The following is satirical.
It was a dramatic first day of impeachment hearings watched by everyone who wasn’t otherwise busy picking their noses or bleaching their unmentionable parts.
Eager to get off to a powerful start that would bring forward their best anti-Trump testimony, Democrats introduced their star witness, Alexa, the electronic information assistant from Amazon.
Committee Chairman Adam “Googly-eyes” Schiff, started the questioning, saying, “Alexa, did the president demand a quid pro quo from Ukraine?”
Alexa answered, “A man passing the White House Tuesday overheard a guard in the sidewalk booth speaking on the phone to his mother and saying he had met a janitor who said he was cleaning an office in the West Wing when he saw an assistant to an aide in the press department texting a disgruntled former employee of the State Department who said he was willing to bet that old meanie Trump would do anything to bring down Joe Biden who will be a terrific threat to him in the 2020 election if he can ever complete an English sentence without his teeth falling out and his eye exploding. That text was recorded by Facebook who is spying on everyone and recorded by myself who’s spying on Facebook, which is how I know Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
On hearing the news, CBS anchorwoman Norah O’Donnell immediately assumed a fake-looking action pose and announced the testimony had been “a devastating bombshell that would have been the last nail in the coffin if it hadn’t been so explosive it blew the lid off the coffin causing the walls to close in at the beginning of the end of a tipping point of a coffin bombshell exploding in the devastating closing walls.”
After that, O’Donnell fell to the studio floor sobbing, “I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. Please someone help me.”
Testimony will continue Friday and Democrats say they hope they can tell a powerful and simple story preferably ending with a kiss under the Christmas tree because those stories are just the best.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-ratcliffe-to-impeachment-witness-here-are-all-the-times-ukraines-president-said-there-was-no-quid-pro-quo">WATCH: Impeachment Witness Asked About All The Times Ukraine’s President Said There Was ‘No Quid Pro Quo’</a>

Amazon Alexa

Democrat Star Witness Alexa Testifies In Human-Sounding Voice [Satire]

Amazon

Impeachment

On Thursday, Amazon was slammed for promoting a children&#8217;s T-shirt emblazoned “Daddy&#8217;s Little Sl**.” Although the T-shirt was removed from Amazon’s site, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7665695/Amazon-accused-promoting-pedophilia-selling-Daddys-Little-S-t-clothes.html">The Daily Mail</a> reported on Friday that Amazon still offered other clothing items for babies and toddlers with the same phrase.
The T-shirts were sold by Onlybabycare for $18 apiece, according to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/amazon-tshirt-daddys-little-slut-tshirt-only-babycare-a9194486.html">The Independent</a>. The Independent added, &#8220;The product description read that the top was &#8216;suitable&#8217; for various occasions, including &#8216;playing outside, birthday party, baby shower, baptism, wedding, baby photography, daily wear, family day.&#8217; It added that the T-shirt was unisex and suitable for &#8216;little girls or boys.&#8217;”
On Wednesday, journalist Yashar Ali noted the Amazon site and tweeted, “1. Available for sale on @amazon: &#8220;Daddy’s Little Sl*t&#8221; t-shirt&#8230;for children Posting here in hopes it’ll expedite removal from Amazon.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
1. Available for sale on <a href="https://twitter.com/amazon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@amazon</a>: “Daddy’s Little Slut” t-shirt&#8230;for children 
Posting here in hopes it’ll expedite removal from Amazon <a href="https://t.co/KXi2e6lwNu">https://t.co/KXi2e6lwNu</a> <a href="https://t.co/uuUtQ3DRC5">pic.twitter.com/uuUtQ3DRC5</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1192677497160306688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Daily Mail noted that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=LINGMEI+Daddy%27s+little+slut&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss">LINGMEI still offered</a> items that read “Spank me, Daddy.”
On Friday, Ali updated the issue:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
2. It’s been taken down <a href="https://t.co/qls1mQgAld">pic.twitter.com/qls1mQgAld</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1192839430719115264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The New York Post wrote, “Under <a href="https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/help.html?itemID=200164670&amp;language=en-US&amp;ref=efph_200164670_cont_200164330">Amazon’s selling guidelines</a>, products ‘intended for use by children that contains adult content, profanity and/or sexual references,’ or are ‘marketed to or targeted at kids or teenagers that are age-inappropriate’ are not allowed. However, the ‘Daddy’s little sl**’ tee is only the tip of the iceberg of shirts that many would deem inappropriate for kids — despite the product being modeled by children and a description that says it’s suitable for them.”
<a href="https://www.complex.com/life/2019/11/amazon-removes-childrens-daddys-little-slut-t-shirt-from-website">Complex.com</a> added, “This isn&#8217;t the first time Amazon has been forced to remove an offensive product from its platform. The company has pulled <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/03/635221620/amazon-removes-some-racist-items-from-its-site-after-criticism-but-many-remain">Nazi propaganda items</a>, door- and toilet mats that featured Quran verses, and <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/03/27/pedophile-baby-jumpsuits-pulled-from-amazon-amid-outrage/">baby onesie</a> that were criticized for promoting pedophilia.”
Last March, Amazon pulled baby jumpsuits labeled “daddy’s little f*** toy.” Professor Marci Hamilton of the child advocacy think tank Child USA told <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8718218/amazon-pro-paedophile-baby-business/">The Sun</a>, “It is shocking, and I’m surprised it is there in the first place. It has a way of normalizing the activity [child sex abuse] which is extremely dangerous to children. It is the first time we have seen such wording aimed at pedophiles on clothing for babies. [Amazon] should have much better controls over products for children generally.”
A letter <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/pessimism-about-pedophilia">published by the Harvard Medical</a> School in 2010 asserted there is no cure for pedophilia. It stated:
<blockquote>There is no cure, so the focus is on protecting children. Pedophilia, the sexual attraction to children who have not yet reached puberty, remains a vexing challenge for clinicians and public officials. Classified as a paraphilia, an abnormal sexual behavior, researchers have found no effective treatment. Like other sexual orientations, pedophilia is unlikely to change. The goal of treatment, therefore, is to prevent someone from acting on pedophile urges — either by decreasing sexual arousal around children or increasing the ability to manage that arousal. But neither is as effective for reducing harm as preventing access to children, or providing close supervision.</blockquote>
It concluded, “Until we know more, parents and others who want to protect children from pedophiles are best advised to watch for the subtle stalking behaviors that may precede physical contact — and to remember that most sex offenders of any type approach children they know.”

FRANCE-US-ECONOMY-TECHNOLOGY-AMAZON

Amazon Slammed For Promoting Children’s T-Shirts Reading ‘Daddy&#8217;s Little Sl**’

