United States
- GOP Presidential Candidates
- The GOP held its second debate, in which 10 candidates participated, ahead of the Iowa straw poll. Pawlenty and Bachmann continually exchanged tit-for-tat exchanges criticizing each other.
- The Iowa Straw poll was held and bat-shit Bachmann won. Thankfully the straw poll has an awful history of prediction who will win the GOP domination, but it is important to the candidates as they try to rally their bases and raise funds.
- After a dismal showing in the straw poll and debate, Pawlenty officially announced he was abandoning his bid.
- Rick Perry (governor of Texas) formally announced that he was going to seek the bid and immediately went to Iowa to begin fund raising and campaigning. He immediately was seen as a top-tier contender, but still behind the likes of Romney and (now) Bachmann.
- Perry received some attention and criticism after saying that if Ben Bernanke (head of the Fed) printed more money, Perry would view that as "almost treasonous" and alluded to the idea that if Bernanke went to Texas he would get beat up.
- A former Reagan Treasury official said on CNN that Perry "...is an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that."
- In a shot at Perry and his stance on teaching creationism in schools and disbelief in climate change, Republican candidate John Huntsman (former Ambassador to China & governor of Utah) tweeted “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” And that is awesome.
- Super Committee
- As part of the debt ceiling "deal" a Super Committee of 6 democrats and 6 republicans (3 per party per chamber of Congress) were appointed by the respective chamber's party leaders. The committee is charge with producing a plan to cut $1.4 trillion in spending. If they fail to achieve a plan that gets approved by Congress steep cuts will be imposed in defense, entitlements and discretionary spending. Perhaps luckily, the public will probably be saved from hearing most of the brinkmanship except for positioning at the very beginning and end of it.
- Not Fun State Fairs
- A grandstand stage in Indiana collapsed after a poorly built stage and high winds from an oncoming thunderstorm hit it. 6 people were killed
- At the Wisconsin state fair widespread white vs black fights broke out after an initial fight happened, a group of younger black guys were kicked out and returned later with "hundreds" of people and attacked random people leaving the fair, pulling people out of cars and assaulting them. It's a lovely state.
- Eurozone Debt Issues
- Italy is the country de jour as the Eurozone debt fears spread to larger and more meaningful economies.
- Italy's economy is absolutely huge compared to Ireland or Greece, and the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) is WAY too small to rescue or bailout the country should it come to the point of restructuring their debt.
- London Riots
- After a man was shot and killed by London police in a drug raid violence broke out on the streets of London, and across the country, as typically younger people took to the streets, looted and vandalized the city.
- It was largely seen as an a-political group that was loosely organized, if at all, and consisted mainly of younger Britons who feel disaffected by the government after a series of austerity measures that hit their demographic especially hard. That said, the riots/protests were never political and more seemed to be pissed off kids breaking shit.
- The original police report said the main originally killed by police fired on them first, but it was later shown that the man killed had not fired anything on police.
- Scotland Yard was largely criticized for the shooting as well as the failure to respond to the riots quickly or effectively enough.
- The riots lasted a handful of days before calming down
- China Violence
- Several Chinese troops were killed in a western China province as a small, mainly Muslim, ethnic group set off strings of violence against government troops. They have been fighting the government for awhile now, but have largely been fairly inept at accomplishing anything meaningful prior to this.
- The group is mainly based in the northern, lawless tribal regions in Pakistan and the Chinese government is putting pressure on the Pakistani government to take control of the region and has appealed to them to allow China to set up a military base in the area, which has been denied so far.
- Syria
- Assad continues to use the military to attack his own citizens as the country continues to implode.
- The US has finally called Assad's rule as illegitimate and called on him to step down as the death toll tops 2,000 and 2 videos of violence have outraged the public. One showed a 7-9 year old boy who was detained by security forces and what appears to be signs of torture and cigarette burns on him, the other of a 3 year old girl who was shot in the eye from a regime sniper.
- Libya
- Rebels have been able to make progress in key towns around Tripoli (Qaddafhi's stronghold) and are close to cutting off his supply routes from Algeria.
- If a couple more key towns fall to the rebels they could effectively surround Tripoli, which could force the regime's hand in either fighting to the death or giving up.
- Egypt's Islamists
- Held a series of large rallies in Tahrir Square (same place the revolution took place) to promote more Islamic influences on the formation of the new government and to protest how long it is taking for the temporary military council to implement reforms.
- Israel Protests
- Younger Israeli's held demonstrations across the country to protest the high living costs and how the government has largely ignored the problem
- Following the protests Israel approved the building of more settlements in the West Bank, which effectively created a ring of settlements around the Palestinian side of the edge of Jerusalem. The international community was not impressed.
- Stealth Helicopter
- Unnamed US officials told various media outlets that the US is relatively certain the Pakistan showed various Chinese officials and engineers what was left of the wreckage of the stealth helicopter before turning it over to the US.
- Afghanistan Helicopter
- The largest single death toll of US troops happened in Afghanistan as a helicopter with 21 Navy SEALs and a handful of other troops was downed in an area of Afghanistan rife with violence.
- Somalian Famine
- Continues to get worse as international aid is being denied by the rebels/terrorists and, when delivered, typically hoarded by local warlords. Beautiful country though.
As reported by Jason Van Thiel.
