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Kremlin: Xi supports Putin’s pursuit of guarantees from West

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Kremlin: Xi supports Putin’s pursuit of guarantees from West
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MOSCOW (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in his push to get Western security guarantees precluding NATO’s eastward expansion, the Kremlin said Wednesday after the two leaders held a virtual summit.

Putin and Xi spoke as Moscow faces heightened tensions with the West over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine’s border. In recent weeks, Western nations engaged in diplomatic efforts to prevent a possible invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied harboring plans to storm its neighbor.

Putin, meanwhile, demanded guarantees that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or deploy troops and weapons there.

He told Xi on Wednesday about “mounting threats to Russia‘s national interests from the U.S. and the NATO bloc, which consistently move their military infrastructure close to the Russian borders,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said.

The Russian leader stressed the need to hold talks with NATO and the U.S. on legally binding security guarantees, according to Ushakov. Xi responded by saying he “understands Russia‘s concerns and fully supports our initiative to work out these security guarantees for Russia,” Ushakov said.

He said Moscow’s proposals have been passed on to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried, who visited Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russia‘s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov.

In recent years, China and Russia have increasingly aligned their foreign policies to counter U.S. domination of the international economic and political order.

Both have faced sanctions – China over abuses against minorities, especially Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, and for its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and Russia for annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and over the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Beijing and Washington also remain at odds over trade, technology and China’s military intimidation of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory.

Russia’s relations with the U.S. sank to post-Cold War lows after it annexed Crimea in 2014 and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s east. Tensions reignited in recent weeks after Moscow massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine’s border, a move Ukraine and the West feared may indicate plans for a new invasion.

Moscow has denied that it plans to attack Ukraine and in turn blamed Ukraine for its own military buildup in the country’s war-torn east. Russian officials alleged that Kyiv might try to reclaim the areas controlled by the rebels by force.

It is within that context that Putin has pressed the West for guarantees that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or deploy its forces there.

During their call on Wednesday, Putin and Xi hailed relations between Russia and China, with the Russian leader saying they are based on “such principles as not interfering in internal affairs (of each other), respect for each other’s interests, determination to turn the shared border into a belt of eternal peace and good neighborliness.”

Xi said he appreciated that Putin “strongly supported China’s efforts to protect key national interests and firmly opposed attempts to drive a wedge between our countries.”

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that Xi said “both China and Russia need to carry out more joint actions to more effectively safeguard our security and interests.”

“At present, certain international forces are arbitrarily interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia under the guise of democracy and human rights, and brutally trampling on international law and the norms of international relations,” Xi was quoted by CCTV as saying.

Putin also said that he plans to meet with Xi in person in Beijing in February and to attend the 2022 Winter Olympics taking place in China‘s capital.

“As agreed, we will hold talks and then take part in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games,” Putin said.

The U.S., Canada, Australia and Britain have said they will not be sending dignitaries to the Olympics as part of a diplomatic boycott to protest China’s human rights record. Other countries have said they won’t be sending officials because of pandemic travel restrictions.

In welcoming Putin’s planned visit, Xi said sports could be a channel for their countries to bolster their ties.

“Both sides should strengthen coordination and cooperation on international affairs to maker louder voices on global governance, and come up with practical plans on global issues including the pandemic and climate change,” Xi was quoted by CCTV as saying.

China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Xi told Putin he “very much looks forward to this ‘get together at the Winter Olympics’ and stands ready to work with President Putin ‘for a shared future’ to jointly open a new chapter in post-COVID China–Russia relations.”

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Happy 100th, bloody mary: Paris marks cocktail’s birthday

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Happy 100th, bloody mary: Paris marks cocktail’s birthday
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PARIS (AP) — Harry’s Bar in Paris is celebrating the 100th birthday of the bloody mary, the vodka-tomato juice cocktail believed to have been invented at the iconic watering hole in 1921.

The centenary events this week bring a welcome respite from winter gloom and worries about the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The bar is carefully checking COVID-19 health passes as foreign visitors gather to sample the drink closely associated with Harry’s Bar, whose patrons over the past century have included writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

According to the history of Harry’s, bartender Fernand Petiot invented the cocktail, and the recipe was first published in a book called “Harry’s ABC of Cocktails” in 1921. The bar serves an estimated year bloody marys a year.

“It’s a classic drink,” bartender Dante Agnelli said while demonstrating the mixology behind the drink, ingredient by ingredient: salt and pepper, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, vodka and tomato juice.

