‘How they're thinking about the Games’
| 'Thinking about the Games'  The Olympics are about a lot more than sports.
Each Games is a five-ring circus of politics, money, big business, nationalism and great power diplomatic signaling that puts the prestige of leaders who fought to host them on the line. So reports that the US may mount a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February suggest geopolitical jousting that dwarfs the bobsled, ice dancing and alpine skiing competitions.
The Beijing Summer Games in 2008 heralded China's emergence as a developing force. Next year's Winter Games will be a platform from which to announce its arrival as a global power. But US President Joe Biden is under pressure from human rights campaigners and members of Congress to skip the Games and pull the entire official US diplomatic delegation, because of Beijing's repression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that the US was also discussing what to do with its allies, hinting at an even broader front. Such a diplomatic boycott would deprive President Xi Jinping of some of the glory of hosting the world's top leaders at a glittering gathering as he piles up domestic power.
A diplomatic boycott would also have the advantage of making a point without harming athletes. A generation of competitors on both sides of the globe remember the full US sporting boycott of the Moscow Summer Games in 1980 and the tit-for-tat no-show by the eastern bloc at Los Angeles in 1984 as tragedies.  In 2008, then-President George W. Bush agonized before accepting then-President Hu Jintao's invitation to attend the opening ceremony of the Summer Games amid calls for a boycott over Chinese repression in Tibet and its support for Sudan amid atrocities in Darfur. At that point, the US was still trying to balance criticism of China with hopes of positively influencing its behavior.
This time, relations are at their lowest ebb since the US and China established diplomatic relations in 1978. Attending the Games did not come up between Biden and Xi during their marathon conversation on Monday, according to US officials – but it would be a real surprise if Biden ends up making the trip across the Pacific.  'How they're thinking about the Games' The US and allies are in "active conversations" about how to approach the Winter Olympics, Blinken said last week at the New York Times DealBook Summit. "We are talking to, to allies, to partners, to countries around the world about how they're thinking about the Games, how they're thinking about participation," he said. "It's an active conversation. We're coming, we're coming up on the Games, but let me leave it at that for today." The world and America Russia's anti-satellite missile test just made space junk a lot worse.
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Rates Are Beginning To Rise. Refinance Before It Is Too Late Economists are urging Americans to refinance to take advantage of historically low refinance rates. These low rates are not going to last much longer. 'It's indefensible, morally and ethically, and it's crazy politically' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it this way: "We cannot have members joking about murdering each other."
That's why the chamber will vote Wednesday on a resolution that censures Republican Rep Paul Gosar of Arizona and strips him of committee seats. Being censured by the House is not a pleasant experience -- the targeted member must stand in the well of the House while the resolution is read out loud.
As we wrote last week, Gosar — a staunch Donald Trump supporter — posted an anime-style video to Twitter and Instagram showing him appearing to kill Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attack Biden. Gosar says he didn't mean to incite violence against any other member of the House, but given the threats and even assassination attempts in recent years against politicians in the US and around the world, the cartoon sparked an uproar.
It also underscored a culture of violence simmering inside the Republican Party. Though House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy says he spoke to Gosar about the cartoon, he did not condemn him. Some Republicans who are giving Gosar a pass, meanwhile, seem more interested in punishing 13 fellow party members who voted for Biden's new bipartisan infrastructure law – an embarrassment for Trump, who failed to pass a similar measure during his term.
The issue has become the latest flashpoint between McCarthy and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, whose condemnation of the January 6 insurrection already cost her a top post in the party's House leadership team. "The notion that Leader McCarthy won't full on condemn what Paul Gosar did on multiple occasions, but that he seems to be entertaining this move to push the 13 off of their committees, I mean, it's indefensible, morally and ethically, and it's crazy politically," Cheney told CNN.  Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager on trial for killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and wounding a third last summer, had a hand in his own jury selection on Tuesday. According to the overseeing judge's orders, 18 potential jurors heard evidence and testimony in the case, then their numbers were loaded into a tumbler and mixed around. Rittenhouse was instructed to blindly draw six numbers from the batch – an unusual role for a defendant. The remaining 12 jurors will now begin deliberations in the case. Thanks for reading. On Wednesday, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to appear in court in Albany. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission will release its 2021 annual report to Congress. View in browser | All CNN Newsletters
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