Memorial Day Reads

A small group picnics on ledger-style tombstones in Historic St. Luke’s Ancient Cemetery. The photo is not dated but is believed to have been taken prior to St. Luke’s 1957 Pilgrimage Service. COURTESY HISTORIC ST. LUKE’S

Good day and I hope your Holiday weekend is peaceful, Sky Dancers!

This day reminds me of my family’s picnics in small-town Missouri and Kansas graveyards, where we would clean up the family plots. I don’t even remember where they are, although I could dig my scrapbooks up if I had a ladder to get up there.  We paid particular attention to the Civil War Veterans. Many had their own good size monuments. I don’t think anyone does this anymore, but I remember it clearly. “Remembering When Americans Picnicked in Cemeteries. For a time, eating and relaxing among the dead was a national pastime.” 

Now I  would just like to do it to remind the NeoConfederates they freaking lost.

It appears this new breed of them has also lost the debt ceiling deal.  I just hope they vote for it. This is from the Washington Post‘s Catherine Rampell. “With this debt limit deal, Congress has beclowned itself.”  Sure, why not send in the clowns?

With apologies to Peggy Lee: Is that all there is?

Late Saturday night, the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced broad outlines of a deal to resolve the debt limit standoff. Their agreement would suspend the debt ceiling through 2025 — which means, hopefully, taking the threat of default and ensuing global financial crisis off the table at least untilafter the next presidential election.

In exchange, Congress would expand spending on defense and veterans’ programs; leave Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and tax rates untouched; keep most other domestic spending roughly flat; trim funding for the Internal Revenue Service; modestly amend the permitting process for energy projects; and tweak the existing work requirements in the food-stamp program.

We’re still waiting on details, of course. But from what we know so far, this much-ballyhooed “deal” doesn’t seem terribly different from whatever budget agreement would have materialized anyway later this year, during the usual annual appropriations process, under divided government. To President Biden’s credit, the most objectionable ransoms that Republicans had been demanding are all gone. For example, there are no longer sharp cuts to safety-net programs, nor measures to effectively block all agency regulations nor new work requirements for Medicaid.

Arlington Cemetery. Illustration: The Library of Congress

This is from Dean Obeidallah writing at his substack The Dean’s Report: The Debt ceiling deal was a big WIN for Biden—and a big LOSS for Trump and MAGA.  MAGA is furious with the deal.”

Check out the deal Biden got. For starters and very importantly, it raises the debt ceiling for two years—not one as the GOP wanted. That means during the 2024 presidential election the House GOP can neither hold our economy hostage in exchange for massive cuts—nor cause a default that would be horrific for our economy but could be perceived as good for the 2024 GOP presidential candidate.

In addition, the budget cuts agreed–to per a NY Times analysis Sunday–amount to only “a fraction of the cuts Republicans originally sought.” In addition, Biden’s student loan relief program and climate change policies all remain intact. The deal also meets the requests in Biden’s budget to increase spending for the military and veterans affairs in line with inflation. However, the deal will include increasing work requirements—temporarily—as demanded by the GOP for certain federal programs but at the same time it expands food stamp benefits for veterans and the homeless.

The reality is that this deal—if approved—was much more than just about raising the debt ceiling. Like many of us, I believed—as I wrote last week–that President Biden should invoke the untested, yet legally plausible approach of invoking Section 4 of the 14^th Amendment to authorize the Treasury to pay bills above the debt limit.  (The history behind that post-Civil War Amendment makes using it today against the same GOP responsible for the Jan 6 attack was especially fitting.)

But it became clear late last week from President Biden that these negotiations were more focused on reaching a broader budget deal. As the President stated Thursday afternoon: “I want to be clear that the negotiations were happening with Speaker McCarthy is about the outlines of what the budget will look like, not about default.” He added, “It’s about competing visions for America. Speaker McCarthy and I have a very different view of who should bear the burden of additional efforts to get our fiscal house in order.”

If you want a good smile this morning, try this headline from CBS News.  “Russia issues arrest warrant for Sen. Lindsey Graham.”  Well alright then. 

 Russia’s Interior Ministry on Monday issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine.

In an edited video of his meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was released by Zelenskyy’s office, Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that “the Russians are dying” and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

While Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation, the short video by Ukraine’s presidential office put them next to each other, causing outrage in Russia.

Later, Zelenskyy’s office issued video of Graham’s actual remarks showing the shorter version had been edited. The Reuters news agency made the video available.

I’m keeping it short today because I’ve been sick the last few days and the fever finally broke last night but I’m still exhausted.  Hope you’re enjoying the day!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

This definitely is an open thread.