PB>>16945063 Baker, this post was in prior bread, I'm nominating it asUltra Notable(all anons should read it)

Court Rejects Google's Attempt To Dismiss Rumble's Antitrust Lawsuit, Ensuring Vast Discovery

Jul 30, 2022 - 02:30 PM Authored by Glenn Greenwald

A federal district court in California on Friday denied Google's motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Silicon Valley giant is violating federal antitrust laws by preventing fair competition against its YouTube video platform. The lawsuit against the search engine giant, which has owned YouTube since its 2006 purchase for $1.65 billion, was brought in early 2021 by Rumble, the free speech competitor to YouTube. Its central claim is that Google's abuse of its monopolistic stranglehold on search engines to destroy all competitors to its various other platforms is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which makes it unlawful to “monopolize, or attempt to monopolize…any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations.”

It is rare for antitrust suits against the four Big Tech corporate giants (Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon) to avoid early motions to dismiss. Friday's decision against Google ensures that the suit now proceeds to the discovery stage, where Rumble will have the right to obtain from Google a broad and sweeping range of information about its practices, including internal documents on Google's algorithmic manipulation of its search engine and the onerous requirements it imposes on companies dependent upon its infrastructure to all but force customers to use YouTube.

Founded in 2013, Rumble began experiencing explosive growth in the run-up to the 2020 election. Rumble's user growth, driven overwhelmingly by growing anger toward Big Tech censorship and de-platforming, has continued to swell this year. As Investor Place's Ian Cooper wrote in April, “its user base hit a new record of 41 million monthly active users in the first quarter of 2022. That is 22% growth quarter-over-quarter.” Moreover, “Rumble is setting user engagement records. In the first quarter of 2022, Rumble users watched about 10.5 billion minutes per month.”

Rumble has grown from 1 million active users last summer to roughly 30 million, said the site’s chief executive Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian tech entrepreneur. And its traffic has exploded: According to data shared with The Washington Post by the analytics firm Similarweb, visits in the United States to the site grew from about 200,000 in the last week of July 2020 to nearly 19 million last week — a 9,000 percent increase.

The lawsuit brought by Rumble against Google is designed to ensure free and fair competition, so that the public is not effectively forced to use YouTube but can instead fairly choose among Google's competitors as well. The primary allegation is that Google abuses its power as the dominant search engine and destroys free competition for online video platforms by manipulating its algorithms to prevent YouTube's competitors, including Rumble, from being found by the public.

Attempts to find Rumble videos through Google searches are purposely thwarted by burying Rumble's videos and instead redirecting the user to YouTube, the lawsuit alleges. Google's “chokehold on search is impenetrable, and that chokehold allows it to continue unfairly and unlawfully to self-preference YouTube over its rivals, including Rumble, and to monopolize the online video platform market.”

Further illegal monopolistic acts alleged by the complaint include Google's manufacturing of its Android phones with a pre-installed YouTube app as the default video setting, and imposing agreements on other Android-based mobile smart device manufacturers to pre-install YouTube, place it in the most prominent position, and prevent users from deleting it. The court summarized the alleged anti-competitive results of Google's behavior this way (citations omitted):

[Google] “requires Android device manufacturers that want to preinstall certain of Google’s proprietary apps to sign an anti-forking agreement.” [Rumble] alleges that once an Android device manufacturer signs an anti-forking agreement, Google will only provide access to its vital proprietary apps and application program interfaces if the manufacturer agrees: “(1) to take (that is, pre-install) a bundle of other Google apps (such as its YouTube app);…

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/court-rejects-googles-attempt-dismiss-rumbles-antitrust-lawsuit-ensuring-vast-discovery

>>16945543

Antitrust 101: Why everyone is probing Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google

Being the biggest player isn't illegal—but cheating to stay that way sure is.

Kate Cox - 11/5/2019, 7:00 AM

Once upon a time, there was a phone company—or rather, the phone company. AT&T Corp., the venerable "Ma Bell," provided nearly all telephone service to nearly all Americans for decades… until it didn't. The company infamously broke up on New Year's Day in 1984, splitting into the seven "Baby Bells," regional carriers that could compete with other long-distance providers for consumer dollars.

