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      The changes at CNN look politically motivated. That should concern us all | Robert Reich

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      The changes at CNN look politically motivated. That should concern us allRobert ReichBrian Stelter’s very popular and commerically successful show was axed. The reason? Follow the money For several years, Brian Stelter’s Sunday show on CNN, Reliable Sources, has been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, rightwing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican party.Last week, CNN abruptly canceled the show and effectively fired Stelter and his staff.Why? The show was commercially successful. Its ratings have suffered somewhat lately but it was doing better than several of CNN’s primetime shows.It was cancelled by Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, who reportedly was not a fan of Stelter’s opinionated style.But there appears to be more to it than Stelter’s style. Licht has told CNN staff they should stop referring to Donald Trump’s “big lie” because the phrase sounds like a Democratic party talking point. Licht also wants more “straight news reporting”, along with more conservative guests.What’s motivating Licht? Follow the money.CNN’s new corporate overseer is Warner Brothers Discovery Inc, which now owns what used to be Time Warner, including CNN. The CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery is David Zaslav.Zaslav has been prodding Licht to reposition CNN to the center, and be a network preferred by “everybody … Republicans, Democrats”.But CNN is never going to be the network preferred by Republicans. Fox News has that sewn up.As Republicans move further rightward into the netherworld of authoritarianism, there’s even less possibility that CNN’s news coverage will be able to satisfy them, nor should CNN even try. If we’ve learned anything from Trump and his lapdogs at Fox News, it’s that facts, data and logic are no longer relevant to the Republican base.Even “straight news reporting” depends on what stories are featured, which facts are highlighted and the context surrounding the news. This necessitates judgment and values.The anti-democracy movement in America (as elsewhere) is among the biggest issues confronting us today. Is reporting on it considered “straight news” or “opinion”? Wouldn’t failing to report on it in a way that sounded alarms be a gross dereliction of duty?Besides, how is it possible to report on Trump or Rudy Giuliani or any number of today’s Republican leaders and not speak of the big lie, or say they’ve broken norms if not laws?So what’s motivating Zaslav? Keep following the money.The leading shareholder in Warner Brothers Discovery is John Malone, a multibillionaire cable magnate. (Malone was a chief architect in the merger of Discovery and CNN.)Malone describes himself as a “libertarian” although he travels in rightwing Republican circles. In 2005, he held 32% of the shares of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. He is on the board of directors of the Cato Institute. In 2017, he donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration.Malone has said he wants CNN to be more like Fox News because, in his view, Fox News has “actual journalism”. Malone also wants the “news” portion of CNN to be “more centrist”.It’s unlikely that Malone instructed Zaslav to tell Licht to fire Stelter. Power isn’t exercised that directly or clumsily in large corporate media bureaucracies.It’s more likely that Licht knew what Zaslav wanted, and Zaslav knew what Malone wanted. A source told Deadline’s Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson that even if Malone didn’t order Stelter’s ouster, “it sure represents his thinking”.Early last spring, Stelter wrote in his newsletter that Malone’s comments about CNN “stoked fears that Discovery might stifle CNN journalists and steer away from calling out indecency and injustice”.When you follow the money behind deeply irresponsible decisions at the power centers of America today, the road often leads to rightwing billionaires.Last Sunday, on his last show, Stelter said:“It’s not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue. It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues. It’s required. It’s patriotic. We must make sure we don’t give platforms to those who are lying to our faces.”Precisely.Sadly, there are still many in America – and not just billionaires like Malone – who believe that holding Trump accountable for what he has done (and continues to do) to this country is a form of partisanship, and that such partisanship has no place in so-called “balanced journalism”.This view is itself dangerous.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Former Fox News politics editor says network stoked ‘paranoia and hatred’

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      Former Fox News politics editor says network stoked ‘paranoia and hatred’Chris Stirewalter, who was forced out after Donald Trump’s electoral defeat, says Fox failed its viewers with 2020 election coverage A former Fox News politics editor who was forced out of the conservative television network shortly after its opinions hosts’ preferred candidate Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential race has said that the channel failed its viewers with its election coverage.In his upcoming memoir, Chris Stirewalt says Fox News resigned its duty to prepare Trump followers for the possibility that he would lose, instead stoking the “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred” which fuels white supremacist groups but translates into big ratings.Has the love affair between Trump and Fox News gone sour?Read moreStirewalt’s Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machines Divides America and How to Fight Back also reiterates the belief held by many that Fox fired him because he always defended – even on-air – his team’s decision to declare Joe Biden the winner of Arizona’s 2020 electoral college votes on the same night that polls closed.The call enraged Trump, prompting the incumbent president and his allies to mount a pressure campaign aimed at getting Fox to retract the decision while that camp pushed forth lies that electoral fraudsters in other battleground