ms. klobuchar: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minute membership. ms. obuchar: madam president, i rise in support of the legislation repealing the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against iraq. i am pleased about the vote. i want to thank senator tim kaine and senator todd young for leading this bipartisan legislation, as well as chair bob menendez for moving this through the senate foreign relations committee. with this bill we are asserting congress' constitutional power to determine when to begin and end wars. these aumf's were passed 32 and 31 years ago, respectively. the gulf war ended in a matter of months, and the iraq war that began more than a decade later has been over for 12 years. it's time for congress to act. open-ended aumf's serve no strategic purpose and undermine congress' authority to determine if and when to send our troops into battle, which is a major decision. -- that we should make. on top of that, they come with great risk. it is far too easy for for a presidential administration to treat anosmias blanket pe

klobuchar: ms. bradish, do you agree the ticketing market was more competitive when ticketmaster was competing with live nation as separate companies? ms. bradish: certainly. especially where you have a new entrant showing the ability to increase its market share rapidly and with great success. that is precisely the kind of pressure you would want to have on a dominant player, to make sure they act in an competitive effect. the loss of that is a loss of competition. sen. klobuchar: we have heard serious concerns from artists, promoters, and venues about live nation's dominance, that it can pressure venues to use ticketmaster's ticketing service exclusively. how else would you explain the fact that ticketmaster has 80% of major venues' contracts in the u.s.? mr. berchtold: it is our policy to not retaliate against venues by using content as part of the ticketing as part of the discussion. sen. klobuchar: have you seen live nation leveraging its power to pressure venues to use ticketmaster from primar

ms. klobuchar: madam president, i rise today on international women's day in support of the women's health protection act. i would like to thank senator baldwin for her leadership from my neighboring state of wisconsin, senator blumenthal for his longtime leadership of this bill, as well as senator murray and so many others, including yourself, madam president, for your work on this. i also wanted to mention erin chapman of our judiciary team who's here with me and my colleague tina smith who is the only senator to have worked at planned parenthood in the united states senate. last year the supreme court issued a ruling shredding nearly five decades of precedent protecting a woman's right to make her own health care decisions against the wishes of 70% to 80% of americans who believe this is a decision that should be made between a woman, her family, her doctor. in this past year, we heard that majority loud and clear in states where access to reproductive health care was directly on the ballot, from montana and michigan to kentucky and kansas, voters turned out to protect a woman's right t

ms. lewis, might want to address that. please, go ahead. >> yes. thank you, senator klobuchar. unfortunately, i think that this debate over content moderation or critiques that are aimed at acoa are a divisive distraction. i -- in my view the acoa does not impact content moderation. it does not make it harder for a platform to engage in content moderation and it does not make it easier for the digital gate keeper to engage in content moderation. the bill simply has nothing to do with it. and in terms of the idea that certain things may be-- you mentioned the word dubious and the idea that certain things may be possible, i would not even concede that it's possible, but let's say it is possible that a state ag or could interpret the bill in that way. and i don't think it's plausible. and i don't think when we think about very unlikely things that could occur and possible, farfetched outcomes. i think we should be thinking about what is plausible, rather than what is improbable and unlikely. again, in summary, acoa does not affect content moderation. >> thank you. senator padilla

ms. lewis might want to address that. >> yes, thank you senator klobuchar. the crew attacks attack critiques are a deviceive deviceive distraction. i -- in my view this doesn't impact content moderation. it does d not make it harder foa gate keeper platform to engage in content moderation. it doesn't make it easier for the digital gatekeeper to engage in content moderation. in terms of the idea that certain things might be more dubious in in the idea and certain things are possible. i wouldn't concede that it's possible. let's sayi it's possible. i don't think when we think about u what's occurring. it's possible there are outcome. it's possible. in is improbable. again in summery. it doesn't effect content moderation. >> thank you. >> the testimony to him >> i'd ad add. the language in the bill is so specific. that the the we'd have to go to court and make a case. they werein posted online and ht theur competition. so, proveing that. it's impactal. >> the attorneyy general suppors the bill as well. mr.lewis, again, changing topics here. numerous reports sug

ms. lewis thank you for being here. >> chairman klobuchar and ranking member lee, thank you for the invitationo testify. i'm here in my personal capacity and not behalf of any clients. last congress showed strong bipartisan support for antitrust reform. especially for bills that would curb big tech and big pharma's monopoly power. there is a lot of common ground here. this committee advanced a coat in the open at market act on a bipartisan basis you deserve credit for doing so. enforcers as well as private plaintiffs are currently seeking relief in court to address some of the gatekeeper platforms anticompetitive conduct. butts, the unique challenges of digital market plus the time and resource and nature of litigation make this an inefficient and also possibly ineffective tool for the job. under current law the deck is stacked in favor of the platforms. that is why congress should pass legislation to reign in the dominant digital platforms and restore competition toward digital market. aiko is a comprehensive and well-thought-out bill. it draws support from a long list of consumer groups, bus

klobuchar talked about. i'd like to direct this to mr. hudson, and then ms. pinkerton, and get both sides here. there has been a lot of argument that if you look at margins in the airline industry, certain geographic routes, split up certain practices, but there is evidence that consolidation is anticompetitive and not in the interest of consumers. your reaction to that? what is the evidence for consolidation, the evidence against it, because i'd like to understand what's going on. >> painter you, senator. if we can look back at the history 45 years since but a regulation act, what we see is originally there was a great profusion of new airlines that come into the system. bennett caused instability, and many older ones go bankrupt and there is consolidation. we now have a system in which four airlines control over 80% of all flights. they essentially have an oligopoly. the way we think you have to deal with that is have regulation, as well as competition. i'd like to quote two people who are authorities in this, who couldn't be here today, one is the former chairman of the cab, and considered t