December, 2020 | últimas notícias

Deal on Fed removes obstacle to agreement on COVID relief – Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top congressional lawmakers struck a late-night agreement on the last major obstacle to a COVID-19 economic relief package costing nearly $1 trillion, clearing the way for votes as early as Sunday.

The breakthrough involved a fight over Federal Reserve emergency powers and was resolved by the Senate’s top Democrat and a senior conservative Republican.

Congressional aides confirmed the agreement late Saturday, which clears the way for an expected deal Sunday on the aid bill. The measure is finally nearing passage amid a frightening spike in cases and deaths and accumulating evidence that the economy is struggling through the pandemic.

“We’re getting very close, very close,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he left the Capitol late Saturday. Schumer spent much of the day going back and forth with GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Toomey had been pressing a provision to close down Fed lending facilities. Democrats and the White House said it was too broadly worded and would have tied the hands of the incoming Biden administration.

The compromise, aides said, preserved Toomey’s goal but retained the Fed’s existing powers to restart similar facilities in the future.

The COVID-19 legislation has been held up after months of dysfunction, posturing and bad faith. But talks turned serious last week as lawmakers on both sides finally faced the deadline of acting before leaving Washington for Christmas.

The relief bill, lawmakers and aides say, would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefits and $600 direct stimulus payments to most Americans. It would provide a fresh round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses and money for schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction.

The measure is being added to a $1.4 trillion spending bill and lots of other unfinished work, including previously stalled legislation to extend tax breaks, authorize water projects, and address the problem of surprise sky-high medical bills for out-of-network procedures.

It would be virtually impossible for lawmakers to read and fully understand the measure before a House vote expected Sunday night.

Schumer said he hoped both the House and Senate would vote on the measure Sunday. That would take more cooperation than the Senate can usually muster, but a government shutdown deadline loomed at midnight Sunday and all sides were eager to leave for the holiday.

Toomey defended his provision in a Senate speech, saying the emergency powers were designed to stabilize capital markets at the height of the pandemic this spring and were expiring at the end of the month anyway. The language he had sought would block the Biden administration from restarting them.

Toomey has a stubborn streak and Democrats held firm as well, but both sides saw the need for a compromise.

The Fed’s emergency programs provided loans to small and mid-size businesses and bought state and local government bonds. Those bond purchases made it easier for those governments to borrow, at a time when their finances were under pressure from job losses and health costs stemming from the pandemic.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last month that those programs, along with two that purchased corporate bonds, would close at the end of the year, prompting an initial objection by the Fed. Under the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law passed after the Great Recession, the Fed can only set up emergency programs with the support of the treasury secretary.

Democrats also said that Toomey was trying to limit the Fed’s ability to boost the economy, just as Biden prepared to take office.

“This is about existing authorities that the Fed has had for a very long time, to be able to use in an emergency,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “It’s about a lending authority for helping small businesses, state government, local government in the middle of a crisis.”

Toomey disputed that, saying his proposal “is emphatically not a broad overhaul of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending authority.” His office issued a statement early Sunday calling the compromise with Schumer “an unqualified victory for taxpayers” that met Toomey’s aim of shutting down the emergency facility.

A Senate vote would follow, possibly on Monday. One more short-term funding bill would be needed to avoid the looming deadline — or a partial shutdown of nonessential agencies would start on Monday.

The emerging agreement would deliver more than $300 billion in aid to businesses as well as the extra $300-per-week for the jobless and renewal of state benefits that would otherwise expire right after Christmas. It included $600 direct payments to individuals; vaccine distribution funds; and money for renters, schools, the Postal Service and people needing food aid.

It would be the first significant legislative response to the pandemic since the landmark CARES Act passed virtually unanimously in March, delivering $1.8 trillion in aid, more generous $600 per week bonus jobless benefits and $1,200 direct payments to individuals.

The governmentwide appropriations bill would fund agencies through next September. That measure was likely to provide a last $1.4 billion installment for President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall as a condition of winning his signature.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-pat-toomey-coronavirus-pandemic-75064ab1007dde0a1411c204df83e888

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‘Pretty clear’ Russia behind SolarWinds hack, Pompeo says, becoming 1st US official to blame Moscow – ABC News

Donald Trump ran for the presidency promising to repair relations with Russia, saying repeatedly on the campaign trail in 2016 that it would be “great” if the U.S. and Russia “got along.”

But as his administration winds down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is publicly blaming Moscow for a massive cyberattack that has affected several government agencies, including the most sensitive ones that oversee the nuclear weapons stockpile and COVID-19 vaccine research.

Less than 24 hours later, Trump contradicted that with his first comments on the SolarWinds hack, tweeting that it was exaggerated by the media and that China could be responsible.

It fits a familiar pattern of the last four years — senior Trump officials trying to be tough on Moscow, while Trump downplays the threat. Amid the ongoing hack, Pompeo is also closing the last two U.S. consulates in Russia, citing the caps on American personnel that Moscow has forced on the U.S. mission in recent years.

Once welcomed by Trump, those caps, which have hamstrung U.S. diplomats, were Russian retaliation against U.S. sanctions for its aggression online, in neighboring Ukraine, and with chemical weapons.

“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Pompeo told conservative radio host Mark Levin late Friday, hours before Trump’s tweet.

