McConnell proposal would force major review of entitlements  —  Larry Kudlow, who's plugged in with Congressional Republicans, scoops a key new detail about the emerging Mitch McConnell proposal to transfer control of the debt ceiling to the president:

Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in Orange County  —  “Why aren't you seeing Harry Potter?” an usher said to the reporter sitting alone in the audience  —  When the clock struck 12:01 am today, AMC theaters in select cities were permitted to start showing “The Undefeated,” a feature length documentary about Sarah Palin.

Marcus Bachmann says his clinics not anti-gay  —  Therapists will oblige if patients ask for counseling to become heterosexual, but they don't force treatment, he said.  —  The husband of Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann has come forward to defend his family-owned Christian …

Getting to Crazy  —  There aren't many positive aspects to the looming possibility of a U.S. debt default.  But there has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief — of the black-humor variety — in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy.

Can Obama Pull a ‘Clinton’ on the GOP?  —  He's following the budget-showdown script Bill Clinton used to win re-election.  But the economy added 434,000 new jobs in February 1996.  —  After a bruising midterm election, the president moves to the political center.  He distances himself from his Democratic base.

Phone Hacking: Rupert Murdoch's daughter in ‘furious’ attack on Rebekah Brooks  —  Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth has made a “furious” attack on Rebekah Brooks's handling of the phone hacking scandal at News International, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.  —  Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert

U.S. Recognizes Rebels in Libya  —  ISTANBUL, Turkey — The United States formally recognized the rebel leadership in Libya as the country's legitimate government on Friday, news agencies reported.  The move ratcheted up the diplomatic pressure on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi amid …

Fox And Friends Defends News Corp's Hacking Scandal: ‘We Should Move On’  —  Fox News finally addressed their parent company's hacking scandal head on this morning, with Fox and Friends launching a comically sycophantic and pathetically inaccurate defense of News Corp. Host Steve Doocy …

Michele Bachmann officially leaves her church  —  Washington (CNN) - Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has long been a darling of conservative evangelicals, but shortly before announcing her White House bid, she officially quit a church she'd belonged to for years.

Dear House Republicans, This is Your “Time For Choosing”  —  “From here on out, if you lose this fight, every time you balk at expanding government, social security checks will be withheld, medicare payments will be withheld, and in just a few short years, surgeries will be cancelled, vaccinations withheld, and hospitals shuttered.”

Q & A: Bristol Palin on Abstinence after Levi  —  Bristol Palin's launch into the public eye came quickly after her mother's own entrance into the public arena.  Her out-of-wedlock pregnancy came under scrutiny after Senator John McCain chose former Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Call Obama's bluff  —  President Obama is demanding a big long-term budget deal.  He won't sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?”  —  How about last December, when he ignored his own debt commission's recommendations?  How about February, when he presented a budget …

The Tragedy of Tim Pawlenty  —  He did everything right.  And that was the problem.  —  At almost precisely the minute that Michele Bachmann was declaring her presidential candidacy in Iowa at the end of June, I was interviewing Tim Pawlenty in a borrowed conference room in a midtown Manhattan financial firm.

Death and Budgets  —  I hope you had the chance to read and reread Dudley Clendinen's splendid essay, “The Good Short Life,” in The Times's Sunday Review section.  Clendinen is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S. If he uses all the available medical technology, it will leave him …

Osama Hit List: President Obama, Petraeus, Major U.S. Sporting Event  —  President Barack Obama boards Air Force One after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base Md., June 28, 2011.  Officials say that Osama bin Laden, still obsessed with attacking airplanes, was trying to hatch a plan to kill Obama …

Is The Government Hiring Overqualified Workers?  —  Dylan Matthews tries to tackle the question of whether public sector workers are overpaid.  He concludes that they're not: … The more I think about this question, the less sense I think it makes.  In a competitive labor market, nobody is “overpaid.”

It Was Debt What Did It  —  Never mind William Galston's strange belief that debt-deleveraging is a new theory, unknown to Keynesian economics; Mian and Sufi are in fact doing terrific work.  They have been testing the effects of household leverage by looking at cross-sectional evidence, in particular county-level US data.