BREAKING----DEAL! Boehner And White House Reach Debt Ceiling Accord

 The first indication of a deal was when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) abruptly delayed a late-Saturday night test vote on his plan lifting the federal debt ceiling until 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and said the move was made at the request of the White House.

Then around 11pm Jonathan Karl of ABC and Major Garrett of National Journal (formerly of Fox) have both announced a deal to end the debt ceiling stand off. Both reporters are describing a similar deal, which is very close to the Boehner plan but it has an automatic trigger in place to secure the "second half" of the debt ceiling increase, so no new negotiations will be necessary in December.


The deal begins with a short term increase of the debt ceiling, just a few days worth so the deal can be put in legislative language and passed.

Other component parts of the tentative deal include:

• $2.8 trillion in deficit reduction with $1 trillion locked in through discretionary spending caps over 10 years and the remainder determined by a so-called super committee.

• The Super Committee must report precise deficit-reduction proposals by Thanksgiving.

• The Super Committee would have to propose $1.8 trillion spending cuts to achieve that amount of deficit reduction over 10 years. If that doesn't happen, across-the-board spending cuts would go into effect and could touch Medicare and defense spending.While medicare benefits would not be cut, other cost savings would be achieved here which seems like nonsense.

• If the Super Committee fails, Congress must send a balanced-budget amendment to the states for ratification (at least according to Major Garrett, the ABC report is that there has to be a Balanced budget vote either way)

• The Super Committee is allowed to discuss spending cuts only...No net new tax revenue would be part of the special committee's deliberations.

Jennifer Rubin of WAPO also reported a deal, but without a BBA.  Which gave Ms. Rubin another opportunity to show her hatred of conservatives.

And the GOP extremists don’t get their balanced budget amendment passed and sent to the states or the satisfaction of blowing up the deal. As for the country, if it passes, the agreement will take us from the days of automatic debt-ceiling raises to the first, tentative steps toward fiscal sanity.

Her column is called "Right Turn"  maybe it should be called I hate the Right.  I don't know what the woman's problem is, maybe a conservative once pushed her aside to take away a cab from her, or maybe when she was in kindergarten a mean conservative stole her lunch money, possibly she once dated a conservative who broke her heart. Its just hard to understand why Jennifer Rubin has such venom for the right.

The Associated Press has weighed in they say the deal requires a vote for the BBA but not passage.

Congress would be required to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but none of the debt limit increase would be contingent on its approval.

Getting late..will update in the AM

UPDATE: My Friend Dan Riehl disagrees, he doesn't believe that Jennifer Rubin hates conservatives, its just that Jennifer Rubin Is An Asshole

TRUMP LIED: There NEVER Was Going To Be An Announcement During Last Apprentice Episode

The Trumpster has had a lousy day.  Fresh off this morning's polls that showed his political support falling down the abyss, we find out that there will be no candidacy announcement during the final episode of the Apprentice, in fact there never was going to be one.

The ratings-deflating news was delivered to National Journal on Tuesday by Sharon Pannozzo, publicity director for NBC Entertainment, who sounded a little miffed with The Donald’s false advertising.

“The show this weekend [part one of the finale] was taped back in November, and next week’s episode is also taped,” Pannozzo said. “So there will be no opportunity for him to do something like that.”

Over the past few weeks "The Donald" has said more than once that he would be announcing whether or not he would be running for President during the final episode of the Apprentice.

“I am thinking of saying on the live finale of The Apprentice on May 22 that in a few days I will be making an announcement about my decision,” Trump told the Times. ”I might ask the two finalists if I should run for president. Of course, if they’re intelligent they’ll have to say yes, since I’m about to fire one of them.”

Not exactly, according to the show’s publicist. “There will be no announcement,” Pannozzo said. “It’s just misinformation on his part.” Pannozzo insists there will be no live segments of the show. Asked about Pannozzo’s comments, Trump spokesman Michael Cohen confirmed to National Journal: “Mr. Trump will not be making any announcement during the finale of The Apprentice.”

So the entire thing was just Donald Trump being the carnival barker,trying to draw people into his tent of oddities.  Or as Seth Meyers said during the recent Correspondent's dinner

"I was surprised to hear that Trump was running as a Republican, I thought he was running as a joke"

I don't often agree with Meyer's politics, but this time he was absolutely correct. As a Presidential candidate, Trump was and is a joke.  This is just one more example.