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REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File PhotoHOUSTON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Russia's decision to cut crude oil production by 500,000 barrels per day reflects its inability to sell all of its oil, Ben Harris, a U.S. Treasury Department Assistant Secretary, said on Thursday. Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak last week said it would voluntarily cut production beginning next month following the start of Western price caps on Russian oil and oil products on Feb. 5. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have pushed for lowering the crude oil cap. There have been no American companies involved in trading Russian oil above the price cap, he said. Phillips 66's (PSX.N) Chief Executive Mark Lashier said the company's base assumption is that Russia's crude and oil products will find their way into the marketplace.

The decision, announced after financial markets closed, gives Biden a pair of trusted Washington insiders to steer economic policy as the risk of recession fades but inflation lingers. Big fights also loom with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives over raising the debt ceiling. The shakeup comes as the White House tries to tackle what officials view as a frustrating disconnect between relatively strong economic data and weak public sentiment. The White House has refused to discuss spending cuts without a debt ceiling vote first. Bernstein last week conceded that the White House's early description of inflation as "transitory" had missed the mark.

☆ The Democrats' latest strategy is making Marjorie Taylor Greene the face of the GOP
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But that could come back to haunt Republicans as Democrats increasingly try to paint her as one of the faces of the party. And while many Republicans came out against the plan, Democrats — especially President Joe Biden — have used it as a cudgel against the GOP. And while Democrats lost control of the House, they lost far fewer seats than expected, partly due to utilizing Scott's messaging against the GOP. Democrats can use Greene to their advantageNow as Greene continues to gain power and authority in the GOP and Congress, Democrats have the opportunity to use her own actions and words against the GOP as a whole. There's the possibility that giving Greene larger platform could backfire on Democrats.

☆ Republicans' 'weaponization' committee is a "Fox News reboot of McCarthyism," White House says ahead of first hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The House "Weaponization of the Federal Government" subcommittee is holding its first hearing. The White House likened it to a "reboot of McCarthyism" designed to help Republicans get on Fox News. The hearing will cover "the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties." The hearing led by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan will include witness testimony from Fox News commentators, the White House notes. Jordan, in a House floor speech last month, rejected the notion that the committee is a "ploy" and said whistleblowers have talked to Republicans about alleged government intrusions.

☆ UK competition regulator warns Microsoft’s Activision deal could harm millions of gamers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington CNN —Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard could harm competition by letting Microsoft restrict Activision’s video games to proprietary platforms such as Xbox, UK officials said Wednesday, in the latest challenge to the tech giant’s blockbuster acquisition. The UK’s competition regulator said the proposed deal, which would make Microsoft (MSFT) the world’s third-largest video game publisher, could hurt tens of millions of gamers in the country by leading to higher prices or fewer choices. The provisional finding by the UK Competition and Markets Authority is another sign of growing opposition to the deal by antitrust regulators worldwide. In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the acquisition over similar claims, and the European Union is also evaluating the deal. Cloud gaming services grant players access to video games without the need for downloading the games to a local PC or console.

☆ U.S. is 'absolutely' behind on supply chain independence from China, Biden advisor says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Natasha Turak | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

watch nowThe U.S. has some rapid catching up to do if it is to secure the reliability of its supply chain and its independence from competitors like China, a top White House advisor admitted this week. "We can't have a supply chain that is concentrated in any country, doesn't matter which country that is," he said. Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China October 31, 2010. The Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have also highlighted the fragility of the global supply chain. Globally, China controls most of the market for processing and refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other critical minerals."

☆ Hunter Biden Calls for Probes Into Trump Allies
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( C. Ryan Barber | Annie Linskey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—A lawyer for Hunter Biden urged state and federal prosecutors Wednesday to investigate prominent allies of former President Donald Trump and others who accessed and disseminated the contents of his laptop, alleging they broke the law in an effort to “weaponize” the personal data of Joe Biden’s son during the 2020 election. The series of letters marked a pivot to a newly aggressive strategy for the younger Mr. Biden as he confronts a yearslong Justice Department investigation focused on his taxes, along with separate inquiries by House Republicans into his business dealings.

