In what would appear as a coupe against any other nation such as Venezuela, big tech and powerful money institutions are tuning inwardly upon its own nation. The guardians of inclusive capitalism are making sure who gets in no matter what it takes

Amazon says it will SUSPEND donations to lawmakers who objected to Biden’s victory certification, joining a growing list of firms

12 Jan, 2021 01:57

FILE PHOTOS. ©  Reuters / Mohamed Abd El Ghany;  Reuters / Pascal Rossignol

Amazon’s political action committee will halt donations to lawmakers who voted to challenge the results of the 2020 election – all of them Republicans – as a series of corporations take similar steps after the Capitol Hill riot.

The e-commerce behemoth said its PAC would suspend all “contributions to any member of Congress who voted to override the results of the US presidential election” in a statement on Monday, with spokeswoman Jodi Seth calling the votes an “unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process.”

“We intend to discuss our concerns directly with those Members we have previously supported and will evaluate their responses as we consider future PAC contributions,” the company added, according to Protocol tech reporter Emily Birnbaum.

Out of nearly $1.3 million spent on candidates in the period between 2019 and 2020, the Amazon.com PAC gave around half of those funds to Republicans, including tens of thousands to some of the 147 GOP lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, according to data compiled by Open Secrets. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California), for example, received a $10,000 contribution, as did Republicans Sam Graves (Missouri), Morgan Griffith (Virginia), Richard Hudson (North Carolina) and Elise Stefanik (New York) – all of whom objected to certification last Wednesday. Others, such as Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Arizona’s Andy Biggs, were given smaller amounts of $7,500 and $2,500, respectively.

The move comes after a rally in support of President Donald Trump in Washington, DC spiraled out of control last week, seeing a crowd of his backers force their way into the Capitol building as Congress convened to certify the election results. At least five people were killed in the chaos, including an unarmed woman shot by police as protesters attempted to storm the Senate chamber, as well as an officer who was reportedly bashed in the head with a fire extinguisher.

Amazon’s announcement followed a number of similar actions taken across corporate America in the wake of the unrest, including by Dow Inc., the massive chemical firm. The company told reporters on Monday that, like Amazon, it would also cut off contributions to lawmakers who objected to certifying the election results, adding that it is “committed to the principles of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.”

Financial institutions Citibank, the State Street Corporation, Commerce Bank and Mastercard also said they would suspend donations to the same group of lawmakers, as did Marriott, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and AT&T. Others, such as Google, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, have paused all political donations for the time being.

Last week’s violent disturbance on Capitol Hill sent shockwaves through the US political and business worlds, seeing big tech firms rush to purge the president and his supporters from their platforms, most claiming he or his followers had incited violence or committed other policy violations. The incident has also sparked renewed calls to remove the president from his post, with Democrats threatening to impeach on grounds that Trump encouraged “insurrection or rebellion” with his repeated claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Facebook bans phrase ‘stop the steal’ to protect Biden inauguration as it widens post-riot crackdown on speech

12 Jan, 2021 02:47

Supporters of President Donald Trump outside the US Supreme Court. December 8, 2020. ©  REUTERS/Erin Scott

Citing the upcoming inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden, Facebook has banned the phrase “stop the steal,” used by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump to question the 2020 election, saying it could incite violence.

Any content with the blacklisted phrase is being removed from Facebook and Instagram, under the Coordinating Harm policy, the company announced on Monday evening. VP for Integrity Guy Rosen and VP for Global Policy Management Monika Bickert claimed that the phrase was used “by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC” and cited “continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the US presidential election that can lead to violence,” 

“We’re taking additional steps and using the same teams and technologies we used during the general election to stop misinformation and content that could incite further violence during these next few weeks,” Rosen and Bickert wrote.

In addition to the “indefinite suspension” of President Trump’s account announced on Thursday, Facebook is keeping the temporary ban on all US political advertising and “connecting people with reliable information and high-quality news about the inauguration and the transition process.”

“After the inauguration, our label on posts that attempt to delegitimize the election results will reflect that Joe Biden is the sitting president,” wrote Bickert and Rosen.

For months, social media giants have labeled any post challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election as “disputed” or challenged by their coterie of fact-checkers. Last Wednesday’s unrest at the Capitol provided them a pretext to purge accounts outright, including the president himself.

