Congress

Even as Donald Trump is desperate to show to the US population, and especially his voter base, some actual achievement before his first 100 days run out next weekend, prompting him to tell AP that he will unveil a "tremendous" tax ut plan next week (recall he did the same in February), the Trump administration is quietly preparing for the possibility of a government shutdown, even though the president and his staff believe one is unlikely to occur. 

If This Is Freedom and Democracy, What Is Tyranny?
Paul Craig Roberts
John Whitehead

After a week of flip-flops on everything from the value of NATO to labeling China a currency manipulator, moves which quickly earned him the moniker of 'flipper-in-chief' from a disgruntled base, Trump, under internal pressure to show legislative achievements ahead of the 100-day mark, is gearing up for a government shutdown fight to secure money for a border wall, more immigration enforcement officers and a bigger military.

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I’ve stopped calling what our government has done a cover-up. Cover-up suggests a passive activity. What they’re doing now I call aggressive deception.

 

– Former Senator Bob Graham, co-chair of Congress’s 9/11 Joint Inquiry

As we noted last night, Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA made principal and interest payments of $2.2 billion today, avoiding default yet again despite what Vice President Tareck El Aissami called a "ruthless economic war" being waged against the Maduro government.

That's the good news, the bad news is that PDVSA has $62 billion more in principal and interest due over the next few years...