Website
Page: 13
Conservative activist Candace Owens tore into Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.) for falsely pushing the narrative she supports Adolf Hitler by playing an out-of-context clip during her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
“I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in its entirety,” Owens told the committee Tuesday.
“He purposely presented an extracted clip…That was unbelievably dishonest and he did not allow me to respond to it which is worrisome, and should tell you a lot about where people are today in terms of trying to drum up narratives.”
Here’s @RealCandaceO ‘s FULL RESPONSE to @tedlieu , who attacked her during the hearing with an out-of-context clip to paint Candace in a negative light. pic.twitter.com/OY7P0ZIwiS
— Nick Monroe (@nickmon1112) April 9, 2019
“I’m deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me,” she added.
Lieu played the clip of Owens speaking about Hitler during the committee’s hearing about what Big Tech should do to combat “white nationalism,” putting her remarks about nationalism out of context.
.@tedlieu and every media outlet should be ashamed of themselves for mischaracterizing @RealCandaceO as someone who legitimizes Adolf Hitler.
Candace was legitimizing nationalism, not the atrocities inside and outside Germany. https://t.co/J96qQbhJXf
— PragerU (@prageru) April 9, 2019
Owens called the hearing a farce, saying it’s really about the Democrats’ pursuit of “power and control”
“The hearing today is not about white nationalism or hate crimes,” Owens said. “It’s about fear mongering, power and control. It’s a preview of the Democrats’ 2020 strategy.”
“The hearing today is not about white nationalism or hate-crimes, it’s about fear-mongering, power and control.”
WATCH: Candace Owens’ opening statement at a House hearing on white nationalism and hate crimes. https://t.co/WDQH9Krb0m pic.twitter.com/iDvs0OlSZE
— The Hill (@thehill) April 9, 2019
The Judiciary Committee’s website explained that the hearing would be about what Big Tech’s role should be in the future to address “white nationalist propaganda and hate speech.”
This hearing will examine hate crimes, the impact white nationalist groups have on American communities and the spread of white identity ideology,” the committee’s website states. “The hearing will also foster ideas about what social media companies can do to stem white nationalist propaganda and hate speech online.”
In other words, it’s about censorship and policing speech.
Candace Owens testified on capitol hill today about white nationalism and hate crimes. Owen breaks down how house Democrats were no match for her because she’s authentic and they are not.
Source: InfoWars
Netflix was the poster child of technological “disruption” when it first rolled out its video streaming app. For less than $10 a month, users could watch any movies or TV shows they wanted from a vast library that seemed unrestricted by production company or brand.
Netflix built an empire that media companies everywhere admired — and eventually, wanted to copy.
A handful of competitors, including Hulu and Amazon Prime, have emerged to threaten some of Netflix’s market share, but even more competitors are coming — and the landscape is becoming more aggressive.
For example, Disney is planning to launch Disney Plus later this year and taking all its Disney core, Star Wars, and Marvel branded franchises with it. AT&T, Facebook, Apple, and Viacom are all planning to launch services of their own, presumably hoarding whatever media properties they can get their hands on and producing new content to dominate even more exclusive content.
This has led to a phenomenon increasingly being referred to as the “streaming wars,” and consumers are going to have to start making some hard choices.
The Streaming Wars
For many years, cable was the go-to choice to have practically unlimited content options. Though it’s possible to find a competitively priced cable service in your area, some plans were ridiculously expensive and complex to maintain. Streaming in the early days of Netflix was a low-cost, all-in-one alternative.
But in the years to come, each streaming app will presumably offer a basket of original exclusives, and not much else.
If a consumer wants access to all of the best-reviewed movies and TV shows of a given timeframe, they’ll have no choice but to subscribe to many different streaming apps simultaneously. Even at the low rate of $10 per month, per subscription, this can quickly spiral out of control, making users pay an egregious sum of money and manage dozens of different subscriptions.
Ultimately, this increased competition will undermine two of the biggest advantages streaming had in the first place: low prices and user convenience. How will users react when confronted with an industry whose biggest advantages have been reversed?
User Choices
Few users will be willing to subscribe to every streaming app. But if they want access to the latest and greatest content, they’ll have to make a decision.
