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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday that it may act sooner than previously planned to start dialing back the low-interest rate policies that have helped fuel a swift rebound from the pandemic recession but have also coincided with rising inflation. The Fed’s policymakers forecast that they would raise their benchmark short-term rate, which influences many consumer and business loans, twice by late 2023. They had previously estimated that no rate hike would occur before 2024. In a statement after its latest policy meeting, the Fed also said it expects the pandemic to have a diminishing effect on the...

While questioning FBI Director Christopher Wray about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in a hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said Ashli Babbitt, who was killed as she attempted to breach a set of doors in the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack, was "executed" and that the officer who shot her was "lying in wait."

"Federal law does not permit cooperating witnesses or informants to be charged with conspiracy, despite a baseless suggestion by Tucker Carlson that some co-conspirators of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol were not charged because they were undercover FBI agents" This is Twitter's fact check/disclaimer or whatever they call it. It show's at top when you click on the "Tucker Carlson" tranding topic.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the regulatory agency that manages Texas’ power grid, said tight grid conditions are expected this week due to high number of forced generation outages, and urged Texans to conserve energy. The announcement came one month after it published its latest seasonal assessment projecting a less than a 1% chance of blackouts occurring this summer. It also came just four months after the state’s historic power grid failure left millions of Texans in the cold and dark. Without heat and water during sub-zero temperatures in mid-February, 111 Texans died. On Monday, ERCOT asked Texans...

House conservatives successfully derailed two bills that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to fast-track through the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday evening, a victory the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus told Breitbart News was “stunning.” “That’s stunning,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the House Freedom Caucus chairman, said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

With the 2021 Colorado regular legislative session concluded, lawmakers have approved tax and fee increases on Coloradans of up to $617 million annually without voter consent. The new revenues are enough to give every schoolteacher in Colorado a $11,343.65 per year raise. The tax and fee increases amount to an average of $430 per year for a family of four. New and Net Revenue.. This session, 83 bills passed by the legislature would increase state revenue. Senate Legislative Council (SLC) included revenue projections for 45 of these in fiscal notes for each. Some fiscal notes provide an estimated range rather...

Mr. Schiff, please spare me the pious lecture and phony indignationSpare me the pious lecture and phony indignation. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., threw an apoplectic fit the other day when he learned that what he did to others was done to him. There is some perverse irony in all of this. But, of course, Schiff neglected to mention his own hypocrisy. Schiff’s tantrum was triggered by the recent disclosure that the Trump Department of Justice obtained his phone records, along with another California Democrat, Eric Swalwell and several journalists. Their data was seized pursuant to grand jury subpoenas served on...

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Hallie Jackson Reports” that Russian President Vladimir Putin knew former President Donald Trump was an “amateur” who didn’t understand these issues at all. After playing videos of both Biden and Putin and Trump and Putin, Jackson said, “The tone is obviously starkly different. What do you read into the differences here, and how should people understand that?”

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning” that it was “a bit of a distortion to say that we deliberately suppressed” the so-called lab leak theory that coronavirus originated from a lab in Wuhan, China. Co-host Tony Dokoupil said, “We also asked Dr. Fauci about competing theories on the origin of the coronavirus, including the idea that it started not in nature but in a lab in Wuhan, China.”

President Biden’s high-stakes summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin wrapped up earlier than anticipated — with American reporters left in the dark and initially dependent on Russia’s Foreign Ministry for information on the discussions. The talks ended at 5:05 p.m. local time after an introductory sit-down at 1:39 p.m. — meaning the entire summit lasted less than four hours, rather than the four to five hours predicted by the White House.

There is a deafening roar on the Left demanding that Bill Clinton-appointed Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer resign now. He's only 82, which is not that old amid many octogenarian federal judges, and Breyer is fit to remain. The U.S. Senate won’t change over the next year, and more Republican than Democrat senators are retiring, so it would be natural for Breyer to wait before stepping down. Yet there is panic on the Left for him to quit this month. The court docket is filled with hot-button issues, including the LGBTQ agenda, Obamacare, and campaign finance. Next term, starting in...

The Ad Council, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has launched a campaign urging Americans to continue to wear a mask until they are vaccinated. Per a Tuesday press release detailing the campaign: The campaign, supported by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation, is an extension of the national ‘Mask Up America’ campaign, which throughout the pandemic has aimed to increase compliance and acceptance of wearing masks and face coverings as one of the main prevention behaviors in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, and including vaccination, social distancing, and hand washing.

Traitor!.. A video clip shows BBC political editor Nicholas Watt being chased down and confronted by anti-lockdown protesters outside Downing Street. Protests are once again growing after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced yet another delay to the lifting of the UK’s lockdown restrictions. As we highlighted yesterday, the public was already being prepared for an extension to the extension before the first extension was even announced. Demonstrators are once again gathering around Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament in London to express their fury. BBC Newsnight editor Nicholas Watt was caught in the crossfire of their ire as he...

GARRY KASPAROV: "Putin already got what he wanted – a summit. He might get even more, but the main exchange has already happened. Biden gave the credibility of the United States to a brutal dictator. And I heard a lot from those who defended the idea of the summit that Biden would go to Geneva to deliver a message, he’ll talk tough. ... But if Biden wanted to send a real message to Putin he would meet with Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, would go to Kiev, that’s a message… He would meet with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the real President of...

Nothing says preparation quite like holding giant flashcards while you meet with your adversary. VIDEO AT LINK.......................

The U.S. manufacturing sector is getting battered by high levels of inflation of the costs of inputs that businesses are struggling to pass on to consumers. The prices of materials and components used by manufacturers rose in May by 2.4 percent compared with April, a blazing hot level of inflation rarely experienced before the current bout of rising prices.

Although all votes have been counted, Pedro Castillo's right-wing rival, Keiko Fujimori, has called on some ballots to be annulled, claiming fraud. Leftist candidate Pedro Castillo claimed victory on Tuesday after the final votes were counted from Peru's June 6 presidential election, although his rival, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori, disputes the outcome. Although the count has been completed, the result has not been officially announced by election authorities. Nevertheless, Castillo thanked his supporters on Twitter. "A new time has begun," Castillo said in a tweet thanking his supporters. "Millions of Peruvians have stood up in defense of their dignity and...

The White House on Wednesday scrambled to explain what Joe Biden meant when he nodded affirmatively in response to a question about whether or not he could trust Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden briefly appeared with Putin for the press ahead of their meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

Pennsylvania legislators last week officially ended the state's COVID-19 "disaster emergency," which Gov. Tom Wolf repeatedly extended after declaring it 15 months ago. While the immediate practical effect of the legislature's vote will be minimal, it exemplifies an important step toward reining in the vast powers that Wolf and other governors have exercised during the pandemic. The Pennsylvania resolution was authorized by a constitutional amendment that voters approved last month, which changed the requirement for terminating a state of emergency from a two-thirds vote to a simple majority. Voters also passed an amendment that reduces the length of future emergency...

I've been very open about my own decision to get vaccinated, while highlighting excellent news about the vaccines' efficacy. They work remarkably well and have worked wonders, unlike the Chinese Communist Party's less sophisticated and less effective versions. Two points, before proceeding further. We know that some "breakthrough cases" do occur among vaccinated people, hence news accounts about recent positive tests from comedian Bill Maher, several New York Yankees, and a pair of passengers on an all-vaxxed cruise ship. The incredibly reassuring news about these examples is that Maher "never was sick, I felt nothing," which was also the case...