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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks about climate change and the wildfires on the West Coast at the Delaware Museum of Natural History on September 14, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
With unprecedented wildfires burning across western states, the Gulf Coast bracing for a hurricane, and the coronavirus pandemic still raging, Scientific American on Tuesday gave Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden its first-ever endorsement in the magazine’s 175-year history.
“The 2020 election is literally a matter of life and death. We urge you to vote for health, science, and Joe Biden for president.”
--Scientific American
Although SciAm had refrained from supporting any political candidates up until now, “this year we are compelled to do so,” the editors explain in an endorsement published online. “We do not do this lightly.”
“The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people--because he rejects evidence and science,” the editors charge, calling “his dishonest and inept response to the Covid-19 pandemic” just the “most devastating example.”
SciAm‘s editors note that in addition to his “catastrophic” handling of the ongoing public health crisis, Trump “has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges.”
“That is why we urge you to vote for Joe Biden, who is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment,” they write. “These and other proposals he has put forth can set the country back on course for a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable future.”
\u201cThe evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people\u2014because he rejects evidence and science.\n\nThe most devastating example is his willfully ignorant response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives.\u201d— Scientific American (@Scientific American) 1600174860
The magazine endorsement details how Trump’s mismanagement and dishonesty regarding the pandemic, the Affordable Care Act, and climate change contrast with Biden, who “comes prepared with plans to control Covid-19, improve healthcare, reduce carbon emissions, and restore the role of legitimate science in policy making.”
The former vice president “solicits expertise and has turned that knowledge into solid policy proposals,” the editors point out.
Biden is getting advice on these public health issues from a group that includes David Kessler, epidemiologist, pediatrician, and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief; Rebecca Katz, immunologist and global health security specialist at Georgetown University; and Ezekiel Emanuel, bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. It does not include physicians who believe in aliens and debunked virus therapies, one of whom Trump has called “very respected” and “spectacular.”
SciAm‘s editors also highlighted a $2 trillion proposal that Biden put forward in July that won praise from environmental and climate campaigners. As Common Dreams reported at the time, some progressive activists who had been critical of the candidate welcomed the plan as a major step forward while still emphasizing that Biden has more work to do and grassroots movements will keep pressuring him to deliver.
That message was clear Monday in another endorsement of Biden. The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, in its endorsement announcement, compared the Democrat’s potential with Trump’s record of rolling back dozens of environmental and public health protections to appease corporate polluters.
“Joe Biden must defeat Donald Trump in November or this planet and our democracy will suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage.”
--Kieran Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund
“We cannot equivocate in this election. Joe Biden must defeat Donald Trump in November or this planet and our democracy will suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage,” said Kieran Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “Donald Trump has been the most anti-environmental president in modern history.”
The current president “has put children in cages, elevated white supremacy, denigrated women, mocked the suffering of countless people, and divided our nation through the politics of hatred, fear, and ignorance,” Suckling said. “Joe Biden can restore decency and give us a fighting chance to stop the environmental calamities we now face.”
“The nightmare of the Trump presidency must come to an end in November,” he added. “After the election we’ll push President Biden tirelessly to stop the wildlife extinction crisis, tackle the global climate emergency and protect people from polluters. First, though, we have to get Trump out of office. The future of our planet is at stake.”
The group’s endorsement came as Trump visited fire-ravaged California and publicly denied climate science--telling one state official, “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch”--while Biden delivered a climate-focused speech in Delaware that was applauded by the youth-led Sunrise Movement and other advocacy groups.
\u201cWe don’t agree with @JoeBiden on everything but we’re glad to see him putting the spotlight the climate crisis.\n\nThis election must be a referendum on Trump’s deadly record on climate change. We need to vote him out so we can win a #GreenNewDeal. \n\nhttps://t.co/lY53NLZP5z\u201d— Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05 (@Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05) 1600111411
While Trump in recent weeks has come under fire for his silence and then lies about the current conditions on the West Coast, Biden has faced mounting pressure to prioritize the climate crisis--and especially how his proposed policies stack up against the Trump administration’s anti-science agenda--on the campaign trail.
“Here’s the deal: hurricanes don’t swerve to avoid Red States or Blue States. Wildfires don’t skip towns that voted a certain way,” Biden said in his Monday speech, which also touched on the pandemic. “The impacts of climate change don’t pick and choose. That’s because it’s not a partisan phenomenon, it’s science, and our response should be the same. Grounded in science.”
