US Senate Votes to Block $8 Billion in Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia as Trump Pledges Veto


The Republican-controlled US Senate has voted to block the Trump administration from selling $8 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia due to opposition to their war in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians and has led many of them to starvation. Trump has stated that he will veto the measure. The Senators opposing more bloodshed lack a majority to override Trump.

The Senate voted Thursday to block the Trump
administration from selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, launching a new
challenge to President Donald Trump’s steadfast alliance with the
country amid rising tensions in the Middle East.

Trump
has promised to veto the legislation, which passed 53-45. The White
House said stopping the sales “would send a message that the United
States is abandoning its partners and allies at the very moment when
threats to them are increasing.”

The
Senate will hold two more votes Thursday on measures to stop the arms
sales, which also are expected to pass. While the resolutions are also
likely to be approved by the House, supporters of the measures are well
short of having enough support to overcome Trump’s threatened veto.

The
votes came against the backdrop of heightened U.S. tensions with Iran,
spurred by the Islamic Republic’s downing of a U.S. drone. Trump
declared Thursday that “Iran made a very big mistake,” and congressional
leaders received a closed-door briefing on the situation at the
Capitol.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
cited threats from Iran when declaring an emergency to approve the
weapons sales in May. The Saudis have recently faced a number of attacks
from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“To
reject these sales at this time and under these circumstances is to
reward recent Iranian aggression and to encourage further Iranian
escalation,” said Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the Republican chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Risch added that blocking the
sale would also “encourage miscalculation on the part of Iranians, which
will be disastrous.”

The $8 billion arms sale included precision guided munitions, other bombs and ammunition and aircraft maintenance support.

Opposition
in Congress to closer U.S. Saudi ties escalated after the killing last
year of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the kingdom.
But a small group of lawmakers has been voicing concern about the
Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen for years.

Sen.
Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said the war in Yemen was one reason for his
opposition to the arms sales.

“These are
bombs that we know have killed thousands of civilians in Yemen, patients
in hospitals, children on school buses,” Menendez said.

The
conflict has left millions on the brink of starvation, and Menendez
called the humanitarian situation in Yemen “an incomprehensible moral
tragedy.”

Read full article here…




Oregon Senate Republicans Flee State to Thwart Vote on Cap-and-Trade Bill. Governor Dispatches Police to Arrest Them.



Democrats in the Oregon state legislature have a supermajority in the House and Senate. Following the passage by the House of a controversial cap-and-trade bill that aims to reduce carbon emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 and mandates a cap-and-trade scheme that is likely to increase costs, especially fuel, and will chase away businesses and jobs. 

The bill was poised to pass in the Senate until Republican lawmakers scattered outside the state to avoid being rounded up by troopers to avoid the scheduled vote. The Republicans are calling for the vote to be put on a ballot for the citizens to decide. Democrat Governor Kate Brown dispatched Oregon State Police troopers to round up the missing Republican Senators.


A state version of cap and trade has been making its way through the Oregon legislature this year. The bill passed the House last week,
with two democrats joining the republicans in a futile effort to oppose
it. Now that the bill is in the state Senate, all 11 republicans who
make up the minority have apparently fled the state in order to deny the
democrats a quorum so that no business can take place on the Senate
floor.

After pleading with republicans to return, the democrats have asked
Governor Kate Brown to exercise her authority to dispatch the state
police to arrest the missing republicans and forcibly drag them to the
capitol building.

The Oregonian reports:

Oregon’s Democratic governor, Kate Brown, has dispatched state troopers to find missing Republican senators and bring them back to Salem to legislate.

All 11 Republican senators are in hiding, at least some of them out of state, in order to prevent the Senate from having the quorum it needs to operate. They can’t abide the Democrat-backed carbon cap and spend bill that is up for a Senate vote today.

When Republicans failed to show up on the Senate floor for today’s 11 a.m. session, Senate President Peter Courtney of Salem, a Democrat, asked the sergeant at arms to search the Capitol for the missing lawmakers. That search proved fruitless.

In response to the walkout, Courtney formally requested that Brown dispatch Oregon State Police troopers to round up the missing Republicans.

Brown quickly granted that request. “It is absolutely unacceptable that the Senate Republicans would turn their back on their constituents who they are honor-bound to represent here in this building,” she said in a statement. “They need to return and do the jobs they were elected to do.”

Speaking on the partially vacant Senate floor, Courtney said, “I apologize to the citizens for taking (state troopers) off the streets to look for (missing lawmakers).”

Oregon’s constitution allows the majority party to “compel” the attendance of absent members of the legislature. The process is rarely used, though.

In 2001, Oregon Senate Democrats walked out and hid to stop a vote on a Republican legislative redistricting bill. They stayed away, bringing Senate business to a halt, for almost a week.

