If the House does pass the Boehner plan this evening (and vote expected around 6:30 or 7 p.m. ET), it will surely fail in the Senate or face a presidential veto. So what comes after that? Alas, it gets more complicated.

Former Notre Dame football player and current Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), in this morning’s House GOP meeting: “Put on your helmut, buckle your strap, run onto the field and beat the shit out of ’em.”

Jon Stewart identifies the epidemic sweeping through Republican ranks: Conservative Victimization Syndrome (CVS). The prime vector for CVS: Fox News. Watch.

Whatever the outcome of Thursday’s projected House vote on Speaker Boehner’s debt plan, this process has already ended the political life of one prominent member of the Washington establishment: John Maynard Keynes.

True, Keynes died in 1946. But his ghost hovered over America’s economic debate until pretty much Monday night. At that time, in their ostensibly dueling speeches, both President Obama and House Speaker Boehner embraced the language of “austerity” and performed an unwitting exorcism. Read More