“Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes — a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown.” [Minneapolis StarTribune]

The extent to which Republicans are willing to damage the country’s long term health to protect the assets of the moneyed classes is truly astonishing (and sickening). Howard Kurtz, writing for The Daily Beast, reports that even as the GOP stands in absolute opposition to any tax increases that might form part of a budget package to reduce the national debt, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Viginia representative Eric Cantor have identified one area of potential revenue increases they are willing to consider. Student loans:

As Monday’s White House budget talks got down to the nitty-gritty, Eric Cantor proposed a series of spending cuts, one of them aimed squarely at college students.

The House majority leader, who did most of the talking for the Republican side, said those taking out student loans should start paying interest right away, rather than being able to defer payments until after graduation. It is a big-ticket item that would save $40 billion over 10 years

That Republicans are willing to make higher education even more unaffordable than it is now to shield their wealthy patrons from tax increases is simply astonishing and betrays a degree of irresponsibility that is difficult to fathom. As our economy becomes more and more focused on high technology and innovation and as the nation faces ever mounting challenges from emerging econmies around the world, the GOP is promoting policies that would hamper the educational prospects of our next generation of scientists, businessmen, entrepeneurs and innovators. It’s mind boggling. It’s a dagger, thrust directly into the heart of the middle class. How these people still command legions of angry followers simply defies explanation. GOP voters need to get back on their meds so they can see the world as it really is, and not as the screetching voices echoing in the hollow spaces of their paranoid minds tell them it is.

Our guest columnist is David Brooks.

Two years ago, Democrats waxed romantic. This year, the Republicans seem modest and cautious. I haven’t seen this many sober Republicans since America lost the Ryder Cup.

We have to be careful not to get carried away, says Lamar Alexander, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate. “I was thinking about putting photos of Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman in the Republican cloakroom to remind us not to overreach,” he told me on Monday.

We have to beware of unrealistic expectations, emphasized Senator Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican. Republicans can’t accomplish big things without Democratic help. They can’t defund Obamacare on their own or pass a new tax law.

Many Americans are still skeptical about us, acknowledged Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House. We can’t do anything that might unsettle them, like shutting down the government. Instead, Republicans need to offer reassurance…

Read more »

And only a day after Orrin Hatch trotted out Thurston Howell III.

Sherwood Schwartz, Creator of Gilligan and the Bradys, Dies at 94 [NYT]

“President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.” [CBS]

While Michele Bachmann’s Wacky Family Business is familiar to anyone who follows politics, it hasn’t been part of the Lamestream Narrative. Until now.

ABC’s World News Tonight:

A former patient who sought help from the Christian counseling clinic owned by GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, told ABC News he was advised that prayer could rid him of his homosexual urges and he could eventually be “re-oriented.”

NBC’s Today Show:

NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports that undercover video taken from Michele Bachmann’s Christian counseling center reveals that her therapists are using prayer and Bible scriptures to help cure people of homosexual tendencies.

Welcome to the Show, Michele. Your bigoted teabagger fans won’t care, but the rest of America just caught their first glimpse of what you’re really about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZFX7C1a94U

Our guest columnist is Matthew Chapman, writer and director of the new movie “The Ledge”, which does for atheists what the “Atlas Shrugged” movie did for Libertarians.

This could be the Brokeback Mountain moment for atheists, our tipping point, when we finally get the attention we deserve. Although books have put atheists into the intellectual mainstream, The Ledge is the first Hollywood drama to target the broader movie-going public with an openly atheist hero in a production big enough to attract A-list stars. This is unprecedented.

Although the film was nominated for Best US Drama for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has huge potential to promote atheism, it could also be a crushing defeat. How many watch it — and it just came in 3rd in Russia against Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda — determines the push it will get nationwide. If Brokeback Mountain had failed at the box office, it would have scared investors away from gay-centric films for a decade. When Passion Of The Christ came out, it was heavily supported by Christians, and consequently Hollywood made several more faith-based films. It is vital that we atheists prove that we support films that support us. This is how the door opens.

How to help The Ledge [Ledge Movie]

Director hopes new film will be ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for atheists [Raw Story]