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Silicon Valley Bank's collapse could have ramifications for the technology landscape over the coming years, analysts and investors said. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will give campaign contributions from former Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker and the bank's PAC to charities, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Schumer received the maximum individual contribution of $5,800 from Becker in June 2021, according to the Federal Election Commission. The campaign received $2,700 from the bank's political action committee in 2015, per an FEC filing. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said she will return the contribution she received from Becker, according to reporting from Politico.

☆ Comedian sues Ocasio-Cortez for blocking him on Twitter after he catcalled her outside U.S. Capitol
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Dan Mangan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, during a news conference outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. A political provocateur sued Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday for blocking him on Twitter after he heckled her outside the U.S. Capitol, shouting crude remarks about her body and her position on abortion. Look at that booty on AOC," he catcalled to Ocasio-Cortez. Hot, hot, hot like a tamale." The appeals court said Trump was acting in his official presidential capacity when he blocked those people.

☆ AOC only paid for her Met Gala outfit and other possible 'impermissible gifts' after investigators asked about it, ethics agency finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Rebecca Cohen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez only paid for her rented Met Gala outfit after the House of Representatives' ethics office asked about it. The nonpartisan ethics agency also found that AOC's office didn't pay her $477 hair styling bill until February 2022, two days after the ethics agency reached out about the lack of payments. In an interview with the investigators, AOC blamed a campaign staffer for failing to pay for her rented dress and other accessories, according to ethics office findings. "The Board finds that there is substantial reason to believe that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez accepted impermissible gifts associated with her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021," the ethics agency said Thursday. The House Ethics Committee first opened a probe into AOC's attendance at the 2021 Met Gala in 2022.

☆ Lawmakers should subpoena AOC's Met Gala dress designer to assess if the lawmaker violated ethics rules, watchdog says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A congressional watchdog said AOC might have violated ethics rules in connection to her 2021 Met Gala attendance. The watchdog recommended the House Ethics Committee further review the allegations. The Office of Congressional Ethics also recommended subpoenas to AOC's dress designers. A lawyer for Ocasio-Cortez said in a letter to the House Ethics Committee released Thursday that the congresswoman "finds these delays unacceptable, and she has taken several steps to ensure nothing of this nature will ever happen again." The House Ethics Committee, which released the OCE report and findings on Thursday, said in a statement that it "will refrain from making further public statements on this matter pending completion of its initial review."

☆ AOC blamed a campaign staffer for failing to pay for thousands of dollars in Met Gala goodies until after ethics investigators got involved
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blamed a campaign staffer for not paying Met Gala invoices on time. Her office only paid for the rented dress and accessories after the Office of Congressional Ethics asked about them. The staffer, who is no longer employed by AOC, acknowledged responsibility, saying "it fell off my radar." The ethics office's investigators found that AOC's office didn't pay bills for the rentals and services until after the investigators asked about it. According to the interviews, the AOC staffer acknowledged responsibility, saying the unpaid invoices "fell off my radar."

Feb 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department on Monday said it will lend Li-Cycle Holdings Corp (LICY.N) $375 million as it builds a battery recycling facility in New York set to become one of the country's largest sources of lithium by next year. Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat who serves as Senate majority leader, had long advocated for Li-Cycle to receive the funding. Li-Cycle's Rochester, New York, processing facility is slated to open later this year at a cost of roughly $485 million. The Rochester facility will break down that black mass into lithium and other metals. The Energy Department in the past month has agreed to lend $2 billion to Li-Cycle peer Redwood Materials and $700 million to ioneer Ltd's (INR.AX) Rhyolite Ridge lithium mining project.

☆ Democrats target New York in 2024 battle for the House
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Bridget Bowman | Bridget Bowman Is A Deputy Editor For Nbc'S Political Unit. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Democrats are in a New York state of mind when it comes to the battle for the House, with outside groups signaling this week that they'll be targeting freshman New York Republicans in competitive seats. On Wednesday House Majority PAC, the main Democratic super PAC that spends in House races, announced it would spend $45 million in New York. The group's non-profit arm, House Majority Forward, announced Thursday that it is launching a "six-figure" digital ad and billboard campaign in more than a dozen House districts, including all six New York seats, targeting Republicans on their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare. Also on Wednesday, EMILY'S List, which backs female candidates who support abortion rights, announced it is targeting 10 House Republicans, including the six freshmen from New York. They flipped four House seats there.

☆ Pentagon’s Unidentified-Object Office Is Underfunded, Senators Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Nancy A. Youssef | Lindsay Wise | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Pentagon office set up to detect and identify mysterious objects, such as the three shot down by the U.S. jet fighters over the past week, was mistakenly underfunded, said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat who pushed to create the office. The Pentagon last year established the classified All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, from legislative language Ms. Gillibrand and Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) put in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022.