This could mean:
- Increased piracy. There’s already evidence to suggest that the rise of new streaming services is leading to an increase in media piracy. Content pirates took a break from illegally distributing content (for free) when there was a single, low-cost way to watch the content they wanted. Now that the costs are rising and the selection is becoming more limited, users are resorting to piracy to meet their content desires. If pushed far enough, it could end up stifling the revenue available to the entire industry.
- A return to cable TV. Cable companies have been well aware of the threat that streaming services have presented. That’s why they’ve come up with inventive alternatives, including streaming services and new content packages designed to make things less expensive and more convenient for customers. If streaming services continue to look less and less appealing, customers might start going back to their cable providers.
- Silos. Clusters of customers may choose to stick with one company due to being a loyal subscriber for years, or because they disproportionately favor one or two original series from that brand. Over time, this can lead to a kind of “siloing” effect, where some customers are wholly unaware of original content produced by other brands. These silos could end up segmented by area, by demographic, or by less obvious factors.
Room for Disruption
There is significant room for disruption in this new streaming model.
The streaming wars are going to be good for the individual media companies competing for a slice of the pie — after all, many of them will be generating revenue from streaming for the first time, which is almost automatically a net positive — but bad for the streaming industry as a whole. Customers are going to be faced with more aggressive competitors and stratified competition, as well as higher prices for a narrower selection of content choices. This kind of strife is exactly what typically opens the door to a truly novel competitor — something new that defies expectations and wins the market share.
Startup entrepreneurs and innovators are already brainstorming how to take advantage of this.
It could be a “best of” app that neutrally consolidates the best original series from each streaming service, or a “pay as you go” plan that allows you to only pay for the TV shows or movies you watch, regardless of which platform you’re using. In any case, the industry’s about to get more complicated.
Larry Alton is a professional blogger, writer, and researcher. A graduate of Iowa State University, he’s now a full-time freelance writer and business consultant.Currently, Larry writes for Entrepreneur.com, Inc.com, and Forbes.com, among others. In addition to journalism, technical writing and in-depth research, he’s also active in his community and spends weekends volunteering with a local non-profit literacy organization and rock climbing. Follow him on Twitter (@LarryAlton3), at LinkedIn.com/in/larryalton, and on his website, LarryAlton.com. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
Source: NewsMax America
FILE PHOTO – Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) listens to military families discuss their hazardous living conditions during a meeting at the Peninsula Workforce Development Office in Newport News, Virginia, U.S. March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Ryan M. Kelly
April 9, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senators Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Deb Fischer, a Republican, are introducing a bill on Tuesday to ban big online companies like Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc from using deception to push consumers to do things they otherwise would not do.
The bill would also ban online platforms with more than 100 million monthly active users from designing addicting games or other websites for children under age 13.
The bill takes aim at “dark patterns” developed using behavioral psychology, which mislead people into giving personal data to companies or otherwise trick them into doing something they would not do.
A website aimed at tracking dark patterns identifies behavior such as a website or app showing that a user has new notifications when they do not.
“Our goal is simple: to instill a little transparency in what remains a very opaque market and ensure that consumers are able to make more informed choices about how and when to share their personal information,” said Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in a statement.
The bill would bar companies from choosing groups of people for behavioral experiments, unless the companies get informed consent.
Under the terms of the bill, social media companies would create a professional standards body to create best practices to deal with the issue. The Federal Trade Commission, which investigates deceptive advertising, would work with the group.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Susan Thomas)
Source: OANN
Mar 31, 2019; Kansas City, MO, United States; Kentucky Wildcats forward PJ Washington (25) reacts against the Auburn Tigers during the first half in the championship game of the midwest regional of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Sprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
April 9, 2019
Kentucky standout sophomore PJ Washington declared for the NBA Draft on Tuesday and will hire an agent, the school announced.
“This place has been my home for two years and it’s hard for me to put in words how much I’ve grown in my time at Kentucky. The staff challenged me from day one to become the best version of myself and to work hard to become one of the best players in college basketball. I feel like I’ve done that,” Washington said in a statement posted on the Wildcats’ website.
The 6-foot-8 forward ends his career with 932 points, 476 rebounds 120 assists and 74 blocks. He led the Wildcats in scoring (15.2) and rebounding (7.5) this past season. He also posted nine double-doubles and shot 52.2 percent from the floor, including 42.3 percent from the 3-point line.
