The Republican party's ability to spontaneously organize around anything, just to show that they can, is a thing of beauty. President Obama wants a few hundred billion dollars in revenue increases to go along the $2 trillion in cuts that you want? Don't give in a cent, walk out, let the president excoriate you, and then get your entire 47-member Senate caucus to demand a comical balanced budget constitutional amendment as part of a debt-ceiling agreement, too.

President Obama held a press conference at the White House today! The questions came fast and furious — actually rather slowly, since he talks for 10 minutes at a time — and now all Americans are 100% informed about every issue. Here's an executive summary.

The White House has maintained its unwavering promise that the President won't sign any major deficit reduction deal without substantial revenue increases. Much of this could come through closing tax loopholes and canceling ending major subsidies, but obviously the cornerstone of the White House's call for more revenues is to return the highest two income tax bracket rates to their Clinton-era levels. But yet again, it's starting to sound like that's being put on hold.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, one of the GOP's hot little pieces known as the "Young Guns," moonlights as a weiner who's incapable of negotiating to prevent America from defaulting on its public debt. He's just "pulled out" of his role as the House Republicans' leading negotiator in the ongoing talks with Joe Biden, and has demanded John Boehner settle the remaining "tax issues" so he doesn't have to.

At least some players in the world of High Finance are starting to ease up about the consequences of the United States defaulting on its debt. Until recently, the consensus had been that any default caused by Congress' failure to raise the debt ceiling would risk a calamitous panic, so the hike shouldn't be open to the politics of brinksmanship. But now that analysts listening into Washington are expecting a ceiling hike to coincide with long-term debt reduction measures, then, well, maybe a brief "technical default" of a "few days" would be worth it if Congress needs that time to strike a deal. Sounds easy! Let's do it. But maybe not? Because this all rests on a pretty thin reading of our irreparably broken political system.

Here's some lovely Thursday afternoon news: The credit rating agency Moody's has pre-warned the United States about the possibility of debt default later this year, saying that it will downgrade ratings on America's public debt — the safest investment in the world — from AAA to AA should an agreement not be reached.

House Republicans will give President Obama the vote he requested on a "clean" debt ceiling hike today, meaning one without any spending cuts attached. Every Republican and at least half of Democrats are expected to vote against it, thereby giving Republicans the opportunity to say to the president, See? We told you that a bill to prevent America from defaulting on its debt and the global economy from collapsing wouldn't pass without some fundamental changes to the social contract attached, so now let's, uh, end Medicare or some such. What a world, right?

Today is the day that the U.S. meets its debt ceiling, meaning we're not allowed to borrow one more penny on top of the $14,307,799,341,563.81 we already owe to the Chinese. Unless Mommy and Daddy and Eric Cantor agree to co-sign our application for a new credit line, that is.

House Speaker John Boehner will tell a bunch of bankers tonight that his members won't accept a federal debt ceiling hike for anything less than "trillions" in spending cuts. This is an aggressive posture. Stupid arbitrary caps on stuff!

Top Republican House members and activists are mulling over a plan to raise the debt limit slightly every two months, effectively giving them more hostage-taking opportunities to force spending cuts. Creditors probably wouldn't like such a permanent high-wire act.

The federal government is expected to reach its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit on or around May 16. House Republicans have been demanding deep spending cuts in exchange for a vote to raise this ceiling, even though no congressional leader would really allow the United States government to reach this limit and default on its debt shortly afterwards, thereby destroying the global economy forever.

Okay, banksters, let's call a temporary truce: We'll stop calling you sociopathic bloodsucking hell monsters for a few weeks, if you can just get Speaker John Boehner to stop using the impending debt ceiling vote as leverage to cut basically every entitlement program. We're all in this together against the dingbats who don't understand that failing to raise the debt ceiling means Global Apocalypse, not "tightening our belts" or whatever other homey metaphor that doesn't apply to macroeconomic reality.

Fresh off last week's down-to-the-wire spending showdown, President Obama and Speaker John Boehner are locking horns again on fiscal matters — and this time the stakes for the U.S. economy are even more monumental.

The Way We Live Now: putting our head right through the ceiling. We are giants. We grow a foot every day. Our ceiling's only seven feet high, and we're eight feet tall. Should we raise the ceiling? Nah. Risk it!