But Pompeo also indicated that the administration is not planning to take any action against Vladimir Putin’s government, at least not publicly: “There are many things that you’d very much love to say, ‘Boy, I’m going to call that out,’ but a wiser course of action to protect the American people is to calmly go about your business and defend freedom.”

The SolarWinds hack is a “significant and ongoing cybersecurity campaign,” according to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The intrusion involves software from SolarWinds, which makes IT management tools, that had been “Trojanized” with a vulnerability that could be exploited by hackers to steal information, manipulate systems or plant trap doors and other exploits for future use.

Russia has denied responsibility for the hack. So far, the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Energy, as well as the National Institutes of Health all have reportedly been affected.

“The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate,” Trump’s former homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert wrote this week. “If it is Russia, President Trump must make it clear to Vladimir Putin that these actions are unacceptable. The U.S. military and intelligence community must be placed on increased alert; all elements of national power must be placed on the table.”

After days of silence, Trump claimed on Saturday that the media is exaggerating the security breach’s impact. He said he has “been fully briefed and everything is well under control.”

He went on to tweet that China may be behind the attack instead of Russia and claimed that there “could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election.”

While no public response seems to be coming soon, the U.S. is being forced to take another step that will cut into relations with Russia — closing its last two consulates in the country.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed to ABC News Friday that Pompeo, in consultation with U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, decided to permanently close the U.S. consulate in Vladivostok and temporarily close the one in Yekaterinburg.

This leaves just the U.S. embassy in Moscow as the only U.S. mission in the country. Russia forced the U.S. to close its consulate in St. Petersburg in 2018 in retaliation for the U.S. shuttering its facility in Seattle because of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the United Kingdom.

The U.S. facility in Vladivostok, Russia’s major Pacific port near the border with North Korea, had been closed since March because of COVID-19 when most of its staff evacuated. The consulate in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, was the only U.S. mission for the center of Russia.

The spokesperson said in a statement that the decision was “part of our ongoing efforts to ensure the safe and secure operation of the U.S. diplomatic mission in the Russian Federation” and “was taken to optimize the work of the U.S. mission.”

But in a private notice to Congress, sent last week and first obtained by The Associated Press Friday evening, the department said it was a “response to the ongoing staffing challenges of the U.S. Mission in Russia in the wake of the 2017-imposed personnel cap on the U.S. Mission and resultant impasse with Russia over diplomatic visas.”

Russia imposed caps on the U.S. presence in 2017 in retaliation to sanctions placed by the Obama administration over the 2016 election interference — a move that has hamstrung U.S. diplomats, but which President Trump said he was “very thankful” for though the White House later said he was being “sarcastic.”

That low point in U.S.-Russian relations is rivaled by the current one, with Russia believed to be responsible for the massive SolarWinds hack, which has also affected the private sector. Pompeo is the first U.S. official to go on the record and blame the Russian government, after U.S. officials told ABC News and other outlets that Moscow was likely responsible.

“We’re still unpacking precisely what it is, and I’m sure some of it will remain classified. But suffice it to say there was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of U.S. government systems and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as well,” Pompeo also told Levin.

But the U.S. doesn’t expect to take action against Russia’s remaining diplomatic facilities here, the State Department spokesperson said. Russia still has consulates in Houston and New York, as well as its Washington embassy.

ABC News’ Elizabeth Thomas, Luke Barr and Jack Date contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pretty-clear-russia-solarwinds-hack-pompeo-1st-us/story?id=74818788

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We’re tracking some snow this morning and the potential of a white Christmas – WFMZ Allentown

TODAY: Cloudy. A Morning Snow Shower and Shower. High: 36.

TONIGHT: Cloudy. Some Fog. Watch For Ice On Roads Where Snow Melted. Low: 28.

MONDAY: Mostly Cloudy. High: 39.

We’re cloudy today as a cold front crosses over us.

The cold front is also bringing a few flurries this morning. A few spots in the mountains will even see some bigger flakes fall from a snow shower, but nothing accumulates. Most of us stay dry all morning.

Everyone is dry this afternoon. But, it’s chilly this afternoon in the 30s. There is no wind chill.

On Monday, there’s still no wind chill, but it is pretty cloudy. In the afternoon, there will be a few peeks of sun, but don’t expect to see much sun. It’ll be sunnier Tuesday afternoon, and it’s mostly sunny on Wednesday.

When we have clearer skies on Tuesday and Wednesday, look for Jupiter in the evening just after sunset. It’ll be the brightest object in the night sky. Right next to it will be Saturn.

Jupiter and Saturn have been getting really close to each other. In fact, they’re so close on Monday that they’d look like one big planet. But, it’ll be too cloudy for us to see that.

We’ll get some more showers and snow showers from those clouds Monday night.

Philadelphia and the Philly area will see a few showers Monday night. The Poconos, the Lehigh Valley, Schuylkill and Berks Counties will see some snow showers. Some of those snow showers will bring a dusting of snow. Not everyone gets a shower or snow shower Monday night.

Now, on Christmas Eve, everyone gets rain in the afternoon and overnight. At least an inch of rain is on the way, which will help to melt a lot of the snow.

The question is, does the rain end as snow Christmas morning?

