A manager at Amazon.com Inc sued the online retailer for discrimination on Monday, saying it hires Black people for lower positions and promotes them more slowly than white workers, and that she was subjected to harassment.
The lawsuit from Charlotte Newman, a business development head at Amazon Web Services who is Black, said the company suffers from a “systemic pattern of insurmountable discrimination,” despite its pledge to fight racism and statements of solidarity from Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos.
A Black Amazon manager is suing company executives in a discrimination and sexual harassment and assault case https://t.co/br4whbs4CV
A senior manager at Amazon has filed a lawsuit in D.C. district court against Amazon, alleging race and gender discrimination against her and sexual harassment and assault by a former Amazon executive.
Seattle-based Amazon had no immediate comment. The complaint was filed in Washington, D.C., federal court.
Newman, a Harvard Business School graduate and former adviser to U.S. Senator Cory Booker, said Amazon delayed by 2-1/2 years her rise to senior manager by hiring her in 2017 for a more junior role for which she was overqualified, a “de-leveling” that reduces awards of company stock.
She also accused a male supervisor of using racial tropes by calling her “aggressive,” “too direct” and “just scary,” and another male co-worker of sexually harassing her and once pulling on her braids while saying, “You can leave this behind.”
Both men were also named as defendants, and according to the lawsuit the co-worker was terminated. His lawyer could not immediately be identified.
Amazon was hit with a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination against Black and female prospects for jobs in its corporate offices https://t.co/VzPJv6S668
Newman is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. She is represented by Douglas Wigdor, who also represented women suing the former movie producer Harvey Weinstein and Fox News over alleged harassment or discrimination.
Amazon has worked to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement. In September its cloud computing chief Andy Jassy, who will succeed Bezos as Amazon CEO, gave the keynote address at a Black Employee Network entrepreneurship conference.
The news site Recode last week reported allegations of racial disparities in Amazon promotions and performance reviews.
Amazon also faces lawsuits claiming it mistreated workers in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic at its facilities.
Amazon slapped with federal lawsuit for alleged discrimination and sexual harassment https://t.co/XfO6Vp5Jh5
The latest data made public by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) on deaths and injuries reported after COVID vaccines are in line with trends that have been emerging since the first data were released in December.
Nothing to see here, folks: these are the most recent “life threatening” side effect VAERS reports in people under 50 – many healthcare workers, a baseline young and healthy group. Putting aside anaphylaxis, blood/CV events dominate – a lot of PEs and DVTs, a bunch of strokes… pic.twitter.com/5A1NTycDmg
Between Dec. 14, 2020 and Feb. 18, 2021, 19,907 reports of adverse events have been reported to VAERS, including 1,095 deaths and 3,767 serious injuries.
About a third of the deaths reported occurred within 48 hours of vaccination, and 48% of the people who died became ill within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
About 21% of the deaths were cardiac-related. As The Defender reported last month, Dr. J. Patrick Whelan, a pediatric rheumatologist, warned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December that mRNA vaccines like those developed by Pfizer and Moderna could cause heart attacks and other injuries in ways not assessed in safety trials.
Of the reported deaths, 966 were reported in the U.S. and 129 outside the U.S. The average age of the deceased was 77.8, the youngest was 23. Of those who died, 53% were male, 46% female and 1% of the reports did not include gender. Of those who died, 56% received the Pfizer vaccine, and 43% got the Moderna vaccine.
The number of serious adverse events reports increased by 641 this week, to a total of 3,767 between Dec. 14, 2020, and Feb. 18. Adverse reaction reports from the latest CDC data include:
By comparison, during the same time period — Dec. 14, 2020 – Feb. 18, 2021 — VAERS received reports of 83 deaths following flu vaccines.
These numbers reflect the latest data available as of Jan. 29 from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Of the 501 reported deaths, 453 were from the U.S. The average age of those who died was 77, the youngest was 23. #TheDefenderhttps://t.co/rIEVDzlzzL
According to the VAERS website, “it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established … VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.”