The split wasn't just for funsies. The baby Bells were the ultimate result of a settlement between AT&T and the Justice Department, the culmination of an antitrust case that began nearly a decade earlier. It was the first time the feds broke up a communications company for antitrust reasons—and 35 years later, it retains the dubious distinction of being the last.

The decades of deregulation since the Reagan administration have brought us to a whole new era of massive corporate consolidation and the rise of a new wave of conglomerates in sectors that didn't even exist 40 years ago. The growth at the top in tech has been particularly stratospheric: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and a handful of others that have risen since the turn of the century now dominate our economy and our communications in a powerful way.

Justice Department launches antitrust probe into big tech

Critics from all sides, however, now consider today's tech titans to be too powerful, and all four companies have in recent years faced several investigations probing a central issue: antitrust law. Dozens of probes are going on right now under the auspices of dozens of state, federal, and international bodies using dozens of state, federal, and international statutes. What all of these antitrust laws have in common at their core, though, is the concept of playing fair—especially when it comes to the biggest player in the room.

Antitrust 101: More than monopolies

The newest antitrust law on the books in the United States dates to the 1970s; the oldest comes from more than a century ago, passed in response to the behavior of the railroad, steel, and oil magnates of the first Gilded Age.

The Sherman Act of 1890 was short and sweet, as far as laws go. It declared contracts, corporate trusts, or conspiracies "in the restraint of trade or commerce" between states or nations to be illegal. The Act also outlawed monopolies: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony."

Most of the juicy stuff in modern antitrust, however, comes from the 20th century. The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 established the FTC, with the explicit mandate not only to protect consumers from "unfair or deceptive" acts, but also to "prevent unfair methods of competition" that affect commerce. Those "unfair methods" were outlined in a companion piece of law: the Clayton Antitrust Act, also signed into law in 1914, which significantly refined and strengthened the Sherman Act….

So to imagine just one future from these four Big Tech antitrust initiatives, take Facebook. WhatsApp and Instagram each boast more than a billion users. If Facebook were somehow forced to divest both companies tomorrow, the businesses might stand alone for a time. Or, more likely, they might go to other deep-pocketed buyers—buyers that, themselves, would then be subject to the tug and spin of shareholders and economic forces, and the platforms might eventually start gravitating toward each other all over again until they inevitably collide.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/antitrust-101-why-everyone-is-probing-amazon-apple-facebook-and-google/

Sunday Talks, Fed Chief Kashkari Says High Inflation Spreading More Broadly Throughout Entire Economy

July 31, 2022 | Sundance

The pretending from the federal reserve chairs continues. In this interview, Neel Kashkari, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says “we keep getting surprised” by data on inflation, which continues to be “higher than we expect, across the broad range of the economy.” Yet, notice that Kashkari refuses to outline the single cause of the broad inflation is the intentional lack of energy production. [Transcript]

Kashkari continues the selling point that demand side inflation is being targeted because demand still exceeds supply. That’s essentially true, however, it is the supply of energy that is fundamentally disrupted by Joe Biden energy policy. It is not consumer demand for goods and services, it is the structural need for consumers to have consistent, affordable energy resources.

The collapse of energy production from domestic coal, oil and gas development is the problem. Everything else is ancillary to the origination problem. However, in order to support the climate agenda, the Federal Reserve must pretend not to know this. WATCH:

Kashkari notes a serious problem can arise when wage inflation starts to catch up with inflation overall. THAT just happened last month. The combination of wage inflation to match the high consumer inflation then drives an even higher cost for goods and services.This is the inflation storm that leads to hyper-inflation, structurally high inflation that cannot be controlledby any monetary measure, and unfortunately, we just entered the first outer bands of this inflation hurricane last month.