One of the future radars we use to forecast wants that rain to switch over to snow Thursday night. If that happens, we’d get a bit more than a dusting of snow and get a White Christmas.

All the other future radars we use to forecast show just rain. So, plan on rain.

But, we’ll keep you updated on the potential of a White Christmas all this week on WFMZ, the WFMZ Weather Channel on 69.2, the 69 News Weather App, and right here on WFMZ.com.

If we’re talking about the potential of snow, that means it’s getting pretty chilly on Friday, and that’s true. We’re in the 30s as temperatures drop throughout the day. It’ll be quite a change from Thursday’s 50s!

Both Thursday and Friday will be breezy, but you’ll really notice that wind on Friday because of the wind chill it brings.

The cold air settles in even more for the upcoming weekend. Highs will be near 30, and it’s still windy on Saturday.

Both Saturday and Sunday of the upcoming weekend will be sunny and dry.

DETAILED FORECAST

TODAY

TONIGHT

TOMORROW

A LOOK AHEAD

HOLIDAY WEATHER

THE WEEK AHEAD

TRACK THE WEATHER:

Source Article from https://www.wfmz.com/weather/were-tracking-some-snow-this-morning-and-the-potential-of-a-white-christmas/article_cdd14f86-41e3-11eb-8614-f35e8770db63.html

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Biden and McConnell have a long history – but can they really work together now? – The Guardian

When they were both in the Senate, Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, maintained a strong working relationship that survived some of the most partisan legislative fights in decades.

That relationship will now face a new test when Biden is sworn in as president of the United States and McConnell will be the highest-ranking Republican in the country.

It’s a setup familiar to Biden: when he was vice-president, Barack Obama had to battle with an adversarial McConnell, who at one point said the top priority of Senate Republicans was to make Obama a “one-term president”.

The difference between the beginning of that matchup – between a Democratic president who spent a just few years in the Senate and a Republican minority leader – and now is significant. McConnell, unlike at the beginning of the Obama administration, may command a slim Republican majority in his chamber when Biden takes office.

Last week, McConnell finally gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he congratulated Biden on becoming president-elect, effectively putting another nail in the coffin of Donald Trump’s repeated baseless claims of widespread fraud and attempts to overturn the results. Later that day Biden publicly said he had spoken with McConnell by phone.

“I had a great conversation with Mitch McConnell today,” Biden said on Tuesday. “I called him to thank him for the congratulations. I told him that while we disagree on a lot of things there are things we can work together on. We agreed to get together sooner than later. And I’m looking forward to working with him.”

Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference in Washington DC on 15 December. Photograph: Rod Lamkey/Getty Images

More significantly, the two have a history of working together through their decades in Congress. Biden was first elected as a senator for Delaware in 1972; McConnell was first elected to the Senate for Kentucky in 1984.

Since then, they have been co-sponsors on 318 bills, according to a Guardian tally. During a contentious debt limit fight in 2011, Biden was the preferred Obama administration liaison for McConnell. Biden has long prided himself about his deep bipartisan ties in the Senate.

“I on a number of occasions couldn’t get things done on my own and that’s when I would call in Joe Biden,” Harry Reid, the former Democratic Senate leader, said in an interview with the Guardian. “The reason that I would call upon Joe Biden in a time of my personal crisis because I couldn’t get things done on my own was he was trusted very much by Republicans, that was the way it was with all my Senate colleagues. Joe Biden had been there a long long time. He’d built up a lot of chits with a lot of people.”

Biden and McConnell appear to be polar opposites. Biden is known for his effusive friendliness and loquacious public demeanor. McConnell is more reserved and careful with his words. Yet the two will both either say they can work together or say nothing at all.

“They’re both civil,” the former senator Max Baucus of Montana said in an interview. “They’re not going to call each other names because they’ve known each other so long and if you’ve known someone that long you tend not to want to call them names.”

McConnell and Biden made a joint appearance at the eponymously named McConnell Center at the University of Louisville in 2011. In introducing Biden, then vice president, the Senate Republican said “Now that he’s moved to the other end of Pennsylvania avenue I’m happy to say that our working relationship is still strong.”

Biden at that same event described McConnell as someone he understood and a good example of the then vice-president’s deep connections in the Senate.

“The relationship between Senator McConnell and President-elect Biden has been professional, enabling them (and, importantly, their staffs) to negotiate in good faith,” said Jon Kyl, a former senator from Arizona who served in Republican Senate leadership. “In any government, certain things must get done; as professionals, these two know how to achieve necessary results.”

McConnell was also the single Republican senator to attend the funeral of Beau Biden, the president-elect’s son, in 2015.

Run-in

There’s a residual level of mutual bitterness between McConnell and his community of former and current staffers and that of Obama and his former staff. In Obama’s recent book he recounts and interaction between Biden and McConnell.

“Joe told me of one run-in he’d had on the Senate floor after the Republican leader blocked a bill Joe was sponsoring; when Joe tried to explain the bill’s merits, McConnell raised his hand like a traffic cop and said, ‘You must be under the mistaken impression that I care,’” Obama wrote. “But what McConnell lacked in charisma or interest in policy he more than made up for in discipline, shrewdness, and shamelessness – all of which he employed in the single-minded and dispassionate pursuit of power.”