VAERS is the primary mechanism in the U.S. for reporting adverse vaccine reactions. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a determination can be made as to whether the reported adverse event was directly or indirectly caused by the vaccine.
As of Feb. 18, 57.74 million people in the U.S. have been vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
On Feb. 27, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grantedEmergency Use Authorization to a third COVID vaccine — the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine. Doses are expected to roll out as early as this week. Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.
As of February 19 there have been 1,095 deaths, 755 life-threatening adverse events, 403 cases of permanent disability, & 6,000+ hospitalizations & emergency room visits following COVID vaccination reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
After other media outlets picked up the New York Times article about a “worrisome” new virus variant allegedly spreading throughout the city, scientists and health officials blasted the paper for inciting fear based on unpublished, non-peer-reviewed studies.
The New York Times on Thursday published an article about the spread of a possible new COVID variant in New York City. After the article was picked up widely by other mainstream media outlets, scientists and public health officials were quick to condemn what they said was the “potentially premature release of unfinished research.”
A new virus variant is spreading rapidly in New York City, and it carries a mutation that may weaken the effectiveness of vaccines, researchers said. https://t.co/8mK7AKjjvS
The Times cited studies from two teams of researchers. One study, posted online Tuesday, was led by a group of researchers at the California Institute of Technology. The other study, which had been obtained by the Times but not yet made public, came from a group of researchers at Columbia University.
Neither study had been peer reviewed, published in a scientific journal or shared with public officials before being published by the Times, according to NBC New York.
CNN, which also received a copy of the Columbia study, ran with the Times’ story that researchers had found a worrying new variant in New York City that was “alarming,” “surging” and might be “more contagious” and cause more “severe disease.”
CNN did admit that the research was in its very early stages, had not been published or peer reviewed and needed “more work.”
“To be quite clear, I think neither of us did anything wrong,” said the author of the article, Apoorva Mandavilli, in a tweet. “It is our job to report and bring information to light. Sometimes that’s at the pace of science, but sometimes not.”
To be quite clear, I think neither of us did anything wrong. It is our job to report and bring information to light. Sometimes that's at the pace of science, but sometimes not.
However, scientists and health officials criticized the premature release of unfinished research, arguing that there was no evidence that the new variant has contributed to the case trajectory and that it was not currently a cause for public health concern.
Commenting on the controversy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman of Children’s Health Defense, said:
“This is yet another example of the New York Times’ double standard and hypocrisy on all things vaccine. The Times regularly bashes me for promoting vaccine ‘misinformation’ even though I religiously cite all of my published posts to published, peer-reviewed sources or government databases. Yet here we have the Times promoting panic by citing an article that is neither peer reviewed nor published and that has none of the indicia of accuracy or credibility.”
When Eric Topol, physician, scientist, professor of molecular medicine and founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute asked on Twitter why academic groups were forwarding “preprints” that are not posted directly to the media without the biomedical community having a chance to review, Nathan Grubaugh, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health responded:
“This wasn’t even a ‘pre-print’ – I was asked to provide comment on someone’s draft manuscript that still had tracked changes and didn’t include the figures. Based on this, the NYT wrote a story. This is an absolute mess.”
This wasn't even a "pre-print" – I was asked to provide comment on someone's draft manuscript that still had tracked changes and didn't include the figures. Based on this, the NYT wrote a story. This is an absolute mess. https://t.co/COG7SS5ROX
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s spokesperson, Bill Neidhardt tweeted that it’s great Columbia and others are locking into COVID variants, but “please, please for the love of all that is holy share the data with public health officials before you publicize pre-writes that still have track changes with the NY Times. That’s all.
It’s great that Columbia and other academics are looking into COVID variants. But please, please for the love of all that is holy share the data with public health officials before you publicize pre-writes that still have track changes with the NY Times. That’s all. https://t.co/XR3QWNewnr
One of de Blasio’s senior public health advisors, Dr. Jay Varma called the reporting “pathogen porn” that was not helpful to public health. He tweeted a plea to academics to “review high-impact studies with government health departments before marketing it to the media.”
