Representative Thaddeus “Thad” McCotter of Livonia, Michigan, entered the presidential race in July 2011, and styles himself as a conservative, telling the Detroit NBC-TV affiliate, “I’m a Russell Kirk conservative. I’m a Ronald Reagan conservative.” But McCotter earned an anemic average of only 53 percent during his nine years as a Congressman on The New American’s “Freedom Index,” far lower than the other two Congressmen running for President, Ron Paul (100 percent) and Michele Bachmann (81 percent).

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's campaign for President announced that Romney has a committee of 63 lawyers advising his campaign August 2, and that list includes Bush administration torture lawyer Steven Bradbury. Bradbury, the Deputy Attorney General who approved the Bush administration torture policy written by John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, is also known for telling congressional investigators, "The President is always right."

President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 on August 2,  just hours after the U.S. Senate approved the measure, which would raise the debt limit as much as $2.4 trillion. Obama then launched into a public and phony political attack against the same tax "loopholes" that the White House website is promoting for energy companies.

The Obama-Boehner debt limit increase bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a 269-161 vote August 1, principally as a result of Republican votes. But most of the GOP presidential candidates, perhaps smelling the will of the voters, voted against the so-called Budget Control Act of 2011, which would raise the debt limit as much as an additional $2.4 trillion. GOP congressmen overwhelmingly voted in favor of the bill with a 174-66 vote. Meanwhile, Democrats were evenly divided, 95-95, meaning that half the Democrats opposed their leadership while most Republicans supported their leadership.

President Obama announced his debt deal with House Speaker John Boehner with a dramatic quote about the intensity of the cuts in the deal:

"The result would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was President — but at a level that still allows us to make job-creating investments in things like education and research."

The congressional Republican leadership has agreed to White House demands to raise the national debt by as much as $2.4 trillion and continue deficit spending into the indefinite future. The deal would trim about $900 billion from the anticipated $7 to 8-trillion deficit over the next 10 years — a little more than 10 percent of the total — and allow total federal spending to continue to grow rapidly. It would also set up a bipartisan commission charged with finding an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.

The one unmistakable conclusion that can be drawn from Monday's dueling press statements on the debt limit battle is that President Barack Obama is losing the argument for endless deficit spending. But a second conclusion is equally important. House Speaker John Boehner, whom Obama accused of trying to sell out the fiscally responsible Tea Party faction of his Republican party, is losing as well.

During the U.S. Senate debate over the  PATRIOT Act renewal on May 24, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told his fellow Senators: "There is secret law where, in effect, the interpretation of the law, as it stands today, is kept secret. So here we are, Senators on the floor, and we have colleagues of both political parties wanting to participate. Certainly, if you are an American, you are in Oregon or Colorado, you are listening in, you want to be part of this discussion. But yet the executive branch keeps secret how they are interpreting the law."

The RawStory.com headline blurted out a clear constitutional problem with the Michele Bachmann candidacy: "Bachmann pledges to ban ‘all forms of pornography.’" But the headline was a patent falsehood; Bachmann had pledged to do nothing of the sort.

As the leading left-wing website, some parts of the Huffington Post are becoming concerned that Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's message of peace may draw large numbers of Democratic votes.