Issue 3 (April 15, 2011)

UNITED STATES

Shut Down Averted
-Congress & and White House narrowly averted a federal government shut down with about an hour to spare on Friday night. The deal reached calls for $38.5B in cost cutting, and did not include any of the policy riders (EPA & Planned Parenthood) that the Republicans wanted.

>PS: The fight that we had was about ~1% of 2011's budget, just sayin'.

Debt Ceiling
-The next big fight in Congress should be an interesting one. The US's debt ceiling ($14.3T) is expected to be reached in early- to mid-May. If Congress does not pass an increase to this ceiling, the United States technically goes into default as, by law, we cannot create more money to service our existing debt or incur more debt (to pay for anything).

-This would be absolutely catastrophic for the global economy and the US position in the economy. Given that, the chances of this not passing are essentially nil.

-However, given that this MUST pass, Republicans see this as an opportunity to try and include spending cuts and policy riders into the bill (sound familiar?). Obama called for a "clean bill" (nothing attached to it), but Boehner (Republican Speaker of the House, pronounced BAY-ner) pretty much said no-fucking-way Jose ("Guess what, Mr. President. Not a chance you're going to get a clean bill").

-It could very well turn into a giant game of political chicken, like the one we just saw, but with exponentially more dire consequences than a federal government shut down.

-Mitt Romney (former Republican Governor of Massachusetts) officially announced he was running for President in 2012, after coming in 3rd in the 2008 Republican primary.

Arizona is Retarded
-Arizona's congress has passed a law requiring presidential candidates to submit a long-form birth certificate in order to be placed on the state's ballot. The governor has yet to sign it, but with a Republican governor it looks likely to become law (she could abstain from signing it, but not actually veto it, and it would still become law without her "endorsement").

INTERNATIONAL

Portugal Bailout
>Portugal, the third EU country (behind Greece and Ireland), requests a bailout from the the EU/ECB (European Central Bank). The move follows a failure by Portugal's parliament to institute austerity measures aimed at getting their deficit and debt levels under control. As they were with the previous bailouts, Germans are pretty pissed that they will be called on again, to bailout their fiscally less-than-disciplined EU members.

Libya
>The AU (African Union) proposed terms for a cease fire, which was supposedly agreed to by Gaddhafi, but rejected by the rebels since it did not call for Gadhafi to step down.

>The rebels still suck at fighting and lack coordination, which has caused them to lose ground to pro-Gaddhafi forces. Reports say that pro-Gaddhafi forces have been indiscriminately shelling residential neighborhoods with artillery.

Cote d'Ivoire
>Ousted former president, Gbagbo, has surrendered and is in UN custody. Sporadic fighting continues in cities across the country.

Syria
>Protests have continued to escalate in Syria with security forces continuing to clamp down and have fired and killed a couple hundred protestors at this point.

Japan
>Monday morning another 7.1 quake hit northeast Japan.

>The Fukushima disaster has been raised to a level 7 (out of 7) on the scale a nuclear disasters. This technically puts it on par with the Chernobyl disaster, although it is releasing 10% (thus far) of the radiation that Chernobyl did.

As reported by Jason Van Thiel.