Issue 8 (June 18, 2011).

United States

GOP Presidential Debate

• On Monday CNN held the first GOP Presidential debate in New Hampshire.
• Participants were: Mitch Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Stantorum, Ron Paul and Herman Cain.
• It was fairly widely viewed that Bachmann was the most impressive during the debate, considering the low expectations most people had for her. Despite that, Romney had the largest target on his back since he is the clear front runner at this point and he emerged from the debate almost completely unscathed by the other participants.
  

10 Members of Congress Sue the Administration

• The suit is over the conflict in Libya and that Obama hasn't sought Congress' official approval of "hostilities" and that such hostilities have gone beyond the 60 days given to the President to end or seek approval of actions according to the War Powers Resolution Act of 1973.
• The Administration has sent Congress a package of documents outlining why the Libya mission does not constitute "hostilities" because NATO took the lead in the operation on April 7th, and the US has mainly been in a supporting role of surveillance and operations.
• The War Powers Resolution does not define what amounts to "hostilities" so the suit is widely seen as a public and political move to put pressure on the Administration, since the courts cannot rule on what is undefined.
  

Weiner Resigns

• New York Rep Anthony Weiner announced he is resigning from the House on Thursday after his whole sexting/twittering scandal.

John Edwards' F-Buddy

• I'm a bit late on this, but John Edwards was indicted on 6 counts for using campaign funds to pay to keep his mistress hidden.

USA Supplying Arms to Mexican Gun Cartels

• This is old news, but just in case you've missed the reports over the past several months, most of the guns and weapons used by Mexican drug cartels to kill Mexican police and civilians originate in the US due to the ease of obtaining powerful weapons here.

International

Syria Crackdown

• Syrian troops continue to crack down on protests across the country with tanks encircling some cities in the north, prompting thousands of people to flee into Turkey.
• The international community has remained relative quiet about the atrocities happening there, with only a few select governments calling the regimes continued rule as illegitimate.
• Reports and pictures of troops torturing women and children have surfaced, to which the regime denies they are real.

Pakistan Arrests

• Pakistan has arrested multiple CIA informants that helped during the Bin Laden raid along with several people suspected of helping Bin Laden.
• The action has further strained the already tense relationship between the US and Pakistan.

Greek Violent Protests

• Protests in Greece erupted Wednesday over proposed austerity measures in order to try to bring Greece's fiscal house in order.
  Petrol bombs have thrown at riot police and violence occasionally breaks in various clashes.
• Short rant: If anyone compares the US's debt situation to Greece you can immediately stop listening to what they are about to say since they clearly don't know how our different monetary systems work. Ever since Greece joined the Euro zone, they lost the sovereign ability to create their own currency and therefore are constrained to what the ECB does and what taxes they collect. In this aspect, they are much like the relationship between the individual states and the US. Minnesota is revenue-constrained and therefore either has to raise revenue through taxes or cut spending (or both) if they run a deficit since there are no Minnesota-Dollars they could create (and most states have a balanced budget resolution in their constitution). However, since the US, and only US, can create Dollars and therefore, (barring a congressional action) the US cannot default on its debt, since it would just make more dollars to pay it's obligation and (likely) cause inflation and devaluing the dollar to a certain extent.

IMF President

• The current front runner, and widely anticipated next president of the IMF, Christine Lagarde who is the current French Finance Minister, has been globe trotting several emerging countries to try to reassure them of her candidacy.
  The emerging world has long criticized the IMF for always having a European president, given the increasing influence, power and need for oversight of emerging nations, and they feel someone experienced in dealing with emerging nation's finances would be best for the IMF.
• Historically the IMF has always been run by a European and the World Bank run by an American.
• The US is tacitly supporting Lagarde by remaining relatively quiet about the candidates, but is widely seen to want to keep the IMF/World Bank status quo with an American remaining in the deputy position.
• The only other real candidate is the head of the Mexican central bank, Agustin Carstens, but is seen as a long shot.

As reported by Jason Van Thiel.