CNN's Eliot Spitzer praises debt commission co-chair Alan Simpson for urging politicians to shoot 'your sacred cow.'

Psychiatrist Dr. Gail Saltz explains why the "horrific" case of Casey Anthony riveted America for so many months. FULL POST

CNN's Howard Kurtz, host of CNN's Reliable Sources, and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin discuss the 'media assassination' of Casey Anthony as a defense attorney charged.

FULL POST

CNN's Martin Savidge reports that attorneys, the media and public were generally surprised by the Casey Anthony verdict. FULL POST

Attorneys Rikki Kleiman, Tom Mesereau and Jeffrey Toobin explain why prosecutors in the Casey Anthony trial lost. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is attorney and multi-platform journalist Sunny Hostin, legal analyst for CNN, HLN and InSession on Tru TV.

As a federal prosecutor, Hostin’s prosecution of child sexual predators and work with child sex abuse victims led to her being awarded with a Special Achievement Award by then Attorney General Janet Reno.

Casey Anthony was found guilty of four counts of providing false information to law enforcement in the case of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, who was slain in 2008. Casey was found not guilty of first-degree murder, and not guilty of aggravated child abuse.

The verdict was reached by the seven-woman, five-man jury after deliberating for less than 11 hours in a trial that stretched to more than six weeks and featured allegations of sexual abuse, questions regarding Casey Anthony's competence and various theories on what happened to 2-year-old Caylee.

Did the verdict surprise you?

The verdict didn't surprise me. This was never a "slam dunk" case. The government had to prove it's case beyond a reasonable doubt – that is an extremely high burden.

There wasn't any direct evidence linking Casey Anthony to the death of her daughter, no eyewitnesses. FULL POST

Today’s Number of the Day is 4.

A seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for less than 11 hours in a trial that lasted more than six weeks. They found Casey Anthony guilty on four counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. That’s all.

The jury acquitted her Tuesday of first-degree murder, the most serious charge against the 25-year-old Orlando woman in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. The jury also found Casey not guilty of aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter.

We may never find out who killed Caylee, how she disappeared, who hid her body.

But we do know that Casey Anthony will not be put to death for what happened to her daughter.

And we are reminded that it is virtually impossible to know how a jury will rule, even in the most-publicized and sensational of cases.

Virtually every TV pundit and talking head thought she was guilty.

 They were wrong. FULL POST

(CNN) - After less than 11 hours of deliberation, a jury Tuesday found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder and the other most serious charges against her in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter.

But the jury convicted her on four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to law enforcement officers (CLICK HERE for live coverage online; we will have extensive coverage "In The Arena" tonight at 8 p.m. ET). FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is David Graeber, who teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author of “Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value,” “Lost People,” and “Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion and Desire.”

His new book is entitled “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” and in it, Graeber indeed examines the historical significance of debt, the struggle between rich and poor, and the moral implications inherent in our ideas about credit and debt.

The U.S. Treasury Department last Friday reiterated its Aug. 2 deadline for raising the debt ceiling, and urged Congress "to avoid the catastrophic economic and market consequences of a default crisis by raising the statutory debt limit in a timely manner.”  The White House wants a deal by July 22. If the debt ceiling isn't raised, the Treasury would not be able to pay nearly half of the 80 million payments it needs to make every month, according to an estimate by budget experts at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

How did the United States get into this situation?

Because the Republicans are engaged in one of the most extraordinary campaigns of political recklessness in recent memory.

One has to presume that Republicans are perfectly well aware that the US debt is not really a crisis, and that they're not really going to force into default just to be able to hack further away at social programs. That's what they seem to be telling Wall Street, anyway. But it's almost unimaginably irresponsible. If you play chicken, there is always the chance that you'll go off a cliff. FULL POST

BACK AT THE BUDGET BATTLE – Senators are set to return to work on Tuesday to resume talks about the possibility of raising the federal government's debt ceiling. House members are scheduled to take up the contentious talks on the issue Wednesday. Congressional leaders remain at sharp odds over what sort of conditions should be attached to a hike in the current $14.3 trillion ceiling.

ECONOMY STRUGGLES, PROFITS UP – While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression, The Wall Street Journal reports, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter—exposing a dichotomy between corporate performance and the overall health of the economy. FULL POST