Top Dems say they can’t negotiate with Eric Cantor.

Sen. Schumer (D-NY): “If Eric Cantor decides everything, I fear we’ll be in default.”

We’ve written a lot about the enormous impact that a downgrade of U.S. government debt would have on the cost of borrowing, driving up interest rates and increasing the short-term budget deficit and long term debt account.

But as Bloomberg reports, the impact on non-federal governmental entities will be enormous, too. The credit rating firm Moody’s acknowledged as much yesterday when it put U.S. government debt on its watch list for possible downgrade.

Some 7,000 top-rated munis would be automatically downgraded if the U.S. government lost its AAA rating. In addition the credit ratings of a host of state and local governments, housing bond programs, higher education and non-profit institutions, and other entities dependent on the federal government would be reviewed, Bloomberg reports.

Harry Reid calls Cantor “childish”, says “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has shown he shouldn’t be at the table and Republicans agree he shouldn’t be at the table.”

Yahoo News documents the stories of the long-term unemployed. As TPM alum Zack Roth, who wrote the piece, put it to me: “Even if you feel like you already understand the problem, which I did, it’s still pretty eye-opening to hear about …” Take a look.

The Facebook and Twitter extensions on Google+ pose a security risk.

Rupert and his son James Murdoch have declined to testify before the British Parliament’s Select Committee investigating the phone hacking scandal.

When you’re in the midst of extended, hard-fought negotiations and discover the other side has been negotiating in bad faith, do you (a) forgive and forget; (b) retract your own previous concessions; or (c) walk away from the table?

As it became publicly apparent this week Republicans were not acting in good faith in the debt ceiling negotiations — so apparent that even deep denial about the previous strong evidence of bad faith was no longer a sufficient buffer to reality — I was curious which of those strategies the White House would choose. Read More

Rep. Pete King (R-NY) calls on FBI to probe Murdoch’s News Corp over claims of hacking the phones of 9/11 victims.

Obama to GOP leaders on debt ceiling: “This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.”

Reports coming in that today’s two-hour debt ceiling negotiation session at the White House ended abruptly.

Dem source tells us reports of Obama walking out of the meeting way overblown.