Washington earned first team All-SEC and third team All-America honors.
“PJ transformed everything about his game. He became a national player of the year candidate, he showed his full set of his skills and he improved his stock while helping us become one of the best teams in the country,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said.
Washington is projected to be a mid-first-round pick by ESPN.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Workers cover the cockpit window of a Jet Airways aircraft parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
April 9, 2019
By Anshuman Daga and Aditi Shah
SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – In early January, Jet Airways and its main lender, State Bank of India, met with aircraft lessors to assure them there was a plan to rescue the debt-laden carrier so it could pay them, sources familiar with the matter said.
The idea was to shore up confidence in one of India’s biggest brands, squeezed by low fares and high costs. But some lessors quickly lost patience as the bank did not provide details and Jet’s founder angrily defied them to take back planes.
At one point, the airline’s usually jovial founder and chairman, Naresh Goyal, banged his fist on a table, jarring some of the lessors who had flown to Mumbai from Dublin, Singapore and Dubai, said one person who attended the discussions. “That meeting went horribly wrong,” recalled the executive from a global leasing firm, who did not want to identified because the meeting was not public.
Goyal’s emotional outburst and Jet’s subsequent failure to pay up as promised may have pushed the relationship between the airline and its lessors to a breaking point, two other executives who were at the meeting said, prompting some to take the drastic step of pulling their planes from its fleet.
That has led Jet, which blazed trails in one of the world’s fastest-growing air travel markets, to cancel hundreds of flights. Saddled with more than $1.2 billion in debt, and with dwindling revenue, the airline has said it also owes money to banks, pilots and suppliers.
It was not immediately clear how much money Jet owes.
Jet did not respond to multiple requests for comment but has said it is “actively engaged” with all its lessors. Goyal did not respond to requests for comment.
“Aircraft lessors have been supportive of the company’s efforts in this regard,” Jet said in its most recent statement to the Mumbai stock exchange on April 2.
The loss of aircraft and friction with lessors is just the latest major setback for Jet, which has been struggling for years, beset by an insurgent group of low-cost Indian competitors.
Purchases of wide-body aircraft 13 years ago and ambitions for the international market may have set Jet on its current course, industry insiders say.
The 26-year-old airline has posted losses in eight of the past 10 years and its share of the domestic passenger market has fallen to about 15.5 percent in 2018 from 22.5 percent in 2015.
About 60 percent, or more than $600 million, has been wiped off Jet’s market value over the past year.
Now, with the airline’s running out of ways to make money, state-run banks, led by SBI, took a temporary stake in Jet, promised a new loan of 15 billion rupees ($216 million) and forced 69-year-old Goyal to resign as chairman.
On Monday, Jet’s lenders laid out terms for potential bidders to buy up to 75 percent stake in the carrier. Expressions of interest are due on Wednesday, with final bids due on April 30. [L3N21Q14Z]
But lessors remain concerned, and some, such as Avolon, SMBC Aviation Capital, Aircastle and a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp, have asked India’s aviation regulator to de-register a combined 18 planes, according to the regulator’s website.
“Despite Goyal’s departure from Jet, lessors don’t seem to think the carrier can be rescued, judging by the urgency in repossessing aircraft,” said Shukor Yusof, the head of aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
That adds complications for any potential new investor, two industry sources said.
“How we do business with Jet in the future will depend a lot on the new investor and how they manage the relationship,” said one of the executives who was at the January meeting.
Aercap Holdings, GE Capital Aviation Services, Avolon and BOC Aviation are among the big lessors grounding Jet’s aircraft, leasing and industry sources say. Aercap, Avolon and BOC Aviation declined to comment. GE Capital Aviation Services said Jet was a long-standing customer and it remains in regular contact with the airline.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
The humbling of one of India’s most successful international brands illustrates the challenge of making money in the country’s aviation sector, dominated by low-cost carriers such as IndiGo and SpiceJet Ltd.
The Indian market is also highly price-sensitive, and airlines compete to keep fares low, even at a loss, to continue expanding. The domestic market has seen around 20 percent growth in the number of passengers over the past few years.
Carriers including IndiGo, SpiceJet and Vistara, a joint venture between Singapore Airlines and Tata Sons, have over 1,000 planes on order from Boeing Co and Airbus SA.