“Stop the Steal” was a hashtag used by some Trump supporters to question the election results according to which Biden surged from behind to win the most votes in US history, thanks to mail-in ballots. A rally by that name was held outside the White House on Wednesday. Several hundred Trump supporters peeled off and stormed the Capitol, interrupting the joint session of Congress that met to certify Biden as the victor. One person was fatally shot, while the deaths of four more – including a Capitol Police officer – have been linked to the protest, without details.

In addition to deleting any content that mentions the phrase, Facebook is keeping indefinitely several measures introduced last week – such as “automatically disabling comments on posts in Groups that start to have a high rate of hate speech” and using AI “to further demote content that likely violates our policies.” 

Among those caught up in the purges is WalkAway, a group of former Democrats who supported Trump, who said they were entirely peaceful and in no way connected to events at the Capitol, but to no avail.

The outright deletion of content before Biden is even inaugurated is an escalation from Facebook’s actions prior to the election, when they “shadowbanned”all mention of a New York Post story about Biden’s son Hunter and the incriminating emails found on a laptop recovered from a Delaware repair shop. Twitter had locked the Post’s account, but it later emerged that Facebook’s soft censorship turned out to be far more effective.

Republican fundraising emails stopped after Salesforce said they ‘could lead to violence’

12 Jan, 2021 00:34

The email provider used by the RNC and Trump campaign is owned by Salesforce (file photo) ©  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The San Francisco-based tech company Salesforce has confirmed that one of its subsidiaries has blocked the Republican National Committee from sending out fundraising emails, citing the January 6 events at the US Capitol.

“We are all deeply troubled by the terrible events of January 6. And while we all hope that they are never repeated, sadly there remains a risk of politically incited violence across the country,” Salesforce said in a statement.

“The Republican National Committee has been a long-standing customer, predating the current Administration, and we have taken action to prevent its use of our services in any way that could lead to violence,” the company added.

The statement was sent to Vice, which asked around after noticing that emails from President Donald Trump’s campaign had suddenly stopped. It wasn’t clear whether the “action” was permanent or if the service would be restored at a later date.

Reached by Vice, the RNC said that they “decided independently to stop fundraising on all of our digital platforms, including on Salesforce,” last Wednesday.

The Trump Make America Great Again Committee is a joint venture between the RNC and organizations called Save America and Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. It was using services by ExactTarget, an email marketing company owned by Salesforce. Another provider, Campaign Monitor, also “suspended” their account last week, after the unrest at the US Capitol.

Several hundred Trump supporters had broken into the Capitol building on and disrupted the joint session of Congress meeting to certify Democrat Joe Biden as the next US president. Democrats quickly described the unrest as a terrorist attack, accused Trump of “inciting insurrection” and even demanded his second impeachment.

However, a number of Republican lawmakers and party officials have joined them in denouncing the president. Nor has the party protested when Facebook and Twitter suspended and then banned Trump outright. The wave of corporate and social media “cancellations” has only grown since, regardless.

Salesforce’s statement uses the same rationale Twitter invoked to justify removing Trump permanently, saying that some of his tweets could be interpreted by some people as inciting violence.

Parler, the social media app to which Trump supporters flocked after purges from Twitter, was first banned from the Apple and Google app stores, then taken offline by Amazon’s cloud service. It has sought relief from a federal court, but remains unavailable as of Monday evening.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been known as a social justice activist for years. In November 2019, Politico described him as “tech’s ‘woke’ CEO since before ‘woke’ was a thing.”

NY State Bar Association moves to expel Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani

11 Jan, 2021 16:34

FILE PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani addresses a news conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 7, 2020 © Reuters / Eduardo Munoz

The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) has launched an investigation into disbarring President Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, after he addressed a crowd of Trump supporters who went on to storm the Capitol.

Having received “hundreds of complaints” about Giuliani’s “baseless efforts” to prove the 2020 election fraudulent, and in light of a speech he gave before pro-Trump rioters barged into the US Capitol last week, the New York State Bar Association has launched an “historic” inquiry into revoking the former New York City mayor’s law license, the association said in a statement on Monday.

Giuliani has stood by Trump’s claims that Joe Biden’s electoral victory was fraudulent, though his efforts to prove this fraud legally were denied by multiple courts. However, the latest batch of complaints to the NYSBA came after Giuliani addressed thousands of Trump supporters at a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally outside the White House last Wednesday.