states were stealing the election for Biden.The New York Times obtained and reported on an advance copy of the book.Fox officials have previously said that Stirewalt’s departure from the network in early 2021 was simply a layoff amid a broader company restructuring, and they have noted that the employee who was actually in charge of the desk that made the Arizona call during that fateful hour remains at the company.A statement from the network Monday also dismissed its former editor’s other recollections about his time at Fox News by saying, “Chris Stirewalt’s endless attempts at regaining relevance know no bounds.”Nonetheless, in his memoir, Stirewalt maintains that Fox News’s alliance with Trump and other Republican political candidates has nothing to do with ideology. Instead it has everything to do with delivering ratings and fattening profits, without caring that its top-rated host, Tucker Carlson, endorses conspiracy theories that radicalize violent, far-right white supremacists, including ones who staged the deadly January 6 Capitol attack.“Even in the four years since the previous presidential election, Fox viewers had become even more accustomed to flattery and less willing to hear news that challenged their expectation,” Stirewalt’s memoir adds.That was even the case when viewers’ expectations amounted to “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred”, according to the memoir.Stirewalt says his team’s decision to accurately project on election night that Trump had lost Arizona to Biden in front of an audience who had been thirsting for the Republican incumbent to cruise to victory over his Democratic challenger “came as a terrible shock to their system”. The memoir likens that call to “serving up green beans to viewers who had been spoon-fed ice-cream sundaes for years”.Stirewalt also expresses disbelief that Carlson’s viewers portray him as bravely discussing topics that are taboo to the mainstream when – according to the ousted editor – he is simply regurgitating the things his audience already believes.“Carlson is rich and famous, yet he regularly rails about the ‘big, legacy media outlets’,” the memoir argues. “Somehow, nobody even giggles.“It does not take any kind of journalistic courage to pump out night after night exactly what your audience wants to hear.”Among the conspiracy theories that Carlson has espoused is the racist notion that white Americans, faced with declining birthrates, are being deliberately replaced through immigration. He suddenly went quiet on that idea after a white man who shot 10 Black people to death at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, cited it as his motivation.Stirewalt’s departure from Fox News – where he spent about 11 years – happened less than two weeks after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a desperate attempt to prevent the congressional certification of his defeat to Biden. A bipartisan Senate report linked at least seven deaths to that attack.Since then, Stirewalt has been vocally critical of Fox News and testified before the congressional committee investigating the Capitol attack, telling that panel he knew the Arizona call would be consequential because it involved a true battleground state on which Trump’s chances for victory depended.TopicsFox NewsTV newsTelevision industryUS television industryUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Brian Stelter rebukes CNN on final show: ‘It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues’

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      Brian Stelter rebukes CNN on final show: ‘It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues’ Host says, ‘It is not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue,’ after CNN cancels media show Reliable Sources Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s media affairs show Reliable Sources which was cancelled last week after 30 years on air, used his final episode Sunday to make a pointed rebuke of the network’s new bosses and their intention to pursue a more “neutral voice” to its coverage.“It is not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue,” Stelter said in his final monologue, which he stressed was unvetted by CNN management before he delivered it live. “It is not partisan to stand up to demagogues – it’s required, it’s patriotic.”He added: “We must make sure we do not give a platform to those who are lying to our faces.”CNN gave Stelter his marching orders last Wednesday, just four months after the network came under new leadership appointed by its owners, Warner Brothers Discovery. CNN head Chris Licht, who took over after the February departure of Jeff Zucker, has indicated that he wants to tone down the opinion quotient of its shows and “return” to an older, straighter and in his view less overtly leftwing style of reporting.It is perhaps predictable that Stelter was to become one of the first casualties among CNN’s stars under the new leadership. As NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik explained, Stelter was a thorn in the side of the Donald Trump White House, regularly exposing its lies and misinformation.As a result, he was “targeted for frequent criticism from conservatives for his coverage of the media during the Trump years”.Since Stelter’s booting, New York’s medialand has been rife with speculation about its causation. Some have pointed the finger at John Malone, a powerful Discovery investor who has led the charge that CNN is too partisan.Malone has criticized the network for broadcasting too much commentary and not enough on-the-ground reporting. Last November, Malone told CNBC that he would like to see CNN “evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing”.Other speculation has focused on Stelter’s CNN salary – reported to be almost $1m a year – amid intense pressure to cut the network’s budget given heavy debts within the new media conglomerate.So far the number of star scalps has been relatively small. A week before Stelter was axed, CNN’s chief legal analyst for 20 years, Jeffrey Toobin, announced that he was leaving.Toobin had previously been suspended from the network for eight months after he exposed his genitals during a Zoom call with colleagues of his then-other media outlet, the New Yorker.With Stelter’s departure, the focus