“India’s aviation market is cut-throat and it is survival of the fittest. One needs not only deep pockets but a deep threshold for pain,” said Yusof, adding that lessors will still seek business in the country despite the inherent risks.
When India’s Kingfisher Airlines went bankrupt in 2012, lessors were forced to write off millions of dollars in losses and thousands of people lost their jobs.
FALL FROM GRACE
When Goyal and his wife, Anita, started Jet in 1993, state-run Air India was the only formidable opponent, and the country’s aviation market was just taking off.
Goyal’s pitch was ensuring the country’s biggest private carrier had impeccable service – a world-class product built in India, industry executives said.
Jet’s problems began when it embarked on an aggressive international expansion plan, said an industry executive who has been associated with the airline.
The carrier ordered 22 wide-body aircraft for delivery over about 18 months, starting in 2006, depleting cash, the executive said.
Then Jet bought a struggling Indian airline called Sahara for 14.5 billion rupees ($209 million) in 2007 that had an ageing fleet and did not fit Jet’s corporate culture, the industry executives said.
Meanwhile, a newcomer, low-cost carrier IndiGo, had begun chipping away at Jet’s market share with cheap fares, one of the executives said.
In 2013, Jet was close to running out of cash, but survived collapse when Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways bought a 24 percent stake in the Indian airline. As part of the deal, Etihad also bought three pairs of Jet’s landing slots at London’s Heathrow airport and 51 percent stake in its frequent flyer program.
To compete with low-cost carriers, Jet has lowered prices without reducing its expensive services. High fuel prices and hefty taxes have compounded the spending issues, industry executives said.
Goyal, however, said in a statement last week after stepping down that the airline will “regain its rightful place in the company of global greats.”
HUMONGOUS TASK
Goyal’s penchant for control, which helped him build the airline, has been a stumbling block for potential investors. Tata Sons was in talks with Jet in November for a deal that never materialized, sources have said.
Etihad has also been reluctant to increase its stake in the carrier for similar reasons, sources have said.
If no suitable investors turn up at the auction, lenders will pursue alternative plans, they said, without specifying what those might be.
SpiceJet has been in talks with lessors to take some of Jet’s aircraft, a source has said.
Indian rules cap foreign airline investment in domestic carriers at 49 percent, and the government is eager to see Jet remain with an Indian entity, sources have said. That narrows the list of potential investors, aviation financiers and leasing executives said.
“It will be a humongous task for whoever comes in,” one of the industry executives said.
For an interactive link on the biggest airlines click https://tmsnrt.rs/2I7ITuI
For an interactive link on Jet’s average daily flights, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2FeFDel
For an interactive link on Jet’s grounded planes, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2HTmgKl
(Reporting by Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE and Aditi Shah in NEW DELHI; Additional reporting by Tanvi Mehta in MUMBAI and Gaurav Dogra in BENGALURU; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A model is seen during a shooting session for Amazon Fashion at an unveiling of its new photo studio in Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo
April 9, 2019
By Sonya Dowsett and Melissa Fares
MADRID/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Chico’s FAS Inc warned in January that it would shutter at least 250 stores across its namesake brand, along with its White House Black Market and Soma labels.
But the U.S. women’s clothing chain is expanding a different storefront – its Chico’s-branded micro site on Amazon.com Inc.
The world’s largest online retailer now sells around 2,300 Chico’s styles, from crease-proof trousers to fine-knit sweaters, representing nearly six times more product offerings than when it started last May, Chico’s told Reuters.
While that growth should entice any retailer, Chico’s is one of a growing number of clothing brands treading carefully.
From Nike Inc and Under Armour Inc to Lands’ End Inc and Levi Strauss & Co, major brands are distributing clothing and accessories directly through Amazon.com, attracted by more than 100 million members of Amazon’s loyalty club Prime and its advanced delivery network.
The risk in this relationship, according to interviews with retailers and industry analysts, comes if Amazon uses real-time data from customer purchases to help it quickly build out its own private label clothing brands, and ends up stealing market share from its current retail partners.