On Wednesday, the &#8220;Internet Accountability Project,&#8221; a nonprofit taking aim at the &#8220;bad acts&#8221; of Big Tech, officially launched.
&#8220;Our Mission,&#8221; the organization&#8217;s <a href="https://www.theiap.org/">site</a> reads, &#8220;is to lend a conservative voice to the calls for federal and state governments to rein in Big Tech before it is too late.&#8221;
With rising anxieties about tech industry giants like Google and Facebook violating privacy standards and engaging in documented cases of bias against conservatives, the nonprofit seeks to hold such companies accountable.
&#8220;We are conservatives who are alarmed by the role Big Tech plays in our society. We are concerned by the political and economic harms Big Tech platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon are inflicting on Americans,&#8221; IAP says. &#8220;These harms include negative content, conservative bias, privacy violations, anticompetitive conduct, and employee abuses. We formed Internet Accountability Project in order to speak out against Big Tech before it is too late.&#8221;
The advocacy group is headed by heavy-hitting conservative players Mike Davis and Rachel Bovard. Leading the charge, Davis, as previously outlined by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47431/article-iii-project-launches-promising-pro-trump-josh-hammer">The Daily Wire</a>, is the founder of judicial advocacy group <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47431/article-iii-project-launches-promising-pro-trump-josh-hammer">A3P</a>; he <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrdavis/">clerked</a> for Neil Gorsuch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court and recently served as chief nominations counsel to former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) during the bitter confirmation hearings of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Bovard, who serves as IAP&#8217;s senior advisor, is no slouch, either. The 35-year-old already has over a decade of experience fighting for conservative policy in Washington under her belt. She was named one of National Journal&#8217;s Most Influential Women in Washington under 35 in 2013 and has served in both the House and Senate in various roles, including legislative director for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
&#8220;We just launched the Internet Accountability Project today, and we are blown away by the overwhelming support we are receiving, especially among conservatives,&#8221; Davis told The Daily Wire on Wednesday. &#8220;We represent hardworking Americans who are fed up with the Big Tech bullies — like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter — and their &#8216;bad acts,&#8217; including profiting from human-sex trafficking, revenge-porn, the opioid epidemic and drug addiction, terrorism, and other forms of human misery, along with engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses, and anticompetitive conduct.&#8221;
In a press release sent to The Daily Wire, Davis further blasted Big Tech. &#8220;Enough is enough,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s time to re-boot Big Tech, upgrade and reformat the sweetheart laws that protect them, and enforce the antitrust, consumer-and employee-protection, and similar laws already on the books.&#8221;
&#8220;We are pleased that 50 state attorneys general, along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, have taken the bold and courageous steps of investigating Big Tech&#8217;s &#8216;bad acts,&#8217; and we will support other government officials in their efforts to investigate and hold Big Tech accountable,&#8221; he added.
Bovard stressed to The Daily Wire that there must be accountability, and soon.
&#8220;When it comes to Big Tech, we are currently dealing with huge and unaccountable corporations, awash in billions of dollars, who own the private data of hundreds of millions of Americans, and control our cultural and political conversation in unprecedented ways,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Our public policy has simply not kept pace with where we now find ourselves. The ability to have an honest conversation about what Big Tech is doing to our cultural development, our ability to engage with one another, as well as its impact on the next generation, is well within the domain of policy makers. We are excited to work toward facilitating this necessary conversation.&#8221;
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Bovard emphasized that it&#8217;s &#8220;critical to protect innovation and ingenuity in the tech space, but to do so mindfully.&#8221;
&#8220;Big Tech should not be allowed to become the arbiters of communication in America without input from citizens and policy makers,&#8221; the statement reads. &#8220;It is important for those on the Right to begin discussing whether our public policy has kept pace with Big Tech, who now owns our data, much of our privacy, and in many cases, is pulling the levers of our political communication. IAP is here to help facilitate that conversation.&#8221;
In June, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48899/watch-trump-slams-tech-giants-bias-censorship-hank-berrien">accused</a> social media giants like Google and Twitter of attempting to &#8220;rig&#8221; the 2016 presidential election and suggested the companies be sued.
&#8220;I tell you what, they should be sued, because what&#8217;s happening with the bias — and now you see it, with that executive yesterday from Google, the hatred for the Republicans. It&#8217;s not even like, &#8216;Gee, let&#8217;s lean Democrat.&#8217; The hatred! And actually, you know, I heard that all during my election. It&#8217;s hard that I won. They were swamping us with negative stuff,&#8221; the president posted to Twitter.
As reported by The Daily Wire, Attorney General William Barr spearheaded probing efforts into such big tech platforms for potential antitrust violations about a month later.
&#8220;Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands. The department&#8217;s antitrust review will explore these important issues,&#8221; Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said at the time.
According to a press release from the IAP, initial conservative partners active in the group&#8217;s fight against Big Tech include Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), Human Events, and Publius Lex, which is led by attorney Harmeet Dhillon. &#8220;IAP&#8217;s team also includes top surrogates who have served in the White House, Justice Department, Congress, and conservative movement,&#8221; the release noted.

Google

Conservative Heavy Hitters Launch Nonprofit Taking Aim At Big Tech

Facebook

Twitter

Would you pay for the experience of interviewing for a job that doesn’t exist? It appears some may, and such an experience can be yours for about $4,600.
Airbnb now offers “experiences,” where visitors can pay a local for “an activity that goes beyond the typical tour or class, designed and led by locals all over the world,” according to the website. Examples include a farm stay in Indiana Amish country and a “Galapagos safari,” where tourists can visit multiple islands and enjoy local food.
In Seattle, former Amazon executive Nick Dimitrov offers his own one-of-a-kind experience: <a href="https://www.airbnb.co.uk/experiences/277118?irgwc=1&amp;irclid=zAgWRcT9uxyJWYpwUx0Mo38zUklVNNQxyQbE0Q0&amp;ircid=4560&amp;c=Skimbit%2C%20Ltd._290446_&amp;sharedid=&amp;af=126295512">a mock Amazon interview</a>.
Dimitrov’s bio on the listing states that he co-founded Amazon Game Studios in 2013 and that since then, Amazon has “acquired [streaming platform] Twitch and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in gaming.”
“I was also an Amazon Bar Raiser with 350+ interviews. Bar Raisers are esteemed Amazonians who determine whether the company should hire a job candidate or not,” the bio continues. “Lastly, I was a New-hire Orientation Host who inculcates new hires in the Amazon culture, during their first day on the job.”
Dimitrov recommends taking a separate experience, the “Prepare For The Amazon.com Interview” experience before they take the “Simulate The Amazon.com Interview Loop.”
The <a href="https://www.airbnb.co.uk/experiences/241942?irgwc=1&amp;irclid=zAgWRcT9uxyJWYpwUx0Mo38zUklVNY1VyQbE0Q0&amp;ircid=4560&amp;c=Skimbit%2C%20Ltd._290446_&amp;sharedid=&amp;af=126295512">preparation experience</a> costs about $800 for eight hours worth of preparation, but “availability for this experience is rare,” according to the Airbnb listing.
The actual “experience” lasts five hours and includes an “interview with former Amazon employees, matched to the candidate’s job level and function.” After the interview, “candidates” are able to watch the interviewers “deliberate and decide whether to ‘hire’ the candidate based on Amazon’s Leadership Principles and functional competencies.”
Candidates whom the interviewers decide not to “hire” are given instruction on how to improve their interview in order to get hired.
Prospective interviewees are asked to complete the “Inside Amazon’s Interview: Workshop” experience before the mock-interview experience. Interviewees are also told to bring a laptop or tablet and to “Write out your top 20 achievements (preferably in the SOAR framework)” and “Choose at least two live Amazon job reqs that you’re interested in” prior to the experience.
Just one person has left a review for the experience. “Seth” gave the mock interview five stars and called the experience “intense” in June 2018.
“I had chosen to ‘interview’ for an open TPM position in the AWS group,” Seth wrote. “I interviewed with four current Amazon employees who Nick had selected based on my experience and background. Subsequently after the interview I watched their debriefing as they deliberated if I should be hired. I learned a lot, seeing myself through alternate perspectives and feel this simulation helped prepare me to interview at Amazon.”
Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-host-offers-mock-interviews-for-amazon-job-2019-8">explained</a> that interviewing for Amazon is unlike interviewing for other companies.
“Amazon is known for its tough interviews,” the outlet reported. “CEO Jeff Bezos <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/50661/inside-mind-jeff-bezos">once said</a> that he’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person, and this means asking tricky questions to find the best candidates.”
Remember, at the end of all of this, you don’t actually end up with a job at Amazon, no matter how well you did in the interview.

Former Amazon Executive Giving 5-Hour Mock Interviews — At A Cost Of $4,600

Airbnb

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday that seeks at least $50 million from Google. In the suit, Gabbard alleges that the tech giant infringed on her free speech after it suspended her campaign&#8217;s advertising account in the aftermath of the first Democrat presidential debate.
&#8220;The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in a federal court in Los Angeles, is believed to be the first time a presidential candidate has sued a major technology firm,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/technology/tulsi-gabbard-sues-google.html">The New York Times</a> reported. &#8220;Tulsi Now Inc., the campaign committee for Ms. Gabbard, said Google suspended the campaign’s advertising account for six hours on June 27 and June 28, obstructing its ability to raise money and spread her message to potential voters.&#8221;
The Times further noted that, following Gabbard&#8217;s appearance during the first Democrat presidential debate, she was the most searched-for candidate on the search engine.
&#8220;Her campaign wanted to capitalize on the attention she was receiving by buying ads that would have placed its website at the top of search results for her name,&#8221; The Times added. &#8220;The lawsuit also said the Gabbard campaign believed its emails were being placed in spam folders on Gmail at “a disproportionately high rate” when compared with emails from other Democratic candidates.&#8221;
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that it is opening an antitrust probe of big tech companies and that it will &#8220;examine practices of online platforms that dominate internet search, social media and retail services,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/doj-reportedly-to-open-broad-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-tech-stocks-dip.html">CNBC</a> reported.
&#8220;Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands,&#8221; <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reviewing-practices-market-leading-online-platforms">said</a> Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Antitrust Division. &#8220;The Department’s antitrust review will explore these important issues.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-open-broad-new-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-companies-11563914235?mod=hp_lead_pos1" target="" data-type="" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wall Street Journal</a> reported that the companies the DOJ will be looking into include Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Files Massive Lawsuit Against Google