But less so when it comes to Biden and McConnell. That may partially be because McConnell and Biden will have to deal with each other going forward. The two have been in something of a detente. McConnell hasn’t spoken particularly ill of Biden and vice versa.

Baucus said if Biden sets out with some kind of initiative attractive to Republicans, that could extend a honeymoon phase between him and McConnell.

“If Joe proposes and starts off with an infrastructure bill that’ll help because that’s bipartisan,” Baucus said.

Barack Obama meets with members of Congress, including Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, in the White House on 31 July 2014. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Baucus added that McConnell “will want to work with Joe as best he can because they know each other”. But the former Montana senator also noted that McConnell’s motivations include staying majority leader and protecting his caucus, interests that don’t naturally align with a Democratic president.

That silence can only last so long. In either the case where the Senate is split 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats with Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote or where Republicans have a small majority the president and Republican Senate leader will have to work with each other.

Asked if Biden and McConnell will be able to work together in harmony, Reid said: “I think we’re going to know pretty quickly because President-elect Biden, when he becomes president he’s going to have to move on certain things very quickly.

“He has a portfolio that’s loaded with stuff that he has to do and he’s going to have to pick and choose what he has to move on and I would hope that there are enough Republicans to help,” Reid added.

Asked about their different personalities and whether they will be able to work together, Kyl said in an email: “Yes, they are very different personalities, but have found they can trust each other. And, again, much of it depends on their staffs also working with each other. If they don’t have the same kind of staff they did, say in 2010-12, it would not work as well.”

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/20/joe-biden-mitch-mcconnell-history-senate

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Republicans, Democrats reach compromise over Covid-19 stimulus package – NBC News

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Lawmakers reach compromise over GOP proposal to rein in Fed’s powers, clearing path for a stimulus package deal – The Washington Post

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/12/19/stimulus-talks-race-against-government-shutddown-deadline/

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Trump Contradicts Pompeo Over Russia’s Role in Hack – The New York Times

He will not find that easy.

Mr. Trump’s tweet was his first comment on the hack, which came to light a week ago. Privately, the president has called the hack a “hoax” and pressured associates to downplay its significance and push alternate theories for who is responsible, two people familiar with the exchanges said. Larry Kudlow, his economic adviser, told reporters on Friday, “People are saying Russia. I don’t know that. It could be other countries.”

The president’s unexplained reluctance to blame Russia — which through its embassy in Washington has denied complicity in the attack — has only complicated the response, investigators say.

The government only learned of the hack from FireEye, a cybersecurity company, after the firm was itself breached. And Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, said Thursday that government agencies are approaching Microsoft — not the national security establishment — to understand the extent of the Russian breach.

“This is the most consequential cyberespionage campaign in history and the fact that the government is absent is a huge problem for the nation,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a co-founder of CrowdStrike, a security firm, who is now chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank.

“The response has been a total disaster, not just because of the president, but because whoever is left is just polishing up their resumes,” he said. “There’s no coordination and every agency is just doing whatever they can to help themselves.”

Mr. Trump’s comments on Saturday had echoes of his stance toward the hacks during 2016 presidential campaign, when he contradicted intelligence findings to claim it was China, or a “400 pound” person “sitting on his bed,” not Russia, who interfered in that election. Two years later, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers.

“Never has there been a President work so hard to provide cover for Russia,” said Clint Watts, a former F.B.I. special agent and Russian information warfare expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/trump-contradicts-pompeo-over-russias-role-in-hack.html

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Sen. Toomey stands firm on provisions to limit Fed’s emergency lending powers – TribLIVE

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey said his demands that Congress eliminate more than $400 billion in Federal Reserve emergency lending powers approved under the CARES Act and to prohibit such programs in the future should have come as a surprise to no one.

“Contrary to what Democrats suggested, this is not in any way an attempt to hamstring the Biden administration or weaken the economy,” Toomey said. The provision he insisted on proved to be a sticking point in negotiations for a $900 billion covid relief bill this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told The Associated Press that Toomey’s provision was the biggest hurdle to a sealing a deal Saturday as lawmakers scrambled to craft a relief bill to attach to a bill that will allow the government to continue operating after Sunday.

Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, is a fiscal conservative who has said he will not seek re-election in 2022. He was among a handful of Republicans who acknowledged Biden’s victory last month and congratulated the president-elect.

Biden has supported ongoing negotiations for a limited relief package, calling it a down payment.

Toomey said the provisions he insisted must be part of the proposed relief package have been part of the conversation about any future covid relief on Capitol Hill for months. The expiration of the Federal Reserve programs he has targeted was envisioned in the CARES Act, he said.

“This is all about ensuring the law is followed as it was intended to be followed,” he said.

Toomey said the programs served their purpose and have proved of limited value in recent months, with billions remaining untapped.

David Gulley, an economist at Bentley University in Massachusetts who studies fiscal policy said the programs Toomey has targeted worked well to prime the economy early in the pandemic.

“I would agree that the current value of these lending facilities is much more limited now than it was in March or April,” Gulley said. “But, it likely isn’t a good idea to restrict the Fed’s ability to respond to future crises. The Fed’s lender of last resort function has proven to be of high value during The Great Recession and the covid pandemic.”