“You make it directly in the glass,” Agnelli said as he stood at the counter where Petiot first performed the now well-established ritual 100 years ago, at the dawn of what became known as the roaring 1920s.

Harry’s Bar plans to host a celebration on Thursday night despite concerns about the spread of omicron variant of the coronavirus in Europe and a surge in new virus infections across France.

Franz-Arthur MacElhone, a great-grandson of bar founder Harry MacElhone, said the celebration would take place in line with government regulations: the health passes of patrons from around the world will be checked, hand sanitizers will be distributed, and bar staff will wear masks.

In recent days, the French government expanded the places where passes are required, including all restaurants and a growing number of events and venues. To get one, people must show proof of full vaccination, a negative virus test less than 24 hours old, or recent recovery from COVID-19.

The French government closed nightclubs and tightened social distancing measures but is trying to avoid a new lockdown.

The health protocol is the only visible change inside the bar that used to be located on New York’s 7th Avenue before it was dismantled, shipped to Europe and rebuilt in central Paris in 1911.

For Harry’s patrons, the timeless décor is a reassuring fixture, particularly at a time of uncertainty due to the pandemic.

“Once you walk in, you leave all your worries aside,” said Ihab Hassan, 61, a retired businessman from Egypt and a regular at the bar since the 1970s.

The coronavirus pandemic was not enough to get in the way of his favorite Paris pastime, Hassan said with a bloody mary on the counter in front of him.

Sitting next to Hassan were an American, Jay Sing, and an Australian, Renée DiGeorgio. They shared their thoughts on the famous cocktail with an Associated Press reporter, acknowledging they had already consumed a few.

“Sometimes, with breakfast, for my hangover, we drink bloody marys,” said DiGeorgio, 42, who works in the mining industry and is based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“This is a really nice bloody mary,” he said. “It’s actually the first time I’ve ever drunk a bloody mary when the sun’s down!”

All three men said they took the necessary health precautions to be safe and in compliance with government anti-virus regulations.

“I have four vaccines in me,” said Sing, 28, a tech industry worker from New York. “I’m like the Iron Man. Nothing is touching me!”

MacElhone, the great-grandson of the bar’s founder, recounted different legends surrounding how the bloody mary got its name.

“Petiot said it was for a dancer that he was very fond of called Mary,” MacElhone explained.

“She used to work in a place in Chicago called the Bucket of Blood,” MacElhone said. But that’s only one explanation for the name of the famous drink.

There are others, MacElhone said.

“There’s a Hemingway story,” he said. “It was just before he got married, and he had been dating somebody called Mary.”

As that story goes, Hemingway allegedly did not want to have alcohol on his breath and asked for a drink mixed with juice.

Tomato juice was added, and “while he was drinking it, he was saying ‘bloody Mary’”, MacElhone said.

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Democrats vote to hike the federal debt to $31.4 trillion, send measure to Biden

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Democrats vote to hike the federal debt to $31.4 trillion, send measure to Biden
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Congressional Democrats passed legislation hiking the federal debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion in an all-night sprint to allow President Biden to continue borrowing money to pay for government expenditures until at least early 2023.

Senate Democrats narrowly passed the bill, 50 votes to 49, in the evenly split chamber before the Democratic House majority muscled it across the finish line early Wednesday morning. 

The bill, which Mr. Biden is expected to quickly sign, will push the national debt limit to $31.4 trillion from roughly $29 trillion.

“Responsible governing has won on this exceedingly important issue,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. “The American people can breathe easy and rest assured there will not be a default.”

Senate Republicans opposed the bill, arguing that because Mr. Biden was undertaking a massive “spending spree” with his roughly $1.74 trillion social welfare and climate bill, Democrats alone were responsible for making more spending possible by raising the debt limit.

“This massive debt increase will just be the beginning,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. “More printing and borrowing to set up more reckless spending to cause more inflation to hurt working families even more. What the American people need is a break.”

Similarly, every single House Republican opposed the bill except for Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the U.S. will be at risk of defaulting on its debts if the cap is not raised by Dec. 15.

Once passed by the House, Mr. Biden is expected to sign the measure immediately. The debt ceiling increase would ensure the White House can continue borrowing money to pay for federal expenditures until at least early 2023.

Economists warn that mounting national debt, if left unchecked, can spur an economic disaster. Both parties, when in power, have piled on the debt over the past two decades.