at CNN is now likely to shift to whether further casualties of the new “neutral” reporting policy lie ahead. Speculation rippled through social media that Don Lemon and Jim Acosta, two of the more outspoken hosts, might be vulnerable, but according to the entertainment news website The Wrap they are safe for now.Part of Stelter’s argument as host of Reliable Sources, CNN’s longest-running show until its demise, was that it is the role of the media to hold power to account. That function was especially critical in the febrile age of Trump.With Trump hinting at another presidential run in 2024, Stelter appealed on Sunday to the bosses who had just fired him to remain resolute. “The watchword here is accountability,” he said. “CNN needs to be strong. I believe America needs CNN to be strong.”In his at times emotional last address on Reliable Sources, the largely bald-headed Stelter recalled his astonishment at becoming a TV star. “I never thought I’d actually be on TV – I just liked writing about TV,” he said. “I know this is going to sound like BS, but I thought I didn’t have enough hair to be on TV.”TopicsCNNTV newsTelevision industryUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The Storm is Upon Us review: indispensable QAnon history, updated

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      The Storm is Upon Us review: indispensable QAnon history, updated Donald Trump welcomed the conspiracy at the White House. Its followers stormed Congress. Big Tech still seems not to care. Mike Rothschild’s book should sound the alarm for us allWhat is it that has hypnotized so many addled souls who devote themselves to decoding the Delphic clues of the QAnon conspiracy?QAnon’s ‘Q’ re-emerges on far-right message board after two years of silenceRead moreWhat they think they’re getting is “secret knowledge”, from “Q” and a bunch of other military insiders working for Donald Trump, about “the storm … a ringside seat to the final match” in a “secret war between good and evil” that will end with the slaughter of all “enemies of freedom”.In short, an irresistible mix of “biblical retribution and participatory justice”.The bad guys are “Democrats, Hollywood elites, business tycoons, wealthy liberals, the medical establishment, celebrities and the mass media … They’re controlled by Barack Obama” – a Muslim sleeper agent – and Hillary Clinton, “a blood-drinking ghoul who murders everyone in her way … and they’re funded by George Soros and the Rothschild banking family (no relation to the author)”.This updated edition of Mike Rothschild’s exhaustive history of the Q movement is more important than ever. Why? Partly because of the crucial role played by so many QAnon devotees in the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 but mostly because Rothschild documents how much of this insanity has penetrated to the heart of the new Republican party, propelled by many of America’s most loathsome individuals, from Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr to Alex Jones, Michael Flynn and Roseanne Barr.As Rothschild writes of Trump’s first national security adviser, “Flynn’s family even filmed themselves taking the ‘digital soldier oath’… part of what would become a total enmeshment between members of the Flynn family and QAnon.”In the two years before the 2020 presidential election, “nearly 100 Republican candidates declared themselves to be Q Believers” while Trump “retweeted hundreds of Q followers, putting their violent fantasies and bizarre memes into tens of millions of feeds”.Asked about a movement which has repackaged most of the oldest and harshest racist and antisemitic conspiracies for a new age, Trump gave his usual coy endorsement of the behavior of America’s most damaged internet addicts.“I don’t know much about the movement,” he mumbled, “other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”In winter 2021, as the Omicron variant sent Covid cases skyrocketing, “QAnon promoters were among the most visible anti-vaccine advocates pushing out lies and conspiracy theories” to “dissuade people from getting vaccinated”.As with so many of QAnon adherents’ positions, the message was “both clear and completely contradicted by the available evidence: they believed the pandemic was over and any mandates related to vaccines or masks were totalitarian control mechanisms that were actually killing people”.More than anything else, this is the latest horrific confirmation of what the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt recently described as “the power of social media as a universal solvent, breaking down bonds and weakening institutions everywhere it reached”.Like so many other ghastly conspiracies of recent decades, especially the blood libel that the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged event in which no one was actually killed, QAnon was propelled at warp speed by a combination of the incompetence and greed of all the big-tech big shots: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.Rothschild describes the usual futile internet game of Whac-A-Mole.Reddit “abruptly banned the 70,000-member r/Great Awakening board because members had started harassing other users” and had released the personal information “of at least one person they incorrectly claimed to be a mass shooter”.No matter: Q followers just migrated to Twitter and “closed Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members … Just in 2018, Q believers shared Q YouTube videos over 1.4m times, and drove hundreds of thousands of shares to Fox News, Breitbart and the Gateway Pundit”.By 2019, “Trump was routinely retweeting QAnon-promoting accounts.” By the 2020 election, “Trump had retweeted hundreds … and was regularly sharing memes created by the movement”.When Twitter and Facebook finally started “cracking down on Q iconography in the summer of 2020”, much of the movement just moved on to Instagram. Amazon and Etsy joined in the fun with books and merchandise and there were even “Q apps on the Google Play Store”.‘The lunacy is getting more intense’: how Birds Aren’t Real took on the conspiracy theoristsRead moreQ’s legacy includes what now looks like the permanent deformation of the Republican party. A December 2020 poll by NPR/Ipsos found about a third of Americans believed in a shadowy “deep state” and a robust 23% of Republicans “believed in a pedophilic ring of Satan-worshiping elites”.Rothschild ends by asking behavioral experts if there is anything the rest of us can do to help those who have gone far down this wretched rabbit hole. They say the only effective solution is a complete “unplugging” from the internet.Every time I read another book like this one, I’m increasingly inclined to the idea that this could be the only road back to sanity for all of us.