Why are academic groups forwarding "preprints" that are not posted directly to the media without the biomedical community having a chance to review? Isn't a preprint enough? is this a new pre-pre-print trend? Concerning.
Some variants are variants of interest and some variants are a public health concern. “As far as the Columbia report,” Varma said during the mayor’s daily coronavirus briefing, “we need to just consider this a variant of interest — something that is interesting that we need to follow and track.” Varma encouraged New Yorkers to be a “little skeptical” with what they read.
Viruses mutate all the time, including the virus behind COVID-19. Virus mutations, which are random errors that occur when a virus reproduces, appear frequently due to the number of viruses replicating in a short period of time when transmission is extensive, according to Quanta Magazine.
After 15 months of evolution, SARS-CoV-2 has sequenced more than 600,000 times, said Topol citing The Economist. The new variant called B.1.526 first appeared in November but has become the latest addition to a growing number of viral variants that have arisen in the U.S.
Dr. Dave Chokshi, New York’s health commissioner, said there was no evidence to suggest the variant identified in the Columbia report had contributed to case numbers, which have continued to decrease since the holiday spike.
According to NBC New York, when Topol took to Twitter to question why the Times report on a possible “scariant” had been published without biomedical review, author Apoorva Mandavilli said she wanted readers to see both lines of evidence at once and everyone quoted in the article had seen the manuscript and thought it looked legit.
“It [referring to the Columbia study, which also cited pre-publication data from Caltech] should be out soon!”
Mandavilli said in a tweet that the blast by NBC New York was not really a criticism of her, but of another writer and she was blamed.
Two New York Times journalists wrote about viral variants, and only the other journalist had used entirely unpublished data, tweeted Mandavilli. She said he [the other journalist] didn’t get grief because he was a white male, though she thinks neither of them did anything wrong.
Although the preprint by Columbia is now available online, it has not been certified by peer review — a process by which a journal’s editors take advice from various experts who assess the paper and identify weaknesses in its assumptions, methods and conclusions.
According to medRxiv, an online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical and related health sciences, preprints like the Columbia study should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information, as it might contain errors, has not been finalized by the authors and may contain information not endorsed by the scientific or medical community.
Journalists are urged to emphasize the preprint has yet to be evaluated by the medical community and that the information presented may be erroneous.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 681 points, or 2.2%, in midday trading, while the S&P 500 climbed 2.2%. Both indexes were on track for their biggest one-day gains since November. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 2.3%.
The gains marked a robust rebound after all three indexes declined last week, weighed down by losses among tech stocks.
Monday’s advance came as the yield on 10-year Treasury notes, the benchmark borrowing cost in U.S. debt markets, slipped to 1.431% from 1.459% Friday. Yields fall when bond prices rise.
Stocks, and particularly shares of tech companies, have been buffeted by volatile moves in government-bond markets in recent trading sessions. A long period of low interest rates underpinned the stock market’s boom over the past year, by making it less attractive for investors to put money in bonds. Last week’s climb in yields called that into question. It also raised the specter that the U.S. Federal Reserve might put an end to easy-money policies to combat inflation.
Not just Tesla: Tech analyst says electric vehicle stocks could soar 50% this year Electric vehicle stocks could climb by 50% this year, according to Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, who thinks there's enough room in the market for Tesla rivals.https://t.co/8RE1SBFmnS
While it may be appropriate to label Max Lucado “Christian-lite”, I don’t believe it’s fair to call him a Christian Leftist (at least not yet). His recent retraction and apology for his past sermons regarding same-sex marriage though have left many Christians wondering if the best selling author of over 100 faith titles folded to the pressures of progressive ideology this past week. Lucado, who claims to still personally affirm a biblical view of marriage and sexuality, faced backlash after being invited to speak at the Washington National Cathedral by the left-leaning Episcopal Church’s Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Paul in the City and the Diocese of Washington. Ultimately, Lucado was allowed to address the church through the virtual event, but not without demands for leadership to rescind his invitation and to cancel his talk after statements from a 2004 sermon he preached condemning same-sex marriage surfaced.