“While it’s hard to predict the exact moment the national debt became a ticking time-bomb, the experiences of countries like Greece show that ignoring the problem can have disastrous consequences,” said Matthew Dickerson, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.

Greece defaulted on its debt in 2015. High fiscal debt was just one piece — albeit a big piece — of the country’s mismanaged economy. Combined with high trade deficits, low growth rates and soaring inflation, the heavy debt burden contributed significantly to the collapse of the Greek economy.

In the U.S., debt has reached a staggering $29 trillion, or 125% of gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services that Americans produce in a year.

If the current national debt were evenly divvied up, each taxpayer would owe more than $229,700.

However, today’s historically low interest rates make now the best time to borrow money. The Federal Reserve is expected to announce a major policy shift on Wednesday to set up interest rate hikes next year, inching up from the central bank’s near-zero rate. The rate increase won’t be enough to significantly inflate the government’s debt payments.

The $2.5 trillion hike to the debt limit will give Mr. Biden room to push more initiatives without worrying about raising the debt limit every few months. Some Democratic lawmakers say the reprieve should be used to push forward on liberal initiatives that have been sidelined in recent months by budgetary fights.

“Once we handle the debt ceiling, the Senate must prioritize passing federal voting rights legislation,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia Democrat.

Budget hawks warn that the one-year borrowing greenlight could prove disastrous for the nation’s fiscal health. They say that without having to keep a continuous watch on the national debt, lawmakers will be free to indulge in “turning up the spigot and keep federal money flowing.”

Mr. Dickerson blamed the present spending crisis on Congress’ decision in 2019 to suspend the debt limit for two years.

“The national debt has skyrocketed in recent years, currently standing at $28.9 trillion,” said Mr. Dickerson. “Now it’s set to climb to $31.4 trillion. This rise has been enabled by lawmakers kicking the can down the road on the debt while passing multitrillion-dollar spending bills every few months.”

The Biden administration spent feverishly in the first 10 months since Mr. Biden took office. Part of that is the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, lawmakers pushed through a $1.9 trillion economic relief package meant to address the lingering effects of the coronavirus economic shutdowns.

The bill gave $1,400 in direct payments to individuals making below $75,000 annually. It also included a temporary $400-a-week unemployment boost and expanded the child-care tax credit, giving families up to $3,600 in monthly payments.

That spending pushed the federal deficit to a record-breaking $3.1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Since then, lawmakers approved more spending that adds to the national debt.

In November, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. The bill, which focuses on rebuilding the nation’s roads and bridges, will add $256 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“When Congress doesn’t have tight control over the national debt, spending tends to balloon,” Mr. Dickerson said.

Economists say that is only amplified as Congress readies to raise the debt ceiling by another $2.5 trillion. Most note that the increase comes as Mr. Biden is working to secure passage of his mammoth social welfare bill that is known as the Build Back Better Act.

The legislation, which would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since the Great Society of the 1960s, is estimated to cost $1.75 trillion. Budget hawks say it likely will cost double after discounting budgetary gimmicks, however.

Sen. Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat who is undecided on the bill, notes that much of the social welfare programs being proposed run for only a short time, while the package’s tax hikes last a decade.

“As far as I’m concerned, whatever plan it would be — pre-K, child care, in-home care — then it should be 10 years,” he said. “It shouldn’t just be one year here, three years here, five years there. I think it would be very transparent for the public to see.”

The CBO, a nonpartisan governmental agency tasked with analyzing legislation, estimates that if all the programs within the bill were made permanent the deficit would grow by $3 trillion. That boosts the cost of the bill to about $4.75 trillion.

Republicans charge that Mr. Biden’s decision to only fund the programs for a short time is meant to obscure the real cost.

“As a wise man once said, ‘nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program,’” Mr. McConnell said. “Democrats aren’t even pretending they think the spending would stop. They’re boasting about a permanent transformation.”

House votes to hold Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress

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House votes to hold Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress
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The House voted Tuesday to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress after he ceased to cooperate with the Jan. 6 Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection – making it the first time the House has voted to hold a former member in contempt since the 1830s.

The near-party-line 222-208 vote is the second time the special committee has sought to punish a witness for defying a subpoena. The vote is the latest show of force by the Jan. 6 panel, which is leaving no angle unexplored – and no subpoena unanswered – as it investigates the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years. Lawmakers on the panel are determined to get answers quickly, and in doing so reassert the congressional authority that eroded while former President Donald Trump was in office.