      The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything is published in paperback in the US by Melville House
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      DoJ moves for Trump Mar-a-Lago search warrant to be unsealed – as it happened

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      Attorney general Merrick Garland said the justice department will ask a court to unseal the search warrant allowing it to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week.“The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter,” Garland said in a press conference at justice department headquarters.Attorney general Merrick Garland made the unusual step of appearing in Washington to take responsibility for the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, and saying the department would ask a judge to unseal the warrant and property receipt from the search. Now, the ball is in Trump’s court to object to the documents’ release – should he so choose.Here’s what else happened today:
      A gunman opened fire at the FBI’s office in Cincinnati as the agency faces increased threats following its search of Mar-a-Lago.
      More good economic data bolstered the case that inflation was set to meaningfully decline in the months to come, which the White House looked to capitalize on.
      Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer asked voters to elect more Democrats and give them the chance to pass bills further improving social services.
      A poll showed Liz Cheney deep underwater with Wyoming Republicans in the upcoming primary, bolstering the case that she will be booted from Congress due to her opposition to Trump.
      Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, weighed in on the justice department’s announcement that it will move to release the warrant from the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.“The primary reason the attorney general and FBI are being pushed to disclose why the search was necessary is because of the deep mistrust of the FBI and DOJ when it comes to all things Trump”, Graham said, referring to other investigations involving the former president, such as Robert Mueller’s probe into his campaign’s ties to Russia.“What I am looking for is the predicate for the search. Was the information provided to the judge sufficient and necessary to authorize a raid on the former president’s home within ninety days of the midterm election? I am urging, actually insisting, the DOJ and the FBI lay their cards on the table as to why this course of action was necessary. Until that is done the suspicion will continue to mount,” the senator said.“Half the country believes that when it comes to President Trump there are no rules. They have lost faith in the system. The only way to address that problem is full disclosure of the facts and circumstances which led to this unprecedented action.”The justice department’s motion to unseal the warrant and property receipt from the Mar-a-Lago search have been posted publicly, and offers details of the legal reasoning behind the request.The motion recounts that the search was carried out quietly with little public attention, until “later that same day, former President Trump issued a public statement acknowledging the execution of the warrant. In the days since, the search warrant and related materials have been the subject of significant interest and attention from news media organizations and other entities.”“The public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing”, said the motion, which was signed by Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the US attorney for the southern district of Florida, and Jay I. Bratt, chief of the justice department’s counterintelligence and export control section.It asks for the documents to be released “given the intense public interest presented by a search of a residence of a former president… absent objection from the former president.” Merrick Garland has finished his speech, and declined to take questions from the press.The meat of his address was that the justice department will ask a judge to release the warrant allowing the FBI to search “a premises located in Florida” as Garland put it, which we all know is Mar-a-Lago. It will also ask for the release of the property receipt from the search. Garland said copies of both were left with a lawyer for the ex-president after agents came to the house.Garland noted that he personally approved the search and “the department does not take such a decision lightly”. He also condemned attacks on the FBI and federal law enforcement, saying “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked”. Garland declined to comment further, saying, “More information will be made available in the appropriate way and have the appropriate time.”Attorney general Merrick Garland said the justice department will ask a court to unseal the search warrant allowing it to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week.“The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter,” Garland said in a press conference at justice department headquarters.In his speech, attorney general Merrick Garland will address the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, CNN confirms:This will be about the Mar-a-Lago search, @evanperez reports.— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 11, 2022
      The White House was given no advance notice of Garland’s speech, NBC News reports:As we await AG Merrick Garland and his statement, a senior WH official tells me the Biden WH was not informed this was happening:”We have had no notice that he was giving remarks and no briefing on the content of them.”— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) August 11, 2022
