Global report
1 UNITED STATES
Republicans try to twist reasons for new debt ceiling
Top Republicans are advancing a campaign of disinformation over the debt ceiling as they seek to distort the reasons for needing to raise the nation’s borrowing cap, after they dropped their blockade on averting a US debt default in a bipartisan manner.
The Senate last week passed a bill to allow the debt ceiling to be raised by $480bn through early December, which the treasury estimates will be enough to allow the government to temporarily avert an unprecedented default on $28tn of debt obligations.
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced the morning before the bill’s passage that he had reached a deal with the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to clear the way for the vote on a short-term extension with GOP support.
But even as McConnell struck the accord, the resolution to punt the issue until December did nothing to address the partisan stalemate and Republicans’ mischaracterisation of the issue.
The GOP argues that Democrats should raise the ceiling on a party-line basis, because they claim the increase is needed to pay for Biden’s economic agenda.
2 CANADA
US whistleblower invited to Montreal – to be thrown out
Government lawyers invited US whistleblower Chelsea Manning to travel to