“History will be written about these times, about the work this committee has undertaken,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman. “And history will not look upon any of you as a martyr. History will not look upon you as a victim.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., another member of the panel, began Tuesday’s debate on the resolution by reading frantic texts from the day of the attack revealing members of Congress, Fox News anchors and even Trump‘s son urging Meadows to persuade the outgoing president to act quickly to stop the three-hour assault by his supporters.

The House vote sends the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, where it will now be up to prosecutors in that office to decide whether to present the case to a grand jury for possible criminal charges.

If convicted, Bannon and Meadows could each face up to one year behind bars on each charge. 

The nine-member panel voted 9-0 Monday night to recommend charges against the former North Carolina congressman who left in March 2020 to become Trump‘s chief of staff. 

Republicans on Tuesday called the action against Meadows a distraction from the House’s work, with one member calling it “evil” and “un-American.” 

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, took to the floor to praise Meadows: “Make no mistake, when Democrats vote in favor of this resolution, it is a vote to put a good man in prison.” 

Trump has also defended Meadows in an interview, saying: “I think Mark should do what’s right. He‘s an honorable man. He shouldn’t be put through this.” 

And Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger defended his client in a statement before the vote, noting that he had provided documents to the panel and maintaining that he should not be compelled to appear for an interview.

Terwilliger said, “The Select Committee’s true intentions in dealing with Mr. Meadows have been revealed when it accuses him of contempt citing the very documents his cooperation has produced.”

Meadows himself has sued the panel, asking a court to invalidate two subpoenas that he says are “overly broad and unduly burdensome.”

Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters: “I do think we’re all watching, as you are, what is unfolding on the House side. And it will be interesting to reveal all the participants who were involved.”

He added that he was not in contact with Meadows on the day of the attack.

Democrats quoted at length from Jan. 6 text messages provided by Meadows while he was cooperating with the committee.

“We need an Oval Office address,” Donald Trump Jr. texted, the committee said, as his father’s supporters were breaking into the Capitol, sending lawmakers running for their lives and interrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”

Trump Jr. added, “He’s got to condemn this s–- ASAP.” In response to one of Trump Jr.’s texts, Meadows said: “I’m pushing it hard. I agree.”

Members of the committee said the texts raise fresh questions about what was happening at the White House – and what Trump himself was doing – as the attack was underway. The committee had planned to question Meadows about the communications, including 6,600 pages of records taken from personal email accounts and about 2,000 text messages. The panel has not released any of the communications in full. 

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s vice chairwoman, said at the committee’s Monday evening meeting that an important issue raised by the texts is whether Trump sought to obstruct the congressional certification by refusing to send a strong message to the rioters to stop.

“These texts leave no doubt,” Cheney said. “The White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol.” 

The investigating panel has already interviewed more than 300 witnesses, and subpoenaed more than 40 people, as it seeks to create the most comprehensive record yet of the lead-up to the insurrection and of the violent siege itself. 

If Meadows had appeared for his deposition, lawmakers had planned to ask him about Trump‘s efforts to overturn the election in the weeks before the insurrection, including his outreach to states and his communications with members of Congress. 

The panel says it wanted to know more about whether Trump was engaged in discussions regarding the response of the National Guard, which was delayed for hours as the violence escalated and the rioters beat police guarding the Capitol building. 

The documents provided by Meadows include an email he sent to an unidentified person saying that the Guard would be present to “protect pro Trump people,” the panel said, and that more would be available on standby. The committee did not release any additional details about that email.

Committee staff said they would have interviewed Meadows about emails “to leadership at the Department of Justice on December 29th and 30th, 2020, and January 1st, 2021, encouraging investigations of suspected voter fraud,” even though election officials and courts across the country had rejected those claims. 

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Rand Paul calls CNN ‘factory of lies’ after network raps him on disaster relief

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Rand Paul calls CNN ‘factory of lies’ after network raps him on disaster relief
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Republican Sen. Rand Paul ripped CNN as a “factory of lies and partisanship” after the network’s personalities accused him of hypocrisy for seeking disaster relief for Kentucky despite raising objections to aid measures elsewhere.

Mr. Paul said Tuesday he doesn’t oppose federal recovery assistance, but that he has sought in the past to offset any amount over budget with spending cuts elsewhere.