      Attorney general Merrick Garland will soon make a public statement, days after the FBI searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. According to reports, agents were acting on a tip that Trump had classified documents at the site.FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home followed tip classified records were there – reportRead moreSpeaking of foes of Donald Trump, John Bolton, who served as his national security adviser before falling out with the then-president, said that his Secret Service detail was recalled after he left the White House.“It’s normal for Donald Trump”, is how he described the situation to NBC News:Former NSA John Bolton says Trump pulled his Secret Service detail “within hours” of resigning.@mitchellreports: “Is that normal?”Bolton: “No, it’s not normal. Well, it’s normal for Donald Trump.”(Biden later renewed Bolton’s protection due to Iran’s assassination plot.) pic.twitter.com/at17ESQnGY— The Recount (@therecount) August 11, 2022
      Bolton’s comments came after the justice department yesterday charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with plotting to kill him.US charges Iranian man over alleged plot to kill ex-Trump aide John BoltonRead moreLiz Cheney’s days in Congress are numbered.That’s the conclusion reached by a University of Wyoming survey that finds Cheney, the state’s congresswoman who is vice-chairing the January 6 committee and has become an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump, almost 30 percentage points behind her challenger Harriet Hageman in next week’s primary.Republicans dominate the rural state and thus the primary is almost certain to decide who will win Wyoming’s lone seat in the House of Representatives. Cheney is politically conservative, but so is Hageman, who has embraced Trump’s conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election.‘Truth matters’: Liz Cheney lambasts Trump-backed rival in Wyoming debateRead moreNews just in: attorney general Merrick Garland will make a statement at 2.30pm ET. No details on the subject matter yet. But certainly the FBI raid will be on journalists’ minds.The New York Times has an interesting read, revealing the existence of a subpoena for Donald Trump, issued before the Mar-a-Lago raid by the FBI.The Times reports:Former President Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year, when he returned boxes of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people familiar with the matter said.The existence of the subpoena helps to flesh out the sequence of events that led to the search of Mr. Trump’s Florida home on Monday by F.B.I. agents seeking classified material they believed might still be there, even after efforts by the National Archives and the Justice Department to ensure that it had been returned.The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and members-only club.But the most interesting snippet might be lower down the piece. It concerns the nature of the documents Trump possessed and why the FBI needed to take such firm action. The paper says:Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act.Interesting – more is surely yet to be revealed on this story.Some Republicans hesitant over backing Trump vs FBISince the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Florida home looking for missing, sensitive documents from his time in the White House, the cacophony of support and condemnation from Republicans has felt unanimous.But not entirely.In a sign that blindly pleasing and following Trump is not seen as an automatic vote-winner in some marginal races, a handful of Republicans have been more reticent in their reactions, according to Politico. The top of the piece lists a few.While several Senate GOP nominees jumped to blast the FBI and federal justice officials, Republican candidates in the swing states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina held off. The next morning, as pressure mounted from vocal right-wing activists, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, took to Twitter with a message that did not mention Trump by name but merely lamented the country’s divisions and asserted that Americans had “every right” to demand answers about the search and seizure of documents.Rep. Ted Budd, who is seeking a Senate seat in North Carolina, likewise eventually tweeted from his official Congress account after his office was bombarded with calls asking about his response. His statement said Americans deserved a “full explanation” of what happened.Those calls for transparency from Oz and Budd differ markedly from the more fiery rebukes from other Republicans who painted America as a lawless banana republic — and reflect that some GOP candidates in battleground states are erring on the side of caution in discussing a Trump investigation that could influence critical independent and suburban voters.Read the rest of the story here. The Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t just fight climate change and address health care costs. It also would give the IRS tax authority more resources, after years in which the agency complained of being so underfunded it could barely do its job.Republicans have used the infusion of funds to warn voters that the bill’s Democratic sponsors want to increase audits of the middle class. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has responded to those attacks by sending a letter to commissioner Charles P. Rettig in which she says the agency should not use the money to increase audits for Americans making less than $400,000 a year.“I direct that any additional resources — including any new personnel or auditors that are hired — shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Yellen wrote. “This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.”It’s been a quiet one in Washington, but that doesn’t mean the chess pieces aren’t moving. Democrats are gearing up for the House of Representatives to meet tomorrow and pass a major plan to fight climate change and lower health care costs, while Republicans are looking ahead to November, when voters seem poised to return them to control of at least one chamber of Congress.Here’s a rundown of what has happened in the day so far:
      A gunman has attacked a FBI office in Ohio, and reportedly engaged in a shootout with police. The Guardian will update this blog when more details of the incident become available.
