The New York Times
The confirmation hearings on Judge Neil Gorsuch should make for interesting TV. Since Republicans refused to even meet last year with President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Garland, Democratic activists have wanted their representatives to enact revenge.But will they? Aside from Dems up for reelection, and the GOP's ability to use what Donald Trump calls "the nuclear option," it may be tough to block his confirmation. The issue may be the opposing narrative.Gorsuch has spoken of an independent judiciary, but has not demonstrated any independence from the judiciary-bashing president who chose him. Democrats will also cite key rulings that …
The New York Times
The modern media landscape is making it possible for readers to essentially choose their own adventures, Jim Rutenberg writes in The New York Times. “You don’t need an algorithmic feed to turn on Fox News or to catch Rush Limbaugh,” he writes. “But in the era of the curated digital news stream, the choose-your-news phenomenon has ‘ended up in a whole new place,’” he adds, citing a comment from ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos.
New York Magazine
The firing of U.S. attorney Preet Bharara may be a bonus for Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News airs a pro-Trump narrative nighty. Bharara was in the middle of a high-profile federal investigation of Fox News. The probe, per sources, is looking into potential crimes, including whether Fox News executives broke laws by allegedly obtaining journalists’ phone records or committed mail and wire fraud by hiding financial settlements paid to women who accused Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. Given that Fox News is Murdoch’s most profitable division, the prospect of indictments is a serious problem. One of the lawyers on Trump's …
CNN Money
Ajit Pai, the chairman of the FCC, was grilled by two senators Wednesday about whether he agrees with Trump's claimthat the media is the enemy of the American people. The unusual exchange came during a broader Senate oversight hearing on the FCC. It highlights legislators' concern about how Trump and his appointees will regulate the media industry he has attacked. Trump's administration has attacked critical outlets as "fake news" and blocked outlets, including CNN, from press briefings. He also said he would stop AT&T's deal to buy Time Warner.The FCC could prove crucial to Trump in this area. The agency …
The Huffington Post
If Hillary Clinton's private email server outraged the Left and Right, why is everyone silent about Mike Pence and the Trump White House doing the same thing? It's post-election: It wasn't the emails; it was sexism. How do we know? Public Policy Polling found that in January, 42% of Donald Trump supporters said the president should have a private email server -- while White House advisors Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer and Jared Kushner are using email accounts set up through a private RNC email system. Gov. Pence used a private email server for state business and was hacked. Where are …
Broadcasting & Cable
The FCC has granted an "emergency waiver" to Jewish community centers (JCCs) and their ISPs to allow JCCs and law enforcement to get access to the caller-ID info of "threatening and harassing callers." Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) requested the waiver, citing 69 incidents at 54 centers since the beginning of the year.
GeekWire
What brought down Amazon’s Simple Storage Service -- or S3 -- earlier this week? Human error, GeekWire reports. “Amazon said the S3 team was working on an issue that was slowing down its billing system,” it writes. According to an Amazon statement: “An authorized S3 team member using an established playbook executed a command which was intended to remove a small number of servers for one of the S3 subsystems.” Yet, “One of the inputs to the command was entered incorrectly and a larger set of servers was removed than intended.”
To read more articles use the ARCHIVE function on this page.