […]

There is tons of this stuff. The government pays employers $700 billion to offer health insurance to their employees, which no economist would say is a good idea. We’re subsidizing select parts of the energy sector, spending almost $2 billion, for instance, to subsidize “open-loop biomass” rather than simply pricing carbon emissions and letting the market work out the details, and we’re handing $4 billion to oil and gas companies that explore for new reserves.

Democrats would love to scrap many of these measures. It would save a fortune, could be applied directly to deficit reduction, and would obviously reduce the need to cut more worthwhile spending elsewhere.

But all of the measures Ezra mentioned, and many more just like them, have been deemed untouchable by Republicans. The problem is that they’re not actual spending measures; they’re investments the government makes through the tax code. The provisions are called “tax expenditures” — officials want to achieve specific policy ends, so they “spend” money by creating tax subsidies and loopholes.

If this seems familiar, it’s because this is exactly the point of the cover story in the current print edition of the Washington Monthly. It explains, among other things, that nearly all of these expenditures benefit the wealthy, making them regressive and unnecessary.

So why don’t policymakers pursue fiscal policy by scrapping these expenditures? Wouldn’t it be easier, better, and more popular to target these expenditures rather than, say, cutting Medicare?

The problem, of course, is Republicans and their unyielding philosophy. We can’t save money on tax expenditures, the GOP says, because scrapping tax subsidies and loopholes would count as “tax increases.” And tax increases are, you know, bad, even if Republicans can’t, won’t, and don’t want to defend the expenditures themselves.

The point isn’t to save money or lower the deficit, Republicans say; the point is to protect the conservative ideology and the GOP brand.

At a certain level, it’s a semantics fight. Whether the government writes a $4 billion check through the appropriations process to oil companies, or rewards the oil companies with $4 billion through a tax subsidy is irrelevant — the practical result is the same. But for Republicans, it’s not irrelevant at all, because their philosophy tells them the two approaches are vastly different.

And because conservatism isn’t a pragmatic governing philosophy, this rules the day.

It’s one of the reasons we can’t have nice things.

Everything about the debt-ceiling process has become nerve-wracking. Will Republicans crash the economy? Will President Obama give away the store? How soon will markets panic?

But intensifying the drama is that darned ticking clock.

A few weeks ago, White House officials told congressional leaders that waiting to the last minute, or even the last week, for a debt-ceiling agreement wasn’t a viable option. The cutoff date — the date circled on the calendar as the day a deal must be complete in order to meet the deadline — was July 22.

That, as it turns out, happens to be today. And in case this isn’t obvious, the odds of wrapping up an agreement today aren’t especially good.

So, where does that leave us with regards to the inflexible calendar? As of a couple of days ago, the plan looked relatively straightforward: the House passes Cut, Cap, and Balance; the Senate defeats Cut, Cap, and Balance; the Senate starts the clock on the McConnell/Reid Plan B compromise; the Senate passes Plan B; the House whines about Plan B; the House passes Plan B anyway; and President Obama signs Plan B. Disaster averted.

As of this morning, the course is far less clear. The Senate will defeat CC&B, probably today. The McConnell/Reid Plan B is reportedly done, and ready to be introduced, though all of the details have not yet been shared. But the Gang of Six is still making noises about trying to get its plan into legislative form in time for Aug. 2; House Republicans are still making noises about rejecting Plan B and the Gang of Six; and the White House is still trying to persuade Democrats to support a Grand Bargain that, by most accounts, is pretty awful.

“That,” Brian Beutler reports this morning, “leaves us at crunch time.”

After Friday’s symbolic vote on Cut, Cap, and Balance, the President and Congressional leaders will have about 48 hours to announce a deal that can pass both Houses. If that doesn’t happen, Reid will file cloture on a fallback plan — Plan Z — he’s negotiated with Mitch McConnell to avert catastrophe. According to top Senate Democratic and Republican aides, that plan’s largely written, sitting on a shelf, and ready to go if the prospects for a bigger deal diminish.