“I’ve never had a problem with the program. I’ve never really opposed disaster relief for any other part of the country, but I’ve said when it goes over budget, when we spend everything that’s within our budget, that it should be paid for by taking money from places in the budget that are less essential,” Mr. Paul said on Fox News.

He added that “I think that’s a very reasonable fiscally conservative [position], but if you watch CNN, you have people who basically all they care about is attack, attack, attack.”

President Biden approved federal emergency disaster assistance for Kentucky after the state bore the brunt of Friday’s powerful tornado swarm, which destroyed at least 1,000 structures and left 88 dead, including 74 in Kentucky.

CNN columnist Chris Cillizza said Monday that Mr. Paul “has made something of a career out of opposing disaster relief in places other than Kentucky,” while senior political analyst John Avlon accused him of an “ideological flip-flop.”

“The Kentucky senator who hails from the first family of American libertarians has a long record of opposing federal aid for disaster victims except apparently when it impacts his constituents,” said Mr. Avlon in a monolog. “Suddenly all those reflexive attacks on socialist big-government spending don’t seem to apply.”

CNN wasn’t the only one. Left-tilting outlets and commentators on the left had a field day with Mr. Paul’s federal aid request, as did Democrats like Rep. Eric Swalwell, who tweeted “do not for one second forget that @RandPaul has voted against helping most Americans most times they’re in need.”

Mr. Avlon targeted the senator’s October 2017 Senate floor speech opposing a $36.5 billion aid package in response to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in which Mr. Paul took a jab at those who “have great compassion with someone else’s money.”

In the speech, however, Mr. Paul didn’t object to the aid itself, but insisted that “we should pay for it,” suggesting that the Senate cut funding “to countries that burn our flag.”

A month earlier, the Senate approved a $15.25 billion hurricane-relief bill. Then-President Trump also signed major disaster declarations in 2017 for the areas affected by the hurricanes.

Mr. Paul said Tuesday that “we’re still trying to bury our dead and CNN is busy fighting some kind of left-wing partisan war founded on dishonesty.”

“All they’re going to do is basically lie to people, but it’s also why nobody wants to watch them any more,” he said. “They used to be a trusted source of news, and now my goodness, it’s just a factory of lies and partisanship. I don’t know how anybody can watch it anymore.”

Mr. Cillizza’s column was headlined, “Oh so now Rand Paul wants disaster aid from the federal government?”

Right-leaning PJ Media called the media coverage “typically flawed left-wing criticism that’s trotted out when any Republican tries to do his or her job by assisting his or her constituency after a crisis.”

Elon Musk battles Elizabeth Warren on Twitter

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Elon Musk battles Elizabeth Warren on Twitter
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren accused entrepreneur Elon Musk of being a freeloader, prompting a furious and snarky response from Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

The Massachusetts Democrat fired the first shots Monday by retweeting the Time article and calling Mr. Musk a tax dodger.

“Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else,” Ms. Warren wrote.

Mr. Musk wasn’t having any of it.

The electric-car and space-travel tycoon began Tuesday by accusing Ms. Warren of “projecting” and retweeting an article about her considerably exaggerated claims of American Indian ancestry.

“You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry Mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason,” he wrote on Twitter.

“Please don’t call the manager on me Senator Karen,” he continued, including a prayer emoji and referring to Ms. Warren by a nickname for a busybody, know-it-all woman.

He wasn’t done.

A few hours later, he noted that Ms. Warren’s claim that he is a tax freeloader is also factually false.

“If you opened your eyes for 2 seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year,” he wrote before concluding with a common conservative point about Congress.

“Don’t spend it all at once,” he wrote about his tax contributions. “Oh wait you did already.”

There was no reply Tuesday evening from Ms. Warren.

House committee calls for ‘immediate’ NFL cooperation after latest Snyder expose

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House committee calls for ‘immediate’ NFL cooperation after latest Snyder expose
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Two members of Congress called for the NFL to “immediately” turn over all information into the league’s investigation into the Washington Football Team’s workplace misconduct after a report emerged that owner Dan Snyder actively interfered with investigator Beth Wilkinson’s work.

House Democrats Carolyn B. Maloney of New York and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois released a statement Tuesday that urged the league to produce “all evidence” that Snyder obstructed the investigation. 

The statement comes following a Washington Post report that alleged Snyder used private investigators to track those who participated with the league’s review and also tried to block a woman who received a $1.6 million settlement from the team from speaking with Wilkinson.