Max Lucado apologises for past sermon on same-sex marriage after critics complain about National Cathedral invitation https://t.co/XN5xmoUlyv
Several issues are wrong with this situation, notwithstanding Lucado’s own response, but’s let start by addressing the greater problem – that a so-called ‘Christian church’ would support a liberal LGBT agenda over the teachings of Jesus, scriptural interpretation, and 2000 years of well-established church history. At some point in time, in denominations like this sect of the Episcopal church, Christian views on original sin, morality, and the dangers of libertine sexuality were replaced with a rampant embrace of licentiousness and every en vogue moral departure. In the past, this form of neo-Christianity, which has more in common with Marx than Christ, was mostly isolated to academic circles, but over the past few decades it has leaked it’s left-leaning heresy into the pulpit and now into the pews.
With that said, Lucado’s response doesn’t make him apostate, and any cries from Christians to ‘cancel him’ only cause us to resemble the leftist mobs we criticize. What it does show though is how easy it is for a solid Christian leader to succumb to political pressure and fall short of defending the faith.
Evangelical megachurch pastor Max Lucado has apologized for language he used in a 2004 sermon on same-sex marriage after the LGBTQ community objected to him acting as guest pastor at Washington National Cathedral Feb. 7.https://t.co/guwmxztaK9pic.twitter.com/fgrJqjUL5U
The early church dealt with a similar issue which was vividly captured in St. Cyprian’s work, The Lapsed: The Unity of the Catholic Church, in which he tells of Christians who folded to pressure from the Roman state to offer a pagan sacrifice contrary to their faith. Individuals who conformed to the religious demands of the empire, only to later return to the church to reconfirm their faith in Christ, were known at that time as ‘the lapsed’.
Of course, Lucado didn’t go as far as to offer a pagan sacrifice, but he did seemingly apologize for holding scriptural beliefs. In the end, his efforts failed to satisfy his progressive opponents and unfortunately caused his fellow Bible-believing base to question his witness. I won’t be so bold as to call Lucado “lapsed,” but I do believe his efforts were misguided. Nonetheless, as St. Cyprian modeled to the early church, individuals like Lucado, assuming he continues to embrace a biblical worldview, should be allowed back into believers’ good graces – though not without caution.
In line with biblical grace, let’s remember it’s easy for those who have never experienced a furious onslaught from a cancel culture mob to criticize. It is hard to say what any of us would do if we were to undergo this type of societal attack against our careers and livelihood. With that said, the right answer for Christians is to always hold fast to scripture and to never apologize for God’s word.
Former President Donald Trump says he was concerned days before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol about the size of the crowd expected near the Capitol and requested 10,000 National Guard troops to be deployed, but that his request was rejected because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders did not like the optics.
Trump says he requested 10K National Guard troops at Capitol on day of riot https://t.co/rwKn3R6Cej
“I requested, I said this rally will be bigger than anything thinks,” Trump told Fox News’ Steve Hilton on “The Revolution” Sunday night, in an interview airing after his CPAC speech. “Everyone said we’ll be at the rally. It was, I think, the largest crowd that I have ever spoken to before. I have spoken to big crowds, hundreds of thousands of people, more than that, but hundreds of thousands of people.”
Trump said he “gave the number” to the Department of Defense that 10,000 members of the National Guard would be needed.
“They took that number, from what I understand, they gave it to people at the Capitol, that is controlled by Pelosi, and I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good,” said Trump.
According to the National Guard’s website, “the President of the United States can activate the National Guard for participation in federal missions. Examples of federal activations include Guard units deployed to Kosovo and the Sinai for stabilization operations and units deployed to the Middle East and other locations in the war on terrorism.”
On the day after the riot, Trump said in a recorded video that he “immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.”
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” that Trump issued a “direct order” to have up to 10,000 troops ready.
