The First MAGA Democrat

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s speech is warbling, crackling, scratchy—sort of like Marge Simpson’s. His voice, he told me, is “fucked up.” The official medical diagnosis is spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary spasms in the larynx. He didn’t always sound this way; his speaking style changed when he was in his 40s. Kennedy has said he suspects…

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Congress aims to reauthorize Commerce telecom agency for first time in three decades

Congress is considering reauthorization of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration this year, with leading lawmakers casting the agency in a critical role overseeing issues ranging from federal spectrum management and broadband Internet expansion to emerging developments in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. NTIA was last reauthorized 30 years ago. During a House Energy and Commerce communications and technology subcommittee hearing last week, Chairman Bob Latta (R-Ohio) introduced a discussion draft of his “National Telecommunication and Information Administration Reauthorization Act of 2023.” The bill is among a raft of legislation the…

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Revived bills would alter feds’ payment obligations during shutdowns, federal first responders’ pensions

Lawmakers revived a host of bills this week that would impact the federal workforce, through changes to payments, retirement benefits and more. The Federal Employee Civil Relief Act, for one, would let federal employees and contractors postpone certain types of payments during government shutdowns, or if the government defaults on its debt. Specifically, feds would get a 30-day cushion, after a government shutdown ends, before they would have to make payments on loans and other types of financial obligations. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), who reintroduced the…

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