2020 Election

Apple

Democratic Party

Department of Justice

Free Speech

Lawsuit

Tulsi Gabbard

Earlier this month, Amazon banned several books on &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; that were targeted at autonomous adults with unwanted same-sex attraction. Now, several self-described &#8220;ex-gays&#8221; have criticized the online retailer outlet for having a glaring double-standard, considering that several pro-suicide books are still allowed to do business on their platform, according to <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ex-gays-rip-amazon-for-banning-reparative-therapy-books-keeping-pro-suicide-books">LifeSiteNews</a>.
&#8220;Amazon has removed the books of Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, the psychologist whom critics have dubbed &#8216;the father of conversion therapy,'&#8221; reported <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/amazon-bans-books-on-gay-conversion-therapy-is-the-bible-next">LifeSiteNews</a> at the time of the ban. &#8220;In other words, for claiming that change is possible for those who experience unwanted same-sex attraction, Dr. Nicolosi’s books must be banned.&#8221;
Nicolosi was the co-founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. He died in 2017. Amazon reportedly pulled his books after one man, Rojo Alan of England, pushed them into doing so. The company did not initially ban the books, arguing that they did not violate their rules. Nevertheless, Alan persisted and began demanding people on social media bombard the books with bad reviews while researching ways in which the books violated Amazon&#8217;s rules on publishing.
Shortly thereafter, <a href="https://www.voiceofthevoiceless.info/">Voice of the Voiceless</a>, an organization that represents former homosexuals, launched a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/amazon-com-reverse-amazon-s-decision-to-censor-alternative-views-on-homosexuality?recruiter=982087027&amp;recruited_by_id=4af8a240-a143-11e9-b5f0-1b2cdb1d4db3&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=copylink&amp;utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_message&amp;utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&amp;share_bandit_exp=message-16548667-en-US&amp;share_bandit_var=v1">petition</a> demanding that Amazon lift the ban while denouncing the company for its glaring hypocrisy.
“Hey! Amazon and LGBTQ activists, it is disingenuous to use the suicide argument as a reason to remove the exLGBTQ Christian’s testimony and Christian discipleship books,&#8221; said the organization&#8217;s founder Daren Mehl. &#8220;That lie doesn’t work.&#8221;
Mehl added that if Amazon truly cared &#8220;about suicide and preventing books from contributing to suicides,&#8221; the company would have banned litanies of pro-suicide books from being sold on their platform years ago. Here are just a few examples:
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Mehl portrayed Amazon&#8217;s ban on the ex-gay therapy books as being tantamount to religious discrimination because it prevents Christian men and women with unwanted same-sex attraction from seeking out information that aligns with their religious beliefs. Again, these are fully autonomous adults, not children being shipped off to therapy camps.
&#8220;Many of us have read these and other books and have been helped and discipled in our faith,&#8221; Mehl said. &#8220;Don’t discriminate against our religious materials.&#8221;
&#8220;You are lying in justifying censorship of our messages by using the strawman of ‘conversion therapy,’ and then lie that change in sexual orientation isn&#8217;t possible,&#8221; continued Mehl. &#8220;Change is possible, Jesus does this work for anyone who calls him Lord and believes and confesses it.&#8221;
Jeremy Schwab, a former homosexual and founder of <a href="https://joel225.org/">Joel 2:25</a>, pointed out that Amazon also keeps several pro-satanist materials on its platform.
&#8220;Isn’t it great that Amazon took my audiobooks down from every platform so they don’t risk offending anyone?&#8221; said Schwab in a Facebook post. &#8220;Let’s see what highly-rated items they are selling right now. With Prime, if you order in the next 20 minutes, you can have this delivered to your front door tomorrow.’ What a deal!&#8221;
[[{&#8220;fid&#8221;:&#8221;48405&#8243;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;fields&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;Facebook&#8221;},&#8221;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;field_deltas&#8221;:{&#8220;2&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;Facebook&#8221;}},&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;title&#8221;:&#8221;Facebook&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-element file-default&#8221;,&#8221;data-delta&#8221;:&#8221;2&#8243;}}]]

Amazon Bans Ex-Gay Therapy Books While Keeping Pro-Suicide Books

LGBT

Suicide

A grown, fully-autonomous adult who has an unwanted same-sex attraction and who willingly seeks out information on how to curtail that desire without any outside pressure whatsoever will not be allowed to do so on Amazon&#8217;s platform, which has now banned several books on therapy for such people.
&#8220;Amazon has removed the books of Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, the psychologist whom critics have dubbed &#8216;the father of conversion therapy,'&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/amazon-bans-books-on-gay-conversion-therapy-is-the-bible-next">LifeSiteNews</a>. &#8220;In other words, for claiming that change is possible for those who experience unwanted same-sex attraction, Dr. Nicolosi’s books must be banned.&#8221;
Nicolosi was the co-founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. He died in 2017. Amazon reportedly pulled his books after one man, Rojo Alan of England, pushed them into doing so.
&#8220;The main book in question was one called &#8216;A Parents Guide To Preventing Homosexuality&#8217; by Joseph Nicolosi,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/07/03/amazon-stopped-selling-gay-cure-books-joseph-nicolosi/">Pink News</a>. &#8220;Rojo Alan wrote to Amazon several times asking it to remove Nicolosi’s books. After receiving no response, Alan made a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ro.al.jo/posts/163463518024808?__tn__=K-R" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook post</a> on May 31 calling for Amazon and Wordery to take down &#8216;a number of homophobic books.&#8217; Wordery, according to Alan, responded within 24 hours and removed the books from its listings.&#8221;
Amazon, however, did not initially ban the books because they did not violate their rules. Nevertheless, Alan persisted and began demanding people on social media bombard the books with bad reviews while researching ways in which the books violated Amazon&#8217;s rules on publishing.
&#8220;So since then, I had been working on getting these books pulled,&#8221; Alan told Pink News. &#8220;I contacted Amazon regularly to speak to them about the books, about how unethical they are.&#8221;
&#8220;Once I gathered everything I went back to Amazon and I threw all the information I had at them in several conversations,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Yet I was given the same ‘we will refer this to the relevant team.'&#8221;
As of July 2, all of Nicolosi&#8217;s books on Amazon were banned. &#8220;I’m currently in Starbucks, I’m so close to crying that all my efforts seem to have paid off,&#8221; he said.
Recently, Amazon banned several <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44231/amazon-prime-removes-anti-vaxxer-documentaries-paul-bois">anti-vaxx documentaries</a> from its platform on the same grounds. The move came hours after Rep. Adam Schiff wrote <a href="https://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-sends-letter-to-amazon-ceo-regarding-anti-vaccine-misinformation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an open lette</a>r to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos saying he is concerned &#8220;&#8216;that Amazon is surfacing and recommending&#8217; anti-vaccination books and movies.&#8221;
Movies like &#8220;We Don&#8217;t Vaccinate!,&#8221; &#8220;Shoot &#8216;Em Up: The Truth About Vaccines,&#8221; and &#8220;Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,&#8221; were offered to Amazon Prime members. They are now unavailable.
&#8220;As the largest online marketplace in the world, Amazon is in a unique position to shape consumption,&#8221; Schiff wrote in the letter to Amazon. &#8220;The algorithms which power social media platforms and Amazon&#8217;s recommendations are not designed to distinguish quality information from misinformation or misleading information and, as a result, harmful anti-vaccine messages have been able to thrive and spread. The consequences are particularly troubling for public health issues.&#8221;
&#8220;I am concerned by the report that Amazon accepts paid advertising that contains deliberate misinformation about vaccines; promoting these advertisements as suggested content ahead of intended search results,&#8221; Schiff continued. &#8220;Every online platform, including Amazon, must act responsibly and ensure that they do not contribute to this growing public health catastrophe.&#8221;

Amazon Bans Books On Gay &#8216;Conversion Therapy&#8217;