A personal sidenote: when we were going through the pandemic crisis and response in 2020/2021, CTH took heat for saying the real objective at the end of the pandemic path was the global climate change agenda. Well, here we are.At the end of this climate change path is full control over human activity using digital currency. Hunger games.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/07/31/sunday-talks-fed-chief-kashkari-says-high-inflation-spreading-more-broadly-throughout-entire-economy/#more-235920

Sunday Talks, Senator Manchin Says His Energy Deal Will Bring Windmills to West Virginia Faster, With Batteries Made in Mexico and Canada

July 31, 2022 | Sundance

In a remarkable interview attempting to justify his agreement with the senate Build Back Better climate change bill (fraudulently labeled ‘inflation reduction act’), West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin says the massive energy spending and tax bill will bring green renewable energy much quicker. In essence, the windmills and solar panels for West Virginia will arrive faster now, and that will improve energy production. [Transcript Here]

When discussing the new energy origination provisions, Senator Manchin catches himself mid-sentence saying, “the battery better be made in America.” He quickly corrected himself knowing the claim was false and followed up with, “better be sourced in North America, it better be processed,” because he is well aware the largest employment and investment beneficiaries for his deal will be Mexico and Canada, not American workers. WATCH:

♦ BRASS TACKS – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was gleeful last week promoting Manchin’s new green energy proposal because, with steel and aluminum tariffs removed, Canada will be one the biggest beneficiaries of $370 billion congressional spending package. Canada has no heavy industry left, they are the assembly economy for foreign manufacturing that uses loopholes, and the senate bill creates a USMCA loophole for this exact purpose.

The West Virginia windmills and solar panels will be shipped as raw materials from China and the EU into Canada. Canada will assemble the parts and ship the finished goods into the United States for placement by illegal alien workers employed by the contractors. The batteries to store the solar and windmill power will come from Mexico, after they receive the raw materials from Africa and Asia.

Canadian workers, Mexican workers, Chinese Workers, African workers and ASEAN workers will all benefit from the generous Joe Manchin spending package.

Unemployed West Virginia coal miners will watch Joe Manchin run for office in 2024 on Japanese televisions powered by China, while eating cheese puff flavored cricket snacks sourced from Canada.

Brilliant plan, Joe.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/07/31/sunday-talks-senator-manchin-says-his-energy-deal-will-bring-windmills-to-west-virginia-faster-with-batteries-made-in-mexico-and-canada/#more-235914

Manchin betrayed every man women and child in West Virginia, time to primary his ass. His state is not interested in green energy bullshit

(Full of Shit and Fear Porn) Dr. Scott Gottlieb Warns Monkeypox Could Be USA’s Next Public Health Failure

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under President Donald Trump, warns the spread of monkeypox could become the United States’ next public health failure.

“Now if monkeypox gains a permanent foothold in the United States and becomes an endemic virus that joins our circulating repertoire of pathogens, it will be one of the worst public health failures in modern times not only because of the pain and peril of the disease but also because it was so avoidable,” Gottlieb wrote in a recent opinion-editorial for the New York Times. “Our lapses extend beyond political decision making to the agencies tasked with protecting us from these threats.”

Gottlieb, who now serves on Pfizer’s Board of Directors and is a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, also judged that the U.S. government’s missteps in tackling monkeypox are similar to its failures to combat the coronavirus.

“Our country’s response to monkeypox has been plagued by the same shortcomings we had with Covid-19,” Gottlieb wrote.

“With COVID, the virus gained ground quickly. With monkeypox, which spreads more slowly, typically through very close contact, the shortcomings of CDC’s cultural approach haven’t been as acute yet. But the shortfalls are the same,” he added.

According to data published by the CDC, the U.S. has roughly 5,200 monkeypox cases.

UPI reports:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is designating monkeypox — an infectious viral disease that’s been showing up around the world recently — as a nationally notifiable condition on Monday.

The designation means that states are now required to report all confirmed and suspected monkeypox cases to the agency within 24 hours of discovery. States must also share surveillance data such as case numbers.