If Senate conservatives do all they can to delay Plan Z, it could take the Senate until Friday to pass it. And if the House adheres to its own rules, which requires legislation to be publicly available for 72 hours before a final vote — the debt limit bill won’t be ready for the President to sign until a week from Monday, one day before Treasury’s drop-dead date August 2.

Reid would be able to pause that plan if a bigger deal manifests between now and the middle of next week. At that point legislators could pass a days-long extension of the country’s borrowing authority while the grand bargain was drafted, scored, and put to a vote. But he has to set things in motion imminently, or the government will reach August 2 empty handed.

Tick tock.

As rumors about the so-called “Grand Bargain” caused an uproar yesterday, I received an interesting email from a regular reader:

“Why would Obama snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? He was winning! Don’t throw in the towel when the other guy is on the ropes.”

Nate Silver had an item around the same time that struck a similar point (translated slightly from Twitterese):

“I feel like Obama is in a reverse-gravity underwear gnomes meme. (1) Win the public relations battle on the debt ceiling. (2) ???. (3) Capitulate.”

There’s obviously something to this. After months of head-spinning, soul-crushing debate, Democrats had the upper hand in the debt-ceiling fight. Americans are siding with Dems on raising the debt limit, seeking new revenue, and raising taxes on the wealthy. Republicans, meanwhile, are seen as unwilling to compromise, which happens to be true.

If a crisis unfolds, it would be the GOP that gets the blame, a point that’s not lost on the Republican leadership, most notably Mitch McConnell. The result is an unpopular party that’s isolated, divided, and viewed as needlessly extreme.

And President Obama is going to give in to these guys?

But it’s worth appreciating the fact that Obama only won half the battle, and in the larger context, it’s the half that doesn’t matter as much. The White House line — Congress has to do the right thing, and must adopt a responsible, balanced approach — won the day politically. But on Aug. 2, the United States will have exhausted its ability to pay its bills. Winning the public-relations fight is encouraging, but from Obama’s perspective, it doesn’t remove the looming threat that’s just 11 days away.

Part of the problem is that Republicans are losing the political fight, but don’t seem to care. It’s not as if the GOP’s Suicide Squad was starting to show signs of fatigue, and/or hinting at a willingness to give in. On the contrary, Republicans, especially in the House, are doing the opposite — digging in their heels, welcoming default, and rejecting calls to compromise.

Winning a public-relations battle is nice, but the president wants to avoid a catastrophe in less than two weeks. That means finding a solution and negotiating with a radicalized Republican Party that certainly seems willing to crash the economy on purpose.

That’s not to say Obama has been negotiating well. Indeed, if the reports are accurate, the president’s willingness to accept concessions goes way too far.

But some seem to have the impression that Obama can win the p.r. fight, use that as leverage, and wait for the GOP to fold. There’s no reason to think Republicans are or will be willing to fold, which makes some kind of compromise necessary.

This kind of compromise? I sure as hell hope not. But some kind of compromise.

President Obama spent much of the week in private talks with House Republican leaders, working on finding an agreement that would raise the debt ceiling, but last night, the president had a different task: persuading his own party’s congressional leaders that he’s on the right track.

Obama invited the top four congressional Dems — Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and Steny Hoyer — to the White House, and by all accounts, the group talked for about two hours, which as these meetings go, is quite a while. Ordinarily, after these sessions, lawmakers are willing to chat a bit with reporters, if only to share vague platitudes (“We’re continuing to make progress”), while their aides dish out tidbits. Last night, after the meeting, the Democratic leaders and their aides said absolutely nothing.

With that in mind, it’s worth pausing to appreciate a key caveat to all of the speculation surrounding this process: the number of people who have all the facts is exceedingly small, and those folks are pretty tightlipped. I mention this because some of the information that’s surfaced is very likely wrong, some is incomplete, and some has been twisted as part of a larger agenda. When weighing the validity of rumors, the phrase “caveat emptor” comes to mind.