      The White House seized on yet another sign of inflation declining to make the case that better days are ahead for the economy.
      A Republican lawmaker who will likely become the party’s top investigator if it takes control of the House told Politico to expect investigations of Covid-19’s origins and Hunter Biden.
      The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer told voters that if they give him more senators, he’ll pass more bills to lower costs for child and elder care, which the party failed to agree on in the current Congress.
      An armed person who opened fire with a nail gun at a FBI office in Cincinnati has been chased into a field and is exchanging fire with police, according to federal investigators and media reports.The agency has faced a number of threats since its search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, prompting director Christopher Wray to declare, “Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you’re upset with,” according to the Associated Press.The FBI confirms the attack began this morning at their office in the city in southern Ohio:At approximately 9 AM this morning an armed subject attempted to breach the Visitor Screening Facility at #FBI Cincinnati. After an alarm and a response by FBI special agents, the subject fled north onto Interstate 71. pic.twitter.com/vFZHnpbM9L— FBI Cincinnati (@FBICincinnati) August 11, 2022
      The #FBI, Ohio State Highway Patrol, and local law enforcement partners are on scene near Wilmington, OH trying to resolve this critical incident. https://t.co/SWDZTkrnhL— FBI Cincinnati (@FBICincinnati) August 11, 2022
      NBC News reports the assailant fired a nail gun at people in the office, and appeared to have an assault rifle:.@KenDilanianNBC: “Two law enforcement sources briefed on the matter tell NBC News a man entered an FBI field office today in Cincinnati, Ohio and fired a nail gun at law enforcement personnel. The male then held up an AR-15 style rifle before fleeing in a vehicle.”— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 11, 2022
      According to Fox News, police pursued the person to a field outside the city and engaged in a gun battle:An armed gunman attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati this morning.The suspect fled the scene and is reportedly engaged in a shootout with law enforcement in a corn field outside the city. pic.twitter.com/SrjPaO7Vkw— The Recount (@therecount) August 11, 2022
      Another trend in the economy is unionization drives in industries and businesses not accustomed to it – such as Starbucks. As Michael Sainato reports, workers at the coffee chain have staged dozens of strikes as the company tries to frustrate their efforts to organize:Workers at Starbucks have held over 55 different strikes in at least 17 states in the US in recent months over the company’s aggressive opposition to a wave of unionization.According to an estimate by Starbucks Workers United, the strikes have cost Starbucks over $375,000 in lost revenue. The union created a $1m strike fund in June 2022 to support Starbucks workers through their strikes and several relief funds have been established for strikes and to support workers who have lost their jobs.Starbucks employees have alleged over 75 workers have been fired in retaliation for union organizing this year, and hundreds of allegations of misconduct by Starbucks related to the union campaign are currently under review at the National Labor Relations Board, including claims of shutting down stores to bust unions, firing workers and intimidating and threatening workers from unionizing. Starbucks has denied all allegations.Starbucks workers hold strikes in at least 17 states amid union driveRead moreThe White House is trying to keep the good economic vibes going, a day after data showed inflation potentially beginning to decline across the United States.The chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia Rouse has released a statement on “encouraging economic news”, pointing to the inflation numbers, the decline in gas prices and new data released today showing wholesale prices declining against expectations in July.“We are continuing to see encouraging economic developments, including strong job growth and lower energy prices,” Rouse said. She called on Congress to pass the Biden administration’s marquee spending plan to address climate change and lower health care costs.“While the news from this week is encouraging, we have more work to do to bring inflation down, without giving up the substantial economic and labor market gains of the past year. Congress should pass the Inflation Reduction Act as soon as possible, which will help our economy address some of its most important near-term and long-term challenges.” More

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      US news website Axios agrees $525m sale to Cox Enterprises