☆ Long Island Republican warns of 'suburban uprising' over New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to rezone land to allow greater density for affordable housing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A Long Island Republican warned of a "suburban uprising" over Gov. Bruce Blakeman said that Hochul's plan would trample over the autonomy of local communities. For generations, Long Island was a GOP bastion, filled with fiscally and socially conservative voters from across the political spectrum. Hochul's proposal would push for more multifamily housing developments near Long Island Rail Road stations. Still, her plan remains a tough sell for other Long Island politicians.

Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023. Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023. Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023. Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023. Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023.

☆ AOC could potentially become the second-highest ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee: report
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

AOC could potentially be the vice ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, per Politico. "There's been conversations, but nothing's been finalized," Ocasio-Cortez told the news outlet. If AOC were to assume the role, she'd work closely with Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member. "There's been conversations, but nothing's been finalized," Ocasio-Cortez told Politico of the position. If she were to assume the role, she would help to craft messaging to counter the Republican majority on the panel.

☆ New York Democrats ask Republican leaders to ‘forthrightly cooperate’ with Santos investigations
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Summer-Concepcion-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Summer Concepcion | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Two Democratic lawmakers from New York called on GOP leaders Sunday to “forthrightly cooperate” with all the investigations into freshman Rep. George Santos, the Republican who confessed to having fabricated large parts of his résumé. The letter points to a recent New York Times report that detailed GOP leaders’ awareness of Santos’ false claims before the November midterms election. The report expanded "upon the degree to which each of you had at least some foreknowledge of Mr. Santos’s lies," Goldman and Torres wrote. "But it is altogether something else if the top levels of Republican leadership knew about Mr. Santos’s lies during the campaign and chose to be complicit." House Republicans’ calls for Santos to resign have grown in the past week after state GOP leaders and lawmakers in New York said he should step aside.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday that embattled freshman GOP Rep. George Santos, who is facing growing calls to resign after admitting to fabricating much of his personal biography, should not be seated on any top committees. "No," McCarthy said emphatically as he headed into a GOP Steering Committee meeting where members are deciding which colleagues should serve on certain committees. Lawmakers of both political stripes argue that seating Santos on committees could be a national security risk. Democrats say that McCarthy and the leadership team shouldn't seat Santos on any committees, while some Republicans agree with McCarthy: Keep Santos off the panels that handle the most sensitive, classified information. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, the head of the Main Street Caucus, said Santos shouldn't serve on any committees.

☆ Aiming to cut emissions, New York to collect over $1 billion with big polluter permits
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 10 (Reuters) - New York will implement a program that sets an annual cap on pollution throughout its economy to lower emissions while aiming to bring in more than $1 billion a year, Governor Kathy Hochul said as part of her 2023 State of the State address on Tuesday. "Big emitters will have to purchase permits to sell polluting fuels. New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during a campaign rally with other New York Democrats, in Yonkers, New York, U.S., November 6, 2022. New York is among the 12 northeastern states participating in a cap-and-invest style program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, since 2005, which has helped halve power plant emissions and raised nearly $6 billion, it said. Reporting by Deep Vakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora EllisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Two New York Democratic congressmen filed a House Ethics Committee complaint Tuesday against Rep. George Santos, the freshman New York Republican who recently was found to have lied about and embellished details on his resume. "At a minimum, it is apparent that he did not file timely disclosure reports for his most recent campaign," Torres and Goldman wrote. Goldman told reporters, "We hope that the House Ethics Committee will seriously investigate." The Hill reported that in response to the complaint, Santos said, "They're free to do whatever they want to do." OCE, which is an independent, non-partisan entity established by the House, is distinct from the House Ethics Committee.

☆ AOC says chaos in the GOP House shows that the Squad is pretty reasonable in comparison
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed the ongoing chaos in the Republican Party. She said it showed the group of progressives she's a member of is reasonable in comparison. The GOP has failed to elect a House speaker during three days of voting, paralyzing Congress. "The more days that this goes on the more this truly starts to have a corrosive impact on our country," Ocasio-Cortez said. The group have regularly clashed with Democratic Party leadership on issues including the Green New Deal and expanded Medicare provisions.

☆ Now New York Democrats Tell Us
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

’Tis the season for epiphanies, and what do you know? It’s finally dawning on some New York Democrats that the state’s steep income tax rates are driving away top earners who fund essential public services. If only this wisdom had visited Democrats in Albany before they raised taxes last spring. Like an annoying music tape that keeps repeating, progressives are calling on Democratic lawmakers to raise taxes on the rich—again. The Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening has resulted in lower capital gains and trading revenue on Wall Street, which is hurting state and local budgets.

