All posts tagged "Peter Welch"

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday dismissed claims from a Democratic senator who expressed concerns about FBI Director Kash Patel, citing allegations of heavy drinking and questions about morale among agency employees.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Blanche during the Trump nominee's Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill that he wanted to share his own concerns after Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) brought up reports of Patel drinking on the job and using his private jet to visit his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins.

"I have concerns about him because of the reports about his drinking, about the incredibly bad morale there," Welch said. "But I'm not going to ask you on that, you are his supervisor. So obviously you have some responsibility to be reviewing his behavior."...

The political action committee for Fox Corporation, the parent company of conservative-boosting Fox News, gave $25,000 to Democratic candidates and causes in January alone, according to a Raw Story review of federal campaign records.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee received $15,000 from FOX PAC, and the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund received $5,000.

The campaign for Tom Suozzi (D-NY) — who last week won back his House seat vacated by embattled former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) — received $2,500 from the PAC. So did the campaign of Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who’s running for re-election in one of the most contested Senate races in the nation....

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators are doing something rare this weekend: Actually working.

Well, at least, some senators are. On Friday night only 83 of the Senate’s 100 members showed up for a late night vote, which is only compounding the tangible frustration at the Capitol as lawmakers have seen their schedules upended — including one senator who had to scrap her plan to attend the Super Bowl — over an internal GOP debate that’s now boiled over into public view.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is forcing his colleagues to stay in town this weekend and battle over a now $95.3 billion foreign aid package that includes funding for Taiwan, Israel and Gaza — a measure that included border security funding and reforms last weekend until the GOP killed that compromise measure — because Paul opposes the $60 billion in the measure earmarked for Ukraine. ...

Last week, senators put the CEOs of five social media giants each in the hot seat over accusations of their platforms’ negligence toward the sexual exploitation and online safety of children.

The hottest seat of all at a multi-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing belonged to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who a senator asked to stand up and publicly apologize to victims and parents in attendance holding photos of their children they say were sexually abused, bullied or committed self harm — many dying by suicide — related to exploitation on social media platforms.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the committee’s ranking Republican. “You have a product that’s killing people.”...

WASHINGTON — If the titans of Silicon Valley have blood on their hands — as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday — then how much blood is on federal lawmakers’ hands for congressional inaction on measures to protect the nation’s children online?

Raw Story posed that question to 15 members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as they exited their high profile hearing with the heads of TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, X (formerly Twitter) and Meta where senators, like Graham, the committee’s top Republican, blamed the CEOs for the issue Congress has yet to address.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” Graham said as the room erupted with applause. ...

WASHINGTON – Liz Cheney may be flirting with a 2024 presidential run, but – at least on Capitol Hill – it doesn’t seem anyone wants to take her to the dance.

The former co-chair of the Select January 6 Committee, Cheney – who represented Wyoming for three terms in Congress while also serving as a House Republican leader – continues making waves on cable news as she promotes her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, especially when she has left the door open for a third-party run in some of her media hits.

“I think that the situation that we’re in is so grave, and the politics of the moment require independents and Republicans and Democrats coming together in a way that can help form a new coalition, so that may well be a third-party option,” Cheney told USA TODAY....