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      US news website Axios agrees $525m sale to Cox EnterprisesAxios, whose founders launched site in 2016, to be taken over by legacy publisher that owns US regional newspapers For $525m, Axios – publisher of punchy, notated news briefs – is set to be acquired by Cox Enterprises, a legacy publisher that owns a series of US regional newspapers.The cash deal, announced Monday, is expected to close in the next few weeks and marks a significant moment in the growth of the news outlet, which was founded in 2016 by the same journalists who launched Politico in 2007.Axios said on its website that as part of the deal Cox will invest $25m in the company that would help it expand into 20 regional US markets and broaden its coverage.The Virginia company’s three co-founders – Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz – will hold stakes in the company and lead editorial as well as day-to-day business decisions.Cox, whose media portfolio includes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Dayton Daily News, became an investor in Axios last year. Axios HQ, a communications software business, will become an independent company majority-owned by the Axios founders.Has the love affair between Trump and Fox News gone sour?Read moreOn its website, Axios said the deal was structured “to ensure investments will continue to flow into local news at a time when most commercial investors have abandoned local markets”.Axios chief executive Jim VandeHei said the deal was great for the company, its shareholders and journalism as an industry. “It allows us to think and operate generationally, with a like-minded partner – and build something great and durable that lives long after we are gone,” he said.Added Cox chairman and chief executive officer Alex Taylor: “Local watchdog journalism is so important to the health of any community, and no one is more focused on building that out nationally than Axios.”Last year, the German publishing giant Axel Springer acquired the Washington news site Politico for about $1bn. Axios had also been in talks to sell to Springer, but that deal fell through after a high-level editor at the Springer-owned tabloid Bild became embroiled in a sex scandal.Cox’s history in media dates back to 1898, when founder James Middleton Cox bought what is now the Dayton Daily News for $26,000. It eventually grew into one of the nation’s largest privately held companies before selling most of its media assets to Apollo Global Management in 2019.In comments to the New York Times, VandeHei said: “Hopefully, with Politico first, and Axios today, we have shown a way for serious journalism to thrive in the digital era. This country so desperately needs it.“The lesson of the digital era: chase fads, fantasy and clicks, you fade or famish. Chase a loyal audience with quality information, you can flourish,” he added.TopicsUS newsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Has the love affair between Trump and Fox News gone sour?

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      Has the love affair between Trump and Fox News gone sour?The rightwing channel has not covered its former sweetheart with its regular fervour – could a billion-dollar lawsuit be why? For years, Donald Trump and Fox News were smitten.The former president would call into the rightwing news channel seemingly whenever he liked. Fox News hosts pumped up every Trump utterance. Trump watched the channel religiously, and in 2019 alone he sent 657 tweets in response to Fox News or Fox Business programs.Since then, however, things appear to have changed. Trump, as the New York Times has pointed out, has not been interviewed on Fox News for more than 100 days.A recent Trump speech was largely ignored by the network, and in a sign that Fox News has recognized alternative Republican presidential candidates are available, a Mike Pence address was broadcast live, in its entirety.Dick Cheney attacks Donald Trump as ‘greatest threat to our republic’Read moreWith the news channel embroiled in a billion-dollar lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems over its claims the voting machine company tampered with the 2020 election, Trump’s continuing lies about election fraud seem to have rattled Rupert Murdoch, the media titan who owns Fox News.Two of Murdoch’s newspapers, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, published scathing editorials on Trump in July, the former calling the twice-impeached 45th president “unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again” and the latter branding Trump “The President Who Stood Still on January 6”.This week the Washington Post reported that Murdoch “has lost his enthusiasm” for Trump.The channel has begun to give Pence and Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, plenty of air-time, including two primetime interviews in the space of five days recently, the New York Times reported. Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator who is also said to be jockeying for a 2024 presidential run, has also been a regular interviewee.But while the apparent bouncing of Trump from Fox News has been enthusiastically covered by media reporters, there are plenty of signs the channel isn’t ready to let its paramour go just yet.A recent study by Media Matters for America, a media watchdog, found that Fox News continues to discuss Trump far, far more than any of his perceived rivals for the 2024 nomination – specifically, Trump was mentioned on Fox News 8,556 times through January to July, while DeSantis and Pence received 1,083 and 589 mentions respectively.Angelo Carusone, Media Matters’ president and chief executive, said those findings suggest there has not been a souring. He said there may have been a slight change in tone, and that Trump may not have the same “stranglehold” he once had on Fox News – the days when the channel was seen to be broadcasting to “an audience of one” are probably over – but that the coverage is still overwhelmingly positive.