“The word that’s most commonly used with respect to Amazon from a brand perspective, and also retailers to some extent, is ‘frenemy,’” said Kate Delhagen, an independent retail consultant and former senior director of global digital business development at Nike. She had input into Nike’s decision process to partner with Amazon, but left the shoe company shortly before the deal was finalized in July 2017.
(For a graphic, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WHcPkH)
Recognizing the concern from retailers, the European Commission has launched a preliminary antitrust investigation into Amazon and whether it might “gain access to competitively sensitive information about competitors’ products which it could use to boost its own retail activities at the expense of third party sellers on its marketplace,” an EU spokesman said.
Amazon declined to comment on the early-stage probe, or say how many private label clothing brands it had and how fast it was churning out new ones. A spokeswoman said Amazon’s private label products account for about 1 percent of its total retail sales.
“Our private brands supplement the great assortment that our selling partners provide,” she added.
A Nike spokeswoman said its business with Amazon continued to perform well, but said the company’s approach was broader than Amazon alone and that it continued to engage with a number of digital marketplaces.
To sell through Amazon, Chico’s and other clothing retailers can either sell product to Amazon in a traditional wholesale relationship or sell directly to consumers as third-party merchants, paying a 17 percent referral fee on clothing and accessories sold.
Retailers pay Amazon extra to store and ship their orders under the ‘fulfillment by Amazon’ model.
Amazon has set a goal of being a leader in the apparel space for around a decade, former Amazon director Mike Pazak told Reuters, and has invested heavily in the sector. It has recently ramped up its own private label apparel brands.
It had 109 of its own brands in clothing, shoes and jewelry categories at the start of 2019, which is more than a five-fold increase over two years, according to TJI Research.
“It’s something we’re aware of and understand the risks,” said George Nahra, senior vice president of strategy, business development and international at Chico’s, which flies executives to Seattle regularly to review the growing Amazon business.
OVERTAKING WALMART
Amazon markets fashion across the world from Brazil to China. It has made its Prime Wardrobe concept, which allows Prime members to order clothing with no upfront charge and free delivery, available in the United States, Britain and Japan.
The online giant has sponsored fashion weeks in the United States, Mexico, Japan and India and has photography studios for fashion shoots in New York, London, Tokyo and New Delhi. It is a patron of the British Fashion Council.
Following an upheaval of consumer habits, which has led to the shuttering of thousands of small apparel stores, Amazon has overtaken Walmart Inc as the most-shopped clothing retailer in the United States, according to a Coresight Research survey.
In Britain, Amazon has outpaced Marks and Spencer Group PLC as the most-shopped clothing retailer, according to an HSBC survey.
Amazon Prime member Abby Kidd bought a pair of Silver brand $80 jeans the first time she used the Prime Wardrobe service.
“I doubt I’ll look anywhere else for jeans as long as Amazon keeps expanding their options,” said the 35-year-old private tutor, based in Oak Harbor, Washington who also shops at chain stores Macy’s Inc and Maurices.
Classic American clothing retailer Lands’ End turned to Amazon more than a year ago when it looked to increase sales after a bruising exit from previous owner Sears.
“We’d be ostriches sticking our heads in the sand if we didn’t take heed and pay attention to where customers are going,” said Sarah Rasmusen, senior vice president of e-commerce at Lands’ End, founded in the 1960s as a mail-order business.
Lands’ End started selling core items such as flannel shirts and down coats on Amazon in February last year as part of its strategy to branch out from troubled Sears stores, where it has lost dozens of retail locations.
Lands’ End’s key swimwear lines compete with Amazon’s Coastal Blue swimwear private label on the site.
Both Chico’s and Lands’ End declined to say what percentage of their sales were made through Amazon, but said the platform was a useful customer acquisition tool that was not drawing clients away from their own e-commerce sites.
A gripe for retailers is that selling on Amazon loses the direct customer relationship they get from their own website or store.
“You don’t know where your customer’s coming from, you don’t know what they’re clicking on once they get to the site,” said Melanie Travis, founder of upmarket swimwear brand Andie who has talked to Amazon, but decided against selling on the platform.
Others are satisfied with the limited data they get from Amazon. For instance, Chico’s gets enough to mail catalogs to new Amazon customers, said senior vice president Nahra.