The senate Republicans have issued this statement:
Senate Republicans made the decision to walkout and have left the state to protest cap and trade because it should be referred to the ballot so every Oregonian has a voice. #capkillsjobs pic.twitter.com/Cwszwvdsbx
— Oregon Senate Republicans (@ORSenateRs) June 20, 2019

A few days ago, republican Senator Brian Boquist issued veiled threats to anyone who might come to drag him away, talking about how heavily armed he is:
Tensions were already smoldering in the Oregon Senate Wednesday, when Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, poured gasoline on the situation, suggesting he would shoot and potentially kill any state trooper sent to haul him unwillingly back to the Capitol.

Read full article here…

Additional source:

https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-climate-carbon-emissions-cap-trade-bill-house/




Senator Josh Hawley Proposes Legislation to Bring Transparency and Accountability to Big Tech for Political Censorship



Freshman Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) authored a bill to end immunity granted to tech companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that shields them from publisher liability lawsuits if the companies provide an open public forum. However, the tech giants have engaged in political censorship. Under the legislation, the big tech companies could earn their immunity if external audits prove that their algorithms and content-removal policies remain politically neutral.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) proposed legislation Wednesday to end big
tech companies’ legislative immunity, which would prevent them from
censoring conservative and alternative viewpoints without significant
recourse.

Sen. Hawley proposed the
Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act, which updates the way the
federal government treats social media companies under Section 230 of
the Communications Decency Act (CDA).

The Missouri conservatives’ legislation removes the big tech’s
immunity received under Section 230 unless they submit to an external
audit that would prove that their algorithms and content-removal
policies remain politically neutral. Sen. Hawley’s legislation would
only apply to large tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and
Twitter, not small and medium-sized tech companies.

“With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other
industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher
liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political
censorship,” said Sen. Hawley in a statement Wednesday. “Unfortunately,
and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold up its end of the
bargain.”

Hawley’s legislation arises
as the Donald Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) will reportedly begin antitrust investigations into
America’s largest technology companies.

Other conservatives, such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), have proposed eliminating or amending Section 230 to curb big tech companies’ ability to censor conservative and alternative viewpoints.

Sen. Hawley’s legislation would:

  • Remove automatic immunity under Section 230 from big tech companies.
  • Give big tech companies the ability to earn their immunity through external audits.
    • However, the Federal Trade Commission could not certify large social
      media companies from immunity except for a supermajority vote by the
      agency.
    • Big tech companies would have to pay for the cost of conducting the audits.
    • The companies would have to reapply for immunity every two years.
  • Preserves immunity for small and medium-sized companies.
    • The bill would not apply to companies with less than 30 million
      active monthly users, more than 300 million active monthly users
      worldwide, or those companies that have more than $500 million in global
      annual revenue.

Read full article here…




Facebook Plans to Launch New ‘Libra’ Cryptocurrency, Backed by 28 Companies, Including VISA, MasterCard and PayPal


Visa, Uber, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe will invest approximately $10 million each in a consortium to back Facebook’s new cryptocurrency, Libra. The goal of the new cryptocurrency is to create a new payment system for purchases on Facebook and across the Internet, as Facebook has 2.4 billion members who are active each month. There are reports that the investors will run nodes and will have full access to Facebook users’ financial data.

It is unknown whether Facebook’s future cryptocurrency will ultimately function more like anonymous cash, or more like a traceable credit card transaction. In the wake of the cultural breakdown that is developing, disruptive technology of this magnitude must be evaluated instead of Facebook’s “move fast and break things” approach.


Social media giant Facebook is expected to reveal its new digital
cryptocurrency next week, backed by Visa, Mastercard, Uber, and others.

The Wall Street Journal reports
that social media giant Facebook plans to reveal its new Libra digital
cryptocurrency next week with backing from over a dozen other companies.
Visa and Mastercard are reportedly quite invested in the currency while
other Silicon Valley firms such as PayPal, Uber, Stripe, and
Booking.com are fully supporting the currency.

Each of these firms will invest around$10 million to fund further
development of the currency and become part of the Libra Association.
The association will act as an independent group which will govern the
coin independently from Facebook. The involvement of Visa and Mastercard
is interesting as cryptocurrency can act as a viable alternative to the
services offered by these firms and could be direct competition, some
have suggested that the firm’s involvement is an attempt to keep track
of Facebook’s currency, while others have implied alternative
motivations.

Byrne and Storm lawyer Preston Byrne suggested that the firm’s
involvement is due to the greater access they can gain to Facebook’s
user data.

Read full article here…

List of 28 investors: VISA, MasterCard, Pay U, PayPal, Stripe, Andreessen Horowitz, Creative Destruction Lab, Thrive Capital, Ribbit Capital, Union Square Ventures, Coinbase, Xapo, Anchorage, Bison Trails, Women’s World Bank, Kiva, Mercy Corps, Facebook, Calibra, Iliad, Vodaphone, FarFetch, Ebay, Mercado Libre, Uber, Lyft, Spotify and Bookings Holdings. 

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/06/14/facebooks-cryptocurrency-partners-revealed-we-obtained-the-entire-list-of-inaugural-backers/

Additional source:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-20/libra-launch-facebook-trying-become-virtual-country