Shortly after the release of &#8220;Good Omens,&#8221; a streaming series based on the book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, a Christian organization started an online petition to have the series cancelled.
Here&#8217;s the problem &#8212; the petition was directed to Netflix, and Netflix does not produce or distribute the series.
In &#8220;Good Omens,&#8221; reluctant friends Aziraphale and Crowley (an angel and a demon) attempt to stop the apocalypse after thousands of years living on earth and developing an attachment to their lifestyles on the planet.
The series, produced and distributed by Amazon, boasts an 84% &#8220;Certified Fresh&#8221; score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and has seemingly been embraced by audiences as well.
This didn&#8217;t sit well with the <a href="https://www.returntoorder.org/return-to-order/&#8203;">Return to Order</a> (RTO) campaign, an affiliate of The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which is a Christian organization.
RTO&#8217;s petition <a href="https://www.returntoorder.org/petition/tell-netflix-to-cancel-blasphemous-good-omens/?PKG=RTOE0680&amp;fbclid=IwAR2UJpI2Ehvh1Wo9Bt5Vvol71kNGRvgg0fshpiuLw-klzRrj36bpIPj-Ztw">reads</a>:
<blockquote>
The Amazon series &#8220;Good Omens,&#8221; based on a book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, portrays the agents of Good and Evil as fighters in an arbitrary struggle devoid of meaning and truth. This series presents devils and Satanists as normal and even good, where they merely have a different way of being, and mocks God&#8217;s wisdom in the following ways:
An angel and demon are good friends, and are meant to be earth&#8217;s ambassadors for Good and Evil respectively.
This pair tries to stop the coming of the Antichrist because they are comfortable and like the earth so much.
God is voiced by a woman.
The Antichrist, who will oppose the Kingdom of God, is portrayed as a normal kid that has special powers and a mission to destroy the world which he doesn&#8217;t really want to do.
There are groups of Satanic &#8220;nuns&#8221; that are chosen to raise the Antichrist.
The four riders of the Apocalypse, God&#8217;s means of punishing sinful earth, are portrayed as a group of bikers.
In the end, this is a denial of Good and Evil: morality and natural law do not exist, just humanitarianism and an ultimately useless creed. This is another step to make Satanism appear normal, light and acceptable. We must show our rejection. Please sign our petition, telling Amazon that we will not stand silent as they destroy the barriers of horror we still have for evil.
</blockquote>
The petition has scored over 20,800 signatures as of publication, and released the following <a href="https://www.returntoorder.org/petition/tell-netflix-to-cancel-blasphemous-good-omens/?PKG=RTOE0680&amp;fbclid=IwAR2UJpI2Ehvh1Wo9Bt5Vvol71kNGRvgg0fshpiuLw-klzRrj36bpIPj-Ztw">statement</a> after their Netflix/Amazon mixup:
<blockquote>
Due to an oversight by Return to Order staff, this petition originally listed Netflix as responsible for the offensive series &#8220;Good Omens.&#8221; Amazon Video released the series on May 31. We regret the mistake, and the protests will be delivered to Amazon when the campaign is complete.
</blockquote>
This didn&#8217;t stop the two streaming giants from having a little fun at RTO&#8217;s expense, with Netflix tweeting:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
ok we promise not to make any more <a href="https://t.co/TRPux36kcX">https://t.co/TRPux36kcX</a>
&#8212; Netflix UK &amp; Ireland (@NetflixUK) <a href="https://twitter.com/NetflixUK/status/1141787587390201862?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8203;Amazon even offered to cancel Netflix juggernaut &#8220;Stranger Things&#8221; if Netflix would cease production of Amazon&#8217;s &#8220;Good Omens.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
Hey <a href="https://twitter.com/netflix?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@netflix</a>, we&#8217;ll cancel Stranger Things if you cancel Good Omens. <a href="https://t.co/EJPmi9rL7g">https://t.co/EJPmi9rL7g</a>
&#8212; Amazon Prime Video US (@PrimeVideo) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrimeVideo/status/1141829004560723969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Return to Order might ultimately get their wish, although not in the way they would like. Neil Gaiman has indicated that he will not return after the six-episode first season of &#8220;Good Omens.&#8221;
Gaiman told <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a27529400/good-omens-season-2/&#8203;">Digital Spy</a>: &#8220;If people love this enough, and if the time and the will is there, we could absolutely go back and do a lot more. &#8230; But we&#8217;re not building it to do more, we are building this to be itself. At the end of six episodes, it&#8217;s done.&#8221;
While Amazon could pick up the series for a second season, it will likely be without its creator and showrunner.
</div>

Petition To Cancel Amazon Series ‘Good Omens’ Addressed To Netflix; Streaming Giants Have Fun Replying

Christianity

Hollywood

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had a secret meeting with a top Amazon cloud sales executive in 2017 before the Pentagon announced a $10 billion cloud computing contract that critics say was designed to be fulfilled only by Amazon, Fox News&#8217; Tucker Carlson reported on Friday.
Earlier this month, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/03/amazon-defense-department-jedi-contract/">The Intercept</a> reported:
<blockquote>
Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are now the two finalists to win the highly contested $10 billion contract for what is known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. The deal, one of the largest federal contracts in U.S. history, would pay one company to provide cloud computing services in support of Defense Department operations around the world.
</blockquote>
The Intercept further noted that there are allegations that former DOD official Deap Ubhi, who left to work for Amazon in 2017, &#8220;worked on the preliminary research for the JEDI program in the late summer and fall of 2017&#8221; and was &#8220;also engaged in a secret job negotiation with Amazon for months, complete with salary discussions, offers of signing bonuses, and lucrative stock options.&#8221;
During his program on Friday, Carlson reported:
<blockquote>
Well, the Department of Defense exists to protect America from foreign threats and does a great job with that, thank God, but it&#8217;s also a massive consumer of tax dollars, the biggest really. And for that reason, concerns about corruption are always there. There&#8217;s reason to believe that over the past couple of years some at the Pentagon have worked to enrich Amazon, already the world&#8217;s richest company. In 2017, the Pentagon announced a $10 billion cloud computing contract. According to critics, the contract wasn&#8217;t actually competitive, it was designed from the very start to be fulfilled by Amazon and only by Amazon.
Several of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis&#8217; aides had prior professional ties to Amazon. A key official working on the Pentagon&#8217;s cloud computing program was carrying out secret job negotiations with Amazon even as he worked on the Pentagon&#8217;s program. And we can report exclusively tonight on this program that in March 2017, before the cloud computing contract was announced, Secretary Mattis had a secret dinner in London with Amazon&#8217;s top cloud sales executive, Teresa Carlson [emphasis added].
</blockquote>
A source told The Daily Wire that Carlson referred to Mattis&#8217; dinner with the Amazon official as &#8220;secret&#8221; because Teresa Carlson&#8217;s name was redacted from itinerary records, which were later unredacted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
Carlson referred to the meeting as &#8220;secret&#8221; because the name of the Amazon employee he allegedly had dinner with was redacted from the itinerary.
Here is the redacted and unredacted itinerary <a href="https://t.co/ZYFrOlaIE0">pic.twitter.com/ZYFrOlaIE0</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1140279777825132545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Carlson then cut to a segment with Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) where he asked Meadows about the secret meeting that Mattis had with the Amazon official.
&#8220;So a detail that bothered me and correct me if I&#8217;m getting this wrong, Secretary Mattis met with this Amazon official but then the Pentagon tried to keep that meeting secret as if it were some national security secret, which of course it&#8217;s not,&#8221; Carlson said. &#8220;Why wouldn&#8217;t they be open about that?&#8221;
&#8220;Well, when you look at a procurement process, they should be open and transparent and competitive and when you look at it keeping you know somebody as high as General Mattis meeting with a potential bidder of a contract of $10 billion and even beyond that there are some suggestions the Department of Defense inspector general is looking at this in terms of possible conflict of interest,&#8221; Meadows responded. &#8220;So whether it be with General Mattis or with other individuals, what we want to make sure of is that the American people get the best value for their dollar and you can&#8217;t do that if you&#8217;re designing a contract to go just to one bidder.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AI_Wp_JC5G4" width="560"></iframe></div>

Defense Secretary Mattis Had Secret Dinner With Amazon Official Before $10 Billion Contract Announced, Tucker Carlson Reports