“We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here. And unless we take urgent action, it will soon be more catastrophic,” he added. “A president who recognizes, understands, and cares that Americans are dying, which makes President Trump’s climate denialism, his disdain for science and facts, all the more unconscionable.”
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That’s why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we’ve ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here’s the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That’s not just some fundraising cliche. It’s the absolute and literal truth. We don’t accept corporate advertising and never will. We don’t have a paywall because we don’t think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
With unprecedented wildfires burning across western states, the Gulf Coast bracing for a hurricane, and the coronavirus pandemic still raging, Scientific American on Tuesday gave Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden its first-ever endorsement in the magazine’s 175-year history.
“The 2020 election is literally a matter of life and death. We urge you to vote for health, science, and Joe Biden for president.”
--Scientific American
Although SciAm had refrained from supporting any political candidates up until now, “this year we are compelled to do so,” the editors explain in an endorsement published online. “We do not do this lightly.”
“The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people--because he rejects evidence and science,” the editors charge, calling “his dishonest and inept response to the Covid-19 pandemic” just the “most devastating example.”
SciAm‘s editors note that in addition to his “catastrophic” handling of the ongoing public health crisis, Trump “has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges.”
“That is why we urge you to vote for Joe Biden, who is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment,” they write. “These and other proposals he has put forth can set the country back on course for a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable future.”
\u201cThe evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people\u2014because he rejects evidence and science.\n\nThe most devastating example is his willfully ignorant response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives.\u201d— Scientific American (@Scientific American) 1600174860
The magazine endorsement details how Trump’s mismanagement and dishonesty regarding the pandemic, the Affordable Care Act, and climate change contrast with Biden, who “comes prepared with plans to control Covid-19, improve healthcare, reduce carbon emissions, and restore the role of legitimate science in policy making.”
The former vice president “solicits expertise and has turned that knowledge into solid policy proposals,” the editors point out.
Biden is getting advice on these public health issues from a group that includes David Kessler, epidemiologist, pediatrician, and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief; Rebecca Katz, immunologist and global health security specialist at Georgetown University; and Ezekiel Emanuel, bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. It does not include physicians who believe in aliens and debunked virus therapies, one of whom Trump has called “very respected” and “spectacular.”
SciAm‘s editors also highlighted a $2 trillion proposal that Biden put forward in July that won praise from environmental and climate campaigners. As Common Dreams reported at the time, some progressive activists who had been critical of the candidate welcomed the plan as a major step forward while still emphasizing that Biden has more work to do and grassroots movements will keep pressuring him to deliver.
That message was clear Monday in another endorsement of Biden. The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, in its endorsement announcement, compared the Democrat’s potential with Trump’s record of rolling back dozens of environmental and public health protections to appease corporate polluters.
“Joe Biden must defeat Donald Trump in November or this planet and our democracy will suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage.”
--Kieran Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund
“We cannot equivocate in this election. Joe Biden must defeat Donald Trump in November or this planet and our democracy will suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage,” said Kieran Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “Donald Trump has been the most anti-environmental president in modern history.”
The current president “has put children in cages, elevated white supremacy, denigrated women, mocked the suffering of countless people, and divided our nation through the politics of hatred, fear, and ignorance,” Suckling said. “Joe Biden can restore decency and give us a fighting chance to stop the environmental calamities we now face.”
“The nightmare of the Trump presidency must come to an end in November,” he added. “After the election we’ll push President Biden tirelessly to stop the wildlife extinction crisis, tackle the global climate emergency and protect people from polluters. First, though, we have to get Trump out of office. The future of our planet is at stake.”
The group’s endorsement came as Trump visited fire-ravaged California and publicly denied climate science--telling one state official, “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch”--while Biden delivered a climate-focused speech in Delaware that was applauded by the youth-led Sunrise Movement and other advocacy groups.
\u201cWe don’t agree with @JoeBiden on everything but we’re glad to see him putting the spotlight the climate crisis.\n\nThis election must be a referendum on Trump’s deadly record on climate change. We need to vote him out so we can win a #GreenNewDeal. \n\nhttps://t.co/lY53NLZP5z\u201d— Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05 (@Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05) 1600111411
While Trump in recent weeks has come under fire for his silence and then lies about the current conditions on the West Coast, Biden has faced mounting pressure to prioritize the climate crisis--and especially how his proposed policies stack up against the Trump administration’s anti-science agenda--on the campaign trail.