☆ Hunter Biden Calls for Criminal Probes Into Trump Allies Over Laptop
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( C. Ryan Barber | Annie Linskey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—A lawyer for Hunter Biden urged state and federal prosecutors Wednesday to investigate prominent allies of former President Donald Trump and others who accessed and disseminated the contents of his laptop, alleging they broke the law in an effort to “weaponize” the personal data of Joe Biden‘s son during the 2020 election. The series of letters marked a pivot to a newly aggressive strategy for the younger Mr. Biden as he confronts a yearslong Justice Department investigation focused on his taxes, along with separate inquiries by House Republicans into his business dealings.

☆ Apple and Google should boot TikTok from their app stores, Democratic senator urges
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., urged the CEOs of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their mobile app stores immediately in a letter on Thursday, citing widespread concerns that the Chinese government could access information on Americans using the app. "These obvious risks render TikTok, in its current form, an unacceptable threat to the national security of the United States." TikTok has repeatedly sought to reassure concerned American lawmakers and officials that it does not store U.S. user data in China. It has also been negotiating with the U.S. government about how it can mitigate potential national security risks while continuing to operate here. "Unfortunately, Senator Bennet's letter relies almost exclusively on misleading reporting about TikTok, the data we collect, and our data security controls," TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement.

☆ Russia’s ‘Energy Weapon’ Is Hurting China Too
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Nathaniel Taplin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Europe has had a tough winter—but warm weather and a herculean effort to find new natural gas supplies has limited the economic damage from Moscow’s decision to curb gas exports to the continent. Some of that damage is instead showing up in a very different gas market and one Russia is counting on for its growth: China. Unlike in Europe, winter in parts of Northern China is proving to be bitterly cold. Moreover China’s energy sector reforms since 2020—and a major policy push in recent years to use more gas for environmental reasons—have left some Chinese city utilities more exposed to rising global prices. One result has been the curtailment of gas supply to some residents, who pay lower regulated prices for gas than industrial customers.

☆ Russia was making big plans for Ukraine's nuclear power plants before its invasion fell apart
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Stavros Atlamazoglou | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Those plans depended in part on seizing Ukraine's nuclear power plants and using them for leverage. Dmytro Smolyenko/Future Publishing via Getty ImagesAccording to the RUSI report, Russia's war plans viewed Ukraine's nuclear power plants as a means to achieve Moscow's larger aims. The Kremlin's plan envisioned three uses for the Ukrainian nuclear power facilities once the invasion was underway. Moscow also incorporated Ukraine's nuclear power facilities into its information operations. Fighting in a nuclear plantThe Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on August 29.

☆ Russia faces new sanctions on its energy exports - but this time China and India may not come to Putin's rescue
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The European Union's upcoming ban on Russian oil products could spell more turmoil for the Kremlin. China and India are unlikely to buy refined Russian fuels that were once sold to the EU, which will ban them on February 5. That's in contrast to Russian crude oil, which were snapped up by China and India after Europe shunned those supplies. Russia could refine less fuel but keep oil production stable, resulting in even more crude exports to India and China, Katona said. "China will likely to have to use its own products, reducing refined products exports from China that would have otherwise been available to EU buyers," he said.

☆ A 'RuPaul's Drag Race' queen says her TikTok was suspended after she posted a video impersonating George Santos in drag
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Jan Sport of "RuPaul's Drag Race" had her TikTok account suspended. She said she was locked out after posting a video of her impersonating George Santos' drag persona. Initially, the video was well-received, getting positive comments from fellow drag queens, more than 400,000 views on TikTok, and 75,000 likes on Instagram. But she said after the video went viral, her TikTok account was suspended. "People are trying to make comparisons about drag queens sexualizing things," she said, referring to right-wing talking points that allege drag queens brainwash and groom children.