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, warned limiting the Federal Reserve’s abilities during a crisis could prove harmful. He urged quick action on a covid relief package.

“Millions of Pennsylvanians are at risk and the American people can’t wait any longer for relief. We must work together to pass robust relief legislation without these kinds of provisions,” Casey said as negotiations continued.

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Source Article from https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/sen-toomey-stand-firm-on-provisions-to-limit-the-feds-emergency-lending-powers/

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Heated Oval Office meeting included talk of special counsel, martial law as Trump advisers clash – CNN

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-oval-office-meeting-special-counsel-martial-law/index.html

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London Put in Emergency Lockdown as U.K. Fights New Strain – Bloomberg

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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-19/london-put-in-emergency-lockdown-as-u-k-fights-new-virus-strain

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Congress Stuck, Again, In Quest To Pass COVID Relief – NPR

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is at the center of a fight over the last major issue standing in the way of a $900 billion COVID relief agreement.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is at the center of a fight over the last major issue standing in the way of a $900 billion COVID relief agreement.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Congressional leaders returned to familiar ground Saturday, digging in on opposite sides of a stalemate over a coronavirus relief package they all say is badly needed to help millions of Americans struggling this holiday season.

This time, they’re fighting over a GOP-backed provision that would require the Federal Reserve to seek congressional approval for certain lending authorities. Leaders say they have resolved nearly every other issue, from ironing out issues with food stamps and disaster funds to dropping months-long fights over state and local funding and liability reform.

And nobody in the Capitol seems happy to be spending the weekend this way.

“I don’t think this is going to be resolved anytime soon,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters. “Oh I could see us here until New Year’s, or Christmas Eve, maybe New Year’s Eve.”

The fight over the Federal Reserve started as a demand from Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, one of the most vocal fiscal hawks in Congress. He is pushing for three pandemic-related programs, a corporate bond credit facility, a main street lending program and a municipal lending program, to end.

“They don’t need to continue,” Toomey said on the Senate floor. “They were funded by the CARES Act, they were set up at the time of the CARES Act for this narrow, specific purpose and now they’ve achieved their purpose.”

Democrats argue the provision would also prevent future Treasury secretaries from restarting the programs. They accuse Republicans of holding up roughly $900 billion in funds and programs over one proposal that they say cropped up in the final hours of the talks.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told reporters that the Fed issue isn’t related to COVID relief and would “cripple the next administration.”

“Why are we even having this discussion?” King asked. “If Mitch McConnell wants to leave Americans suffering for a totally irrelevant provision to try to cripple our ability to deal with an upcoming election … that’s his choice and he’s going to have to live with it.”

Republicans adopted Toomey’s fight but Majority Leader McConnell did not respond to questions Saturday about whether the issue is a red line in the negotiations. Toomey told reporters that he thinks it is possible to get a deal done.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters that the argument over Toomey’s request is the big remaining issue preventing a final deal.

“That has to be resolved and then everything will fall into place,” Pelosi told reporters. “It’s not a detail, it’s a very significant difference.”

The two-day stop-gap spending bill Congress approved Friday to allow them time to finish their talks is set to expire at the end of the day on Sunday.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/19/948388321/congress-stuck-again-in-quest-to-pass-covid-relief

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Trump Encourages ‘Wild’ Protests in D.C. on Date of Electoral College Vote Count – Newsweek

President Donald Trump is calling for “wild” protests to occur in the nation’s capital on January 6, the final date on which he and his most hard-line Republican allies desperately hope to overturn President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory.

Trump, who twice campaigned on being the “law and order” candidate, is hoping to create chaos in Washington two weeks before Inauguration Day. As he continues to baselessly claim that it’s “statistically impossible” he lost, Trump Saturday urged his supporters to interrupt what is typically an innocuous joint session of Congress on January 6 in which they will count Biden’s 306 to 232 win among state electoral votes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged Republicans not to object to the election results, but some GOP lawmakers and far-right conspiracy theorists say they plan to disrupt the final procedural hurdle before Biden takes office.

“Peter Navarro releases 36-page report alleging election fraud ‘more than sufficient’ to swing victory to Trump,” the president tweeted Saturday. “A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Twitter flagged Trump’s claim as “disputed,” as it’s done often of late.

Legal experts say the January 6 gathering of House and Senate lawmakers, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, is traditionally just a formality in which Congress received and approves the long-since decided state electoral votes. But several vehemently pro-Trump Republicans—Alabama’s Mo Brooks and Georgia’s Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with Alabama’s senator-elect Tommy Tuberville—say they plan to disrupt the rudimentary process next month.

“We’re gonna get that all corrected,” Tuberville, who defeated Trump’s ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Alabama’s Senate race, said of Biden’s victory. “Don’t give up. It’s impossible. It is impossible what happened.”

But many Republicans and Washington law experts say Trump has zero chance of stalling the results and that his call for “wild” protests on January 6 is just a final desperate stunt. Trevor Potter, Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, penned a Washington Post essay warning American voters, “January 6 is not another Election Day. Don’t let President Trump convince you it is.”

This comes as McConnell warned Republican senators Tuesday in a private call not to object to the January 6 vote, Politico reported.

