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1. Ok, since no one else seems to want to do it, I'll lay out @HawleyMO's record since he's come to the Senate on corporate power. Mostly it's focused on big tech, but not entirely. Here's his bill on Do Not Track, originally a @JackieSpeier bill. hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier 2. Do Not Track is of fundamental importance. As @DinaSrinivasan notes, the pervasive tracking of data is the mechanism by which FB/Google starves newspapers globally. So @HawleyMO seeks to save the free press. hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan 3. @HawleyMO, along with Democrats Markey, Blumenthal and Durbin asks for an investigation into Amazon’s Echo Dot Kids Edition and its possible violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. hawley.senate.gov/senators-hawle…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan 4. Then there's pharma. @HawleyMO is on a bill with @SenRickScott to cap pharma prices in line with prices in other countries. rickscott.senate.gov/sen-rick-scott…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott 5. There's robocalls, which everyone hates except the telecom companies who allow them through their networks. @HawleyMO hates robocalls too. hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott 6. There's this with Markey and Blumenthal banning the ability of video game companies to cheat people and especially children through corrupt pricing practices known as ‘loot boxes.’ hawley.senate.gov/senators-hawle…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott 7. Here's @HawleyMO with @SenBlumenthal demanding the Federal Trade Commission crack down on Facebook for privacy violations involving Cambridge Analytica. Not the most popular scandal for Rs to jump on. hawley.senate.gov/sens-hawley-an…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal 8. Here's @HawleyMO asking Apple to provide a Do Not Track option to consumers. This is one of those *actually getting things done* moves by politicians. hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal 9. And then a bill with Democrat @MarkWarner forcing big tech companies to disclose the value of the data they collect to the SEC. hawley.senate.gov/senators-warne…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 10. In May, @HawleyMO alone among Senators grilled Zuckerberg on the company's fake 'pivot to privacy.' He was the first Senator to ask about the company's payments system. hawley.senate.gov/facebook-stand…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 11. I find the handwaving away of this record by liberals particularly appalling since Facebook has actually induced genocides abroad. Anyone honestly addressing fascism needs to know it runs straight through big tech's business models.
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 12. Then @HawleyMO has a clever bill to tackle student debt, forcing universities to eat the half the cost of students who default. This attacks both debt and the egregious academic budgeting structures. hawley.senate.gov/sen-hawley-bre…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 13. @HawleyMO introduced a bill to stop YouTube from recommending videos of children after the NYT did a story on how YT’s algorithm automatically curates content for pedophiles. hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 14. @HawleyMO wrote a letter to Google after Google ‘accidentally’ to the side of the Chinese Communist party over protesters in Hong Kong. The CCP is *actually* fascist. So tell me why Hawley's the autocrat here? hawley.senate.gov/sen-hawley-sen…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 15. @HawleyMO wrote that makes large tech platforms responsible for their content unless they can prove to a bipartisan group of officials they are not censoring. It's basically the fairness doctrine, updated. I don't like the bill, but it's reasonable. hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 16. Then there are all the hearings. @HawleyMO is routinely going after corporate executives in committee hearings. Google and Facebook are worth roughly $1T and $500B. This is what it means to take on corporate power.
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 17. Now, @HawleyMO *also* attacked the Green New Deal as a sop to Silicon Valley and liberal elites. hawley.senate.gov/sen-hawley-gre…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 18. He opposed Obamacare disingenuously and supported anti-union laws. He has voted most of Trump's judges through, who are largely big corporate types (though he fought corporatist Neomi Rao, though not over corporate power).
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 19. There's a real theory here. Some cynicism, but a real theory as well. @HawleyMO has criticized the Republican Party's fealty to Ronald Reagan and talked up the need for government to act. washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost…
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 20. I read @HawleyMO's book that he wrote when he was 28, "Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness." It's a piece of powerful intellectual history scholarship. We're not dealing with a lightweight or an anti-semite. But he's also not a liberal.
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 21. The basic problem liberals have is they simply hand wave away corporate power. Yeah, sure they discuss it, but to them what really matters is protecting the legacy of Obama. They invent anti-semitic conspiracy theories so they don't have to see their own failures.
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 22. There are great reasons to be skeptical of @HawleyMO's sincerity. Trump is a racist, and every day Hawley validates him and the white supremacist con Trump uses to help plutocrats. Hawley ignores climate change.
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 23. But @HawleyMO is at war with the Koch brothers, as well as Google/FB, who together represent some of the most dangerous and powerful autocrats in America today. That should count for something.
@HawleyMO @JackieSpeier @DinaSrinivasan @SenRickScott @SenBlumenthal @MarkWarner 24. I'll finish with this. This thread is not going to get a lot of attention in the funhouse mirror world of Twitter, but it's a real analysis of corporate power. Meanwhile the ridiculous made up allegations of anti-semitism will. That should tell you a lot about priorities.