Their request also comes weeks after the lawmakers, as part of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, called on the NFL to turn over all documents related to the league’s investigation. The league only partially cooperated, claiming some documents were part of privileged information. 

But the Post report spurred renewed calls from the lawmakers for the league to fully cooperate.

“It has become clear that Dan Snyder’s words and actions regarding the investigation into the Washington Football Team do not align,” Maloney said.  “While Mr. Snyder publicly stated that he wanted independent investigators to ferret out the truth, today’s reporting suggests that he was privately trying to obstruct the efforts of the very investigator he hired in an effort to conceal damaging information. 

“These disturbing revelations have only strengthened the Committee’s commitment to uncovering the truth in this matter.  The NFL must honor Commissioner Goodell’s promise to cooperate with Congress and fully comply with the Committee’s request for documents.”

The lawmakers first requested the information on Oct. 21 in wake of former Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s resignation over leaked emails unearthed during the league’s investigation into Washington. The committee, which sent the league a letter,  gave the NFL until Nov. 5 to comply.

When that deadline passed, the members released a statement that called for the NFL and Washington to release all individuals from non-disclosure agreements that prevented them from speaking about Snyder.

On Nov. 21, the Wall Street Journal reported the committee and the league were going back and forth over the request to comply — with a committee spokesperson saying the league had “no valid basis” to withhold the information. 

The NFL did not release a full report of Wilkinson’s review, instead only summarizing the findings. As part of that, the league fined the team $10 million and said Snyder would take a step back from day-to-day operations for several months.

“Today’s news confirms our worst fears:  Dan Snyder actively fought to undermine NFL’s investigation into WFT’s hostile workplace culture,” Krishnamoorthi said.  “According to this reporting, not only did he try to prevent a key fact witness—a woman he paid $1.6 million in a sexual misconduct settlement—from speaking with investigators, he went as far as to send private investigator to witnesses’ homes.  Snyder will stop at nothing.  To get to the bottom of this story, NFL must immediately turn over all evidence of Snyder’s interference and the other documents we requested over a month ago.”

Warriors’ Stephen Curry breaks the NBA career 3-point record

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Warriors’ Stephen Curry breaks the NBA career 3-point record
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NEW YORK — Stephen Curry has shot his way to the top of the NBA record book for 3-pointers.

Curry hit his 2,974th 3-pointer Tuesday night in the first quarter of the Golden State Warriors’ game against the New York Knicks, breaking the record set by Ray Allen.

Curry hit the shot from the right wing with 7:33 remaining, waving his arms toward the sky as he jogged backward down court. The Warriors then committed a foul and quickly called timeout to let the celebration begin.

Curry went and embraced his father, Dell Curry, who was seated along a baseline, while Bob McKillop, his coach at Davidson, stood in the stands and beamed alongside Larry Riley, who drafted Curry for the Warriors. Then came a hug from Warriors teammate Draymond Green among others and, finally, Curry trotted back across the court for a long embrace and a few congratulatory words from Allen.

Curry is often considered the league’s greatest shooter, and the numbers back him up. He already owns two of the top three seasons for 3-pointers — including the only season with 400 3s — and now has the career record Allen had held since passing Reggie Miller in 2011.

The record came at Madison Square Garden, where Curry had one of his early-career highlights on Feb. 27, 2013, when he made 11 3-pointers and scored 54 points. He‘s gone on to win two MVP awards and three championships while becoming one of the biggest, most popular stars in the game.

“I think fans are attracted to him just because of his humility and his story and how hard he’s had to work, so from that standpoint it transcends sports somewhat,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said before the game.

Curry had been far from his best beyond the arc to start this road trip, going 3 for 14 in Philadelphia and then 5 for 15 in Indiana. But with his ability to go from slumping to surging in a hurry, Kerr predicted a breakout would be coming soon.

It came quickly Tuesday. Curry hit from straightaway on his first attempt, and fans around the arena stood as he was dribbling the ball across center court on the next possession. He launched an ugly attempt that he missed.

The record-breaker came on his next shot and was vintage Curry. He gave the ball up and eventually raced back to the outside, getting the ball back and seemingly launching it in the same motion before a defender could get out to him.

It’s that quick shot — whether after catching it or on the dribble — and the ability to release from so far behind the arc that’s made him a shooter unlike any before him.

