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☆ Democratic lawmakers are having a blast on 'Bluesky,' the latest alternative to Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Some Democratic lawmakers have begun posting on "Bluesky," the latest alternative to Twitter. And for the Democratic lawmakers who use the platform, it's a place that feels safer and more gentle than Twitter. "The invite tree accountability makes people more judicious about bringing in solid people," wrote Ocasio-Cortez in a "skeet" this week. But I've [posted] triple digits in less than a week [on Bluesky]," she wrote in an earlier post. In a "skeet" on Bluesky, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez declares the platform to be "safer and more fun" than Twitter.

☆ Reactions: US Treasury's new June 1 debt ceiling X-date
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

We must change course, cleanly raise the debt ceiling, and avert widespread economic pain and instability while we still can." The clock is ticking - and much faster than many suspected - so House Republicans need to drop their dangerous opposition to paying our nation’s bills." The President must negotiate on raising the debt ceiling." Let's get the debt ceiling taken care of, but let's talk about how we can reduce the deficit and common-sense ways. If we don't get the debt ceiling, then we go into it a depression."

☆ Senators unveil bipartisan legislation to ban kids under 13 from joining social media platforms
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The proposed legislation by a bipartisan group of US senators aims to address what policymakers, mental health advocates and critics of tech platforms say is a mental health crisis fueled by social media. “Social media companies have stumbled onto a stubborn, devastating fact,” Schatz said. But it would represent a potentially vast expansion of the government’s role in regulating websites where age verification is a requirement. Tech companies could still develop their own in-house age verification technology or hire third party companies to perform the verification, lawmakers said. Violations of the proposed law could mean millions of dollars in Federal Trade Commission fines for social media companies.

☆ Bipartisan bill would require parental consent for minors to use social media
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

A new bipartisan bill unveiled Wednesday would require parental consent for anyone under 18 to use social media. It would also create a pilot program for a new age verification credential that could be used to enroll on social media platforms. In addition to parental consent to use social media, the bill requires such companies to "take reasonable steps beyond merely requiring attestation" to verify users' ages. The bill says that "existing age verification technologies" should be taken into account and that information collected for age verification purposes shouldn't be used for anything else. WATCH: Tiktok hearing was an 'unmitigated disaster' for social media app, says Stanford's Jacob Helberg

The bill, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, follows a similar Democrat-led effort proposed this month in the Senate. The Department of Labor has also taken steps to increase enforcement of child labor violations and called on Congress to boost penalties. The Labor Department has seen a nearly 70% increase in child labor violations since 2018, including in hazardous occupations, with 835 companies found to have violated child labor laws in the last fiscal year. Under current federal law, the maximum civil monetary penalty for a child labor violation is $15,138 per child. In February, 33 Democratic lawmakers led by Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee signed a letter to the Labor Secretary urging immediate action to rid Hyundai's supply chain of child labor.

☆ Democrats want to make electric bikes much cheaper by giving you up to $1,500 to buy one
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A new bill would give Americans up to $1,500 off the purchase of an electric bicycle. The Senate cut this legislation out of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, but included subsidies for electric cars and SUVs. Biking advocates argue that electric bikes should be subsidized just as electric cars have been for years. Electric bikes have boomed in popularity in the US over the last several years. E-bike tax credits introduced by cities and states around the country have become hugely popular in recent years.

☆ Elizabeth Warren demands Fed crackdown on large regional banks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Senator Elizabeth Warren is cranking up the pressure on the Federal Reserve following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank fit into that asset threshold when they failed earlier this month. The bipartisan 2018 rollback of Dodd-Frank freed large regional banks in that range of assets from the toughest oversight. Notably, the letter was signed by Senator Angus King, the Maine independent who voted in favor of the 2018 rollback. Days after the bank failures, the Federal Reserve launched a review of the regulation and oversight of Silicon Valley Bank.

☆ It's far harder to cancel a subscription than it is to sign up for one. A bill in Congress wants to change that.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Consumers and advocates are fed up with it being incredibly difficult to cancel subscriptions. Only last year did the Times begin to allow digital subscribers to cancel their subscriptions directly, Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander told Insider. Planet Fitness is up front that its members must cancel at a gym or by mail, even if they can sign up online. Amazon agreed to change how users cancel its Prime membership after European regulators, US consumer groups, and, finally, the FTC stepped in. Then-DC Attorney Karl Racine went after the food delivery service Grubhub for hitting customers with hidden fees and using deceptive marketing about its subscription service.

☆ John Fetterman's picture-taking, buddy-making, convention-breaking first month on Capitol Hill
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Delegation-mate Sen. Bob Casey told Insider that Fetterman is “off to a great start.”Top editors give you the stories you want — delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Insider spoke to Fetterman's colleagues, his staff, and congressional reporters about the newcomer's first month in Washington, and what to expect from him as Congress gets rolling. "I know Sen. Fetterman is interested in nutrition, and I share his concerns there, so I look forward to collaborating to get things done for folks in Pennsylvania and Vermont," Welch said. Food issues definitely fall under their purview as newly minted members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. 'Off to a great start'Sen. Casey told Insider that Fetterman has already hit the ground running.

