That's not me calling the debt ceiling deal a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich," it's Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

This whole sad episode, both the "deal" and the process, is a disaster. The plutocrats and their ideological soldiers have won, and the rest of us have lost. Now that it has been established that the Republican fringe can win by refusing to compromise, there is zero incentive for them to ever compromise, and the nation now lives with a gun permanently pointed at its head. This isn't just the death of the American empire, it will be the death of the American republic.

If worst comes to worst, at least I can seek refuge in Israel, if no other nation will have me. The rest of you (plutocrats excluded) are fucked.