“He’s the best shooter I’ve ever seen, and I think it’s clear he is the best catch-and-shoot player,” former Dallas superstar Dirk Nowitzki said. “But where he’s so good is off the dribble, and I think that’s something that he added, the quick 3 off the dribble. It’s one motion and his shot is gone.”

None of Curry’s stardom was guaranteed when he entered the league in 2009 as the No. 7 pick from Davidson, far from one of the basketball powerhouses that usually produce the top players.

But with perhaps an unmatched combination of dribbling and shooting accuracy, he led a long-distance revolution that has turned the 3-pointer from an afterthought in NBA offenses into a weapon. He has led the league in 3-pointers six times and is well on his way to a seventh for a resurgent Warriors team that again has the league’s best record.

And Curry could put the record well out of reach at his current pace: He entered the night making 5.4 3-pointers per game this season, best of his career.

Curry, 33, is in his 789th game, with perhaps a few more seasons at the top. At the same point in his career, Allen had 1,918 3s. 

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

The Fed Meets Amid Faster Inflation and Prepares to React

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The Fed Meets Amid Faster Inflation and Prepares to React
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Federal Reserve officials, worried about rising costs and buoyed by a healing labor market, are pivoting from bolstering the economic recovery to more quickly withdrawing the support that has aided the economy since the pandemic began.

The policymakers, who meet this week for their final gathering of 2021, are widely expected to outline a faster end to their bond-buying campaign and will telegraph how aggressively they expect to raise rates from rock-bottom next year.

The potential for major policy signals at the Fed’s meeting, which concludes at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, will make it one of the most closely watched of the pandemic era.

Officials took their first step toward weaning the economy off the central bank’s support in November, when they said they would begin to slow a large-scale bond buying program that had been in place since early in the pandemic to keep money flowing around markets and support the economy. In the weeks since the Fed’s last meeting, fresh data has showed that consumer prices are climbing at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2 percent, far below its pandemic peak.

Given inflation and growth trends, Fed officials signaled clearly that they would discuss withdrawing support more quickly at this gathering, and economists think officials will signal a plan to taper off bond purchases so that the buying will stop altogether in March.

Policymakers will also provide their latest thinking on the path for interest rates in their updated quarterly economic projections, and could pencil in two or three increases next year. When they last released the projections in September, officials were split on whether they would raise rates at all in 2022. Lifting the federal funds rate is arguably the Fed’s most powerful tool for pushing back on inflation, because it would slow demand and economic growth by percolating through the rest of the economy, lifting borrowing costs on mortgages, business loans and auto debt.

In late November, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, set the stage for the central bank’s shift from an economy-stoking stance to one that is more focused on keeping inflation under control.

“At this point, the economy is very strong, and inflationary pressures are high, and it is therefore appropriate in my view to consider wrapping up the taper of our asset purchases, which we actually announced at our November meeting, perhaps a few months sooner,” Mr. Powell said during congressional testimony on Nov. 30.

The Fed chair is expected to further explain during a post-meeting news conference on Wednesday how he is thinking about the central bank’s policy stance as it confronts rapid inflation and an uncertain economic path at a time when the virus shows no signs of abating and a new variant, Omicron, complicates the outlook.

The Fed spent much of 2021 tiptoeing away from full-blast economic support, hoping to remove stimulus gradually enough that the job market would heal fully and quickly. But gradualism has given way to wariness in recent weeks, partly thanks to a new series of data points showing that inflation is still high and might stay elevated for some time.

Central bankers knew that prices would climb quickly in early 2021 as the economy recovered from the depths of the pandemic, but the increases have been strikingly broad-based and long-lasting. The gains are broadening beyond pandemic-sensitive goods and into rent and some services, and both wages and inflation expectations are picking up. Policymakers have increasingly questioned the wisdom of adding juice to the economy with each passing month.

“They’re realizing that they need to stop pouring gasoline on the fire,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, a rates strategist at T.D. Securities.

The Fed has two key jobs: keeping prices stable and fostering maximum employment. Progress on the second goal has also been notable in recent months. The unemployment rate has dropped sharply, falling to 4.2 percent in November and improving faster than Fed officials or most economist expected.

Even so, about four million jobs are still missing compared to before the pandemic. Some of those people may have retired, but others are expected to return to the job search once health concerns and pandemic-related child-care problems become less pronounced. Many Fed officials had been hoping to keep their policies very accommodative as those people came back.