☆ Schumer reflects on how Senate Democrats went from infighting to big policy wins and a larger majority
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

The 50-50 majority, which has been unkind to Senate leaders in the past, seemed to be slipping from his grasp. “Everyone said Democrats are gonna lose a whole ton of seats,” Schumer said during a wide-ranging interview in his Capitol Hill office. Democrats may have held the Senate, but they narrowly lost the House majority to Republicans, which could spell the end of the party’s biggest legislative goals. And despite Schumer’s confidence that he’ll hold the Senate majority again in 2024, the map presents enormous challenges. Schumer said he isn’t giving up on working with moderate House Republicans, including some who won swing districts in his home state of New York.

The House voted Thursday in favor of the Puerto Rico Status Act, which seeks to resolve the U.S. territory's status and its relationship to the United States through a binding plebiscite. The Puerto Rico Status Act also lays out terms for a November 2023 binding plebiscite including all three nonterritorial status options. Lawmakers from both sides debated the merits of the Puerto Rico Status Act on the House floor Thursday. While Democrats insisted the legislation is a significant step toward Puerto Rico's decolonization, Republicans worried over the economic implications of changing Puerto Rico's status. Venator- Santiago, who has been tracking Puerto Rico legislation in Congress for years, said this is the first time since 2010 that the House votes in favor of legislation dealing with changes to Puerto Rico’s territorial status.

☆ Biden and Senate Democrats set to close out historic two years in judicial confirmations, pledging more
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Phil Mattingly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Biden and Senate Democrats, even while holding the barest of majorities, confirmed 97 Article III judges over the last two years, including a Supreme Court justice, 28 circuit court judges and 68 district court judges, according to White House data obtained by CNN. “You can be sure that judges will remain a top priority in the Congress to come,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. For Biden and other Democrats, the filling of federal judicial openings took on a new level of significance in the wake of the historically successful push by former President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans. While a Senate rule change easing the pathway to confirmation rapidly accelerated McConnell’s efforts in Trump’s final two years, the pace Biden and Senate Democrats have maintained make clear what officials continue to pledge will be followed by action: that judicial nominations will remain a top priority. Biden’s senior team and counsel’s office tightly coordinated with their Senate counterparts throughout first two years to prioritize the efforts.

Schumer, a New York Democrat who has long pressed the administration to terminate Title 42, is far from alone. Since March 2020, when the authority was invoked, border officials have turned away migrants at the US-Mexico border more than two million times. But just days away from the anticipated end of Title 42, plans are still being sorted out. The Biden administration is also asking Congress for more than $3 billion as it prepares for the end of Title 42, according to a source familiar with the ask. It is not specific to the end of Title 42, the source said.

☆ AOC wasn't the first lawmaker to attend the Met Gala. But how she got the ticket — and that dress — may have made her a target for an ethics complaint, expert says.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

One ethics expert told Insider a potential ethics violation would depend on who paid for her ticket. In June, the OCE, a non-partisan body, referred the complaint to the House Ethics Committee. For instance, if Facebook purchased a Met Gala table and gifted one of its seats to a lawmaker, that could constitute an ethics violation. Wintour has served as an official co-chair or honorary chair of the Met Gala nearly every year since 1995. Rep. Carolyn Maloney also attended the Met Gala on several occasions — and became the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation this year.

☆ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocks Kyrsten Sinema's announcement to leave the Democratic Party and register as an independent: 'She lays out no goals for Arizonans'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Ocasio-Cortez joins a number of Democrats who criticized Sinema on Friday over her bombshell decision to leave the party and register as an independent. The Arizona Democratic Party blasted the first-term senator, saying in a statement that her "party registration means nothing if she continues not to listen to her constituents." Sinema's announcement comes after Democrats expanded their Senate majority in the midterm elections, allowing the party to move more quickly on legislation and nominations. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the White House responded to Sinema's decision on Friday by declaring the Senate's new 51-49 power balance remains unchanged. "I believe she's a good and effective Senator and am looking forward to a productive session in the new Democratic majority Senate," Schumer said in a statement.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took an emotional victory lap on Wednesday after Democrats won the Georgia runoff and secured an outright majority with a 51st Senate seat. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a press conference at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Last month, after a poor general election showing and before the Georgia runoff, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans failed with moderate voters. The majority leader, who is slated to keep his post for at least two more years, admitted he initially wanted someone else to run in Georgia. “Four years ago, I began recruiting candidates in Georgia,” Schumer said.

Despite police, county executives and national pundits falsely labeling bail reform a disaster, in the few places like New York state that have tried it, bail reform has been a win for freedom. Bail reform has been a win for fiscal responsibility, saving taxpayers millions of dollars by avoiding the costs of unnecessary mass detention. Laura Gillen, a Democrat and fierce opponent of bail reform who lost her Long Island congressional race, took to Twitter to argue that bail reform was a reason Democrats lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats lost because they ran from the truth about bail reform, amplifying lies instead of championing what should have been their policy win. The truth about bail reform isn’t just a political game — it is a moral imperative.

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