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U.S. Rep. Ken Buck found himself in an unusual place this week, defending his work with Democrats to rein in some of the wealthiest corporations in world history and standing opposite many friends and fellow conservatives in Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee spent much of the week debating and passing a suite of legislation that, taken together, constitutes the largest anti-monopoly effort by Congress in a generation. The legislation is aimed at breaking up four tech giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon worth $6 trillion.

This legislation represents a scalpel, not a chainsaw, to deal with the most important aspects of antitrust reform, Buck told the committee Wednesday. Were giving the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission the tools they need to restore the free market, incentivize innovation and give small businesses a fair shot against oligarchs like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

No Republican in Congress has done more this year to label Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon monopolies and to construct a roadmap for breaking them up a crackdown on big businesses more commonly favored by liberals. Buck, who represents the Eastern Plains, has had mixed success convincing his fellow conservatives that helping the government crack down on corporations is best.

Do I like not getting sleep? No. Do I like arguing with my friends? No, Buck said in an interview after two long days of Judiciary Committee hearings, which ended with his bills passing. But do I think this is the right way to do it and do I think that this is really important legislation? I do.

The Houses subcommittee on antitrust (the area of law focused on monopolies) is chaired by Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, and Buck is the panels top Republican. After a 16-month investigation by the subcommittee found the four tech giants act like monopolies, to the detriment of small businesses and consumers, Cicilline and Buck introduced six bills to push back.

You cant find two people who are more different than David Cicilline and Ken Buck. If you look at our voting records, I bet we have a similar vote maybe 10% of the time, Buck said.

TheMerger Filing Fee Modernization Act, which Buck is cosponsoring, was introduced in tandem with a fellow Coloradan, Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Lafayette. It would force large corporations to pay higher fees when they merge or acquire new companies. That would mean more money forthe Justice Departments Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission.

An earlier version of the bill passed the Senate unanimously, so its the likeliest of the six bills to become law. Its also the least impactful providing more funding without changing the rules of antitrust.

This bill is a clarion call to our regulators, to our enforcement agencies mainly the FTC to step up and do what is necessary to protect our small businesses, to protect innovation, to protect consumers and ultimately, to protect our economy, Neguse said during a House hearing Wednesday.

Some of the other bills go much farther and will require more legislative finesse to turn into law. The Ending Platform Monopolies Act would allow the Justice Department and FTC to break up tech companies that sell their products on platforms they operate, such as Amazon, which sells its products on Amazons marketplace. Another controversial bill, the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, would prevent the tech giants from acquiring some top competitors.

Another bill would allow users to keep the data they generate on a website, such as Facebook, and take it with them when they close their account, similar to how cell phone numbers are transferable.

By working with Democrats and against big businesses, Buck has found himself on an island with few Republican friends. The loudest critic of the anti-monopoly bills is Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and conservative stalwart that Buck calls a political hero of his. The two cofounded the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and have campaigned together but dont see eye to eye on tech.

Big Tech censors conservatives. These bills dont fix that problem, they make it worse. They dont break up Big Tech. They dont stop censorship, Jordan told the committee Wednesday.

As the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Jordan holds considerable sway among conservatives and has been putting tremendous pressure on Republicans to oppose the six bills, according to Mike Davis, founder of the Internet Accountability Project, a conservative group critical of Big Tech.

Buck was one of only three Republicans to vote for the American Choice and Innovation Online Act, making it illegal for tech companies to highlight their products over others online, such as Google placing its own websites over competitors when people search on Google.

Buck was one of only two Republicans joined by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to support the Ending Platform Monopolies Act on Thursday. The bill passed by the narrowest of margins, 21-20.

Several Republicans said they dont want to give the government more power over businesses. Others defended the Big Tech giants, saying they deserve to dominate their respective marketplaces.

Amazon is gargantuan because consumers have voted, with their dollars every day, that the services provided by Amazon are better than the other alternatives that they have in the marketplace, Rep. Tom McClintock of California said. The moment they decide otherwise, Amazon will shrink and competitors will begin to emerge to fill those gaps. No business can survive by displeasing consumers.

When you have products and services, said Rep. Darrell Issa, also of California, that are becoming less expensive, more pervasive, without government intervention, the market at least is working. We often talk about competition as though competition is inherently good. The consumer getting a better product and a better service and a better deal is the reason we promote competition.

Bucks Republican colleagues in Colorado, Reps. Lauren Boebert and Doug Lamborn, did not respond to requests for comment asking whether they support his bills. They are not members of the Judiciary Committee, so they have not voted on the bills yet.

The legislation will undergo changes over the summer before going to the full House for a vote, which Buck anticipates will occur in September. From there, the bills that have not yet been passed by the Senate will be considered in the upper chamber. Buck and Davis are optimistic.