“Over the next 10 days,” he promised the crowd, “we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent. If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. Let’s have trial by combat,” he said.

After speeches by Giuliani and Trump himself, a crowd of protesters descended on the Capitol and forced their way in, as lawmakers inside certified Biden’s win. The crowd vandalized the building, and five people died as a result of the fracas. Among them were an unarmed protester shot dead by police, and a police officer who died on Thursday, allegedly after being struck by a rioter armed with a fire extinguisher. Three other people suffered fatal “medical emergencies.”

Among those calling for Giuliani’s disbarment were Representatives Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) and Mondaire Jones (D-Nyack), who alleged that Giuliani’s use of the phrase “trial by combat” amounted to incitement and seditious conspiracy.

Giuliani’s potential disbarment could spell trouble for President Trump, if Congress votes on his impeachment. Rumors have it that Trump will enlist Giuliani to defend him in any impeachment trial, but, with a week left in office, the likelihood of that trial taking place before Biden’s inauguration is slim. Even if the House of Representatives votes on impeachment this week, the Senate doesn’t reconvene until January 19 – one day before the inauguration.

Not welcome: Airbnb to ban guests ‘associated with hate groups’ in DC area ahead of inauguration, threatens LEGAL ACTION

12 Jan, 2021 05:20

FILE PHOTO. ©  Reuters / Dado Ruvic

Airbnb will cancel reservations and ban anyone it deems to be linked to “hate groups,” as well as participants in unrest at the US Capitol, vowing legal action against those “planning violence” in the lead-up to Inauguration Day.

As part of a seven-point “Capitol Safety Plan” unveiled on Monday, the room-rental service said it would take extra steps to enhance security ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. The measures include plans to review all reservations in the greater DC area and permanently ban guests “associated with a hate group,” as well as “individuals identified as involved in criminal activity at the Capitol” last Wednesday, when a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the halls of Congress.

“When we learn through media or law enforcement sources the names of individuals confirmed to have been responsible for the violent criminal activity at the United States Capitol on January 6, we investigate whether the named individuals have an account on Airbnb,” the company said, adding that it would cross-reference DC Metro Police arrest logs with its own members list.

If the individuals have an Airbnb account, we take action, which includes banning them from using Airbnb.

While the company did not specify how it would determine who belongs to a “hate group” beyond cross-checking arrest records, it also noted that it “may bring legal action” against guests who belong to such groups, as well as those “planning violence” or who otherwise violate Airbnb’s terms of service. The Proud Boys were the only group cited by name in the firm’s press release.

In addition to the bans and scrapped reservations, Airbnb said it would improve its “security checks” in the coming days, including stepped-up efforts to verify guests’ identities. It will also reach out to hosts to remind them that “members of hate groups are never welcome” at the service, while neighbors of Airbnb hosts were encouraged to raise “issues with reservations” through a 24/7 hotline.

The move is not Airbnb’s first attempt to keep “hate groups” off its platform, with the firm noting that it canceled a number of reservations in the days leading up to the riot on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, at which five people died amid the chaos, including one woman who was fatally shot by police.

“Our community policies ban domestic terrorist and violent hate group members,” Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit told the Washingtonian last week, adding that “we learned of reservations made by certain members of these groups and cancelled those reservations and removed them from our community, and we will continue to take appropriate action.”

Ahead of 2017’s ‘Unite the Right’ rally – which drew a number of far-right and neo-Nazi groups – the company took similar steps, tossing out reservations for some attendees on the basis of company policy, which requires that community members “accept people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age.”

Earlier on Monday, Airbnb issued a separate statement saying it “strongly condemns last week’s attack on the US Capitol and the efforts to undermine the democratic process,” while announcing that its political action committee would “withhold support” from any lawmaker who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 race – all of which were Republicans. The decision mirrors similar steps taken across corporate America since the Capitol riot, with Amazon, Citibank, Dow Inc., Marriott and AT&T, among others, also declaring they would halt contributions to the same group of legislators.

The unrest at the Capitol has triggered massive backlash by Big Tech firms, prompting a series of platforms to slap President Trump or his supporters with permanent bans, alleging repeat policy violations, including incitement to violence. The incident also revived discussion of impeachment among Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowing to initiate the process should lawmakers fail to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare the president unfit for office.