[…]

Monkeypox infection generally includes flu-like symptoms and swollen lymph nodes followed by a blister- or pimple-like rash appearing on the skin. It commonly spreads through direct contact with an infectious rash, scabs or bodily fluid or touching items that have previously touched a rash or fluid.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared monkeypox a global health emergency on July 23rd. In recent days, New York City and San Francisco declared a public health emergency over monkeypox, which is allow for the cities to obtain additional resources to combat the viral disease.

“We are continuing to see the numbers rise,” New York City Eric Mayor Adams stated. “This order will bolster our existing efforts to educate, vaccinate, test, and treat as many New Yorkers as possible and ensure a whole-of-government response to this outbreak.”

On Monday, CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen urged the Biden administration to “declare a state of emergency” due to the outbreak.

“I do think it’s time for the U.S. to declare a state of emergency […] because that will allow for a much better-coordinated response,” Wen said. “It will allow the Biden administration to appoint a monkeypox czar to oversee these efforts. It will also allow for more resources to be put into this as well. I hope that the window hasn’t closed. I think that there is still an opportunity just to underscore why this is the case. Monkeypox may not be as fatal as a lot of other illnesses, but we don’t want another disease that we have to worry about in perpetuity if it takes hold here.”

https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/08/01/dr-scott-gottlieb-warns-monkeypox-could-be-usas-next-public-health-failure/

Shut to Fuck Up Gottlieb

Ron DeSantis: ‘Florida Has Put WOKE Banking on Notice’

Florida has “put woke banking on notice,” Sunshine State Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Monday after announcing success against PayPal, which reportedly froze Moms for Liberty’s assets.

“Last week Tina Descovich, Co-Founder of @Moms4Liberty, shared thatPayPal locked their account and withheld funds with no warning or justification,” DeSantis explained on Monday following last week’s press conference, where Descovich spoke.

“In a day and age of canceled culture, where parental-rights groups are being designated as domestic terrorists by our own United States Department of Justice, the cancellation of our financing by major organizations just seems like the next step in these draconian policies,” she said at the time.

“Days after our event, their funds were released,” DeSantis announced on Monday, declaring that “Florida has put WOKE banking on notice”:

Last week Tina Descovich, Co-Founder of @Moms4Liberty, shared that PayPal locked their account and withheld funds with no warning or justification.

Days after our event, their funds were released.

Florida has put WOKE banking on notice. pic.twitter.com/p2e9yisC4V

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) August 1, 2022

DeSantis’s announcement follows last week’s press conference, in which he detailed additional actions his administration plans to take to combat corporations imposing “woke ideology on the economy.”

“Whether it’s Wall Street Banks, whether it’s massive major asset managers, whether it’s Big Tech companies and what you’ve seen as you’ve seen a rise of something called ESG — environment, social governance where they will grade different companies based on how they’re performing on those metrics,” DeSantis said during the press conference.

PayPal happens to be among companies embracing that, promoting what has been described as a “values-led culture, which is grounded in Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration and Wellness across our communities, workforce and strategies.”

The problem, however, is corporations imposing their political beliefs on individuals.

“This is an important issue because it raises the question of, you know, who governs society? Do we govern ourselves through our Constitution and through our elections or do we have these masters of the universe occupying these commanding heights of society?” DeSantis asked:

As a result, DeSantis said they are taking administrative action, as well as pursue statutory reforms “so that we’re putting the people of Florida first and we’re going to do what’s in their best interest, not whatever the delusions of some wealthy woke CEO wants to do.”

One of the actions will be prohibiting the State Board of Administration fund manager from “using political factors when investing the state’s money.”…

“We also are going to require SBA fund managers to only to only consider maximizing the return on investment on behalf of Florida’s retirees,” he said, explaining that they are also going to “prohibit Wall Street banks, credit card companies and money transmitters like Paypal from discriminating against customers for their religious, political or social beliefs.”

“This is not something that is empowering kind of the little guy,” the governor said of the current state of affairs.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/01/ron-desantis-florida-has-put-woke-banking-on-notice/

>>16945798

the creativity here is marvelous and almost unbelievable. Thx anon, taking that

>>16945225

personally I think POTUS told them he wouldn't come on again, that's more Trump's style, Hannity was rude as hell with him the last time