☆ We could soon be facing the biggest financial crisis in history as Republicans threaten to stop paying America's bills
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Republicans are using the debt ceiling as leverage to achieve spending cuts on Democratic priorities. But failing to raise the debt ceiling by the summer could cause the US to default on its debt. Consequences of default are dire, and Biden has urged the GOP to not bargain with the debt limit. "Failure to raise the debt limit will not reduce our debt, but it would wreck the economy if it led to a default. "When you talk about the trillion dollar platinum coin, it sounds very silly — and it is really silly!"

Republican state lawmakers and members of Congress are attempting to stifle the growth of sustainable investing and to punish corporate efforts at climate-related financial risk management. This is a closely coordinated political effort driven by a network of dark money organizations fronting for climate denial groups and fossil fuel interests. This is usually anonymous dark money, and it is often traceable back to the fossil fuel industry. They are attempting to bully financial institutions and regulators into ignoring market demand and market risk. Imagine elected officials telling investment firms they cannot offer large-cap or small-cap funds, or emerging market funds, or value funds — or, for that matter, sector funds with exposure to energy companies.

☆ It's still not clear what the Senate Ethics Committee is doing with a 2-year-old January 6 probe into Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Democrats lodged an ethics complaint against Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz nearly two years ago. No one's heard anything since from the Senate Ethics Committee, which one advocate calls a "black hole." Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island led the complaint against Cruz and Hawley. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware and Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the chairman and vice-chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee. Little has emerged in the last two years to suggest that Cruz and Hawley were intimately involved in the assault on the Capitol.

☆ Biden signs law to help preserve Japanese American WWII incarceration camps
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Kimmy Yam | Kimmy Yam Is A Reporter For Nbc Asian America. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

A new law signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday will help memorialize the history of the U.S. government's incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The legislation, spearheaded by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, would reauthorize funds that help preserve the sites in which tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were detained, including Manzanar in California and Rohwer in Arkansas. “The internment of Japanese American citizens remains one of the darkest and most shameful periods in our history,” Schatz said in a statement about the law. More than 75 years ago, the U.S. government incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans in response to xenophobia and the wartime hysteria that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The findings served as the basis for the Civil Liberties Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, offering a formal apology for the mass incarceration, following a large-scale movement by the Japanese American community.

It could be the last major bill that passes this year before Republicans seize control of the House on Jan. 3. He has pressured GOP lawmakers to vote against it, forcing Democrats to supply most of the votes to pass it in the House. Capitol Hill leaders decided to attach the election bill and Ukraine aid to ease the process of passage, on the belief that the combined package has the votes to pass. For Republicans, one incentive to pass the bill now is that it funds the military at a higher level than the nondefense budget. “This is a strong outcome for Republicans,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, arguing that the GOP persuaded Democrats to back down on their long-standing demand for “parity” between the two pots of money.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are grappling with how to handle a potential re-election bid by newly minted independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, fearing that a three-way battle could split their voters and throw the race to Republicans in Arizona. Asked how the DSCC should handle a possible Sinema 2024 run, Sinema's Arizona colleague, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, “I haven’t given that any thought." Schumer said he has granted Sinema’s request to preserve her committee assignments through the Democratic Party, meaning the 51-49 partisan organization of the chamber won’t change. She wouldn’t say if Democrats should back her but said her working relationship with Sinema won’t change. Prior to her party switch, Sinema had stronger relationships with Republican senators than just about any Democrat.

The fate of the bill is also linked to an election overhaul measure to avoid another Jan. 6, which Senate leaders hope to attach to it. The two parties are about $26 billion apart on domestic spending, Shelby said, which isn’t much considering the omnibus package would likely be more than $1.5 trillion. Although they control both chambers, they still need at least 10 Senate GOP votes to defeat a filibuster on a funding bill. The government funding bill is likely the last train leaving the station in the current session of Congress, and a number of other provisions could ride along. Senators have struck a deal on a bill that cleared committee on a bipartisan vote of 14-1 in September.

☆ Tulsi Gabbard's one-time Democratic colleagues are both perplexed and unsurprised by her far-right pivot: 'An Elise Stefanik kind of turn'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard left the Democratic Party before campaign with far-right Republicans. "Nope," Sanders said when Insider asked if he'd like to talk about former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an early supporter of his 2016 presidential campaign. "I'm not surprised," said Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, another former Armed Services Committee colleague of Gabbard's. Hawaii's two Democratic senators — Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz — both declined to speculate about what may be driving Gabbard's political movement, despite serving with her in the Hawaii delegation. "I think she's home," Hirono said repeatedly when asked what she thought had happened, referring to Gabbard's political home.