The era of antitrust amnesty is over, Davis said, and Congressman Ken Buck is the driving force.

Originally posted here:
Ken Buck is staring down Big Tech companies. And powerful people in his political party - The Denver Post

Former Georgia state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File

Trump said that the GOP "might have been better" with Democrat Stacey Abrams as Georgia's governor.

The former president continues to take digs at Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Last year, Kemp rejected Trump's entreaties to overturn President Biden's win in Georgia.

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Former President Donald Trump still has Georgia on his mind.

After Joe Biden narrowly won the state in last year's presidential race, Trump prodded Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to convene the conservative-led state legislature in order to overturn the results and pressured GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" additional votes to ensure a statewide win.

Trump's entreaties were rejected, but he has continued to attack both men for what he says was an unfair election process in the state, withholding an endorsement of Kemp in his 2022 reelection campaign and backing Rep. Jody Hice in a Republican secretary of state primary over Raffensperger.

Read more: How Trump could use his relationship with Putin and Russia to skirt prosecution back in the USA

In 2018, Kemp's Democratic opponent was former state House Minority Leader and voting-rights activist Stacey Abrams.

The race was highly competitive, with Kemp edging out Abrams, by 1.4 percentage points, 50.2%-48.8%, the smallest margin in a Georgia governor's race since 1966.

Trump was a staunch supporter of Kemp in his first race, but that goodwill has since dried up.

During his first post-presidential rally in Ohio on Saturday, the former president suggested that Abrams might have been a more preferable choice for the GOP than Kemp.

"By the way, we might have been better if she did win for governor of Georgia, if you want to know the truth," Trump said. "We might have had a better governor if she did win."

Trump has not endorsed any of the lesser-known candidates running against Kemp in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but the former president could play a decisive role in the immediate future of the state party.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Trump suggests that Republicans might have been better off if Democrat Stacey Abrams was Georgia's governor instead of Brian Kemp - Yahoo News

So I was reading along through Andy Shers Times-Free Press story about the ACLU helping a couple of Tennessee business owners sue to stop the implementation of the anti-trans bathroom law (which we also covered on Friday). I was thinking, Oh hey, nice, Bob Bernstein is in on this, and, Yep, thats some bigoted stuff coming from the state, when I get to this part:

Rep. Tim Rudd, R-Murfreesboro, the House sponsor, said in a statement, "The law also does not alter, limit or affect a business or a person's free speech. The law does not require property owners to guard the entrance to a restroom, ascertain whether or not someone is transgender, nor prohibit anyone from entering or using restroom facilities. The law is in fact very limited in scope. It simply requires a warning sign to be placed at the entrance of a restroom that allows the opposite biological sex to enter that has multiple stalls and allows multiple people in at the same time. Nothing more than that. Women and parents of a female child have a right to know if a man could be waiting on them in a restroom. They also have a right to know if a property owner's policies could give cover to sexual predators waiting to pray upon women and children."

What the hell kind of men does Tim Rudd know? Seriously. As the daughter of a man and the sister of some men and the aunt of some men and boys, and as someone who has peed in the same bathroom at the same time as cis men, trans men and drag queens, I have never once observed them or their friends waiting in the bathroom to sexually assault anyone. Maybe the real issue here is that Tim Rudd needs better friends.

Im sure someone somewhere once did wait in a restroom to try to assault a stranger, but its very, very rare. Most people are sexually assaulted by someone they know perhaps a trusted basketball coach, or a teacher, or a minister, or their dads friend, or their friend or their dad. And Im not sure what sign is going to fix that problem.

And if men's bathrooms are such a danger if rapists just skulk around bathrooms waiting to assault people why arent there more bathroom rapes in mens bathrooms? Men are so horny and daring that theyll prey on women and children in a public restroom, but not so dangerous that other men have to be concerned? I find that very hard to believe.

These signs are just about forcing bigoted speech on business owners and not actually about protecting women and children. Its easy to see if you just swap out the wording. Imagine this:

I have no doubt people would have liked signs like this being posted in public restrooms at the end of segregation. Its still wrong. People are different than you. Its fine. Literally no one is being hurt by transgender people peeing in Fidos.

Heres who is being hurt. Say youre a father traveling with your small daughter. She has to pee. Its an emergency. You pull into a rest area. Which bathroom do you take her into? Or say that youre the female caregiver of a man with multiple sclerosis. Can you not go into the mens bathroom with him without causing a Republican scandal in this state? The men I have most often seen in womens bathrooms are of an age where I feel very confident that their prostates had decided they couldnt wait for the mens room to open up. Judging by the age of a lot of our legislators, this is a problem they will face. And we could choose to just be compassionate and mind our own business.

