Want to buy Russia Today’s DC broadcast studio?

Axed-ios

Axios announced in an email to staff this week that they are laying off 10 percent of their workforce — and to add insult to injury, the announcement was stylized like one of their editorial products.

“Why it matters: We’re eliminating about 50 positions to get ahead of tectonic shifts in the media, technology, and reader needs/habits,” the email read. The canned staffers were also informed via email rather than in an in-person meeting, which Axios claimed was for logistical reasons.

It gets worse. A spy tells Cockburn that the laid-off workers were summarily frog-marched out of the media company’s northern Virginia building Thursday by security. Remaining Axios employees chattered on their way up the building elevator post-lunch that they ought to hurry back to their desks “before we get in trouble.”

The big picture: Axios isn’t the first media outlet to lay employees off this year, but they certainly didn’t learn anything from their bedfellows about how to respectfully treat departing staff.

Is Tim Walz manlier than J.D. Vance?

The sizing up between Midwestern vice presidential prospects J.D. Vance and Tim Walz has thus far been a brow-furrowing, serious-minded policy debate about whose vision for Americ- just kidding. It’s been a juvenile spat that involves false stories about couch intercourse and horse ejaculate. The country gets the contest it deserves. But Walz’s folksy demeanor and interest in masculine pursuits such as football, hunting and fishing present the Trump campaign with an interesting question: is Kamala’s VP pick… more manly than Trump’s?

For an utterly unbiased perspective, Cockburn asked Trump surrogate and self-declared unashamed “alpha male” Nick Adams for his thoughts. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t think much of Walz’s credentials. “An alpha male would never allow Minneapolis and St. Paul to be looted and burned to the ground by thugs for three days straight without calling in the National Guard,” Adams told Cockburn in a text.

“An alpha male would not sign a bill requiring tampons to be provided in the men’s bathroom into law. An alpha male would not support men competing in women’s sports. An alpha male would never support children being transitioned at all, let alone without parental consent.

“By the looks of Tim Walz, he hasn’t stepped foot in a Hooters in YEARS and has a diet that lacks protein and has a heavy dose of soy.

“He’s the farthest thing from an alpha male, which isn’t a surprise given the men Kamala Harris has surrounded herself with over the course of her checkered career.”

…that settles that, then?

Want to buy Russia Today’s DC broadcast studio?

For sale to an aspiring media mogul with cash to burn (they still exist, right?): a state-of-the art broadcast studio in downtown Washington, DC —  a must-have for anyone looking to establish a presence in the heart of a city that thousands have abandoned.

Cockburn spotted a listing up for auction for what used to be the studio for RT — formerly known as Russia Today — the Russian state-funded network which, due to a spot of light invasion in February 2022, no longer has a foothold in the US market.

The listing tells us: “An international television broadcasting and television production company has closed and will make a complete liquidation of all late-model, high-end television and video studio equipment, cameras, video displays, monitors, editing, routing, lighting, and grip equipment.”

First bids were due in an hour ago… which cash-flush YouTube show has the шарики to snap it up?

House Freedom Caucus chair aspirant raided by FBI

This week was a mixed bag for freshman Tennessee congressman Andy Ogles: on the one hand, he narrowly escaped a well-funded primary defeat; on the other, the feds executed a search warrant immediately after the election, seizing the lawmaker’s cellphone as part of a campaign finance investigation.

At issue appears to be Ogles’s problematic 2022 campaign finance reports, which he has sought to correct since his initial win. “Despite having reported making the $320,000 personal loan, Ogles’s personal financial disclosures did not show any substantial investments — not even a savings account,” one local outlet reported.

In response to the raid, Ogles issued a statement defending his previous cooperation with law enforcement. “It has been widely reported for months that my campaign made mistakes in our initial financial filings,” he said this week. “We have worked diligently with attorneys and reporting experts to correct the errors and ensure compliance going forward.”

This scandal, combined with earlier allegations of résumé inflation, hasn’t stopped him from eyeing advancement in Congress even though he’s only been in office for a few months. He recently confirmed that he is eyeing the top spot in the House Freedom Caucus, which will soon be vacant following the primary defeat of Congressman Bob Good.