Obama: Something is wrong with country's politics - Yahoo! News

Obama: Something is wrong with country's politics - Yahoo! News: "NEW YORK (AP) — Aligning himself with a public fed up with economic uncertainty and Washington gridlock, President Barack Obama declared Thursday: 'There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics.'
His toughly worded message — he said there was frustration in his voice, in case anyone missed the point — came amid a series of polls showing that people are disgusted with political dysfunction and are dispensing blame all around, including on Obama."

New GOP Strategy Involves Reelecting Obama, Making His Life Even More Miserable | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Ah, this would explain so much...

New GOP Strategy Involves Reelecting Obama, Making His Life Even More Miserable | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "Calling a GOP victory in the 2012 presidential election antithetical to the party platform, top Republicans revealed a new long-term political strategy Tuesday: reelecting Barack Obama and making his life even more of a living hell than it already is.

'For three years, the Republican Party has coalesced around the single goal of making President Obama's every waking moment sheer and utter torture,' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. 'But we can't continue to do that if he's not in office.'"

John Oliver: The Implosion of America

John Oliver: Shaking the addiction to pettiness - CNN.com: "The 'Daily Show' correspondent was recently in Montreal, where he was hosting a comedy gala called 'Decline of the American Empire?' at the famous Just For Laughs festival. And while he emphasized the show title's punctuation, he also noted that, 'The question mark is getting smaller and smaller as the news progresses, particularly today.'"

The Tea Party Won’t Like This. Pass It On. | MoveOn.Org

The Tea Party Won’t Like This. Pass It On. | MoveOn.Org: "For the first time in history, the U.S. credit rating has been downgraded.
This “tea party downgrade” is a shameful blow to our nation’s honor and risks throwing us right back into recession. Worst of all? It was completely avoidable.
But when given the choice between extremist posturing and responsible leadership, tea party Republicans chose wrong. And now, amazingly, they’re trying to pin the blame on Democrats.1"

Standard and Poor's blames all of Washington - The Oval - USATODAY.com

Standard and Poor's blames all of Washington - The Oval - USATODAY.com

From Standard and Poor's report:

-- More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic
challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

-- Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any time soon.

S&P defends US downgrade, cites political gridlock - Yahoo! News

S&P defends US downgrade, cites political gridlock - Yahoo! News: "Standard & Poor's on Saturday defended its downgrade of the US long-term credit rating, and blamed the move on Washington's political gridlock on fiscal policy."

The Debt Ceiling Deal Explained In One Chart

The Debt Ceiling Deal Explained In One Chart