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© Reuters / Carlo Allegri
Fully one third of American small business owners were unable to pay rent for January, according to the survey published on Wednesday by Alignable showing the devastating economic impact of Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns has yet to be fully realized.
The financial strife wasn't evenly distributed - almost half of minority small business owners were unable to pay, and 35 percent of women small business owners couldn't make ends meet.
Worst hit among the 10 sectors tracked by the survey were restaurants and bars - a whopping 57 percent of which failed to make rent for January. Yoga studios, retail stores, massage and beauty salons, and gyms were among the other markets most severely hit. The economic fallout has broadened significantly since November, when only beauty salons, restaurants and bars had a rent delinquency rate of over 40 percent.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said she wasn't dismissing Parler's "substantive underlying claims" against Amazon, but said it had fallen short in demonstrating the need for an injunction forcing it back online.
Amazon kicked Parler off its web-hosting service on Jan. 11. In court filings, it said the suspension was a "last resort" to block Parler from harboring violent plans to disrupt the presidential transition.
The Seattle tech giant said Parler had shown an "unwillingness and inability" to remove a slew of dangerous posts that called for the rape, torture and assassination of politicians, tech executives and many others.
Comment: See also:
- Whose fault is that? Establishment cyber-police drive Parler off the internet, act surprised when it works with THE RUSSIANS
- Parler CEO 'confident' platform will return by month's end after weekend of positive developments
- Parler said Amazon shut its service down to prevent Trump from joining
- How Silicon Valley, in a show of monopolistic force, destroyed Parler
The investigation is rather narrowly focused on the way algorithms employed by Google, Facebook and Amazon work, and the way they may influence - or, as the announcement put it, "potentially manipulate" - the way people shop, work, live, and even think, in terms of current events.
The controversy is old news to those who've been paying attention to it - for example, it's been a good while since anybody's seen organically ranked, instead of algorithmically sorted and personally-targeted search results in Google. But it's now coming to the fore in a series of regulatory initiatives in different countries, likely spooked by the sheer amount of unaccountable power these giants obviously wield even in their country of origin.
The UK investigation will look into different ways these companies potentially manipulate the lives of UK residents: Google and Facebook, for instance, are suspected of rigging their feeds in a way that determines what news their users see.
© thehungergames.fandom.com / screenshot; Reuters / Kevin Lamarque(L) A replica Mockingjay pin; (R) Lady Gaga sings the national anthem during the inauguration of Joe Biden in Washington, DC, January 20, 2021.
While pop star Lady Gaga helped to kick off Biden's swearing-in on Wednesday afternoon with a performance of the national anthem, observers appeared more enthralled with her oversized broach. Netizens immediately likened the pin to the iconic 'Mockingjay' of Hunger Games fame - the symbol of the film's fictitious rebellion against the despotic 'Capitol.'
Comment: Many viewers noted the creepy parallel:
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in a federal court in California, related to the case of a 17-year-old from Florida, only identified as John Doe, who when he was between 13 and 14, had sexual images and videos of him widely distributed on Twitter. Sex traffickers posing as a 16-year-old female classmate blackmailed him to share nude content.
After initially exchanging nude content, the victim was then forced to share more, otherwise the material would be shared with his "parents, coach, pastor," and others, the traffickers threatened. Doe first complied under duress, the lawsuit notes, but then managed to block the traffickers. However, at some point in 2019, the child porn was then shared to Twitter from two accounts that were known to share this material.
Military rolls out in Washington for Biden's inauguration
Question: does anyone with a media job find this situation to be worthy of some further inquiry? Or in other words, worthy of questioning the premise of why such an extravagantly intensive military presence is allegedly necessary? Is it proportionate to the scale of the purported threat? Has the nature of the threat itself — whatever that might be, exactly — been adequately probed to determine whether it is grounded in reality? Already a bunch of purported threats initially trumpeted across the media with the usual five-alarm-five hysteria have dissipated in short order, so there is perhaps some reason for doubt in that regard.
Comment:
- National Guard to deploy 'at least' 10,000 troops to DC ahead of inauguration
- Banana republic: Biden has maybe 2,000 attendees at 'inauguration' — and 25,000 military
- As thousands of soldiers pour into US Capitol for Biden's inauguration, Congress orders military to vet them for 'Trump terrorist sympathies'
- Newsreal #33: Strange Days in DC - Military Checkpoints as US Capital Awaits 'Virtual Inauguration'
© Washington Post/John StrandDoctor Simone Gold
Dr. Gold was present with her megaphone to deliver a speech about the dangers and ineffectiveness of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines, urging listeners to instead take advantage of safe, effective and inexpensive remedies like hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
Believing the Capitol to have been open to the public, she says, Dr. Gold, who runs a clinic in Los Angeles, entered the building and stayed neatly within the velvet ropes of the rotunda as she warned those around her not to fall for the Chinese virus vaccine hoax.
Because she was merely seen at the so-called "insurrection," Dr. Gold is being treated like a "domestic terrorist." Two others who were with her, 52-year-old Gina Bisignano and 37-year-old John Strand, are also facing charges simply because of their presence at Donald Trump's Stop the Steal rally.
© AP Photo/Dallas Morning News/Jae S. LeeIn this Friday, Feb. 16, 2018 photo, Euless Trinity’s Mack Beggs, top, wrestles Lewisville’s Elyse Nelson in the second round of the 110-pound girls division during the 6A Region II wrestling meet at Allen High School in Allen, Texas.
Biden also reinstated the rule allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their "gender identity."
In other words, a biological male can now waltz into a bathroom and locker room to watch your teenage daughter change into gym clothes.
Any learning institution that receives federal funding must admit biological males to women's teams, women's scholarships etc.
Comment: So Biden has overruled the will of individual states. Not a dictator though.
- Idaho passes law banning biological men from competing in women's sports
- Common Sense: South Dakota to consider bill banning Transgender students from competing against opposite biological sex
- University North Carolina refuses to comply with transgender 'bathroom law'
- Don Jr. warns transgender athletes 'will destroy women's sports'
- Male-to-female transgender weightlifter wins silver in women's competition
- USA Powerlifting bans trans women from competing as women
- Correction to Transgender Lunacy: DOJ says allowing males to compete in female sports'fundamentally unfair to female athletes'
© Reuters/Mark Blinch/Jonathan Ernst/Monica AlmeidaMichael Moore • Former President Donald Trump • Sacha Baron Cohen
Trump Derangement Syndrome is going nowhere. If you find yourself hoping Joe Biden's presidency means we can, for better or worse, turn the page on the four years Trump occupied the White House, then you are an optimist whose blinkers are screwed on so tight that oxygen is being cut off from your brain.
Watching the reactions to Biden's inauguration and Trump's final hours as president, one would assume the election results were flipped and we were headed into another four years of Trump. CNN's coverage of Trump's final speech as president included anchors blasting him as "small" and obsessing over crowd sizes, the sort of lame-brained analysis that's been signature to the network's brand for years now.
Looking to Trump's loudest critics and Biden's biggest supporters in Hollywood also paints a picture that, culturally speaking, the next four years will look exactly like the last four: Trump and anyone deemed supportive of him are the boogeymen of the world.
Comment: Biden's call for unity? Look at the tweets. A national storm is brewing and rapidly, rabidly gathering momentum.
Comment: See also: