The Murdoch media scandal continues to unfold in Britain. It appears that Murdoch’s attempt to co-opt British new media as much as he has co-opted U.S. media is crumbling. Yes, he owns the Sun, the Times, and the Sunday Times. But he’s going to have a hard time expanding.

Murdoch had been expected to take over British Sky Broadcasting, or BSkyB, a satellite television company that broadcasts in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland. The Brits would have had their own Faux News! But Parliament is telling him to drop it. Editorialists are saying that Muroch’s media ambitions are detrimental to Great Britain’s national interests.

George Monbiot writes,

Is Murdoch now finished in the UK? As the pursuit of Gordon Brown by the Sunday Times and the Sun blows the hacking scandal into new corners of the old man’s empire, this story begins to feel like the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. The naked attempt to destroy Brown by any means, including hacking the medical files of his sick baby son, means that there is no obvious limit to the story’s ramifications. …

… The cracks are appearing in the most unexpected places. Look at the remarkable admission by the rightwing columnist Janet Daley in this week’s Sunday Telegraph. “British political journalism is basically a club to which politicians and journalists both belong,” she wrote. “It is this familiarity, this intimacy, this set of shared assumptions … which is the real corruptor of political life. The self-limiting spectrum of what can and cannot be said … the self-reinforcing cowardice which takes for granted that certain vested interests are too powerful to be worth confronting. All of these things are constant dangers in the political life of any democracy.”

Indeed, this very confluence of power and assumptions is one of the primary reasons the United States has become dysfunctional. Apparently, the British are taking this seriously. I hope so.

Yes, there is an agreement, although not one that raises the debt ceiling. Left and Right are united in opposition to the McConnell Contingency Plan!

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the Mitch McConnell proposal, and am pleased to see Steve Benen struggled with it also. However, Brian Beutler figured it out —

The plan is designed to give President Obama the power to raise the debt limit on his own through the end of his first term, but to force Democrats to take a series of votes on the debt limit in the months leading up to the election. This would stave off the threat of defaulting on national obligations, but keep the charged issues of debt and spending at the center of political debate for months.

Here’s the juicy part —

The plan would require Congress to pass a bill allowing Obama to raise the debt limit on his own, contingent on a series of steps: Obama would have to notify Congress of his intent tor raise the debt limit — a high-sign to Congress that would be subject to an official censure known as a “resolution of disapproval,” and which Obama could veto. If he vetoed the resolution, and if Congress sustained the veto, then Obama would also have to outline a series of hypothetical spending cuts he’d make, equal to the amount of new debt authority he’d give himself. Only then would the Treasury be allowed to issue new debt.

McConnell proposes rolling out this process in three tranches, to force Obama to request more borrowing authority, and to force debt limit votes in Congress, repeatedly through election season.

However, the Right rose up and shouted its opposition as soon as word of this got out. John Boehner approves, however.

A lot of details of this scheme remain fuzzy. Needless to say, Democrats would be insane to agree to this.

Update: Rachel Maddow is calling this a surrender on the part of the GOP.

Lawrence O’Donnell thinks that President Obama has been masterfully playing Republicans in the debt ceiling talks (h/t c u n d gulag):

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Joan Walsh considers this:

Is President Obama proving his political genius by floating a plan for a $4 trillion deficit cut deal to lift the debt ceiling, offering entitlement cuts that will enrage parts of his base knowing he’ll never face their wrath, because far-right Republicans will never take the deal? It could be. House Speaker John Boehner rejected Obama’s “grand bargain” Sunday and Monday, because his members won’t consider anything to raise revenue, not even closing loopholes for corporate private jets or a tax giveaway for hedge fund managers. Insiders say this lets Obama look like “the only grownup,” the man who was willing to snub key parts of his base for the greater good of the country, while Republicans bowed to their Tea Party and corporate masters. Everyone knows Republicans don’t care about the deficit. They’ve already voted for the budget-busting Ryan plan, whose tax cuts increase the deficit.. This is all about greed masquerading as supply side economics that have been discredited by the experiments of the last 30 years.

Walsh is wrong that “everyone knows” Republicans don’t care about the deficit, because rank-and-file teabaggers are way too stupid and/or brainwashed to understand what’s going on here, and plenty of independents still aren’t paying close enough attention. But “everyone” who is a player in this little drama knows it, I suspect.

I hope Obama’s positioning himself as ready for big compromise, secure Republicans will never agree to a deal that raises revenue. But there’s no proof either way. The president’s willingness to throw Social Security and Medicare into the mix has always worried me, even if it’s just political theatre. Every time this president accepts the way Republicans frame fiscal and economic issues, he moves the debate in this country farther to the right.

I’ve been wondering myself is some of the President’s positions have been more about political theater than actual offers. If it is political theater, it’s a big gamble. If the Republicans actually took him up on the deal, it’s possible Dems would vote against it and keep it from passing in the Senate.

But Eric Cantor is saying that merely voting to increase the debt ceiling is a concession in itself, and the only concession Republicans are willing to make. The game of chicken continues.