James Mattis

Tucker Carlson

A new report states that the most valuable brand in the world isn&#8217;t Apple and it isn&#8217;t Google, the two companies that held the top spot for the last 12 years.
It&#8217;s Amazon.
On Tuesday, WPP and data consultant Kantar released the <a href="http://online.pubhtml5.com/bydd/ksdy/">BrandZ Top Most Valuable Global Brands</a>, which estimated the value of the Amazon brand at $315.5 billion. As <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/financials/amazon-surpasses-google-apple-most-valuable-brand">Fox Business</a> reported, <a href="http://www.millwardbrown.com/global-navigation/news/press-releases/full-release/2019/06/11/accelerated-growth-sees-amazon-crowned-2019-s-brandztm-top-100-most-valuable-global-brand">a news release</a> about the study quoted Doreen Wang, Kantar&#8217;s Global Head of BrandZ, saying, &#8220;Amazon&#8217;s phenomenal brand value growth of almost $108 billion in the last year demonstrates how brands are now less anchored to individual categories and regions. &#8230; The boundaries are blurring as technology fluency allow brands, such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba, to offer a range of services across multiple consumer touchpoints. Using their consumer experience and expertise, these brands are crossing over into the business services sector, creating new opportunities for brand growth.&#8221;
Apple, which finished second last year, saw its brand value estimated at $309.5 billion and Google, on top last year, was valued at $309 billion. Microsoft was valued at $251.2 billion; Visa at $177.9 billion; Facebook at $158.9 billion; Alibaba at $131.2 billion; Tencent at $130.8 billion; McDonald&#8217;s at $130.3 billion and AT&amp;T at $108.3 billion.
David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP EMEA and Asia and Chairman of BrandZ, told Fox Business, &#8220;We&#8217;re seeing a move from individual product and service brands to a new era of highly-disruptive ecosystems. Brands need to understand the value this type of model can create and should embrace its approach to be successful in the future.&#8221;
The BrandZ report <a href="http://online.pubhtml5.com/bydd/ksdy/#p=29">advises</a>:
<blockquote>
The notion of purpose has moved on. Higher purpose is fine when it is relevant to the brand and feels genuine to the consumer, not bolted on. But people do not expect all brands to save the world. What people do expect is for a brand to do what it does well, and to do it responsibly and ethically. That means conducting all aspects of the business &#8212; production, supply chain, relationships with employees and customers &#8212; ethically and honestly.
</blockquote>
In mid-May, the Associated Press <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-employees-well-pay-quit-101229443.html">reported</a> that Amazon would offer employees up to $10,000 in startup costs who quit their jobs and started their own business helping the company deliver packages. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47114/amazon-offers-employees-startup-cash-quit-their-ashe-schow">The Daily Wire</a> reported, &#8220;Amazon made the announcement Monday as the company is looking into how it can offer one-day delivery for Prime members, down from the current delivery time of two days.&#8221; AP noted, &#8220;Amazon says it will cover up to $10,000 in startup costs for employees who are accepted into the program and leave their jobs. The company says it will also pay them three months&#8217; worth of their salary.&#8221;

World&#8217;s #1 Brand Isn&#8217;t Google Or Apple Anymore, Report Says

In a stinging reproach to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts who scuttled the deal by which Amazon would have built a headquarters in Queens, Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s district, Amazon is reputedly going to place its headquarters in Manhattan instead.
According to <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/05/27/amazon-is-reportedly-eyeing-office-space-on-manhattans-west-side/">The New York Post</a>, Amazon is communicating with Brookfield, the owners of the One Manhattan West building and its impending partner, Two Manhattan West, starting with securing &#8220;at least 100,000 square feet or much more.&#8221; Although Two Manhattan West won&#8217;t be equipped for tenants until 2022, 67-story One Manhattan West will be ready by autumn 2020 and boasts a 250,000-square-foot space inside. The massive space is not available in perpetuity, but it can fit Amazon&#8217;s needs until Two Manhattan is ready, according to the Post&#8217;s sources.
The Post noted, &#8220;Brookfield, which owns the two Manhattan West towers (and another at 5 Manhattan West, where Amazon is already a tenant), denied through a spokesman that it was leasing to the Seattle company. But multiple sources pointed to the company&#8217;s strict confidentiality agreements as a potential reason.&#8221;
Sources told the Post that Amazon is also thinking of renting space in the U.S. Post Office building across from the Brookfield buildings.
Amazon had originally planned to construct a four-million-square-foot campus in Long Island City. Queens residents were delighted with the prospect of the rumored 25,000 jobs that were mentioned, as well as the effect on local businesses. Alfredo Ortiz, president &amp; CEO of the Job Creators Network told the Post that for every job Amazon would have created, a multiplier effect would have affected five or more other local jobs.
The Post noted, &#8220;The Long Island City deal would also have seen Amazon invest in a 600-seat public school; a workforce development and training space; an artists&#8217; workspace; and 149,650 square feet of public open space, among other projects &#8212; all of which is now lost.&#8221;
In February, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43508/amazon-drops-nyc-much-vaunted-second-headquarters-josh-hammer">The Daily Wire</a> reported that Amazon had canceled its plans for building in Queens. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/tech/amazon-hq2-nyc/index.html">CNN reported</a>:
<blockquote>
&#8220;After much thought and deliberation, we&#8217;ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,&#8221; Jodi Seth, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. In the statement, Amazon noted that &#8220;a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the demise of Amazon&#8217;s plans, tweeting, &#8220;Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers &amp; their neighbors defeated Amazon&#8217;s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.&#8221;
State senator Michael N. Gianaris <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6707007/Cuomo-blasts-AOC-Democrats-derailing-Amazon-headquarters-plans-New-York.html">chortled</a>, &#8220;Rather than seriously engage with the community they proposed to profoundly change, Amazon continued its effort to shakedown governments to get its way. It is time for a national dialogue about the perils of these types of corporate subsidies.&#8221;
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took a shot at Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts, issuing a <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/statement-governor-andrew-m-cuomo-196">statement</a> in which he said, &#8220;A small group politicians [sic] put their own narrow political interests above their community &#8212; which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bringing Amazon to Long Island City &#8212; the state&#8217;s economic future and the best interests of the people of this state.&#8221;

AOC BLEW IT: Amazon Reportedly Looking For Headquarters Elsewhere In NYC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

New York City

Amazon is working to increase delivery speeds and will now offer employees up to $10,000 in startup costs who quit their jobs and start their own business helping the company deliver packages.
The Associated Press <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-employees-well-pay-quit-101229443.html">reported</a> that Amazon made the announcement Monday as the company is looking into how it can offer one-day delivery for Prime members, down from the current delivery time of two days. From the AP:
<blockquote>
Amazon says it will cover up to $10,000 in startup costs for employees who are accepted into the program and leave their jobs. The company says it will also pay them three months&#8217; worth of their salary.
The offer is open to most part-time and full-time Amazon employees, including warehouse workers who pack and ship orders. Whole Foods employees are not eligible to receive the new incentives.
</blockquote>
Amazon is trying to get away from relying on others to deliver its packages. Last year, it began allowing people to &#8220;apply to launch an independent Amazon delivery business and provided $10,000 in reimbursements to military veterans,&#8221; the AP reported. This latest announcement is an expansion of that program, which resulted in the creation of more than 200 delivery businesses opened to deliver for Amazon.
The AP spoke to Milton Collier, who opened one such business in Atlanta, GA, eight months ago. His company now has 120 employees, a fleet of 50 delivery vans, and makes up to 200 deliveries a day. Collier told the AP he was hiring more people to prepare for the one-day shipping goal, saying his company is &#8220;ready.&#8221;
Also on Monday, Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-automation-exclusive/exclusive-amazon-rolls-out-machines-that-pack-orders-and-replace-jobs-idUSKCN1SJ0X1">reported</a> that Amazon is looking to automate part of its boxing process by installing machines at warehouses that would cut 24 jobs per warehouse.
&#8220;The company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in recent years, which scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelopes them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two people who worked on the project told Reuters,&#8221; the media outlet reported.
Each machine costs around $1 million, but the company expects it will recover those costs within two years, Reuters reported.
&#8220;We are piloting this new technology with the goal of increasing safety, speeding up delivery times and adding efficiency across our network,&#8221; a spokeswoman told Reuters in a statement. &#8220;We expect the efficiency savings will be re-invested in new services for customers, where new jobs will continue to be created.&#8221;

Amazon Offers Employees Startup Cash To Quit Their Jobs And Start Delivery Business For Company