Trump has also drummed up the support of far-right conspiracy theorists and others who are calling for a full-on civil war in America. Alex Jones told a crowd of Trump supporters in Washington that Biden “will be removed one way or another” from the White House. Jones, “Proud Boys” members and other fanatical Trump backers have repeatedly told the president they will not allow him to be removed from office.

That potentially violent and chaotic sentiment appears to be fully supported by the president himself.

“He didn’t win the Election. He lost all 6 Swing States, by a lot. They then dumped hundreds of thousands of votes in each one, and got caught. Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don’t be weak fools!” Trump tweeted Saturday.

Newsweek reached out to the White House as well as the Tuberville and Brooks offices for additional remarks Saturday morning.

President Donald Trump on Saturday encouraged “wild” protests in Washington D.C. on January 6, the date of the electoral college vote. Here a Trump supporter charges at counter-protesters outside the Georgia State Capitol on November 14.
ELIJAH NOUVELAGE / Stringer/Getty Images

Source Article from https://www.newsweek.com/trump-encourages-wild-protests-dc-date-electoral-college-vote-count-1556153

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Twitter updates warning label for election misinformation to say Joe Biden won – CNN

By Brian Fung, CNN Business

Updated 3:29 PM ET, Sat December 19, 2020

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/tech/twitter-election-warning-label/index.html

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Trump contradicts Pompeo, plays down alleged Russian role in cyberattack – CNBC

President Donald Trump suggested Saturday that China might have been behind a cyberattack affecting multiple U.S. government agencies and companies, despite Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s allegation hours earlier that Russia was likely behind the attack.

The assertion adds confusion to an already complex situation, as cybersecurity workers strive to figure out a hack that came to light less than week ago. At that time Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that attackers were affiliated with Russia.

“Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of……..discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!)” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets.

A U.S. official confirmed to NBC News on Saturday that White House officials were planning to issue a statement on Friday that would say Russia was responsible for the cyberattack but were told to stand down. The Associated Press reported on the White House’s plans earlier on Saturday. Two officials told NBC News that Trump’s tweets had caught White House off guard.

“At this time the NSC is focused on investigating the circumstances surrounding this incident, and working with our interagency partners to mitigate the situation,” National Security Council spokesperson told NBC News. “There will be an appropriate response to those actors behind this conduct.”

Russia has been a sensitive topic for Trump. An investigation led by Robert Mueller found that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 election that resulted in Trump becoming president. Trump said in 2019 that he had never worked for Russia, after The New York Times reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation had begun looking into whether he had become influenced by the Kremlin.

Shares of management software maker SolarWinds have fallen nearly 40% over the past week, during which it started to become clear how many organizations installed updates to software that had included a vulnerability likely introduced by attackers between March and June. Cisco, Microsoft and VMware are among the companies that have said in recent days that they were impacted.

The Energy Department confirmed Thursday that the attack had reached its business networks. Last weekend the Commerce Department said it had been breached, and NBC News reported that the White House National Security Council said it was investigating a possible breach at the Treasury Department.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican representing Florida, said in a Saturday tweet that it was “increasingly clear that Russian intelligence conducted the gravest cyber intrusion in our history.”

SolarWinds itself has not assigned blame to a specific country.

“While security professionals and other experts have attributed the attack to an outside nation-state, we have not independently verified the identity of the attacker,” the company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

WATCH: Scope of suspected Russian hack grows as more organizations reveal breaches

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/19/trump-contradicts-pompeo-plays-down-alleged-russian-role-in-hack.html

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‘We can say pretty clearly’ Russia was behind massive cyberattack on US, Pompeo says – CNN

By Jennifer Hansler and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN

Updated 12:03 PM ET, Sat December 19, 2020

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/pompeo-us-government-hack-russia/index.html

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U.K. Imposes Harsher Lockdown on London, Citing New Version of Virus – The New York Times

That, however, raises the prospect of case numbers growing faster, leading to more hospitalizations and fatalities, and the British government said it had notified the World Health Organization about the prevalence of the new variant.

The new lockdown zone includes all of Greater London and much of the surrounding southeast of the country, a densely populated area encompassing nearly 20 million people, a third of England’s population. The restrictions will remain in place for at least two weeks, and will be reviewed on Dec. 30.

The government told people in this region to stay at home except for a few reasons, including urgent travel, medical appointments and outdoor exercise. Those outside this zone were advised not to travel into it, and those living inside will not be permitted to travel outside overnight. Nonessential shops will close, as will gyms, cinemas, hairdressers and nail salons.

And, though Mr. Johnson said just a few days ago that it would be “inhuman” to cancel Christmas, that will be the practical effect on much of the population with new restrictions on social mixing. A plan to allow three households to meet together over the holiday will be scrapped in London and the southeast, with no household mixing permitted at all.

In other parts of the country three households will be allowed to gather, but only on Christmas Day, and not for the extended five-day period once envisaged.

The announcement on Saturday is an admission that England’s existing system of restrictions, under which the country was divided into three “tiers” with different rules, has not been sufficient to control the spread of the virus. The new area of lockdown will constitute a new, and tougher, fourth tier.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/world/coronavirus-uk-new-variant.html

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Congress in frantic race to strike stimulus deal – POLITICO

In his remarks Saturday morning on the Senate floor, McConnell warned against dragging the talks out and urged for a swift agreement that includes more federal unemployment aid, as well as funding for schools, direct stimulus checks for Americans, vaccines, and the Paycheck Protection Program.