“You were allowed to attack Donald Trump during the primaries in 2015 and 2016 on Fox News. That doesn’t happen now, at all, ever,” Carusone said.For his part, Trump has recently expressed his displeasure at Fox News’ output. The 76-year-old, who is known to be emotional, attacked Fox & Friends in July, after its host Steve Doocy suggested a straw poll of potential 2024 candidates that showed Trump with 79% of the vote be taken with a pinch of salt.Doocy hardly went off on Trump – the host just pointed to other, more scientific, polls that showed Trump lacking 79% support. But it was enough to cause upset.“Fox & Friends just really botched my poll numbers, no doubt on purpose. That show has been terrible – gone to the ‘dark side’,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his ailing rightwing social media platform.The Dominion lawsuit could be a reason for Trump’s absence. The company is suing Fox News for $1.6bn, accusing its owner, Fox Corp, and the Murdochs specifically, of allowing Fox News to amplify Trump’s false claims that the voting company had rigged the election for Joe Biden. It could be a wise strategy not to allow Trump to repeat those precise claims on Fox News during a live interview.Asked to comment, a Fox News spokesperson said: “The debate among the liberal media on this topic is the very reason FOX News exists and is the most watched cable news channel in the country with more viewers of every political persuasion than any other network.”Still, Carusone believes any cooling on the part of Fox News towards Trump is likely to be temporary.The channel’s hosts are still engaging in misty-eyed segments where they talk about how Trump would handle issues ranging from inflation to China to the “border crisis” – a Fox News staple. And Trump’s supposed achievements while in office are still championed.“They’re still fetishizing and fantasizing, it’s just that there’s no longer an audience of one,” Carusone said.“There are other people in the audience that they care about.”TopicsDonald TrumpFox NewsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Female journalist told skirt too short when reporting on Alabama execution

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      Female journalist told skirt too short when reporting on Alabama executionOne journalist reporting on the lethal injection was told her skirt was too short and another said she had a full-body inspection Last Thursday night, the state of Alabama took three hours to find a vein in Joe Nathan James Jr through which officials could pump lethal injection drugs and execute him, a process that the department of corrections insisted was “nothing out of the ordinary”.Alabama appears to specialize in its extraordinary sense of the ordinary, particularly when it comes to the death penalty. It has now emerged that, during that execution, prison officials subjected female reporters who came as witnesses to the proceeding to a clothing inspection, attempting to bar one woman from the death chamber on grounds that her skirt was too short.Ivana Hrynkiw, a journalist for Alabama’s pre-eminent news outlet AL.com, recounted how she was pulled aside by a prison official and told that her skirt was too diminutive to meet regulations. “I tried to pull my skirt to my hips to make the skirt longer, but was told it was still not appropriate,” she recounted on Twitter.The paradox that the state went to such lengths to uphold what it regards as propriety in clothing even as it prepared to kill a man appears to have been lost on the department of corrections. Officials also subjected an Associated Press reporter, Kim Chandler, to a full-body inspection, making her stand to have the length of her clothing checked. Chandler said that such an indignity had never happened to her before in the many times she had covered executions since 2002.Hrynkiw was eventually allowed to enter the death chamber after she borrowed a pair of waterproof fisher’s waders from a photographer, attaching their suspenders under her shirt to keep them up. That was deemed appropriate attire when watching a judicial killing.But even then it didn’t stop. The reporter was informed that her open toe heels were a breach of regulation and she was forced to change into tennis shoes retrieved from her car.“I felt embarrassed to have my body and my clothes questioned in front of a room of people I mostly never met,” Hrynkiw said. “I sat down, tried to stop blushing, and did my work.”After all that, the reporter did her job, and so did Alabama. After three hours digging around for a vein, it found one, and went ahead with the execution.James Jr was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the 1994 killing of 26-year-old Faith Hall. James Jr and Hall had briefly dated before she rejected him, authorities have said.Hall’s daughters wanted James Jr to spend the rest of his life in prison but pleaded for him to not be executed.TopicsUS newsAlabamaUS politicsWomenWomen in journalismnewsReuse this content More