Meanwhile, according to Jane Campbell, the president and CEO of the U..S. Capitol Historical society, Capitol Complex security is the direct responsibility of a four-member Capitol Police Board, which includes both the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, who report to the leaders of those chambers, reports PolitiFact.
Paul Irving, who had been the House sergeant-at-arms at the time of the attack, Michael Stenger, the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, and Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund all resigned after the attack.
According to reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times, Irving told Sund he didn’t want troops at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because of “bad optics.”
Pelosi’s office and the Defense Department have not immediately responded to Trump’s comments, reports Fox News.
Trump also told Hilton that he “hated” to see what unfolded at the Capitol, but denied that he was watching the events unfold on television in real time and compared the riot to unrest that took place in cities such as Portland and Seattle last summer.
Four people were arrested in Texas last month on 150 counts of voter fraud dating back to the 2018 Medina County Primary Election, according to reports.
The Texas attorney general’s Election Fraud Unit on Feb. 11 arrested Medina County Justice of the Peace Tomas Ramirez, and earlier detained Leonor Rivas Garza, Eva Ann Martinez and Mary Balderrama on election fraud allegations, News4SA reported.
According to a release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, the case involved allegations of vote harvesting at assisted living centers in Medina County in the 2018 Medina County Primary Election.
Ramirez faces one count of organized election fraud, one count of assisting voter voting ballot by mail, and 17 counts of unlawful possession of a ballot or ballot envelope, according to the news outlet.
Balderrama is charged with one count of organized election fraud, nine counts of illegal voting, two counts of unlawful possession of ballot or ballot envelope, one count of mail ballot application, two counts of unlawfully assisting voter voting by mail, two counts of tampering with government record, and eight counts of election fraud.
Garza faces a single count of organized election fraud, two counts of illegal voting, eight counts of unlawful possession of a ballot or ballot envelope, two counts of election fraud and four counts of fraudulent use of an absentee ballot by mail.
This shows Mail ballot vote fraud in Texas.
“Investigators said Mohamed opened a post office box under the name of a nursing home then “forged at least 84 voter registration applications” and sent those ballots to that post office box.”
Martinez is charged with a single count of organized election fraud, nine counts of illegal voting, 28 counts of unlawful possession of ballot or ballot envelope, three counts of purportedly acting as an agent, five counts of tampering with government record, 14 counts of election fraud, and four counts of fraudulent mail ballot application, according to News4SA.
The Texas attorney general’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.
In a separate incident, Raquel Rodriguez, a Texas woman who bragged about being able to deliver thousands of votes for tens of thousands in cash was arrested in January on charges including election fraud and illegal voting.
Rodriguez was filmed during an undercover project by Project Veritas, an investigative journalism nonprofit. She was recorded in footage released last year that she could deliver “at least 5,000” votes “county-wide” for $55,000 in cash and that it would hire her “entire team.” She acknowledged what she was discussing could land her prison time.
Based on the footage, Paxton, a Republican, opened an investigation. That probe led to the arrest, Paxton announced on Jan. 13.
Rodriguez faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted.
A woman accused of voter fraud in San Antonio has been arrested & charged with illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail & unlawfully possessing a ballot.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced a barrage of criticism from fellow Democrats after The New York Times reported that the second former aide in four days had accused him of sexual harassment.
Why it matters: Cuomo had faced a revolt from legislators for his handling of nursing-home deaths from COVID. Now, the scandal is acutely personal, with obviously grave political risk.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Corteztweeted that the women’s “detailed accounts of sexual harassment by Gov. Cuomo are extremely serious and painful to read,” and said the state attorney general should investigate.
She was among several Democrats said an “independent review” announced by Cuomo was inadequate.
“This is no joke,” Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) tweeted above the Times story. “There must be an independent investigation into these allegations. The accused CANNOT appoint the investigator. PERIOD.”
Charlotte Bennett, 25, an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration until November, told The Times (subscription) that the governor, 63, had harassed her during the height of the state’s COVID fight, including asking whether “she had ever had sex with older men.”
