The New York Times says President Obama and John Boehner are close to striking a deal on spending cuts and taxes. Democrats are reportedly very angry. According to the Times, it involves:

$3 trillion in savings that would be obtained through substantial spending cuts and future revenues produced through an overhaul of the tax code.

Fearful of leaks that stalled prior talks, both sides are clamming up. What that tells me: Someone's going to get thrown under the bus. [More...]

John Edwards can't seem to catch a break. Today, the FEC ordered his campaign to return $2.6 million in matching funds it had received after announcing he quit the 2004 presidential race.

The FEC determined that Edwards had received just over 2.1 million dollars in matching funds after the campaign was winding down and Edwards was no longer in the race. The commission decided that in total his campaign must pay back $2,278,315 in excess matching funds.

According to the FEC, "Presidential candidates receive federal government funds to pay for the valid expenses of their political campaigns in both the primary and general elections."

Sounds like Edwards had an inkling this would be the ruling. On June 30, 2011, the campaign had $2.6 million in cash-on-hand.

Another busy work day here.

The hanging death of Jonah Shacknai's girlfriend so soon after of the death of his six year old son Max, who had fallen down the stairs days earlier, is a bit of a puzzler.

But San Diego County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Roy Frank and Coronado police Chief Louis Scanlon, in separate interviews, have stressed to reporters that there are suicide cases in which the person ties their hands to keep from trying to loosen the knot around their neck.

The Sheriff's Department, taking the lead in the investigation of Zahau's death, has said it cannot yet decide between suicide and foul play as the cause of death.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

One of those days.

You'll want to watch the Tour de France the next 4 days, two mountain top finishes in the Alps (tomorrow on the HC (Beyond Category) Col de Galibier after two HC climbs, Friday on the Alpe d'Huez), and Saturday the likely decisive time trial in Grenoble.

Sunday is the parade down the Champs Elysees (except for the sprinters and their leadouts.)

Open Thread.

New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie today said he will allow the medical marijuana bill passed under his predecessor to be implemented. Doctors will be allowed to prescribe marijuana in New Jersey (but patients can't grow it.)

Only patients in New Jersey suffering from specific ailments such as HIV, cancer and multiple sclerosis can be prescribed medical marijuana, and then only after other treatments have failed. The law also is the first in the nation to prohibit patients from growing their own crop at home.

New Jersey is now the 16th state to allow medical marijuana (the District of Columbia does as well.)

It's too hot to blog any more tonight, and our earlier open thread is almost full, so here's another one, all topics welcome.

The Department of Justice says 16 people have been arrested in the U.S., 5 arrests took place in Europe and more than 35 search warrants were executed, as part of an "ongoing investigation into coordinated cyber attacks against major companies and organizations."

DOJ says three criminal cases have been filed in the U.S., the main one being an Indictment in San Jose, concerning the cyberattack on Paypal in December, 2010, allegedly in retaliation for Paypal's blocking contributions to Wikileaks. 14 defendants have been charged in that case.

DOJ says the Indictment has been unsealed, and while it is not yet showing on the California docket, it is available on Colorado's ECF filing system, because one of the defendants, Vincent Kershaw, was arrested here and appeared in court today. You can read it here.

The other two cases are in the Middle District of Florida and the District of New Jersey, where individual complaints were filed against the two other arrestees. The Florida case involves the June, 2011 hacking of the Tampa Bay InfraGard website. "InfraGard is a public-private partnership for critical infrastructure protection sponsored by the FBI with chapters in all 50 states." [More...]

It's another busy work day for me. For those of you online, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The FBI has swooped down on the homes of Anonymous members in Long Island and Brooklyn. They are executing search warrants.

More than 10 FBI agents arrived at the Baldwin, N.Y., home of Giordani Jordan with a search warrant for computers and computer-related accessories, removing at least one laptop from the premises.

All eyes are on British Parliament today where hearings are underway in the News Corp phone hacking scandal. Newly resigned Scotland Yard Chief is being questioned, to be followed later this morning by Rupert Murdoch and his son James, and Rebekkah Brooks.

You can watch live here, or follow the Times' live updates here. All of our major cable news stations will carry Murdochs' questioning live, and when the second committee starts questioning the Murdochs and Brooks, the session is to be online here.

CNN yesterday unveiled live feeds of its tv programming for smartphones. If you have a home cable package that gets CNN, it's free. It took me only 3 minutes to set up yesterday on my iPad and the picture is great.

Open Thread.

Sean Hoare, the first journalist to expose the phone hacking scandal and Andy Coulson, has been found dead at his home. Hoare originally went to the New York Times with the story. He recently disclosed that reporters paid police to be able to "ping" the phones of celebrities.

He said journalists were able to use a technique called "pinging" which measured the distance between mobile handsets and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location.

Hoare gave further details about the use of "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'right that's where they are.'"

More on the pinging here. [More...]

"I think the College Republicans here would say I'm a pretty liberal President but if you read the Huffington Post you think I was some right wing tool of Wall Street. Both things can't be true. - President Barack Obama

I came across that video at Hullabaloo and Digby points to d-day's reaction to it. I want to share my own before I react to d-day's. It is in my title - some things are true. For example, it is true that:

(1) the 2009 stimulus was inadequate for the problems in the economy; (2) HAMP was a failure; (3) the Bush tax cuts were extended in December 2010 without an agreement on the budget or the debt ceiling; (4) the debt ceiling deal Obama seems on the verge of making will not be good for the economy; (5) Democrats were walloped in the 2010 elections; (6) the 2012 election looks like it is gonna be close, much closer than the 2008 election.

Let's assume for the moment that the truths described above are not what the President intended. What is his explanation for these results? Do these truths justify his approach to politics and the Presidency? If so, why? After all, the president is basically justifying himself in that video. Perhaps he could explain why the truths I list occurred if his approach was the right one. More . . .