The flag is back in the news, also in a fairly minor way. The conservative fake-rage machine cranked up into high dudgeon mode this week over a celebration of Pride Month at the White House, which included a display of the current iteration of the "rainbow flag" that has long been a symbol of the struggle for L.G.B.T.Q. rights. They complained about the pride flag being displayed at all, and a subset of them got fake-irate over a "violation of the U.S. Flag Code" (which it actually wasn't, as there was another U.S. flag being flown above, on the roof of the White House).

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There were two notable deaths in the world of politics today, both of which inspire such strong negative feelings within me that I have to step outside the norm of: "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum." Both of these men were odious creatures in their own right, with one of them far more odious than the other. But the more odious one -- Pat Robertson -- is being adequately vilified elsewhere today, and I had a column all ready to go for the other one anyway, so this (repeat) column is dedicated to the memory of President Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Interior, James Watt. This column was published eight years ago, and thankfully the nation has made great progress since then. It was written to celebrate only the third state (Alaska, after Colorado and Washington) and Washington D.C. legalizing the recreational usage of marijuana. Today, that tally stands at 23 states plus D.C.

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It's hard not to poke at least a little bit of fun at Speaker Kevin McCarthy's problems with the most fractious and unruly members of his caucus right now, since the whole episode is such weak tea compared to the strength the Freedom Caucus and the whole MAGA faction were supposed to have leveraged over McCarthy. They haven't exactly turned into paper tigers, but I've read more than one article in the past 24 hours which used the term "defanged," which seems about right.

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Seventy-nine years ago today, the forces of the free world attacked the fascist Nazi regime in northern France. This year, the Ukrainian military is marking the anniversary of D-Day by starting their own counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces. Back here at home, Chris Christie will be announcing his bid to take on Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. There are obvious moral parallels that can be drawn between these events, but today we're going to leave that to others (for the most part).

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And so it all ended with a whimper and not a bang. President Joe Biden will sign the bill passed by both houses of Congress to increase the debt ceiling until after the 2024 elections. The bill is a clear victory for Biden, since it contains very little (virtually any) of the initial Republican budget-slashing demands. But Biden couldn't come out and say how good a deal he got from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy until now, because if he had done so it would have fed into the resistance by the farthest-right members of Congress, but now that the bill has safely been passed Biden has scheduled an Oval Office address for later today (7:00 PM, Eastern Time). We should note this is too late for anything he says to be addressed or included here in this column, but we will definitely be watching Biden speak later on today. [Editorial Note: we did listen to Biden's address, and we know it may be hard to believe, but we had picked out our "Crisis Averted" headline before Biden used the phrase tonight.]

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The news broke in Washington over the holiday weekend that we finally have a deal. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a plan which will constrain the federal budget and raise the debt ceiling past the 2024 elections. Nobody's exactly thrilled with the parameters of the deal, with grumbles being heard from both from the MAGA right and the progressive left. At this point, though, the deal looks like it will likely garner enough support to pass the House, and the Senate likely won't kill it off at the last minute. That's where things currently stand at any rate.

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We began the week waiting, and we are ending the week waiting. All week long, rumors have leaked out about the status of the budget negotiations between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden, with both sides spinning madly to impress their bases, but we end the week with no deal actually inked.

However, we may be close. At least, that's today's big leak. It seems like both sides have agreed to some topline numbers with various face-saving things thrown in so they can both claim at least a certain degree of victory. Whether this actually works or not is still an open question.

Members of both parties are doubtlessly going to howl when the details are publicly released, and then they'll accuse their own negotiators of "giving away the store." But others will accept the face-saving spin and push forward, most likely. That's usually the endgame for such sticky negotiations, at any rate.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is now officially a candidate for president of the United States. He filed paperwork earlier today, and he will be making his campaign launch announcement in a fairly unconventional way (perhaps even as we write this) on Twitter (with Elon Musk). His entry into the race is not at all unexpected, and will have come as a surprise to precisely no one. He's essentially already been running since at least last year. But by announcing, DeSantis has now made it official -- the race for the Republican nomination is now a two-man race.

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President Joe Biden could have avoided the political nightmare he is now caught in the middle of, if he had earlier worked with those in Congress who attempted to deal with the situation before it ever got to this point. But Biden, for some inexplicable reason, decided not to defuse the ticking time bomb and instead he counted on it not blowing up in his face. Assuming for the moment that somehow we'll all manage to safely get out of this situation in the next few weeks (which is still a rather large assumption, at this point), Biden should at least learn the lesson of his own inaction. When the dust settles on the current debt ceiling crisis (no matter how it works out), Biden should immediately move to avoid it ever happening again. Right after whatever deal is struck and passed through Congress, Biden should announce to the country that he has now determined that the debt ceiling itself is incompatible with the 14th Amendment and therefore unconstitutional and null and void. Doing so after the current crisis has been resolved would allow the issue to be litigated while there is no looming threat of default. The case could work its way through the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court with plenty of time to spare, and whichever way the courts ultimately ruled, it wouldn't cause a worldwide economic panic.

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With twelve more days left in the month of May, the debt ceiling follies continue unabated. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy just "paused" the negotiations with President Joe Biden, which was a rather pessimistic note to close out what had otherwise been a rather optimistic week. There is speculation that both sides are using this "pause" merely as a political signal to their respective bases -- to show that they are negotiating hard and not giving away the store. If this is true, negotiations will likely resume at some point this weekend. But it's anyone's guess whether they'll agree even on a framework (much less actual legislative text) any time soon.

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