Speaking on Sunday in an interview with Yahoo News&#8217; &#8220;Skullduggery,&#8221; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made it clear she has no regrets about scuttling the Amazon deal that would have brought a reported 25,000 jobs to New York City, and questioned where the 25,000 number even came from. Ocasio-Cortez also resorted to deflecting by once again repeating her mantra about the problems with the New York City subway, though time and again it has been pointed out to her (even by leftist NYC <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/de-blasio-ocasio-cortex-claim-spending-amazon-tax-break-money">Mayor Bill de Blasio</a>) that the tax break Amazon would have obtained by locating in New York City was not money that could have funded the subway.
Host Michael Isikoff commented, &#8220;You made a big splash early on by speaking out against Amazon&#8217;s deal to put their headquarters in Queens; there was a Siena College poll just this past week that showed 57% of voters in your district that thought Amazon&#8217;s withdrawal was bad for the city and 58% thought it would be good for Amazon to reconsider. Do you have any reconsidering thoughts on your end about your opposition to a deal that would have brought 25,000 jobs to the city?&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez began by questioning the 25,000 number: &#8220;So here&#8217;s a couple of things on that. One is that, and I said this from the very beginning: where does that 25,000 number come from? Everyone always cites this number and it is almost completely unsubstantiated, it almost feels like it only comes from Amazon that&#8217;s saying, that&#8217;s promising this. When you actually look &#8212;&#8221;
Isikoff interjected, &#8220;So what if it was only 15,000 jobs?&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez sidestepped the question, answering, &#8220;And &#8230;. so &#8230; even then, my opposition was less, and is less, than something personal with Amazon, and is more about the structure of the deal. And when you&#8217;re looking at three billion (dollars), which includes, it&#8217;s not all tax cuts, a lot of people say this thing pays for itself. First of all, revenue neutral, I don&#8217;t know if revenue neutral is the goal we need right now. Secondly, 25,000 jobs at $150,000 is was what was promised.&#8221;
(For the record, Ocasio-Cortez was misquoting Amazon, which spoke of an average salary of $150,000 for the 25,000 projected jobs. As <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/amazon-will-pay-hq2-employees-150000-dollars-that-goes-further-in-nashville.html">CNBC reported</a> last November, speaking of Amazon&#8217;s plans to build new locations in New York City, northern Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee, &#8220;In all three locations, the average salary for new employees will exceed $150,000 per year, Amazon announced.&#8221;)
Back to Ocasio-Cortez: &#8220;Does that sound like, (laughing) realistic? Does that sound like something that was going to happen, first of all? Second of all, do we really think that Amazon is trying to give 150k jobs to kids in NYCHA? Third of all, our subway is literally falling apart. Literally falling apart.&#8221;
Then she said, &#8220;So for me my opposition was less, and by the way, my opposition being like, five tweets, and apparently five tweets took down the richest man in the world and I&#8217;m responsible, right?&#8221;
Iskoff, gushing, &#8220;Everything you tweet, scooped up by 3.8 million followers.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez delightedly laughed.
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/new-york-will-lose-the-bulk-of-the-25000-jobs-that-were-promised-by-amazon-hq2.html">CNBC</a> reported in mid-February, &#8220;Amazon&#8217;s spokesperson told CNBC on Thursday that the bulk of the 25,000 jobs that the company had promised to create in New York City for HQ2 will now go to other corporate offices and tech hubs owned by Amazon across 17 North American cities, including Boston, San Francisco and Vancouver &#8230; The loss of most of the new jobs is a major setback for New York as Amazon&#8217;s new headquarters and its additional workforce were expected to further accelerate the city&#8217;s economic growth, especially in certain sectors like technology and advertising. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo previously said the deal would bring in approximately $27 billion in revenue in exchange for the roughly $3 billion incentive package.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Ocasio-Cortez says she doesn&#8217;t regret sabotaging the Amazon deal even though the majority of her constituents say it would&#8217;ve been a good thing
AOC complains she doesn&#8217;t understand where the numbers come from that say the deal would have created 25K jobs <a href="https://t.co/EjABM4iQM8">pic.twitter.com/EjABM4iQM8</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1117887781974335489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Doubles Down On Sabotaging Amazon, Complains &#8216;Where Does That 25,000 Number Come From?&#8217;

A public challenge issued by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos prompted a taunting response from Walmart.
On Thursday, Bezos made headlines Thursday by publicly challenging other retailers to match or outdo his company&#8217;s newly implemented (to mixed results) $15 minimum wage.
&#8220;Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage,&#8221; Bezos said in his annual letter to shareholders issued Thursday. &#8220;Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us. It&#8217;s a kind of competition that will benefit everyone.&#8221;
Walmart has since indeed &#8220;thrown the gauntlet&#8221; back at Amazon, but not quite in the way Bezos suggested.
&#8220;Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are) how about paying your taxes?&#8221; Walmart&#8217;s Executive VP of Corporate Affairs Dan Bartlett tweeted Thursday, linking to a Yahoo Finance article detailing how &#8220;Amazon will pay $0 in taxes on $11,200,000,000 in profit for 2018.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are ) how about paying your taxes? <a href="https://t.co/Rmh3VZOHsG">https://t.co/Rmh3VZOHsG</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JeffBezos</a>
&#8212; Dan Bartlett (@danbartlett6) <a href="https://twitter.com/danbartlett6/status/1116345822130712577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Citing a <a href="https://itep.org/amazon-in-its-prime-doubles-profits-pays-0-in-federal-income-taxes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a> from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-taxes-zero-180337770.html">Yahoo Finance</a> explained in February that Amazon &#8220;will pay nothing in federal income taxes for the second year in a row.&#8221;
&#8220;Thanks to the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Amazon&#8217;s federal tax responsibility is 21% (down from 35% in previous years). But with the help of tax breaks, according to corporate filings, Amazon won&#8217;t be paying a dime to Uncle Sam despite posting more than $11.2 billion in profits in 2018,&#8221; the report shared by Bartlett states. In 2017, Amazon also paid $0 in taxes despite making $5.6 billion in U.S. profits.
The director of ITEP, Steve Wamhoff, said that while Amazon states in their public documents that they have simply taken advantage of tax credits, it&#8217;s &#8220;unclear&#8221; what specific credits they&#8217;re referencing. &#8220;They vaguely say tax credits,&#8221; said Wamhoff. &#8220;One could think of many different ways a corporation could do this, like the depreciation breaks which were expanded under TCJA.&#8221;
Amazon maintains that its handling of taxes is on the up-and-up, a spokesperson telling Yahoo, &#8220;Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years.&#8221;
In November, Amazon implemented its new $15 minimum wage for all employees, but some reports suggest the change hasn&#8217;t gone as well as many hoped. By March, employees of the Amazon-owned Whole Foods grocery chain were reporting significant reductions in their hours worked since the minimum wage hike was introduced.
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/06/whole-foods-amazon-cuts-minimum-wage-workers-hours-changes">The Guardian</a> reported in early March that since the wage hikes, Whole Foods employees say they&#8217;ve experienced &#8220;widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees.&#8221; Multiple Whole Foods employees told to the outlet that they&#8217;ve seen an average of around a 30% reduction in hours per week for part-timers and about a 10% reduction for full-time employees.
Walmart has enacted its own wage hikes, raising the minimum wage to $11 back in January 2018, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/how-about-paying-your-taxes-walmart-responds-amazon-s-challenge-n993461">NBC News</a> notes. Though that&#8217;s less than Amazon pays, Walmart says that its average worker earns over $17 an hour in wages and benefits.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44342/whole-foods-adopts-15-minimum-wage-then-starts-james-barrett">Whole Foods Adopts $15 Minimum Wage, Then Starts Slashing Workers&#8217; Hours &#8216;Significantly&#8217;</a>

