Hill, The

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is steeling himself for a protracted battle against an increasingly hostile press, adding the media to the list of establishment institutions he intends to crush on his way to the White House.

Trump’s stunning move to make Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon his campaign’s CEO was a decision to shake up his faltering campaign, but it was also a clear response to the complaints about the coverage of his candidacy. Under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart has championed Trump’s rise while adopting a provocative and combative tone toward the press, the GOP’s congressional leadership and others who have criticized or questioned the nominee. Bringing Bannon into the Trump tent will almost certainly lead to a new chapter in the fight between Trump and the media, which is already engaged in a fierce debate over how to cover the GOP nominee.

AT&T’s top policy executive is leaving the company. Jim Cicconi will retire at the end of September from the company where he’s worked for more than a decade. Cicconi will be replaced by Bob Quinn, who leads the company’s federal regulatory advocacy.

Facebook said that it would start displaying advertisements to users who have an ad blocker installed on their desktop browsers.

Its decision comes amid rising concerns from the advertising industry that the proliferation of ad blocking software is hurting their business. Facebook said that it believes that it now gives users enough control over what ads they see to warrant circumnavigating the blocking software. “We’ve designed our ad formats, ad performance and controls to address the underlying reasons people have turned to ad blocking software,” said Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth. “When we asked people about why they used ad blocking software, the primary reason we heard was to stop annoying, disruptive ads,” he said. “As we offer people more powerful controls, we’ll also begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use ad blocking software.” Bosworth also slammed ad blocking software that stops blocking ads from publishers or services that pay for the privilege, calling that “a practice that is at best confusing to people and that reduces the funding needed to support the journalism and other free services that we enjoy on the web.” The move aligns Facebook, at least in spirit, with the publishers over whom it has significant power as a primary channel for content distribution.

Republicans believe they are finally close to overhauling a landmark law that has been a cornerstone of tech and telecom regulation for decades.

The effort to update the Communications Act, which gives the Federal Communications Commission its authority, has been years in the making and has powerful support. John Thune (R-SD), the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and veteran lawmakers on the House Commerce Committee are vowing to make changing the law a centerpiece of their 2017 agenda. Proponents of updating the law, first written in 1934 and last revised in 1996, say it's showing its age and is ill-suited to dealing with a world dominated by high-speed internet and mobile devices instead of phone service and traditional radio broadcasts.

[Commentary] The high-capacity broadband lines that connect our banks, airlines, schools, libraries and hospitals, referred to as “business data services”, are critical to each and every community. But today, 97 percent of this high-capacity broadband market is controlled by one — and sometimes two — providers. Roughly one-fifth of all Americans live in rural areas where wireless broadband coverage – and competitive options – is severely limited.

Though smart policies can heal this gap over time, they are currently stuck with few choices and no real hope for more investment in the short term. For well over a decade, groups like mine have urged the Federal Communications Commission to fix this broken market because we have seen the impact it has on businesses and residents looking to compete in the 21st century economy. In our advocacy, we’ve faced roadblock after roadblock from the largest entrenched telephone companies that have very little incentive to deliver high-speed Internet to the rural communities. However, after ten years of battles with these dominant Internet and cable companies, we are hopeful for an important victory. The FCC has undergone a proceeding that can make an immediate difference, requiring that the big monopolies charge reasonable rates for the connections that libraries, schools, and even smaller Internet Service Providers need to keep their doors open. In many small communities, the only path out to the greater Internet is via the big telephone companies’ networks. Following the most exhaustive data collection in the FCC’s history, the Commission is poised to introduce a technology neutral framework that will promote broadband competition and investment to the benefit of all Americans. The gatekeepers are not going quietly and are engaging in a last ditch Hail Mary effort to derail the FCC’s progress and protect their profits. Although great for their shareholders, these profits are estimated to have cost the U.S. economy $150 billion in the last five years. That is money that should have stayed in local communities, supporting main street businesses.

[Christopher Mitchell is the Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Policy Director at Next Century Cities]

[Commentary] When it comes to electing their next president, Americans want a candidate to vote for — not just someone to vote against. American voters want the perspective of an outsider who can bring an entrepreneurial perspective to the White House. They aren't opposed to experience in governing — so long as it doesn't bring with it an addiction to crony capitalism and the fruits thereof. And they want a candidate who looks after American interests and doesn't use war to destabilize already volatile regions of the world like the Middle East. I’m running for President to offer that alternative.