If you need to be warned before you pee in public that people who are different than you exist and sometimes also need to pee, maybe you should just stay home instead of making the rest of us wish you had.

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Tennessee Republicans' Ongoing Bathroom Bigotry | Pith in the Wind | nashvillescene.com - Nashville Scene

New tools quantify costs, benefits of urban greenspace investments

New technology could help cities around the world improve peoples lives while saving billions of dollars. Urban InVEST, a suite of free, open-source software modelscreates maps to help decision-makers understand the links between nature and human wellbeing and evaluate the tradeoffs between development and conservation.

Even as developers and city planners increasingly see the benefits tree-lined paths and community gardens, they lacked detailed information about where a garden might help protect a neighborhood from flooding or trees might lower air temperatures. Researchers with the Stanford Natural Capital Project developed the free, open source software to help city planners visualize where investments in natural elements, such as parks and marshlands, can provide community benefits.

Urban InVEST uses spatially explicit biophysical and socio-economic models so users can quantify and map the way various urban designs can impact multiple urban services, such as water management, heat island mitigation and mental health benefits. By showing the costs and benefits to communities by socioeconomic status and vulnerability, the software helps design cities that are better for both people and nature, said Anne Guerry, chief strategy officer and lead scientist at the Natural Capital Project.

Urban nature is a multitasking benefactor the trees on your street can lower temperatures so your apartment is cooler on hot summer days, she said. At the same time, theyre soaking up the carbon emissions that cause climate change, creating a free, accessible place to stay healthy through physical activity and just making your city a more pleasant place to be.

The software combines environmental data, like temperature patterns, with social demographics and economic data, like income levels, according to the Stanford News Service. Cities can upload their own data or access a variety of open data sources, from NASA satellites to local weather stations.

The Urban InVEST toolset features models for terrestrial, freshwater, marine, and coastal ecosystems, as well as a number of helper tools that help users locate and input data and with understanding and visualizing outputs.

Were answering three crucial questions with this software: where in a city is nature providing what benefits to people, how much of each benefit is it providing and who is receiving those benefits? said Perrine Hamel, lead author on a new paper about the software published inUrban Sustainabilityand livable cities program lead at the Stanford Natural Capital Project at the time of research.

Urban InVEST was tested in several cities, including Shenzhen, China, Paris and Minneapolis. It builds on the Natural Capital Projects existing open-source Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) platform, which is used in over 185 countries.

In Shenzhen, China, the researchers used Urban InVEST to determine that natural infrastructure like parks, grassland and forest could limit severe storm damage by soaking up rain and diverting floodwaters, avoiding $25 billion in damages. Trees and parks were reducing Shenzhen the daily air temperature in by 5.4 degrees during hot summer days, a value of $71,000 per day.

In Paris, the software showed where investments in more greenspace in low-income neighborhoods without access to such spaces could improve health and wellbeing in an equitable way.

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, private golf courses were selling off their land for development in the face of declining revenues. City planners, trying to decide whether to use the land for neighborhoods or parkland, used Urban InVEST to better understand the different outcomes. The software indicated that new parks could increase urban cooling, keep river waters clean, support bee pollinators and sustain dwindling pockets of biodiversity, Stanford officials said. New residential development, on the other hand, would increase temperatures, pollute freshwater and decrease habitat for bees and other biodiversity.

Cities, more than any other ecosystems, are designed by people. Why not be more thoughtful about how we design the places where most of us spend our time? Guerry said. With Urban InVEST, city governments can bring all of natures benefits to residents and visitors. They can address inequities and build more resilient cities, resulting in better long-term outcomes for people and nature.

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New tools quantify costs, benefits of urban greenspace investments - GCN.com

Anti-virus mogul and Bitcoin bull, John McAfee, allegedly committed suicide while waiting to be extradited to the US in a Spanish jail. He was accused of evading tax for four years.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, two brothers have reportedly made off with nearly $4 billion in cryptocurrencies. They told investors that the exchange was hacked, but the authorities have been unable to track down the founders for more questions.

Yet, the crypto community carries on. El Salvador has created an official digital wallet to help its citizens hold Bitcoin and is offering anyone who signs up $30 in the cryptocurrency as a reward.

On the other side of the ocean, Dubai is hosting The Bitcoin Fund on its exchange. This makes the Arabian country the first to have a digital asset-based fund in the Middle East and North Africa marking a huge sign of adoption within the region.

Heres our weekly roundup of the best cryptocurrency news from the week gone by:

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The biggest crypto heist of all time, free money and tax on crypto transactions heres what happened the wor - Business Insider India