Canadian shoe retailer Aldo, which deepened its 10-year relationship with Amazon to a wholesale model this year, said it receives more information as a result, such as the basket composition of customers who buy Aldo’s products on Amazon. That allows it to adapt its product offering accordingly.
Insights shared by Amazon can influence how the retailer designs collections, Aldo said. Its products compete with Amazon’s footwear private label The Fix on the platform.
“There’s an interesting partnership you get by selling to Amazon instead of selling through Amazon,” said Justin Cohen, senior director of e-commerce for Aldo North America. “We’re just starting to lean back into that relationship.”
(Reporting by Sonya Dowsett and Melissa Fares; Editing by Vanessa O’Connell and Edward Tobin)
Source: OANN
Official Washington and much of the national press was in an uproar on Monday afternoon following the President’s announcement that Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles was being replaced.
Little mentioned in all of the debate over whether Alles was fired or (as he was claiming late in the afternoon) the director is leaving on his own is that his appointment was virtually forced on Trump in April 2017 by then-Secretary of Homeland Security (and future White House Chief of Staff) John Kelly.
“At one point, Kelly threatened he would resign unless Trump appointed Alles,” Ron Kessler, author of the critically acclaimed book “The Trump White House,” told Newsmax.
Trump, in fact, had no intention of appointing Alles, a retired Marine Corps major general and old friend of fellow marine Kelly’s. The President’s preference was George Mulligan, a veteran agent and chief operating officer of the Secret Service.
Moreover, as Kessler wrote in his book, “[when] he interviewed Alles, Trump was not impressed. Alles volunteered that he knew next to nothing about the Secret Service. Apparently, it was too much trouble to read books and articles about the agency or to check out the Secret Service website before meeting with the President.”
Of his two year stint at the helm of the Secret Service, Kessler wrote that its agents “are also unimpressed by Alles and largely ignore him. …Apparently, co-opted by Secret Service management, Alles proved to be the exact opposite of what was needed to reform the Secret Service.”
In his book, Kessler concluded that “nothing has changed within the Secret Service since the party-crashing Salahis went prancing into the White House state dinner back in 2009, or since I broke the Secret Service prostitution scandal in 2012…..”
Alles, he wrote flatly, “not only retained that same senior management that produced so many scandals, he has done nothing to change the agency’s culture that has led to those scandals and the low morale that results in a shockingly high turnover rate.”
Nevertheless, “General Kelly wanted [Alles] in the worst way, and nobody else wanted him,” former White House Counselor Steve Bannon told Kessler.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
Source: NewsMax Politics
Official Washington and much of the national press was in an uproar Monday afternoon following the president’s announcement Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles was being replaced.
Little mentioned in all of the debate over whether Alles was fired – or (as he was claiming late in the afternoon) the director is leaving on his own – is his appointment was virtually forced on Trump in April 2017 by then-Secretary of Homeland Security (and future White House chief of staff) John Kelly.
“At one point, Kelly threatened he would resign unless Trump appointed Alles,” Ron Kessler, author of the critically acclaimed book “The Trump White House,” told Newsmax.
Trump, in fact, had no intention of appointing Alles, a retired Marine Corps major general and old friend of fellow marine Kelly’s. The president’s preference was George Mulligan, a veteran agent and chief operating officer of the Secret Service.
Moreover, as Kessler wrote in his book, “[when] he interviewed Alles, Trump was not impressed. Alles volunteered that he knew next to nothing about the Secret Service. Apparently, it was too much trouble to read books and articles about the agency or to check out the Secret Service website before meeting with the president.”
Of his two year stint at the helm of the Secret Service, Kessler wrote that its agents “are also unimpressed by Alles and largely ignore him. . . . Apparently, co-opted by Secret Service management, Alles proved to be the exact opposite of what was needed to reform the Secret Service.”
In his book, Kessler concluded “nothing has changed within the Secret Service since the party-crashing Salahis went prancing into the White House state dinner back in 2009, or since I broke the Secret Service prostitution scandal in 2012 . . .”
Alles, he wrote flatly, “not only retained that same senior management that produced so many scandals, he has done nothing to change the agency’s culture that has led to those scandals and the low morale that results in a shockingly high turnover rate.”
Nevertheless, “Gen. Kelly wanted [Alles] in the worst way, and nobody else wanted him,” former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told Kessler.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
Source: NewsMax Politics
Canadian activist Faith Goldy was banned from Facebook and Instagram Monday in the latest example of censorship directed toward conservatives.