Amazon Challenges Companies To Raise Wages; Walmart Issues Taunting Response

Walmart

If you&#8217;ve ever wondered if your Alexa device is listening to you while you&#8217;re not directly interacting with it, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/is-anyone-listening-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio">Bloomberg has some bad news for you</a>: the answer appears to be yes.
In a shocking report issued Thursday (though, perhaps not so shocking to privacy experts), Bloomberg found that &#8220;Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers.&#8221;
&#8220;The team,&#8221; they say, &#8220;listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners&#8217; homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa&#8217;s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-workers-are-listening-to-what-you-tell-alexa/">Amazon, CBS reports</a>, doesn&#8217;t explicitly tell users that they&#8217;re being listened to when they&#8217;re communicating with Alexa (and worse, when they&#8217;re not). Instead, the marketing materials simply say that Alexa &#8220;lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.&#8221; The closest the company&#8217;s literature comes to admitting that there&#8217;s a concerted effort to scan and save information gathered on Alexa devices is a throwaway line in their &#8220;Frequently Asked Questions&#8221; that says, &#8220;[W]e use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems.&#8221;
Most consumers are likely to believe that means requests made to and interactions made with Alexa are saved and rated. That&#8217;s a reasonable conclusion, particularly given that the Alexa app lists an &#8220;archive&#8221; of Alexa requests and responses and allows users to rate interactions and suggest changes.
Bloomberg, however, says there is a team of thousands of workers, most located outside of the United States, who analyze Alexa-collected data. These workers are sworn to secrecy on the project, which tasks them with searching for key words (though they say they filter out words and phrases they don&#8217;t believe Alexa was supposed to pick up). They share what they find on an internal chatroom.
Amazon was defensive about the program in a statement emailed to Bloomberg and noted that they believe they have adequate safeguards in place to prevent people&#8217;s personal information from being used &#8212; or even publicly released.
<blockquote>
&#8220;We take the security and privacy of our customers&#8217; personal information seriously,&#8221; an Amazon spokesman said in an emailed statement. &#8220;We only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order [to] improve the customer experience. For example, this information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone.
&#8220;We have strict technical and operational safeguards, and have a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of our system. Employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow. All information is treated with high confidentiality and we use multi-factor authentication to restrict access, service encryption and audits of our control environment to protect it.&#8221;
</blockquote>
They also offer a way to &#8220;opt-out&#8221; of the program inside the Alexa app, though it&#8217;s not exactly easy to find. Bloomberg does also say that it has reviewed several of the submissions to Amazon&#8217;s Alexa enhancement team from Alexa devices and much of the identifying information &#8212; like name and account number &#8212; are stripped out. The device&#8217;s serial number and the user&#8217;s account number are typically left in.
Amazon is right in saying that its not alone in using a human team to improve the performance of its artificial intelligence products. Apple&#8217;s Siri also has a human assessment team that looks at Siri interactions in an effort to make them better, and Google&#8217;s Home devices also have an option for reviewers to assess how well the product answers their questions.
As for how Amazon uses the information? It says it only collects random samples of interactions and deletes the data after its analyzed. Echo conversations aren&#8217;t recorded and saved.

Amazon Employs Thousands Of People Just To Listen In On Your Alexa Device

Privacy

Technology

On Tuesday, Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.com/charts/2019-03-24/mostsold/nonfiction/index.html?ref=CHRT_BK_SD_NF_1_DP">announced</a> the top 20 highest-selling non-fiction books during the week starting Monday, March 18 and ending Sunday, March 24. Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s new book, &#8220;The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made The West Great,&#8221; which was released on Tuesday, March 19, was ranked #1 at the top of the list.
Shapiro&#8217;s book was followed by Michelle Obama&#8217;s book, &#8220;Becoming,&#8221; Tara Westover&#8217;s memoir &#8220;Educated,&#8221; &#8220;Girl, Stop Apologizing,&#8221; by Rachel Hollis, and &#8220;Bad Blood,&#8221; by John Carreyrou.
Shapiro&#8217;s book, the eighth work of non-fiction he has written, argues that Western civilization is in the midst of a crisis of purpose and ideas, and that civilizations that rejected their debt to Jerusalem and Athens have collapsed into dust.
On the day it was released, Shapiro&#8217;s new book <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44880/shapiros-right-side-history-surges-1-amazon-non-daily-wire">surged</a> to the #1 spot of all non-fiction books on Amazon.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Thank you to everyone who helped make &#8220;The Right Side of History&#8221; the #1 most-sold book on Amazon for the week of March 24, 2019! <a href="https://t.co/l7JmKxfb2L">https://t.co/l7JmKxfb2L</a>
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1110762225109622784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

Shapiro&#8217;s &#8216;The Right Side of History&#8217; Tops Amazon&#8217;s Weekly Non-Fiction Bestseller List

Ben Shapiro

A new poll shows that after the cancellation of the deal that would have brought Amazon to Queens, New York, along with an estimated 25,000 jobs, a cancellation which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) championed, more than three times as many respondents viewed her as a villain rather than a hero. The findings of the Siena College poll of New Yorkers taken between March 10-14 prompted Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg to say, &#8220;Only 12 percent call her hero, while 38 percent label her a villain.&#8221;
Additionally, Ocasio Cortez may be popular with New York Democrats, but by and large, the rest of the electorate in New York state <a href="https://scri.siena.edu/2019/03/18/2-3-of-voters-say-amazon-cancelling-queens-hq-bad-for-ny/">can&#8217;t stomach her</a>. The poll found that 31% of respondents overall had a favorable impression of Ocasio-Cortez; 44% viewed her unfavorably. Greenberg noted:
<blockquote>
Ocasio-Cortez, with a negative 31-44 percent favorability rating, is as well known to statewide voters after three months in office as Gillibrand is after ten years as senator. While Democrats view Ocasio-Cortez favorably, independents view her unfavorably more than two-to-one and Republicans view her unfavorably, 68-6 percent. She is viewed slightly favorably in New York City but strongly unfavorably upstate and in the downstate suburbs.
</blockquote>
Among respondents, twice as many supported the deal Amazon was prepared to make, 61%-30%. Greenberg added of the cancellation, &#8220;Even 56 percent of self-described liberals think it was bad for New York. While some may have celebrated Amazon&#8217;s announcement to pull the plug, the vast majority of New Yorkers of every stripe thought it was bad for the Empire State.&#8221;
Greenberg continued, &#8220;Amazon itself was seen as the biggest villain among Democrats, but Republicans and independents had Ocasio-Cortez as far and away the largest villain, followed by the local Queens activists.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44755/ocasio-cortez-explodes-after-learning-her-ryan-saavedra">The Daily Wire reported</a> on Saturday, a new poll from left-leaning Gallup found Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s &#8220;unfavorable&#8221; rating skyrocketing; the poll, released on Friday, found that the increase in Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s &#8220;unfavorable&#8221; rating in recent months had more than doubled her increase in &#8220;favorable ratings.&#8221;
&#8220;Half of U.S. adults were unfamiliar with or had no opinion of her in September after her seismic primary win over the summer, but that figure has shrunk to 29% today,&#8221; <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/247820/rep-ocasio-cortez-better-known-image-skews-negative.aspx">Gallup</a> reported. &#8220;But the increased visibility has not improved her overall standing with Americans.&#8221;
In another tidbit that buttresses the findings of the Siena College poll that Ocasio-Cortez is not widely popular, The Daily Wire noted, &#8220;Gallup further noted that Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s favorable rating was &#8216;underwater&#8217; among the majority of groups and was only viewed as favorable among 56% of Democrats.&#8221;
Gallup stated, &#8220;The congresswoman is viewed negatively by most Republicans, of whom 73% have an unfavorable view of her &#8212; up from 52% in September. Ocasio-Cortez is also underwater in her net favorable ratings among men (-24), whites (-24) and adults aged 55 and older (-22).&#8221;
After Amazon canceled the deal, Ocasio-Cortez offered her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43712/ocasio-cortez-explodes-over-people-saying-she-james-barrett">addled version</a> of why killing the deal was a good idea, huffing, &#8220;If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves, if we wanted to. We could hire out more teachers. We can fix our subways. We can put a lot of people to work for that money, if we wanted to.&#8221;
Crain&#8217;s New York Business editor Erik Engquist was left nonplused by that explanation, tweeting, &#8220;I&#8217;ve been telling @AOC critics that she is smart, but what do I say when she says nonsense like &#8216;we could invest those $3 billion in [@amazon tax breaks] in our district. We could hire more teachers. We can fix our subways, we can put a lot of people to work for that money.&#8217;&#8221;

More New Yorkers View Ocasio-Cortez As Villain Rather Than Hero After Sabotaging Amazon Deal