“Here’s the deal: hurricanes don’t swerve to avoid Red States or Blue States. Wildfires don’t skip towns that voted a certain way,” Biden said in his Monday speech, which also touched on the pandemic. “The impacts of climate change don’t pick and choose. That’s because it’s not a partisan phenomenon, it’s science, and our response should be the same. Grounded in science.”
“We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here. And unless we take urgent action, it will soon be more catastrophic,” he added. “A president who recognizes, understands, and cares that Americans are dying, which makes President Trump’s climate denialism, his disdain for science and facts, all the more unconscionable.”
With unprecedented wildfires burning across western states, the Gulf Coast bracing for a hurricane, and the coronavirus pandemic still raging, Scientific American on Tuesday gave Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden its first-ever endorsement in the magazine’s 175-year history.
“The 2020 election is literally a matter of life and death. We urge you to vote for health, science, and Joe Biden for president.”
--Scientific American
Although SciAm had refrained from supporting any political candidates up until now, “this year we are compelled to do so,” the editors explain in an endorsement published online. “We do not do this lightly.”
“The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people--because he rejects evidence and science,” the editors charge, calling “his dishonest and inept response to the Covid-19 pandemic” just the “most devastating example.”
SciAm‘s editors note that in addition to his “catastrophic” handling of the ongoing public health crisis, Trump “has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges.”
“That is why we urge you to vote for Joe Biden, who is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment,” they write. “These and other proposals he has put forth can set the country back on course for a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable future.”
\u201cThe evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people\u2014because he rejects evidence and science.\n\nThe most devastating example is his willfully ignorant response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives.\u201d— Scientific American (@Scientific American) 1600174860
The magazine endorsement details how Trump’s mismanagement and dishonesty regarding the pandemic, the Affordable Care Act, and climate change contrast with Biden, who “comes prepared with plans to control Covid-19, improve healthcare, reduce carbon emissions, and restore the role of legitimate science in policy making.”
The former vice president “solicits expertise and has turned that knowledge into solid policy proposals,” the editors point out.
Biden is getting advice on these public health issues from a group that includes David Kessler, epidemiologist, pediatrician, and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief; Rebecca Katz, immunologist and global health security specialist at Georgetown University; and Ezekiel Emanuel, bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. It does not include physicians who believe in aliens and debunked virus therapies, one of whom Trump has called “very respected” and “spectacular.”
SciAm‘s editors also highlighted a $2 trillion proposal that Biden put forward in July that won praise from environmental and climate campaigners. As Common Dreams reported at the time, some progressive activists who had been critical of the candidate welcomed the plan as a major step forward while still emphasizing that Biden has more work to do and grassroots movements will keep pressuring him to deliver.
That message was clear Monday in another endorsement of Biden. The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, in its endorsement announcement, compared the Democrat’s potential with Trump’s record of rolling back dozens of environmental and public health protections to appease corporate polluters.
“Joe Biden must defeat Donald Trump in November or this planet and our democracy will suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage.”
--Kieran Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund
“We cannot equivocate in this election. Joe Biden must defeat Donald Trump in November or this planet and our democracy will suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage,” said Kieran Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “Donald Trump has been the most anti-environmental president in modern history.”
The current president “has put children in cages, elevated white supremacy, denigrated women, mocked the suffering of countless people, and divided our nation through the politics of hatred, fear, and ignorance,” Suckling said. “Joe Biden can restore decency and give us a fighting chance to stop the environmental calamities we now face.”
“The nightmare of the Trump presidency must come to an end in November,” he added. “After the election we’ll push President Biden tirelessly to stop the wildlife extinction crisis, tackle the global climate emergency and protect people from polluters. First, though, we have to get Trump out of office. The future of our planet is at stake.”
The group’s endorsement came as Trump visited fire-ravaged California and publicly denied climate science--telling one state official, “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch”--while Biden delivered a climate-focused speech in Delaware that was applauded by the youth-led Sunrise Movement and other advocacy groups.