☆ No, the GOP isn't going to abolish income tax — or the IRS
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The House is planning to vote on a Republican bill that would abolish the national income tax. It would implement a national sales tax in its place and eliminate the IRS. The House of Representatives is planning to vote on a Republican bill that would abolish the national income tax, payroll tax, and estate tax and replace it with a single national consumption — or sales — tax on the purchase of goods and services. "Go home and tell your moms, they're going to be really excited about that," Biden said of the national sales tax proposal in Thursday remarks. Critics say replacing the national income tax with a consumption tax would be highly regressive and shift the country's tax burden from higher-income Americans to middle- and working-class taxpayers.

☆ Why detransitioners are crucial to the science of gender care
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +43 min

A Canadian health provider said it couldn’t participate, citing recent threats to hospitals offering youth gender care. But as Reuters found, hard evidence on long-term outcomes for the rising numbers of people who received gender treatment as minors is very weak. Dr Marianne van der Loos, the Dutch study’s lead author, is a physician at Amsterdam University Medical Center’s Center for Expertise on Gender Dysphoria, a pioneer in gender care for adolescents. For those who also received medical treatment, detransitioning typically includes halting the hormone therapy they otherwise would receive for years. One is Max Robinson, who was 16 when she sought gender care at Kaiser in 2012.

The proposals have alarmed voting rights activists and state Democrats, who tried and failed last year to block a GOP-backed overhaul of election laws — a priority of Gov. The 62 voting rights-related bills Texas lawmakers have already prefiled represent nearly all prefiled voting rights legislation across the country, according to a review of prefiled bills by Voting Rights Lab and NBC News. An election police forceRepublican-authored Texas bills, such as HB 549 and SB 220, propose creating a system of state “election marshals,” who would investigate allegations of violations of election and voting laws, and file criminal charges when warranted. Harsher penaltiesLegislation such as HB 39, HB 52, HB 222, HB 397 and SB 166 aims to raise the penalty for election and voting rights crimes to a felony from a misdemeanor. “All my bill does is restore the felony punishment for illegal voting,” Texas Rep. David Spiller, the author of HB 52, said in an interview.

☆ I called out my aunt, Rep. Vicky Hartzler, after she made a homophobic speech in tears. Since surviving conversion therapy, I want people to know they don't have to accept the hateful rhetoric of thos
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Andrew Hartzler spent years in conversion therapy and attended a religious institution. He called out his aunt, Rep. Vicky Hartzler, after she spoke out against the Respect for Marriage Act. During my second year of college, however, my perspective changed when I came across a HuffPost article that revealed my aunt hosted a conversion therapy group at the US Capitol in 2019. Attending a religious university and experiencing conversion therapy led me to a life of advocating for LGBTQ peopleThe first time I went to conversion therapy, I was 14 going on 15. Conversion therapy makes you feel like you're using 50% of your mind to hide a fundamental part of who you are, and you're told to hate that part of yourself.

Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian penal colony Thursday as part of a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was met with widespread celebration. Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison after vape canisters and cannabis oil were discovered in her luggage at the airport. “I wonder if she will respect our flag and country now,” self-proclaimed Trump supporter Collin Rugg wrote in a tweet liked 21,000 times. Such outdated definitions of patriotism disgrace the national anthem and the flag more than any peaceful protest ever could. She is a Black LGBTQ American, a wife, a daughter, an advocate, an Olympian and a world-class basketball star.

