The White House kept saying there was no deal, and now John Boehner is saying there is no deal. All that self-righteous liberal hyperventilation has gone for naught. It could have been hooked up to a power generator and run some air conditioners, at least.

Boehner is kicking the can to the Senate, telling them it’s their turn to make a deal. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor challenged Democrats to produce their own plan. I say the Dems should write a one-sentence declaration about raising the debt ceiling on a napkin, no strings attached, and submit it for a vote this afternoon. Call it “The Democratic Plan to Avert a Damnfool Calamity.”

If the New York Times article that touched off al the hyperventilation is correct, the President was at least holding out for a deal that would increase revenue in the future, with a “trigger” to go into effect if the deal were not met. Obama wanted the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire. Boehner wanted the Affordable Care Act to be repealed.

In other words, it wasn’t gonna happen, anyway.

In other news — the Florida legislature has rejected more than $50 million in federal grant money for a child-abuse prevention program.

The money, offered through the federal Affordable Health Care Act passed last year, would have paid, among other things, for a visiting nurse program run by Healthy Families Florida, one of the most successful child-abuse prevention efforts in the nation. Healthy Families’ budget was cut in last year’s spending plan by close to $10 million.

And because the federal Race to the Top educational-reform effort is tied to the child-abuse prevention program that Healthy Families administers, the state may also lose a four-year block grant worth an additional $100 million in federal dollars, records show.

The Florida legislature would rather sell their children to pedophiles than touch one dime of Affordable Care Act money, apparently. This is what passes for “principle” in some quarters.

Also, the Right is fighting a recommendation that insurance carriers be required to cover all FDA-approved methods of contraception.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/21/2323996/florida-rejects-child-abuse-prevention.html#ixzz1Sr4CIioz

First off, here is the promised Barney Frank rant (Barney comes in at about the 10:30 mark, although the part before that is interesting, too):

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As was true yesterday, there are stories that President Obama and Speaker Boehner are close to a deal, and there are all kinds of rumors about what’s in the deal, and lots of people are already mad about it and condemning the deal, which as far as I can tell is only a rumor because the White House is still denying there is a deal. And I’m not going to spend the day chasing down every rumor and ranting about how President Obama is selling us out again. You can go to Firedoglake for that.

Here is some other stuff to read —

Nate Silver writes that Republican governors have moved to the Right of their constituents even in right-wing states. “It suggests that the party has become uninterested in appealing to swing voters — and that the voters are starting to notice.”

“Credit Agencies Warn GOP of ‘Death Spiral.” Not that they’ll listen.

“It’s Hotter Than It Used to Be.” Seriously. Here in Mahaville it’s supposed to top 100 degrees F. today, which is unusual for New York.

Krugman’s column. Despair.