\u201cWe don’t agree with @JoeBiden on everything but we’re glad to see him putting the spotlight the climate crisis.\n\nThis election must be a referendum on Trump’s deadly record on climate change. We need to vote him out so we can win a #GreenNewDeal. \n\nhttps://t.co/lY53NLZP5z\u201d— Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05 (@Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05) 1600111411
While Trump in recent weeks has come under fire for his silence and then lies about the current conditions on the West Coast, Biden has faced mounting pressure to prioritize the climate crisis--and especially how his proposed policies stack up against the Trump administration’s anti-science agenda--on the campaign trail.
“Here’s the deal: hurricanes don’t swerve to avoid Red States or Blue States. Wildfires don’t skip towns that voted a certain way,” Biden said in his Monday speech, which also touched on the pandemic. “The impacts of climate change don’t pick and choose. That’s because it’s not a partisan phenomenon, it’s science, and our response should be the same. Grounded in science.”
“We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here. And unless we take urgent action, it will soon be more catastrophic,” he added. “A president who recognizes, understands, and cares that Americans are dying, which makes President Trump’s climate denialism, his disdain for science and facts, all the more unconscionable.”
Against a backdrop of Israel's genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding "an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza, the "release of all hostages" held by Hamas, and for Israel to "immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid" into the besieged strip.
Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump's deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move "will come as no surprise," as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.
Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel's right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council."
The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the "bare minimum" that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”
“Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again... humanitarians and journalists targeted... while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this," Mansour added.
Following the UNSC's latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to "forgive" the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.
“Israel kills every day and nothing happens," Bendjama said. "Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”
Benjama also asked Gazans to "forgive us" for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel."
Condemning Thursday's veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide," which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.
Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.
Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.
UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday's failed UNSC resolution that "we need a ceasefire more than ever."
“Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza," Woodward said.
Thursday's developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip's capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump's proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.
Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into "a lifeless wasteland."
Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians "are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter."
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were "safe zones," including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.
"Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space," Azzoum added. "That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky."
President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to silence his critics Thursday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that outlets that give him "bad press" may have their broadcast licenses taken away.
The threat came just one day after his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) director, Brendan Carr, successfully pressured ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel's show from the air by threatening the broadcast licenses of its affiliates over a comment the comedian made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me," Trump told the press gaggle. "I get 97% negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything. And they're 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity... I mean, they're getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away."
"When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do," the president continued. "If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
He said that the decision would be left up to Carr, who has threatened to take away licenses from networks that air what he called "distorted" content.
It is unclear where Trump's statistic that networks have been "97% against" him originates, nor the claim that mainstream news networks "haven't had a conservative on in years."
But even if it were true, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says "the FCC doesn't have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content."
In comments made to Axios Thursday, Gomez—the lone Democrat on the five-member panel—said that the Trump administration was "weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel," as part of a "campaign of censorship and control."
National news networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC do not have broadcasting licenses approved by the FCC, nor do cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. The licenses threatened by Carr are for local affiliates, which—despite having the branding of the big networks—are owned by less well-known companies like Nexstar Media Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, both of which pushed in favor of ABC's decision to ax Kimmel.
Gomez said that with Trump's intimidation of broadcasters, the "threat is the point."
"It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it's so rarely done, but broadcast license to the broadcasters are extremely valuable," she said. "And so they don't want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation."
Democratic lawmakers are vowing to investigate the Trump administration's pressure campaign that may have led to ABC deciding to indefinitely suspend late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday that he filed a motion to subpoena Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr one day after he publicly warned ABC of negative consequences if the network kept Kimmel on the air.
"Enough of Congress sleepwalking while [President Donald] Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance shred the First Amendment and Constitution," Khanna declared. "It is time for Congress to stand up for Article I."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also said on Thursday that he was opening an investigation into the potential financial aspects of Carr's pressure campaign on ABC, including the involvement of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is the network's largest affiliate and is currently involved in merger talks that will need FCC approval.
"The Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into ABC, Sinclair, and the FCC," he said. "We will not be intimidated and we will defend the First Amendment."
Progressive politicians weren't the only ones launching an investigation into the Kimmel controversy, as legal organization Democracy Forward announced that it's filed a a Freedom of Information Act request for records after January 20, 2025 related to any FCC efforts “to use the agency’s licensing and enforcement powers to police and limit speech and influence what the public can watch and hear.”