We’re going to win Georgia,” Biden said in response to questions regarding his outlook on the Georgia Senate runoff contest as he exited Air Force One Tuesday night. Share this -Link copiedWarnock defeats Walker in Georgia Senate runoff, NBC News projects Sen. Raphael Warnock has won his second statewide runoff election in the last two years, defeating Republican Herschel Walker in the increasingly purple state of Georgia to capture a six-year term in the Senate, NBC News projected. Share this -Link copiedThe Senate runoff election is still too close to call, but Warnock leads The Senate runoff election between Warnock and Walker is still too close to call, but Warnock leads, NBC News' Decision Desk said just before 10 p.m. Share this -Link copiedPolls close soon in critical Georgia Senate runoff Polls are closing at 7 p.m. ET in the Senate runoff election in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is hoping to fend off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker.

The turnout in the Senate runoff was nearly 75% to 80% of the entire turnout for the midterm election in November. Share this -Link copiedPolls close soon in critical Georgia Senate runoff Polls are closing at 7 p.m. ET in the Senate runoff election in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is hoping to fend off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has a massive ad-spending and fundraising advantage over Republican Herschel Walker in the runoff election. In the 2022 general election, Warnock grew his advantage in Henry County, winning it by just over 31 points.

Share this -Link copiedGroups work to mobilize Latino voters in Georgia Senate runoff From giving away bingo-like Mexican lotería cards to Taco Tuesdays and World Cup watch parties, Latino voting mobilization efforts ramped up in Georgia leading into the Senate runoff election. Share this -Link copiedPolls close soon in critical Georgia Senate runoff Polls are closing at 7 p.m. ET in the Senate runoff election in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is hoping to fend off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has a massive ad-spending and fundraising advantage over Republican Herschel Walker in the runoff election. In the 2022 general election, Warnock grew his advantage in Henry County, winning it by just over 31 points.

☆ Georgia Senate runoff live updates: Walker and Warnock face off in the last of the 2022 midterms
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Dennis Romero | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

As Senate runoff nears, Herschel Walker’s ex-girlfriend details abuse As the U.S. Senate runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock and football legend Herschel Walker reaches its final hours, an ex-girlfriend of Walker is sharing details of what she says is his abusive behavior toward her. Cheryl Parsa, 61, told NBC News on Sunday that she was in a five-year relationship with Walker in the 2000s. Share this -Link copiedGeorgia Senate runoff smashes early voting records — and attracts new voters ATLANTA — Georgia has set new records for early voting again as the two Senate candidates blitz the state ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election. White voters made up 55% of early voters, 32% are Black, and Latinos and Asian Americans each accounted for less than 2% of the total. Now, Democrats see an opening to weaponize it to finish the job against Walker in the runoff, when a victory would give their party a 51st Senate seat.

☆ Europeans Cut Back on Spending, Pointing to Recession Ahead
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Paul Hannon | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Europe has seen a 1.8% drop in retail sales from September, the largest fall since July 2021. Europeans cut back sharply on their spending on goods during October, a sign that high prices at the start of a period of increasing energy usage are pushing the region’s economies toward recession. Consumer prices have surged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s decision to weaponize the country’s vast stores of energy to undermine European support for Kyiv.

The 26% of Georgians who ranked abortion as their top issue backed Warnock by a margin of 77% to 21%, NBC News exit polls showed. Herschel Walker wants a total ban on abortion nationwide,” says a TV ad by the Democratic group Georgia Honor, playing footage of Walker calling for a “no-exception” ban. NBC News exit polls showed 60% of voters believe abortion should be legal, while 37% said it should be illegal. And no-exceptions rhetoric could be out of step with voters in a divided state like Georgia. Sen. Gary Peters, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the party’s Senate campaign arm, said abortion will remain a “permanent” feature of American elections until Republicans back down.

☆ Eurozone Inflation Eased in November, but Further Rate Rises Likely
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Paul Hannon | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The annual rate of inflation in the eurozone fell in November for the first time since mid-2021 as energy prices dropped. However, the slowdown isn’t likely to stop the European Central Bank from increasing interest rates further, economists warned. Consumer-price inflation across the 19 countries that share the euro has increased since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s decision to weaponize the country’s vast stores of energy to undermine European support for Kyiv.

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