In a Twitter post, Goldy said she was booted from the two platforms, writing, “Somehow Canada’s state media had enough advance warning to get a piece out before even I found out!”
“Our enemies are weak & terrified. They forget most revolutions were waged before social media!” she added.
🚨BANNED FROM @FACEBOOK & @INSTAGRAM🚨
Somehow 🇨🇦’s state media had enough advance warning to get a piece out before even I found out!
Bookmark https://t.co/THqYwXPkus right now‼️
Our enemies are weak & terrified😂
They forget most revolutions were waged before social media! pic.twitter.com/bw9XnjLsOE
— Faith J Goldy (@FaithGoldy) April 8, 2019
In an interview with Big League Politics, the former Toronto, Canada mayoral candidate responded to the censorship, saying, “They consider me to be a ‘Dangerous Individual.’”
A Facebook spokesperson touching on the matter stated, “Individuals and organizations who spread hate, attack or call for the exclusion of others on the basis of who they are have no place on Facebook.”
The move comes after Facebook pledged to ban “white nationalism” and white separatism from the platform nearly two weeks ago.
The social media platform’s representatives are also set to testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday about how to address “white nationalism” and extremism on the site following the New Zealand terror attack that streamed live on Facebook.
Last week, Huffington Post bragged about sending a Faith Goldy video to a Facebook spokesperson in an attempt to get her banned, but the spokesperson said it did not violate the site’s rules.
Goldy was also banned from using the popular Airbnb app last week after the company said she violated their terms of service despite failing to explain how.
In a response video posted to Twitter, Goldy suggested she’d fight harder than ever before and plugged her website faithgoldy.com as a place to find her content amid massive censorship.
B O O K M A R K👇🏻https://t.co/frdHo4TgDf pic.twitter.com/vwCsEulYNu
— Faith J Goldy (@FaithGoldy) April 8, 2019
Faith Goldy joins a long list of conservatives who have been targeted by social media giants, including Alex Jones who has been kicked off every major platform.
Goldy has been a guest on The Alex Jones show several times; watch the two in a recent interview below:
Source: InfoWars
Actress Allison Mack departs the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse after facing charges regarding sex trafficking and racketeering related to the Nxivm cult case in New York, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
April 8, 2019
By Brendan Pierson
NEW YORK (Reuters) – “Smallville” actress Allison Mack on Monday pleaded guilty to blackmailing two women as part of an alleged New York sex cult that prosecutors called a racketeering operation that carried out sex trafficking and other crimes.
Mack, 36, entered her plea to racketeering and conspiracy charges before U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn federal court, admitting that she coerced the two unnamed women unto performing services by threatening to release damaging information about them.
Fighting back tears, Mack said she had joined the organization, led by self-described spiritual guide Keith Raniere, a decade ago to find purpose in life.
“Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people,” she said. “I was wrong. I now realize that I and others engaged in criminal conduct.”
There was no mention at the plea hearing of any agreement by Mack to cooperate with prosecutors against Raniere, who is expected to go on trial later this month. Her lawyers declined to provide any further details about her plea deal.
Raniere, 58, was arrested on sex trafficking charges in March 2018, and is being held without bail. Mack was arrested the following month.
Prosecutors accused Raniere of running a cult-like secret society within his organization, Nxivm (pronounced “Nexium”), in which women were branded with his initials, put on extremely restrictive diets and forced to have sex with him.
Last month, prosecutors unsealed new charges accusing Raniere of sexually exploiting a minor and coercing her to produce child pornography.
Raniere has pleaded not guilty. Marc Agnifilo, one of his lawyers, declined to comment on the case after Monday’s hearing. Agnifilo has previously said that his client’s sexual encounters with women in the organization were consensual, and denied the child pornography charges.
Nxivm on its website calls itself “a community guided by humanitarian principles that seek to empower people and answer important questions about what it means to be human.”
“Smallville,” a television series that ran from 2001 to 2011, featured a young Clark Kent before he became famous as Superman. Mack played Chloe Sullivan, a close friend of the future Superman whose romantic feelings were not reciprocated.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Source: OANN
MAGA One Radio