Senator urges more Facebook whistleblowers to come forward – live

Senator Chris Coons has told reporters that “there very well may be” 50 votes in the Senate to change the filibuster rules to bypass the Republicans and allow the Democrats move forward and raise the debt limit.

Reminder: Centrist Democrat senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have always been the holdouts on the filibuster, while many other Democrats have either called for an end to the practice or to reform it.

It appears something is in the works, with Joe Biden changing course on his stance on the filibuster as well last night.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Senate will do away with the filibuster all together. They could vote to carve out a filibuster exception for the debt limit, for example. Either way, for those pushing for filibuster reform, this is a promising development at a point in time when Democrats may just have been pushed far enough to act.

The Senate vote on the debt limit won’t be for a few hours, but minority leader Mitch McConnell is already setting an ominous tone:

An option in this whole debt limit debacle is for Democrats to tackle the filibuster once again.

A filibuster is a procedural tactic that allows a minority of senators to block a vote. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and in a Senate with as narrow margins as this one, that’s not going to happen unless Republican senators vote against their party.

Republicans have used the filibuster to block voting rights legislation, gun control measure as well as the formation of a bipartisan commission investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Many Democrats have been outspoken on how they believe that the filibuster is now causing more harm than good.

Over the summer, however, during the fight for the For the People Act to expand voting rights, Joe Biden was against ending the filibuster. He always stopped short of calling to abolish the tactic that stymied so much of his agenda, despite advocates and community leaders pleading with him to do so.

Last night outside the White House, it appeared he may have changed his tune. In an off-the-cuff remark to reporters, he said, “It’s a real possibility” that Democrats are considering a change to the filibuster rules.

This could mean a number of things. Some lawmakers would be in favor, perhaps, of allowing some wiggle room to bypass the filibuster in certain cases but not abolishing the rule altogether, which many Democrats are for. Others are looking to revert rules back to the way they used to be and require senators to actually hold the floor and physically stand at the podium.

That means little, however. Democrats would need a majority vote in the Senate to end the filibuster and centrist Democrats senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have both said they’re against it. Neither of their offices have made any comment as of late if that has changed in light of the debt limit.

The Senate will vote today on raising the limit on the debt ceiling, which Congress must do before 18 October in order to avoid economic catastrophe (no hyperbole).

Republicans have already twice used the filibuster to block efforts by the Democrats to raise the debt limit and are expected to do so once again today.

To recap: Republicans believe the Democrats and the Democrats alone should raise the debt limit. Which usually would be all fine and dandy because all that requires is a simple majority and Democrats currently have the majority of 51 votes in the Senate.

But if Republicans use the filibuster, Democrats would need 60 votes to pass the measure. Now when Republicans say they want Democrats to raise the debt limit “on their own”, they mean through budget reconciliation, a very complicated and lenghty process that neither Joe Biden nor senate majority leader Chuck Schumer are very keen on undertaking.

One big reason why the Democrats are so against pursuing budget reconciliation is that they feel that the Republicans need to take responsibility here. Beyond the fact that they’re clearly behaving in a manner that would sow the most chaos under a Democrat president with a Democrat-majority Congress, White House press secretary Jen Psaki pointed out earlier this week that Republicans incurred almost $8tn in the four years under Donald Trump – more than a quarter of the entire debt now outstanding.

“This is their debt that they chalked up themselves,” Psaki said. “This is a period of time where we could easily solve this in the next two days, and easily do that through allowing Democrats to be the adults in the room, despite the fact that Republicans spent like drunken sailors over the last four years before President Biden took office.”

Greetings, live blog readers.

Yesterday, Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old former Facebook employee, testified before the Senate about how the social media giant harms children, is destabilizing democracies and is putting “astronomical profits before people”.

While many have been critical about the role of tech companies in our democracy before, Haugen’s testimony appears to have inspired a rare bipartisan consensus on the need for new regulations.

Senator Richard Blumenthal went on CNN today to call for more whistleblowers to come forward with more documents like the ones Haugen provided. He also called for Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress.

“I think they’re beginning to realize they have a big tobacco moment on their hands,” Blumenthal said, of Facebook. “I was involved and helped lead the states in suing the big tobacco companies and I remember well that lightbulb moment, a jaw-dropping time when we discovered all of the files of the big tobacco companies and how they knew of the harm they were causing, the toxic products and the denial was suddenly dispelled.

“I think Facebook faces the same moment of reckoning and a moment of truth.”

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