But inflation is forcing policymakers to balance their job market ambitions with their goal of keeping price gains under control. While an unhealed job market is bad for American households, so too are high and unpredictable price increases that chip away at paychecks and make it hard for businesses to plan. Plus, if the Fed waits too long to react to inflation, the fear is that they might have to lift rates sharply to bring it to heel, setting off a new recession.

“We have to balance those two goals when they are in tension as they are right now,” Mr. Powell said in testimony on Dec. 1. “But I assure you we will use our tools to make sure that this high inflation that we are experiencing does not become entrenched.”

The Biden administration announced in late November that it would reappoint Mr. Powell as Fed chair, which may have also given Mr. Powell a renewed mandate to lay out a plan to manage the risks around inflation and might explain the Fed’s sudden and notable pivot toward focusing more intently on inflation, said Krishna Guha, head of the global policy central bank strategy team at Evercore ISI.

If Mr. Powell were leaving the central bank early next year when his term expires, it might have been tough for him to signal a plan for the future that his successor would have been stuck executing.

Plus, “there is pressure from both sides of the aisle for the Fed to bring inflation under control,” Mr. Guha said. But he thinks the political element of the shift could be exaggerated; economic fundamentals also explain it.

While many Fed officials say they still expect high inflation to fade, plenty of signs suggest it is at risk of remaining too high for too long. Businesses report that they are raising wages or setting aside money as they prepare to pay more. Companies — from dollar stores to pizza shops — are lifting prices and finding that consumers accept the change.

Even companies taking a cautious approach to lifting prices express uncertainty about how long it will take to clear the supply chain snarls that are pushing up prices for inputs like food commodities and imported goods.

“I think we’re living in elevated time of everything, right?” Randy Garutti, chief executive officer of Shake Shack, said at an investor conference early this month. “That will moderate. I can’t tell you when, I don’t know if it will be next year ’23 or ’24, or which product it will be? That’s unclear.”

Fed officials are quick to acknowledge that the supply snarls seem likely to last into next year, and they seem to view the new coronavirus variant — about which much is still unknown — as something with the potential to prevent tortured supply routes from returning to normal.

As they wrestle with the crosscurrents, Wall Street is debating how quickly the Fed might move to push rates higher next year, and will closely watch how many rate increases officials pencil into their fresh economic projections this week for any hint at the trajectory.

“We think it’s a close call between two or three” estimated increases, J.P. Morgan economists wrote in a preview note, noting that they think three are more likely. They expect the Fed to first raise rates in June 2022, then lift them again every three months.

The plan won’t necessarily be to try to constrain the economy by withdrawing support so rapidly that Fed policy becomes a big drag on growth — the equivalent of slamming the brakes. Instead, it will be to stop helping the economy so much, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton LLP.

“The Fed is going to take their foot off the gas pedal,” she said. The new development at this meeting is that the stimulus deceleration will be happening “even faster.”

Proud Boys Regroup, Focusing on School Boards and Town Councils

Enspirers | Editorial Board
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Proud Boys Regroup, Focusing on School Boards and Town Councils
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“Tell me where I need to be and I am there,” one member of a Proud Boys group in Wisconsin wrote last month about protests of mask mandates. “I can drive 5-6 hours in any direction.”

“Think local, act local,” wrote another member.

At some local meetings where the Proud Boys have shown up, they have spoken and threatened community leaders, according to news reports. At others, they have simply stood silently and watched. In the Telegram groups, some boasted that they had handed out their cellphone numbers to those interested in joining them.

While the Proud Boys’ membership is not public, Mr. Holt said the group appeared to be growing in small towns and counties.

Often, their presence has been enough to disrupt events. Last month, the school board in Beloit, Wis., said it canceled classes because some of the Proud Boys were at a local protest over mask requirements. In Orange County, Calif., the school board said in September that it would install metal detectors and hire extra security after several Proud Boys attended a meeting and threatened its members.

In New Hanover County, N.C., which has roughly 220,000 people and is two hours southeast of Charlotte, Stefanie Adams, the school board president, said she had read about the group’s increasing appearances and began tracking the reports closely.

Ms. Adams said she had an inkling that the Proud Boys might show up in her school district, which has 25,000 students. Because North Carolina law requires the county school board to vote on whether to continue a mask mandate for students each month, the district had handled many contentious meetings over the issue, she said.

“I figured we were on their radar, and that we might be next,” Ms. Adams said. “We knew we had to prepare for them coming to our town, too.”

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