“There’s a kind of gravitational pull here in Congress. Unless we are careful any major negotiation can slide into an unending catalogue of disagreements,” McConnell said. “Let’s guard against that.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said negotiators are close to a deal but blamed the Federal Reserve dispute as “the only significant hurdle to completing an agreement.”

“Republicans need to make a decision,” Schumer said. “We’re quickly approaching an all or nothing situation. Everybody needs to make a decision about whether we’re going to pass this much needed relief or not and about 11th hour demands and whether they’re worth holding up the entire bill.”

Senate Republicans are set to talk with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at 1 p.m.

If and when an accord is reached, House and Senate leaders will need to move at lightning speed — with virtually no room for dissent within their parties — to muscle through the massive package before government funding expires midnight Sunday.

Both chambers cleared a two-day stopgap funding bill Friday night, buying more time for a deal that has remained elusive for months.

“I’m still somewhat hopeful we could wrap this up if the House moves quickly and we gotta take it up and do it tomorrow night,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “But I would say it’s also very possible that it rolls into Monday.”

The Senate will hold its first set of votes at 12 p.m. on an unrelated Trump nomination, where lawmakers hope to learn details of the still-evolving package, which is expected to include roughly $900 billion in small business loans, unemployment aid and direct payments for most Americans.

House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, will brief their members on a conference call at noon. With no deal in hand by Friday night, Hoyer told members that the House would not vote until 1 p.m. on Sunday, at the earliest.

Pressure, meanwhile, is mounting on leaders of both parties as the U.S. again surpasses its daily record of new cases and deaths continue to surge.

And even while the first vaccines have arrived on Capitol Hill in recent days, fears spread of a new outbreak as some House members and reporters tested positive for the virus.

“I’m wondering why we can’t get a bill that we’re all reading about in the paper done, and it could’ve been passed in July since everybody agrees with everything it in, pretty much,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior appropriator, said in an interview Friday.

“But hopefully we’re in visual sight of the finish line here,” Cole said. “It’s Christmas, I’m determined to be optimistic.”

The recovery package will be merged on the floor with a must-pass, $1.4 trillion government funding bill in one of the biggest legislative packages of the 116th Congress. The final measure is also expected to include a slew of year-end tax and health extenders, as well as long-awaited legislation to address “surprise” medical bills.

Rank-and-file lawmakers have complained they’ve been largely kept in the dark on the talks, and expect to have little time to review the deal before it comes for a vote.

“The fact that these are just negotiations that happen, backdoor, and we’re hearing secondhand what’s in this, should be unacceptable,” a frustrated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview Friday, just after lawmakers left the Capitol without a deal.

“We’ll get the final text, they’ll call a vote 30 minutes after the text is released, and you’re frantically trying to sift through,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s terrible.”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/19/coronavirus-stimulus-saturday-448631

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Arizona Republicans worry party infighting could harm them in future elections – CNN

By Bob Ortega, CNN

Updated 11:02 AM ET, Sat December 19, 2020

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/arizona-republican-party/index.html

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Mike And Karen Pence Have Received The First Dose Of The COVID-19 Vaccine On Live TV – BuzzFeed News

After months of leading the White House coronavirus task force, overseeing an ineffectual response to the pandemic that has killed more than 310,000 people to date, Vice President Mike Pence became among the first people in the nation to receive the first Pfizer vaccine dose on Friday morning.

Along with his wife, Karen Pence, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams, Pence was vaccinated in an event broadcast on live TV as part of the Trump administration’s mixed effort to instill public confidence in the vaccine.

He is the first top Trump administration official to receive the vaccine.

“Karen and I are more than happy to step forward before this week was up, to take the safe and effective coronavirus vaccine that we have secured and produced for the American people,” he said after receiving the first shot in his left arm, in a speech applauding the nationwide mobilization to deliver and administer the vaccine.

“From early on, President Trump gave the White House coronavirus task force one mission and that was to save lives,” he continued. “And in the midst of one of the most challenging years in the life of this nation, I truly do believe that despite the heartbreak and hardship that we have endured as a nation that we have done just that.”

The Pences join thousands of healthcare workers to receive the first doses of the vaccine this week as the pandemic reaches staggering new heights. On Wednesday, Johns Hopkins University reported more than 247,000 new COVID cases in the country and more than 3,600 deaths, the highest single-day count to date.

The vice president himself has dismissed concerns about the severity of the pandemic. In June, as case counts increased in parts of the country, Pence wrote an op-ed insisting there was no second wave of the virus in the US and praising Trump’s leadership for the “great progress” the administration has made.

“The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and these grim predictions of a second wave are no different,” he wrote. “The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success.”

The administration also passed on Pfizer’s offer to secure more doses of the vaccine back in the summer, the New York Times reported.

Pence has publicly displayed indifference to safety measures as well. In October, after several of his close aides tested positive for the coronavirus, he continued to show up at election campaign events, flouting the recommendations of public health experts.

Days before he received the vaccine, Pence also reportedly hosted a holiday party at his house, where guests were photographed without masks on and spent time in an outdoor area.