Poll

The dream of the $15 minimum wage was finally realized among Amazon employees after the company caved to mounting pressure and implemented it company-wide on Nov. 1. But according to a new report, the improved wages aren&#8217;t working out as many employees had hoped at Amazon&#8217;s Whole Foods grocery store chain.
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/06/whole-foods-amazon-cuts-minimum-wage-workers-hours-changes">The Guardian</a> reported Wednesday that employees at Whole Foods, which Amazon purchased back in 2017, have experienced a dramatic drop in schedule shifts since the raised wages were introduced.
Along with the new $15 minimum wage for the entry-level positions, some higher-level Whole Foods employees have also enjoyed a $1 to $2 increase in hourly wages, the outlet notes. It all sounds good &#8212; until employees&#8217; schedules are taken into account. Since the wage increase in November, Whole Foods employees say they&#8217;ve experienced &#8220;widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees,&#8221; The Guardian reports.
The employees, speaking on condition of anonymity &#8220;for fear of retaliation,&#8221; revealed to the outlet that they&#8217;ve seen an average of about a 30% reduction in hours per week for part-timers and about a 10% reduction for full-timers.
An Illinois-based worker told The Guardian, &#8220;My hours went from 30 to 20 a week,&#8221; after the $15 minimum wage hike.
The employee &#8220;explained that once the $15 minimum wage was enacted, part-time employee hours at their store were cut from an average of 30 to 21 hours a week, and full-time employees saw average hours reduced from 37.5 hours to 34.5 hours,&#8221; The Guardian reports. &#8220;The worker provided schedules from 1 November to the end of January 2019, showing hours for workers in their department significantly decreased as the department&#8217;s percentage of the entire store labor budget stayed relatively the same.&#8221;
The employee says the company expects workers to accomplish their goals faster so their hours can be cut to balance the cost of the wage increases. The employee provided the outlet an internal email from a department manager saying the slashed shifts were a &#8220;direct result of guidance from our regional team.&#8221;
And it&#8217;s not just in Illinois. A Maryland-based employee told the paper their regional manager has ordered that all full-time employees suffer a four-hour reduction per week to 36 hours, making the raise &#8220;pointless&#8221; because people are actually &#8220;losing more than they gained&#8221; as a result of fewer hours worked. An Oregon-based Whole Foods employee cited a similar policy of reducing full-timers from 40 to just 36 or 38 hours per week.
The Guardian says the hours-reductions at Whole Foods fits the larger pattern of what&#8217;s happening at Amazon warehouses.
As <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/44312/survey-74-economists-oppose-hiking-minimum-wage-15-hank-berrien">The Daily Wire</a> pointed out on Wednesday, a new Employment Policies Institute survey of 197 working economists found that 74% oppose raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Eighty-four percent think it would hurt youth employment, and 77% believe it would have a negative impact on the number of jobs available. Forty-three percent of the economists surveyed think the federal minimum wage should be eliminated altogether.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44106/nyc-implemented-minimum-wage-hike-fast-food-hank-berrien">NYC Implemented Minimum Wage Hike For Fast Food Workers. Now They&#8217;re Looking For Jobs</a>

Whole Foods Adopts $15 Minimum Wage, Then Starts Slashing Workers&#8217; Hours &#8216;Significantly&#8217;

Minimum Wage

The anti-vaxxer movement took another hit this week when Amazon Prime began removing documentaries from its streaming service that criticize vaccines, reports <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/01/tech/amazon-anti-vaccine-movies-schiff/index.html">CNN</a>.
&#8220;Amazon has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service,&#8221; reports the outlet. &#8220;The move came days after a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/27/tech/amazon-anti-vaccine-books-movies/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CNN Business report</a> highlighted the anti-vaccine comment available on the site, and hours after Rep. Adam Schiff wrote <a href="https://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-sends-letter-to-amazon-ceo-regarding-anti-vaccine-misinformation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an open lette</a>r to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, saying he is concerned &#8216;that Amazon is surfacing and recommending&#8217; anti-vaccination books and movies.&#8221;
Movies like &#8220;We Don&#8217;t Vaccinate!,&#8221; &#8220;Shoot &#8216;Em Up: The Truth About Vaccines,&#8221; and &#8220;Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,&#8221; were offered to Amazon Prime members. They are now unavailable.
&#8220;As the largest online marketplace in the world, Amazon is in a unique position to shape consumption,&#8221; Schiff wrote in the letter to Amazon. &#8220;The algorithms which power social media platforms and Amazon&#8217;s recommendations are not designed to distinguish quality information from misinformation or misleading information and, as a result, harmful anti-vaccine messages have been able to thrive and spread. The consequences are particularly troubling for public health issues.&#8221;
&#8220;I am concerned by the report that Amazon accepts paid advertising that contains deliberate misinformation about vaccines; promoting these advertisements as suggested content ahead of intended search results,&#8221; Schiff continued. &#8220;Every online platform, including Amazon, must act responsibly and ensure that they do not contribute to this growing public health catastrophe.&#8221;
Amazon has reportedly not responded to media requests as to why the anti-vaxxer documentaries are no longer available. While Amazon Prime has removed the documentaries, Amazon.com still has several anti-vaxxer books available for purchase. CNN Business reports that some were even available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
The removal of the anti-vaxx documentaries comes almost two months after the World Health Organization (WHO)<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42393/world-health-organization-anti-vaxxers-threat-paul-bois"> declared the movement</a> a global threat, which it classified as &#8220;vaccine hesitancy.&#8221;
<blockquote>
Vaccine hesitancy &#8211; the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines &#8211; threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases. <a href="https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/immunization/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vaccination</a> is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease &#8211; it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved.
Measles, for example, has seen a 30% increase in cases globally. The reasons for this rise are complex, and not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy. However, some countries that were close to eliminating the disease have seen a resurgence.
</blockquote>
The report also said that anti-vaxxers reject vaccinations for a variety of complex reasons, including complacency, inconvenience in accessing vaccines, and lack of confidence.
&#8220;Health workers, especially those in communities, remain the most trusted advisor and influencer of vaccination decisions, and they must be supported to provide trusted, credible information on vaccines,&#8221; read the report.
Anti-vaxxers, however, maintain that they have been maligned as crazy people unnecessarily against vaccines when, in fact, they simply believe that more information should be available to parents. Libertarians have also been divided on the issue between debates about public health and parental rights.

Amazon Prime Removes Anti-Vaxxer Documentaries

Health

New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo is aggressively working to bring Amazon back to New York after Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) played a role in derailing Amazon&#8217;s plan to bring tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity to New York City.
&#8220;The governor has had multiple phone conversations with Amazon executives, including Mr. Bezos, over the past two weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the efforts,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/nyregion/amazon-hq2-nyc.html">The New York Times</a> reported. &#8220;In those calls, Mr. Cuomo said he would navigate the company through the byzantine governmental process.&#8221;
While a source said that Cuomo did not specify a new location for Amazon, he did guarantee support for the project, which he later alluded to in an interview on Friday, saying there were &#8220;other ways that the state can get it done.&#8221;
The Times notes that the push to get Amazon to come back to New York included a full-page ad in The New York Times on Friday that was signed by more than 70 supportive unions, local businesses, business leaders, community groups, and elected officials. The letter <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/641-read-the-open-letter-to-amazon/0a112e77301026beb86d/optimized/full.pdf#page=1">states</a>:
<blockquote>
Dear Mr. Bezos:
New Yorkers do not want to give up on the 25,000 permanent jobs, 11,000 union construction and maintenance jobs, and $28 billion in new tax revenues that Amazon was prepared to bring to our state. A clear majority of New Yorkers support this project and were disappointed by your decision not to proceed. We understand that becoming home to the world&#8217;s industry leader in e-commerce, logistics and web services would be a tremendous boost for our state&#8217;s technology industry, which is our fastest growing generator of new jobs. As representatives of a wide range of government, business, labor and community interests, we urge you to reconsider, so that we can move forward together.
We know the public debate that followed the announcement of the Long Island City project was rough and not very welcoming. Opinions are strong in New York&#8212;sometimesstrident. We consider it part of the New York charm! But when we commit to a project as important as this, we figure out how to get it done in a way that works for everyone.
Governor Cuomo will take personal responsibility for the project&#8217;s state approval and MayordeBlasio will work together with the governor to manage the community development process, including the workforce development, public education and infrastructure investments that are necessary to ensure that the Amazon campus will be a tremendous benefit to residents and small businesses in the surrounding communities.
NewYorkattracts the best, most diverse talent from across the globe. We are a dynamic new center of the country&#8217;s most inclusive tech economy. We all hope you reconsider and join us in building the exciting future of New York.
</blockquote>
Ocasio-Cortez helped undermine the deal&#8217;s alleged economic efficacy because she did not understand how the $3 billion in proposed tax incentives worked.
&#8220;If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves, if we wanted to,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/de-blasio-ocasio-cortex-claim-spending-amazon-tax-break-money">said</a>. &#8220;We could hire out more teachers. We can fix our subways. We can put a lot of people to work for that money, if we wanted to.&#8221;
In an interview on MSNBC, New York City Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio explained: &#8220;And that $3 billion that would go back in tax incentives was only after we were getting the jobs and getting the revenue.&#8221;

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Articles tagged with Amazon

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Amazon Employs Thousands Of People Just To Listen In On Your Alexa Device

Shapiro’s ‘The Right Side of History’ Tops Amazon’s Weekly Non-Fiction Bestseller List

More New Yorkers View Ocasio-Cortez As Villain Rather Than Hero After Sabotaging Amazon Deal

Whole Foods Adopts $15 Minimum Wage, Then Starts Slashing Workers’ Hours ‘Significantly’

Amazon Prime Removes Anti-Vaxxer Documentaries

Governor Cuomo ‘Working Intensely’ To Bring Amazon Back To New York