President Barack Hussein Obama, earlier this afternoon, proclaimed, in a grieved voice, that he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.

Obama told CBS Evening News Anchor Scott Pelley:

I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it

Obama has been predicting an economic Armageddon for the last several weeks in a desperate attempt to force Republicans to raise the Debt Ceiling and roll over in the Budget Battle, like a bunch of good little squishes.

The deadline given to Republicans by Obama for compliance with his royal decree is August 2nd, coincidentally (?) coinciding with the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.:

Per holidays.net:

Observed by more than one billion Muslims around the world, Ramadan is a time for spiritual purification achieved through fasting, self-sacrifice and prayers.

Celebrated during the ninth month of Islamic calendar, the fast is observed each day from sunrise to sunset. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five Pillars of Islam. The Islamic belief that requires that Muslims perform five central duties in order to strengthen their faith. While Islam has two major sects, the Sunnis and the Shiites, all Muslims aim to realize these five pillars in their lifetime.

Ramadan concludes with a 3-day festival known as “Eid” or “Eid ul-Fitr,” which literally means “the feast of the breaking/to break the fast.” The holiday marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and is a culmination of the month-long struggle towards a higher spiritual state.

*Update Ramadan 2011: According to Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) Ramadan 1432 in North America, begins on the evening of Sunday, July 31, 2011, so that the first day of fasting would be Monday, August 1, 2011. Also According to Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) Eid-al-Fitr in North America is on Tuesday, August 30, 2011.

Obama told Pelley during an interview that will air Tuesday evening on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley:

This is not just a matter of Social Security checks. These are veterans checks, these are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out.

Obama’s statements were in reply to what Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in remarks earlier today on the Senate floor:

After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is probably unattainable.

The president has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default. Republicans choose none of the above. I had hoped to do good, but I refuse to do harm. So Republicans will choose a path that actually reflects the will of the people, which is to do the responsible thing and ensure that the government doesn’t default on its obligations.

Obama has repeate over and over again that he wants a deal that would allow the U.S. to avoid confronting the issue again until after the 2012 elections and vowed on Monday that he would “not sign a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day extension”:

This the United States of America and, you know, we don’t manage our affairs in three-month increments. You know, we don’t risk U.S. default on our obligations because we can’t put politics aside.

Well, just when we thought that McConnell had grown a spine and was edging toward fiscal reponsibility and, perhaps even, **gasp**, Conservatism, he came forth with this bright idea later this afternoon:

From townhall.com, a senior Republican aide explains Senator Mitch McConnel’s brilliant plan:

“Sen. McConnell has been in talks with Obama and Democrats. We wanted to do something serious and big. Yesterday, he asked point blank how much the Biden-led deal would actually cut from next year’s budget. The answer he received was $2 Billion, and it’s all smoke and mirrors. In exchange, [Democrats] want $1 Trillion in tax hikes. It’s not the kind of deal we’re at all interested in. We won’t accept guaranteed tax hikes in exchange for fantasy future spending cuts. It’s not going to happen. We’re going to fight like hell to do what we’ve said we want: Real spending cuts and caps, a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment, and real entitlement reform. So this plan is a fallback option if all else fails. It’s modeled after the Congressional Review Act of the 1990s — which establishes expedited procedures by which Congress can disapprove executive agencies’ rules by way of a resolution of disapproval.”

Townhall’s Guy Benson explains further:

Republicans in Congress would agree to vote on legislation authorizing the president to propose three separate incremental debt ceiling increases, spaced over the remainder of his term. He would be required to couple each request with a corresponding set of spending cuts that exceed the dollar amount of his sought-after debt limit hike. These cuts would be of his choosing alone. The first pair of requests would come prior to the August 2 deadline. It would be for roughly $700 Billion. The next requests, for $900 Billion, would come in the fall, and the final tranche (also for $900 Billion) would be scheduled for summer of 2012 — in the thick of the campaign cycle.

In other words, McConnell’s plan is:  Let’s give Nero a match. Who cares if he burns down Rome, we won’t be held responsible.

Did the G.O.P. Elite not learn anything at all from the Mid-term Elections?