Tech executives head to US Congress under harsh spotlight

WASHINGTON – Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google head before US lawmakers on Tuesday for two days of grueling hearings on how Russia allegedly used their services to try to sway the 2016 US election.

At stake for the Silicon Valley companies are their public images and the threat of tougher advertising regulations in the United States, where the technology sector has grown accustomed to light treatment from the government.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network, added fuel to the debate on Monday when it told Congress in written testimony that 126 million Americans may have seen politically divisive posts that originated in Russia under fake names.

That is in addition to 3,000 US political ads that Facebook says Russians bought on its platform.

Google and Twitter have also said that people in Russia used their services to spread messages in the run-up to last year’s US presidential election.

The Russian government has denied it intended to influence the election, in which President Donald Trump, a Republican, defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

US lawmakers have responded angrily to the idea of foreign meddling, introducing legislation to require online platforms to say who is running election ads and what audiences are targeted.

“The companies need to get ahead of the curve here,” said James Lewis, senior vice president of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. If they can, he added, they might avoid regulation.

Lewis, speaking during the Reuters Cyber Summit in Washington, said he expects European officials to watch the US hearings closely.

The US Senate’s crime subcommittee will be the first of three committees to hold hearings on Russia. Its hearing is set for 2:30 p.m. ET (1830 GMT).

Facebook and Twitter are dispatching their general counsels, Colin Stretch and Sean Edgett, to appear before the subcommittee, while Google is sending its director of law enforcement and information security, Richard Salgado.

“Our goal is to bring people closer together; what we saw from these actors was an insidious attempt to drive people apart. And we’re determined to prevent it from happening again,” Stretch will tell lawmakers, according to an advance copy of his remarks.

Facebook and Twitter have taken steps toward self-regulation, saying they would create their own public archives of election-related ads and also apply more specific labels to such ads.

Google followed on Monday, saying it would create a database of election ads including ones on YouTube.

The companies have meanwhile disclosed new details about the extent of Russia-based material, raising alarms about a sector that once inspired idealism.

“The internet was seen as a great engine for promoting democracy and transparency. Now we are all discovering that it can also be a tool for hijacking democracy,” said Karen Kornbluh, a senior fellow for digital policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

source: interaksyon.com

Republicans seize control of US Senate in midterm polls

WASHINGTON -- Republicans rode a wave of voter discontent to sweeping midterm election wins on Tuesday, seizing control of the US Senate in a punishing blow to President Barack Obama that will limit his political influence and curb his legislative agenda in his last two years in office.

Republicans won in places where Democrats were favored, like a Senate race in North Carolina, pulled out victories where the going was tough, like a Senate battle in Kansas, and swept a number of governors' races in states where Democrats were favored, like Obama's home state of Illinois.

They also strengthened their grip on the House of Representatives and when the new Congress takes power in January, will be in charge of both chambers of Congress for the first time since elections in 2006.

Obama, first elected in 2008 and again in 2012, called Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress to the White House on Friday to take stock of the new political landscape. He watched election returns from the White House, and saw little to warm his spirits.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who won a tough reelection battle against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, will replace Democrat Harry Reid as Senate majority leader.

“Some things don’t change after tonight. I don’t expect the president to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did when he woke up this morning. He knows I won’t either. But we do have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree," McConnell said in his victory speech in Louisville.

Republicans needed six seats to win control of the 100-member Senate, and by late evening they had seven.

The winning margin came when Iowa Republican Joni Ernst was declared the winner over Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Thom Tillis defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Kay Hagan in North Carolina.

Republican Senate candidates also picked up Democratic seats in Montana, Colorado, West Virginia, South Dakota and Arkansas.

The Republican surge will force Obama to scale back his legislative agenda and limit his ambitions to either executive actions that do not require legislative approval, or items that might gain bipartisan support, such as trade agreements and tax reform.

It will also test his ability to compromise with newly empowered political opponents who have been resisting his legislative agenda since he was first elected.

'Terrific night'

But Republicans, hoping to win the White House in 2016, will also be under pressure to show Americans they are capable of governing after drawing scorn a year ago for shutting down the government in a budget fight.

“Tonight was a terrific night for Republicans. It was a powerful repudiation of the Obama agenda, and the Obama economy, which isn’t working," Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative firebrand, told CNN.

"The American people, they’re frustrated with what’s happening in Washington, but now the responsibility falls on us to lead," he said.

Partisan battles could erupt over immigration reform, with Obama poised to issue executive actions by year's end to defer deportations of some undocumented immigrants, and over energy policy, as Republican press the president to approve the Keystone XL pipeline carrying oil from Canada.

The Republican victory had been widely predicted ahead of Tuesday's voting to elect 36 senators, 36 state governors and all 435 members of the House of Representatives.

Election Day polling by Reuters/Ipsos found a dour mood among the electorate with less than one-third of voters believing the country is headed in the right direction.