That said, the reports that have surfaced — which, again, may not be entirely reliable — are so discouraging, one has to hope they’re wrong.

Those closest to the negotiations are sketching out a ridiculous picture: Republicans would get roughly $3 trillion in cuts over 10 years, including changes to entitlement programs, at the outset. Then, next year, Congress would take up an overhaul of the tax code, which would hopefully bring in some additional revenue.

This measure, in particular, is mind-blowing, if accurate:

[T]he president and Mr. Boehner were moving ahead with their plan, aides said, trying to agree on matters like how much new revenue would be raised, how much would go to deficit reduction, how much to lower tax rates and, perhaps most critical, how to enforce the requirement for new tax revenue through painful consequences for both parties should they be unable to overhaul the tax code in 2012.

The White House wants a trigger that would raise taxes on the wealthy; Mr. Boehner wants the potential penalty for inaction to include repeal of the Obama health care law’s mandate that all individuals purchase health insurance after 2014.

Got that? They’re talking about “trigger” that would kick in if tax-reform efforts falter next year, intended to provide an incentive for policymakers to follow through. For the White House, the trigger would be the expiration of Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy; for the Speaker, the trigger would the elimination of the individual mandate.

But that’s crazy. The White House’s idea of a trigger would happen anyway since the Bush-era rates are due to expire at the end of next year. Boehner’s idea has nothing to do with the budget process and wouldn’t actually save any money.

In the bigger picture, even having this “bargain” on the table is complicating an already-contentious process. The Senate was supposed to move forward, perhaps as early as tomorrow, on the McConnell/Reid “Plan B” compromise, which was up until recently the failsafe. Now “Plan B” is in jeopardy, in part because House Republicans don’t like it, and in part because the White House is focused on its far more ambitious agreement. The Senate, meanwhile, instead of working on Plan B, will probably defeat the House’s “Cut, Cap, and Balance” nonsense today, while still mulling over the Gang of Six plan.

The Aug. 2 deadline is 11 days away, and the House is taking the weekend off.

Here’s hoping this process comes into focus very soon, because right now, the fiasco appears to be turning into a farce.

Today’s edition of quick hits:

* Europe: “After weeks of uncertainty that revived fears about the foundations of the euro, European leaders on Thursday clinched a new rescue plan for Greece that could push the country into default on some of its debt for a short period but would give Europe’s bailout fund sweeping new powers to shore up struggling economies.”

* What’s up in DC this afternoon? “We’re not close to a deal,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney said.

* It sure would be nice if someone focused on job creation: “More Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, reflecting the volatility of applications during the annual auto-plant retooling period. Applications for jobless benefits increased 10,000 in the week ended July 16 to 418,000, Labor Department figures showed today.”

* It sure would be nice if someone focused on job creation, Part II: “Companies are laying off employees at a level not seen in nearly a year, hobbling the job market and intensifying fears about the pace of the economic recovery.”

* Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) took a very hard line on Congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Then he discovered his own state’s credit rating is at risk. Now he believes lawmakers have “got to get this done immediately.” (This gave me the best laugh I’ve had all day.)

* The Democratic-led Senate will be working through the weekend. The Republican-led House will take the weekend off.

* The White House issued another veto threat today, this time over House Republican efforts to gut the EPA.

* Why is Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) turning down federal funds aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect? Apparently because he’s not a good governor.

* Nick Kristof’s frustrations with right-wing congressional Republicans are becoming increasingly palpable. The mild-mannered columnist actually seems disgusted. Good for him.

* At MSNBC’s awkward 6 p.m. slot, Cenk Uygur is out after six months. He’ll be replaced by none other than Al Sharpton.

* The controversy surrounding Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) is quietly getting more interesting.

* Officials in Guam have every reason to be severely pissed with Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.).

* And Rush Limbaugh is convinced that the very existence of the heat index is some sort of government conspiracy. Fox News thinks so, too. I’ll at least give these folks credit for creativity.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.