I'm a strong believer in our Constitutional rights to civil liberties and privacy. Our government should not be spying on the electronic communications of American citizens. Nor should our iPhones or Android devices be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures. One of the biggest concerns that many voters have with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but particularly with Clinton, is the sense that she uses government power to advance her personal and political interests. Having been governor of New Mexico, I know that legislation gets passed to benefit those who have money and influence. Then they buy more money and influence. That’s one reason why, as governor, I vetoed more than 750 bills and thousands of line items. I did it to keep crony capitalism away from government. Americans can find sanity and principle by voting Johnson/Weld in 2016.

[Gary Johnson is the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee. His running mate is former Massachusetts Gov Bill Weld]

[Commentary] Multiple news organizations have been banned from reporting on an important politician and events of international significance. That politician has threatened to sue journalists and others who say unfavorable things about him. Reporters from major media outlets who try to cover political events are trashed by that politician who questions their honesty and trustworthiness. Who am I talking about? If you said the almost-deposed Turkish strongman Recep Tayyp Erdogan you’d be close. I’m actually talking about Donald Trump, but there are a lot of similarities between the Turkish president and our very own insecure GOP presidential candidate.

Trump is a man used to running things his own way, and having people do his bidding whether they agree with him or not. He is not accustomed to any dissent and we know from his actions to date that he will go to whatever lengths possible to prevent journalists from telling us about the real Trump. Given his actions so far, don’t be surprised if Trump bans many more new outlets between now and November, and finds more ways to keep journalists from his campaign events. He knows that’s the only way he can win the White House.

[Bamberger is a political journalist.]

[Commentary] 240 days. That’s how long it's been since Hillary Clinton last held this thing called a press conference. How long is 240 days? With the NFL preseason set to kick off this week, let's put it this way: You can play not one, but two NFL regular seasons back-to-back in that period of time. December 4, 2015. That was the date that the Democratic nominee last spoke to the embedded press corps that follows her every move and knows the campaign better than anyone.

So many interviews we've seen of Clinton during this campaign consist on one theme: Her always being asked to respond to something her opponent said or did. And when each interview is done, viewers watching at home walk away still having little idea what Clinton's campaign is actually about other the need to defeat Trump. But while going on Fox News and facing hard questions is noteworthy (Clinton has only done so three times since 2014), it's not a press conference... something the media seems to be letting her skate on despite not holding one in 2016.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s top digital operative said that she sees it as a victory if they can use content online to "personally" distract GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. “If we can distract him personally for 15 minutes a day, I’ll take that as a win,” said Jenna Lowenstein. “He’ll go on a rant on TV about something that took us an hour to make and he’s been thinking about it for 36 hours.”

Lowenstein said, however, that the bulk of the campaign's efforts on Twitter were focused on persuading voters and making the campaign's case. Clinton’s campaign has been willing to engage directly with Trump on Twitter, despite the real estate developer’s aggressiveness on the platform and willingness to engage in tweet wars. In talking about the campaign's digital strategy, Lowenstein also referenced a joke that originated with Twitter user Mark Hammer in June: “The genius of the Trump Clinton Twitter war of 2016 is that it consumes Trump's every waking minute & Clinton doesn't know it's happening.”

The Illinois State Board of Elections online voter registration has been hacked. Earlier, McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael posted a letter to Facebook she claimed was sent to election authorities from Kyle Thomas, the director of voting and registration systems for the board of elections While the letter says the attackers retrieved voter records, it makes clear attackers were limited in what they accessed. “We have found no evidence that they added, changed, or deleted any information in the database. Their efforts to obtain voter signature images and voter history were unsuccessful,” the letter said. The letter also explains the attacks — or the clean up — had caused outages in online voting for the past week.

The investigation into the breach is ongoing. “We’re in the process of analyzing the tracks left by the attack,” Ken Menzel, general counsel, told the The Southern Illinoisan. The attackers took advantage of a programming flaw in the website’s database. The attack, known as a “SQL injection,” occurs in databases using the SQL programming language. Unless a programmer specifically prevents it, SQL databases can be tricked into running commands entered by any website visitor. It is a very common attack. “We are in the process of determining the exact number of voter records and specific names of all individuals affected,” the letter says.