Roughly 40 percent of voters said they approved of the job Obama is doing as president, though they were split over whether they expected the economy to improve or worsen in the coming year.

In a consolation win for Democrats, Jeanne Shaheen won re-election over Republican Scott Brown in New Hampshire in what polls had forecast as a tight race.

In Virginia, heavily favored Democratic incumbent Senator Mark Warner found himself in a surprisingly close fight against Republican challenger Ed Gillespie, with much of the vote counted. By late evening, he claimed victory but Gillespie had not yet conceded.

In the most closely watched governors' races, Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott edged out Democrat Charlie Crist, and Republican Scott Walker survived a challenge from Democrat Mary Burke in Wisconsin.

The White House tried to play down the prospect of sharp changes in strategy after the election, saying Obama would seek common ground with Congress on areas like trade and infrastructure.

On other issues, like climate change and immigration reform, Obama is likely to continue to take actions on his own. By the end of the year, he is expected to announce executive action to defer deportations for some undocumented immigrants.

Jay Carney, Obama's former spokesman, said he expects Obama to make an "all-out push" on his priorities regardless of the makeup of Congress.

Whatever the case, Obama will face pressure to make changes at the White House. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 75 percent of respondents believe the administration needs to "rethink" how it approaches major issues facing the United States.

Sixty-four percent said Obama should replace some of his senior staff after the election.

source: interaksyon.com

US govt shuts down

The United States lurched into a dreaded government shutdown early Tuesday for the first time in 17 years, triggering agency closures and hundreds of thousands of furloughs as Congress missed a deadline to pass a budget.

Ten minutes before midnight bells rang throughout a deeply divided Washington, and after a day of furious brinkmanship President Barack Obama's Democrats and rival Republicans, the White House ordered federal agencies to initiate their shutdown procedures.

"We urge Congress to act quickly to pass a Continuing Resolution to provide a short-term bridge that ensures sufficient time to pass a budget for the remainder of the fiscal year," Management and Budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a memo to agencies.

Lawmakers had hardly haggled over budgetary matters in the final frantic hours before the deadline -- the end of the fiscal year. Instead, they argued over whether to link the budget pact with efforts to delay Obama's health care law.

"This is an unnecessary blow to America," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor two minutes after the witching hour.

As a mood of crisis enveloped Washington no compromise emerged to head off the first such disaster since 1996.

Instead, the Democratic-led Senate and Republican House of Representatives played a futile game, sending funding bills between them that were doomed to fail.

Obama accused Republicans of holding America at ransom with their "extreme" political demands, while his opponents struck back at his party's supposed arrogance.

Around 800,000 government workers are expected to be sent home, government services are to be slashed and monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and national parks will close.

The crisis is rooted in an attempt by "Tea Party" Republicans in the House to make passage of a new government budget conditional on thwarting Obama's signature health reform law.

The Democratic-led Senate and the president have repeatedly rejected this strategy and urged Republicans to pass an extension to government funding to temporarily stave off the shutdown.

In a deeper sense, the shutdown is the most serious crisis yet in a series of rolling ideological skirmishes between Democrat Obama and House Republicans over the size of the US government and its role in national life.

"One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn't get to shut down the entire government just to re-fight the results of an election," Obama said, referring to his own re-election.

"You don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you're supposed to be doing anyway," he said, in a stern televised statement at the White House.

But on a day of accelerating brinkmanship, Republicans doubled down on their bid to gut Obamacare, as the health care law, the most sweeping social legislation in decades, is known.

With just three hours to go, House lawmakers passed a bill that would delay the individual mandate, which forces all Americans to buy health insurance under the new law, for a year.

"It's a matter of fairness for all Americans," said Republican House speaker John Boehner, who has struggled to control the riotous anti-government Tea Party faction of his caucus.

But the Senate, which must also sign off on budget measures, immediately rejected the bill.

That led House leaders, less than an hour before midnight, to move to go to conference, meaning the two chambers would appoint formal negotiators to thrash out a budget deal.

That process was already showing signs that it would take hours to coordinate, and Reid sent the Senate into recess until 9:30 am Tuesday.

"We said we'd go to conference if they wouldn't shut the government down, but they're shutting the government down," number two Senate Democrat Dick Durbin told AFP.

Obama warned that a government shutdown could badly damage an economy which has endured a sluggish recovery from the worst recession in decades.

"A shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away. Past shutdowns have disrupted the economy significantly," Obama said.

Consultants Macroeconomic Advisors said it would slow growth, recorded at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the second quarter.

A two-week shutdown would cut 0.3 percentage point off of gross domestic production.

It would also have a painful personal impact on workers affected -- leaving them to dip into savings or delay mortgage payments, monthly car loan bills and other spending.

Stocks on Monday retreated as traders braced for the shutdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 128.57 points (0.84 percent) to 15,129.67.

Markets are likely to be even more traumatized if there is no quick solution to the next fast approaching crisis.

Republicans are also demanding Obama make concessions in the health care law to secure a lifting of the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling, without which the United States would begin to default on its debts for the first time in history by the middle of October.