Hassan did betterthan Biden democrats have won control Arizona › Mark Kelly (D) wins D+5.7 D+0.3 +5.4 pts. Kelly did betterthan Biden democrats have won control Pennsylvania › John Fetterman (D) wins D+4.4 D+1.2 +3.2 pts. Warnock did betterthan Biden democrats have won control Nevada › Catherine Cortez Masto (D) wins D+0.7 D+2.4 +1.7 pts. Welch did betterthan Biden democrats have won control Maryland › Chris Van Hollen (D) wins D+26.4 D+33.4 +7.0 pts. Rep. Van Hollen did worsethan Biden democrats have won control Connecticut › Richard Blumenthal (D) wins D+14.9 D+20.1 +5.2 pts.

☆ Live Results: Hawaii votes in congressional and state elections
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Walt Hickey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Explore more race results below. Polls close in the state at 7 p.m. local time, or 12 p.m. EST. It symobilizes the 2022 Election. Election 2022 Hawaii Results Explore more election results Alaska Arizona California Colorado Connecticut Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Nevada New Hampshire New Mexico New York North Carolina Ohio Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island Texas Virginia Washington WisconsinHawaii's two congressional representatives are up for election. Polls close in the state at 7 p.m. local time, or 12 a.m. EST on Wednesday.

☆ Democratic incumbent Sen. Brian Schatz faces off against Republican state Rep. Bob McDermott in Hawaii's US Senate election
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Hanna Kang | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz is running against Republican state Rep. Bob McDermott to represent Hawaii in the US Senate. Schatz has raised over $4 million and still has just over $2 million on hand, while McDermott has not reported raising any money for his campaign. McDermott told a local news outlet that running against Schatz "looks like a suicide mission." He currently chairs the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and also serves on the Senate Democratic Caucus' leadership team as chief deputy whip. The money raceAccording to OpenSecrets, Schatz has raised $4.6 million, spent $4.7 million, and has $2.1 million cash on hand, as of October 19.

☆ U.S. lawmakers want to boost oversight of foreign government broadcast sponsorship
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday introduced legislation to strengthen the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to oversee foreign sponsorships of U.S. broadcast TV and radio programs. "Foreign governments shouldn’t be able to hide behind shell companies to fund misinformation and propaganda on American airwaves," Schatz said. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterBlackburn said foreign governments currently "can use shell companies to broadcast regime-funded propaganda across American airwaves. The bill would not prohibit foreign governments from sponsoring content on U.S. airwaves. The court noted that the FCC had raised concerns "that the Chinese and Russian governments have been secretly leasing air time to broadcast propaganda on American radio."

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Tuesday to move forward with funding the government through mid-December ahead of a Friday deadline to avert a shutdown. The short-term funding measure includes money for Ukraine aid, Afghan resettlement, parolees and security enhancements for U.S. courts, among other provisions. Republicans, still angry about Manchin's vote for the Democrats-only bill in August, credibly threatened to tank the government funding bill if his permitting measure was tacked on. During the Senate vote, Manchin reached out to Republicans to discuss restarting negotiations over a permitting package, including Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Cassidy said. "The fact that Joe traded his vote for permitting reform doesn’t make permitting reform any less of a noble venture," Cramer said.

☆ Tech leaders dish on how asinine it is to try to describe their companies, products, and worth to Congress
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Hanna Kang | Kayla Gallagher | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +24 min

Tech companies are worried an aging Congress can't meet or even understand their demands. Younger members of Congress are beginning to take the lead in conversations on tech issues. Hawley said younger members are generally more critical of big tech. However, he added, new technologies are more widely used by younger people, and users tend to understand technology better. Meanwhile, major tech companies continue to ramp up their federal lobbying spending, together spending more in 2021 than in any other year in history.

☆ U.S. Senator Manchin to unveil energy permitting measure on Wednesday
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) holds up a visual aid while speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 20, 2022. Senator Joe Manchin will unveil his full energy permitting bill on Wednesday to speed fossil fuel projects and offer incentives for renewable energy electricity transmission, legislation that faces an uphill battle. Manchin, an important swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, reached a side deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer during talks for the wider Inflation Reduction Act for his permitting measure to be voted on this fall. "I've never seen stranger bedfellows than Bernie Sanders and the extreme liberal left siding up with Republican leadership" and its rank-and-file senators, Manchin said. But Schatz said the bill has a chance if it offers incentives for renewable energy including transmission lines.

☆ Some of Congress' youngest members have famously flamed out. Can a candidate be too young to serve?
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

More youthful representation would better serve the country, young members of Congress say. But members of Congress, political scientists, and strategists generally don't blame age for these downfalls — leaders both young and old are prone to controversy. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made history in 2019 as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, at 29. "I was always accustomed to being the youngest," Schatz told Insider at the Capitol. The nation needs "more principled members of Congress," Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, 35, told Insider, adding: "It doesn't matter their age."

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