Now in December, with the country well into its third and most brutal wave of the pandemic, the administration is struggling to deliver a unified front on encouraging Americans to get the vaccine despite securing priority vaccinations for its staffers.

The White House has said that Trump, who was hospitalized in October after testing positive for the coronavirus, will not get vaccinated yet. An aide to Melania Trump also told a reporter that whether or not the first lady gets the vaccine “is not something she’ll likely share.”

The Biden transition team, however, has said that President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris will be vaccinated next week, also in public.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both separately announced that they received the vaccine on Friday afternoon.

Kathy Arberg, a spokesperson for the US Supreme Court, confirmed in an email on Friday that Congress’s Office of the Attending Physician informed the court that the justices “are eligible to receive the vaccine in the coming days.” The justices have been working remotely during the pandemic, including hearing arguments and issuing opinions.

Zoe Tillman contributed reporting.

Source Article from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/clarissajanlim/mike-karen-pence-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine

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What Polls Say About David Perdue and Jon Ossoff 2 Weeks Before the Georgia Election – Newsweek

Senator David Perdue and Jon Ossoff are headed for a close election, although polls have shifted in the incumbent senator’s favor in recent days.

Mail-in and early in-person voting for the Georgia runoff election has already begun and there’s just about two weeks until Election Day. With control of the Senate on the line, Democrats and Republicans have a vested interest in the outcome of the race between Perdue and Ossoff and Georgians have already cast about 500,000 ballots.

On average, Perdue has a .8 point lead over his Democratic challenger, according to FiveThirtyEight, a margin that makes for a statistical tie. The most recent poll came out on Thursday from Emerson College and gave Perdue a 3 point advantage, a lead that’s within the poll’s margin of error.

Of the 600 people polled, 51 percent said they were going to vote for Perdue and 48 percent were planning on supporting Ossoff. Democrats have the lead among younger voters and Republicans have an advantage with those over the age of 45.

Given that there are a limited number of voters who plan to cast votes for a Republican in one race and a Democrat in another, Spencer Kimball, Director of Emerson College Polling, suspected one party would win both seats.

If Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock, who is challenging Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler for her seat in a runoff election, oust the two Republicans from office, there will be a 50-50 split in the Senate. This effectively gives Democrats control because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will cast any necessary tie-breaking votes.

Senator David Perdue has a slight edge over Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff but the race is still too close to call. Perdue addresses the crowd during a campaign rally at Peachtree Dekalb Airport on Monday in Atlanta, Georgia.
Jessica McGowan/Getty

President-elect Joe Biden benefitted from mail-in voting and it turned the tide of the election in his favor. President Donald Trump largely dissuaded voters from casting their ballots by mail, but this time around, the president and vice president have pushed Georgians to vote by any available method.

Emerson’s poll found 61 percent of people who already voted went for Ossoff and 39 percent cast ballots for Perdue. However, 68 percent of those polled who plan to vote on January 5 are planning on casting ballots for Perdue.

One of the top priorities for voters in the Georgia election is the COVID-19 response and in that area, Ossoff leads among voters. The Democratic candidate has been a vocal advocate for a second round of stimulus checks and has hit Perdue for not having the same level of enthusiasm about the measure.

Perdue voted in favor of the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March, but said he opposed direct payments on a personal level.

In November, Perdue received about 80,000 more votes than Ossoff, but because he fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win an election in Georgia, it forced the race into a runoff. Although he had the advantage in November, nothing is guaranteed come January and pollsters expect the race to come down to the wire.

Source Article from https://www.newsweek.com/what-polls-say-about-david-perdue-jon-ossoff-2-weeks-before-georgia-election-1556055

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Bill de Blasio says mission is to ‘redistribute wealth’ in NYC school system – Fox News

Video

Bill de Blasio warns NYC to brace for a ‘full shut down’

New York assemblyman Mike Lipetri argues New York City faces ‘economic collapse’ if Cuomo, de Blasio keep enforcing COVID-19 restrictions.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in a news conference Friday said he sees the redistribution of wealth as an important factor toward ending structural racism in education.

“I’d like to say very bluntly our mission is to redistribute wealth,” he said. “A lot of people bristle at that phrase. That is, in fact, the phrase we need to use.”

NYC MAYOR DE BLASIO ACCUSED OF USING NYPD AS SCAPEGOAT AFTER GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS

He added the city’s government needs to “more equitably redistribute resources” throughout the school system, which he said would include pre-K and 3-K for all and advanced placement courses in every high school.

The mayor said that minority students have been most affected by coronavirus school closures, adding his office would focus on closing the “COVID achievement gap,” that disproportionately hurts kids without access to tech resources while distance learning.

He went on to announce several admissions changes in the city aimed at fighting segregation in selective schools, including expanding diversity planning in in every district, eliminating geographic priority for the next two years and expanding grant applications to more districts.

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“We can never accept a broken status quo,” De Blasio said. “We can never go back to a past that didn’t work. … The COVID era has taught us that so clearly, and we need to do better and we will. And that means a commitment to fighting disparities and inequality in the life of New York City.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-de-blasio-says-mission-is-to-redistribute-wealth-in-nyc-school-system

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Bill de Blasio warns NYC to brace for a ‘full shut down’