Polls show more Americans would blame Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats, leaving Boehner torn between his party's wider political interests and a vocal section of his own party.

source: interaksyon.com

US online retailers under pressure with looming tax bill

WASHINGTON — The US Senate moved Monday toward expected approval of a bill that would subject online retailers to state sales taxes, cutting a advantage that helped them steal business from brick and mortar stores.

The bill, the Marketplace Fairness Act, represents a long fought battle by local governments and businesses to collect taxes on Internet sales to local people by outside retailers like Amazon, eBay, and other online giants.

But it also raises operating challenges for Internet businesses, especially medium-sized ones, to begin collecting tax payments for state and local jurisdictions, wherever orders originate.

Senators voted a generous 74-20 to move to debate on the bill, which suggests an easy passage, despite a stiff lobbying fight to block or alter it from online retailing power eBay.

The bill would force online retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases made in states and localities even if the retailer is not physically present there.

A 1992 Supreme Court ruling has prevented states from compelling tax collection as long as the retailer lacks a physical presence in the state.

With combined state and local sales taxes adding as much as 10 percent to the price of a good, that has given online sellers a significant advantage to local shops.

Local shops then want the bill, as do states and local governments trying to rebuild finances after the deep 2008 recession by seeking out new sources of income.

The National Retail Federation, which represents physical retailers, estimates that $24 billion worth of taxes goes uncollected due to online sales.

“It’s costing states and localities billions in lost revenue,” said Republican bill sponsor, Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi. “Now is the time for Congress to act.”

The bill would cover only retailers with more than $1 million in revenues from outside their physical base, an effort to alleviate the collection and filing burden collecting taxes from multiple jurisdictions would have on small businesses.

But the online giants Amazon and eBay have split over it. Amazon, which long fought local taxes, now has or will have a warehouses in so many areas that it backs the bill, if mainly to ensure its competitors do not have an advantage.

But eBay, the auction marketplace that is increasingly competing with amazon for direct sales of new consumer goods, over the weekend launched a broadside against the bill.

EBay chief executive John Donahoe told eBay members in an email that the bill threatened their business.

“Some lawmakers and large retailers want to impose more costs on you by mandating nationwide sales tax collection for your online business, whether you sell through eBay, other marketplaces or your own site,” Donahoe said.

The White House strongly endorsed the bill, saying it “will level the playing field for local small business retailers that are in competition every day with large out-of-state online companies.”

The influential anti-tax lobby Americans for Tax Reform issued a statement urging backers to fight the bill, saying it would extend the power of “money-hungry state legislators” to apply taxes outside their borders.

“The regulatory implications will span more than just internet based businesses.”

source: interaksyon.com

Caroline Kennedy eyed for Japan ambassador post

WASHINGTON DC - US President Barack Obama is close to naming Caroline Kennedy, daughter of assassinated president John F. Kennedy, to the high-profile post of ambassador to Japan, an official said Monday.

Kennedy, 55, who was an early supporter of Obama's 2008 primary campaign before he took on and beat Hillary Clinton's Democratic machine, has long been a rumored candidate for the plum Tokyo post.

Kennedy is in the advanced stages of the selection process, an administration official told AFP. Earlier Monday, both The Washington Post and New York Times reported that she was actively being vetted for the appointment.

Kennedy would fit the long tradition of presidents naming high profile envoys to key US ally Japan, who have included former vice president Walter Mondale and former senators Mike Mansfield and Howard Baker.

But she would also take up the post at a time of great diplomatic peril, given North Korea's fierce military threats against the United States and its key regional partners.

The crises had prompted some diplomatic observers in Washington in recent weeks to suggest that Kennedy could be passed over for a more experienced diplomatic hand.

But Kennedy's chances may have been enhanced by the arrival as secretary of state of John Kerry, who was close to Caroline Kennedy's beloved uncle, late senator Edward Kennedy.

The White House and State Department both declined to comment on the reports that Kennedy was close to being named, but did not deny them outright.

While politics and public service runs in Kennedy's blood, she has long resisted the public role of her father, his brothers, Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, and many of their progeny.

For a time in late 2008 and early 2009, she toyed with the idea of running for the New York Democratic Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton when Clinton became Obama's first-term secretary of state.

But the wealthy Kennedy pulled out of the running after a rough political ride amid claims she was being foisted upon the New York electorate with nothing but her family name as a qualification.

Kennedy, whom many Americans remember as a tragic little girl at her father's 1963 funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, caused a sensation in 2008, and fury in Clinton circles, when she broke from her intensely private world to back Obama.

In a New York Times column titled "A President Like My Father," Kennedy wrote of never having seen a president who matched up to the way people still talked about JFK.

Now, she said, "I believe I have found a man who could be that president."

If nominated, and confirmed by the Senate, Kennedy would succeed current US Ambassador to Japan John Roos, a former Obama campaign donor.

source: interaksyon.com