CNN says it will NOT carry Trump’s speech live from Texas, calls on ‘responsible networks’ to censor the president

12 Jan, 2021 16:37 / Updated 2 hours ago

Donald Trump departing Andrews Air Force Base, seen alongside CNN’s logo © Reuters / Kevin Lamarque

With President Donald Trump expected to make a public address in Texas, CNN has vowed not to air the president’s speech live and in full, and called on other “responsible networks” to skip the appearance.

After a tumultuous week that saw Trump accused of sedition over last Wednesday’s riot on Capitol Hill, then threatened with impeachment and excommunicated from social media, the president ventured outside the White House on Tuesday en route to Alamo, Texas.

Ostensibly traveling to Alamo to visit a section of border wall, Trump will likely deliver a lengthy speech, his first since a pre-recorded message last week condemning his supporters who broke the law at the Capitol.

CNN won’t be covering the speech live, host Brian Stelter revealed in a newsletter on Tuesday morning. “There’s a lot of concern about what he’ll say and how he’ll say it,” Stelter wrote, adding that “responsible TV networks will not air Trump live and in full. Not after his incitement last week.”

“Fox and other pro-Trump networks will air Trump live, while other outlets will exercise editorial judgment and ingest what he says, then decide if any of it is newsworthy,” Stelter continued. “Maybe Fox management will prove me wrong and skip the speech, we’ll see…”

At least one pro-Trump network, Right Side Broadcasting Network, has promised to carry Trump’s appearance in full.

Trump has been accused of incitement since he rallied his supporters outside the White House on Wednesday and urged them to march on the US Capitol. However, Trump did ask the crowd to protest “peacefully and patriotically,” a call that some rioters who smashed windows and vandalized the Capitol disregarded.

Democrats still hastily drafted articles of impeachment, accusing Trump of “incitement of insurrection,” with a House vote expected this week.

Trump has meanwhile been booted from every major social media platform, with the tech companies responsible citing public safety concerns as their reasoning. Cut off from his usual means of communication with the public, Trump has remained out of the spotlight over the weekend and into this week.

However, shortly after Stelter’s newsletter went out, Trump spoke to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base before departing for Texas. There, he disavowed any responsibility for the Capitol riot, saying that his speech was “totally appropriate.”

Leaving the White House earlier on Tuesday, Trump accused Democrats of stoking “tremendous anger” with their new impeachment drive, and later at Andrews Air Force Base called the tech firms’ decision to ban him “a catastrophic mistake for them” and “very, very bad for our country.” However, he told reporters several times that he wants “no violence” from his supporters.

Global corporate giants turn their backs on Trump & his supporters

12 Jan, 2021 13:04 / Updated 5 hours ago

FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, DC, December 12, 2020 ©  Reuters / Cheriss May

JPMorgan Chase, Marriott and other major corporations are cutting ties with outgoing US President Donald Trump, and are freezing political donations to his supporters in the wake of last week’s unrest on Capitol Hill.

Shortly after Twitter and Facebook banned Trump from their platforms, depriving the president of his crucial loudspeaker, Stripe, a financial services and software company, said it will stop processing payments for Trump’s campaign website.

At the same time, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) has announced plans to cut ties with the president, by moving its 2022 championship away from Trump’s Bedminster golf course in New Jersey.

“Our feeling was, given the tragic events of Wednesday, that we could no longer hold it at Bedminster,” CEO of the PGA Seth Waugh told the Associated Press.

Canadian e-commerce company Shopify joined the move by taking down stores selling Trump merchandise online.

Amazon says it will SUSPEND donations to lawmakers who objected to Biden’s victory certification, joining a growing list of firms

“The actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause,” according to the company’s statement, as cited by Yahoo Finance.

Deutsche Bank, Trump’s most important lender, with about $340 million in loans outstanding to The Trump Organization, said it won’t do business with the US president or his companies, the New York Times reports, citing an unnamed source close to the bank.

On January 6, Trump’s supporters breached the protective barricade around the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the vote count at the joint session of Congress convened to officially confirm Democrat Joe Biden the next president. The protesters occupied parts of the building for several hours. The revolt led to the evacuation and lockdown of the building and resulted in five deaths.

Moreover, the Republican Party lawmakers who voted to challenge Biden’s victory have also faced growing blowback from the US corporate titans that pledged to cut off campaign contributions.

