House Speaker John Boehner’s last-minute “pep talk” to his Republican caucus early Thursday morning failed to turn the tide of Tea Partier “nays” to “yeas,” and the vote on his debt-limit bill has been postponed. Calling on them to “get ... in line” because “I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me,” Boehner failed in getting the 216 votes he needed. He claimed, “The Republican proposal includes real spending cuts and reforms that will restrain future spending — and the spending cuts are larger than the debt limit increase.”

 The latest poll by the Washington Post-ABC News, published last week, provided one more indication of President Obama’s increasing difficulties in generating support for his reelection campaign. When 1,001 people were asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?” almost half responded negatively, with one-third strongly disapproving, up from 24 percent just two months earlier.

Writers Carl Hulse and Jackie Calmes, in the New York Times, could scarcely contain their delight that House Republicans have decided to put any proposed changes to Medicare on the shelf for the time being. Recognizing that Medicare modifications are a critical component of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) “Road Map,” the pair ascribed the Republicans’ backing off to “the difficulties and political perils of addressing the nation’s long-term fiscal problems.” Translation: Democrat control of the Senate assures that any attempt to modify Medicare at present will meet certain and ignominious defeat.

The “Cold Case Posse” of Maricopa County, Arizona, has concluded it has “probable cause” that the President’s birth certificate released by the White House last April is “a computer-generated” forgery.

The creditors’ committee representing what’s left of Lehman Brothers asked bankruptcy Judge James Peck last week to force Timothy Geithner (left) — currently Obama’s Treasury Secretary but President of the New York Fed at the time of the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy — to answer some questions. The original subpoena issued by the committee to Geithner to appear last August was ignored and so the committee appealed to Judge Peck.

Writer Bruno Waterfield’s claim that Germany has drawn up plans to deal with the inevitable Greek default was published in the British newspaper The Telegraph a little after 8 p.m. Saturday night. Within hours his claim was confirmed separately by blogger John Ward with times, dates, and consequences all spelled out by those drawing up the plans.

The European Commission (EC) on Tuesday threatened to take legal action against Hungary unless it revised its brand new constitution to allow the country’s central bank to operate without interference from the Hungarian government. The EC’s threat requires a response within 30 days.

In his interview at King World News, James Turk, founder of GoldMoney and author of The Coming Collapse of the Dollar, noted in his travels around Europe that “there is one common trait, regardless of which country I am in: people are really frightened about the possibility of the collapse of the euro. Money continues to move out of the European banking system, which explains why central banks stepped in with some money printing last week.”

Economist and TV personality Larry Kudlow explained that the decision on Wednesday by many of the world’s central banks made it easier for European banks to borrow dollars from the Federal Reserve.

As the finance ministers from each of the 17 members of the eurozone meet in Brussels today, the main topic is “integration.” It’s a race against the clock.