In the News
When Twitter tried to smother distribution of an October 2020 New York Post exposé of Joe Biden's son, Hunter, just weeks before the presidential election, Republicans cried foul.
Thanks to new owner Elon Musk's big reveal Friday of internal communications showing how it all went down, we now know one Bay Area Democrat privately echoed the GOP's free-speech concerns to the San Francisco social media giant's decision-makers: Rep. Ro Khanna.
Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents California District 17 in the Silicon Valley region, visited Berlin, N.H. in early November to meet with a gathering of local community activists and elected officials. He is perhaps best known for recently chairing Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign and acting as point man for the Biden administration's negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin and others to finally pass the Inflation Reduction Act with both record climate action and pharmaceutical price reductions.
Most of the Party operatives I spoke with emphasized that, as a first task, the Democrats have to upgrade their direct, in-person campaigning rather than focus on fine-tuning their message and beaming it out through expensive television ads. Steve Rosenthal, a long-discontented member of the pro-labor wing of the Party, complained about the Party's drift during the high era of television advertising: "The Party was too invested in television ads and messaging, and it ignored infrastructure—block captains, precinct leaders, people who knock on doors.
Ro Khanna, the Democrat who represents a big chunk of Silicon Valley in Congress, is still optimistic that his party will hold onto the House and that Congress will pass meaningful regulations of Big Tech . But if Republicans win the House, he warns, they'll devote less time to those issues and more to investigating Hunter Biden.
Democrats on Capitol Hill have suggested transferring US weapons systems in Saudi Arabia to Ukraine and suspending a planned transfer of Patriot missiles to Riyadh in the wake of what they call a "turning point" in Washington's relationship with the kingdom.
Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California who is a leading supporter of a weapons freeze, said he believed that "at the very least" Congress would move to halt the transfer of Patriot missiles to the kingdom, and probably pause other defense initiatives.
US Rep. Ro Khanna is calling for the White House to retaliate against Saudi Arabia if OPEC and its allies slash oil production in a bid to boost prices.
"This is beyond the pale," the California Democrat told CNN in a phone interview on Monday. "They are actively fleecing the American people and destabilizing the economy. That's just outrageous. Who do they think they are?"
Hurricane Fiona is on a deadly rampage through the Caribbean, and the horrors may be only beginning.
Ro Khanna has just turned 46 and is already in his third term as a CA Congressman. Young, energetic, and well-informed, Khanna has stood out in the crowded House of Representatives. On the face of it, he seems full of contradictions. A Co-Chair of Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign he has come to be seen as Joe Biden's champion. Serving in Silicon Valley where Big Tech predominates, he is often agitating for the small guy. Unabashed about being from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, he is often on Fox News which pretty much leans toward everything he does not espouse.
Documents obtained by congressional investigators show that oil industry executives privately downplayed their companies' own public messages about efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and weakened industry-wide commitments to push for climate policies.
Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents the most economically muscular district in the nation's history in Silicon Valley, wants to see the wealth generated in his corner of California — and its $10 trillion in market capitalization — river out to other parts of the nation, including the rural and de-industrialized Midwest.