US multinational hotelier Marriott International said in a statement that it “will be pausing political giving from our Political Action Committee to those who voted against certification of the election.”

Michigan-based commodity chemical company Dow Incorporated, along with American Express and Amazon are among those who’ve threatened to cut off funding for Republicans who are soon to leave the White House and both chambers of Congress.

“Given the unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process, the Amazon PAC [political action committee] has suspended contributions to any member of Congress who voted to override the results of the US presidential election,” Amazon spokesperson Jodi Seth said, as cited by CBC.

Just the beginning? Corporate speech-policing fears grow as US senator loses book deal over election objections

Hallmark Cards, the company that makes greeting cards, and MasterCard have both said they will suspend donations to those who did not support the certification of Biden’s election victory.

“The recent actions of Senators Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall [of Kansas] do not reflect our company’s values,” Hallmark Cards said, adding that it had “requested Sens. Hawley and Marshall to return all HALLPAC campaign contributions.”

Commerce Bank, a regional lender with branches from Texas to Michigan, confirmed it had “suspended all support for officials who have impeded the peaceful transfer of power.”

JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have reportedly introduced a temporary ban on all political donations to both Democrats and Republicans.

Meanwhile, Bank of America said it had contributed to both parties before, adding that “in the next election cycle the PAC will review its decision-making criteria in light of the actions that contributed to the appalling violent assault on the US Capitol.”

Similar measures were announced by investment management firm Blackrock, investment adviser Vanguard Group and a food-processing company, Smithfield Foods. Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet also pledged to freeze their political spending.

Sporting world continues presidential pile-on as NFL icon Bill Belichick refuses Trump award over ‘values, freedoms and democracy’

12 Jan, 2021 10:41

NFL coach Bill Belichick has rebuffed an honor from President Donald Trump after the attack on the Capitol © Joshua Roberts / Reuters | © Stephanie Keith / Reuters

Bill Belichick, the legendary head coach of the New England Patriots, has refused an offer by Donald Trump to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, writing online that he felt it seemed inappropriate after last week’s riots.

Just a day after it was confirmed that the Professional Golfers’ Association has moved to strip Trump’s Bedminster golf course of the 2022 PGA Championship, the outgoing president has now received another firm rebuke from the sports world after Belichick indicated that he will refuse what is the highest honor available to a citizens in the United States.

The six-time Super Bowl winner, who is widely considered to be the greatest coach in NFL history, indicated that he refused the offer in the wake of the Trump-inspired riots at the US Capitol last week which led to the deaths of at least five people including a police officer.

“Recently I was offered the opportunity to receive the presidential medal of freedom, which I was flattered by out of respect for what the honor represents and admiration for prior recipients,” Belichick announced in a statement released on Monday.

“Subsequently, the tragic events of last week occurred and the decision has been made not to move forward with the award.

“Above all, I am an American citizen with great reverence for our nation’s values, freedom and democracy.

“I know I also represent my family and the New England Patriots team.

“One of the most rewarding things in my professional career took place in 2020 when, through the great leadership within our team, conversations about social justice, equality and human rights moved to the forefront and became actions.

“Continuing those efforts while remaining true to the people, team and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award.”

The decision by Belichick, a hero to many in the predominantly liberal New England and its surrounding areas, will come as a relief to some those who had expressed their anger at what was seen as Trump “sports-washing” his reputation by associating himself with sports stars – with the Boston Globe penning an op-ed entitled “Don’t go” directed at Belichick.

Others railed against the move and described it as another example of “cancel culture“.

Regardless of the motivations, the news will be a bitter blow for Trump who had long spoken up his relationship with Belichick, even joking last year that he expected the Patriots coach would be a fine United States General.

Trump has waded into the sports world on several occasions throughout his presidency, not least during his backlash at the trend of sideline protests popularized in the NFL by Colin Kaepernick, referring to participating players as “sons of bitches“.

Golfers Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam, who accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the White House last week, both came under fire in the media for continuing to attend in the wake of Wednesday’s riots – for which Trump is currently facing his second impeachment on a count of incitement of insurrection.

YouTube SUSPENDS Trump’s channel for ‘inciting violence,’ becoming 3rd major platform after Twitter & Facebook to do so

FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Youtube logo is seen in front of displayed “Streaming service” words in this illustration taken March 24, 2020. © REUTERS/Dado Ruvic