The most disturbing encounter came June 5, when she was alone with Cuomo in his Capitol office, The Times reports:
[S]he said the governor had asked her numerous questions about her personal life, including whether she thought age made a difference in romantic relationships, and had said that he was open to relationships with women in their 20s — comments she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship.
Bennett said Cuomo complained about being lonely during the pandemic, mentioning that he “can’t even hug anyone,” then asking her: “Who did I last hug?”
Cuomo requested an independent review, and said in a statement that he had intended to act as a mentor: “I never made advances toward Ms. Bennett nor did I ever intend to act in any way that was inappropriate.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” that she wants an independent investigation and said of the one Cuomo announced: “I wouldn’t consider that to be independent.”
On Wednesday, former aide Lindsey Boylan, 36, wrote that Cuomo suggested: “Let’s play strip poker.”
A second former aide to Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has come forward with allegations of sexual harassment, which came just days after his first accuser made her claims public.
Charlotte Bennett, who is described by The New York Times as “an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration until she left in November,” alleges that Cuomo “asked her questions about her sex life, whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had sex with older men.”
The 25-year-old staffer described to the Times an incident that took place in June when she was “alone” with the 63-year-old governor in his State Capitol office. According to the report, he allegedly asked her if she thought age made a difference in romantic relationships and that he was open to having relationships with women in their 20s, which were noted by the Times as “comments she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship.”
While Bennett alleges that Cuomo never tried touching her, the governor’s “message” during that exchange was “unmistakable to her.”
“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” Bennett told the Times. “And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job.”
According to the Times, Bennett disclosed the incident to Cuomo’s chief of staff Jill DesRosiers less than a week later and submitted a lengthier statement to Cuomo’s special counsel Judith Mogul towards the end of the month. She was also transferred to another job as a health policy adviser, placing her on the opposite side of the Capitol building.
Bennett told the Times she didn’t persist in seeking an investigation because she “wanted to move on” and that she was content with her new job.
In a press release on Saturday, Cuomo called Bennett a “hardworking and valued member of our team during COVID” who has “every right to speak out.”
“When she came to me and opened up about being a sexual assault survivor and how it shaped her and her ongoing efforts to create an organization that empowered her voice to help other survivors, I tried to be supportive and helpful,” Cuomo said in a statement, which was issued to the Times. “Ms. Bennett’s initial impression was right: I was trying to be a mentor to her. I never made advances toward Ms. Bennett nor did I ever intend to act in any way that was inappropriate. The last thing I would ever have wanted was to make her feel any of the things that are being reported.”
Cuomo added that he will “have no further comment” until a “full and thorough outside review” of Bennett’s claims is conducted and concluded.
As the Times noted in its report, Cuomo did not deny Bennett’s claims about asking such personal questions.
Cuomo’s special counsel Beth Garvey also released a statement, which read, “Ms. Bennett’s concerns were treated with sensitivity and respect and in accordance with applicable law and policy. The matter was promptly escalated to special counsel. Ms. Bennett received the transfer she requested to a position in which she had expressed a long-standing interest, and was thoroughly debriefed on the facts which did not include a claim of physical contact or inappropriate sexual conduct. She was consulted regarding the resolution, and expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the way in which it was handled.”
“The determination reached based on the information Ms. Bennett provided was that no further action was required which was consistent with Ms. Bennett’s wishes.”
Fox News reached out to Bennett and DesRosiers for comment.
Lindsey Boylan, Cuomo’s first accuser, expressed her support for Bennett.
“I am with you Charlotte. We are with you. Always,” Boylan wrote. “I am so proud of you Charlotte.”
Boylan, the former deputy secretary for economic development and a special adviser to Cuomo, published a bombshell essay Wednesday on the website Medium. She accused the governor of going “out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs,” forcibly kissing her on the lips during a one-on-one briefing, and suggesting that they “play strip poker” during a plane ride.
Cuomo’s office denied Boylan’s harassment claims, calling them “simply false” and insisting the strip poker comment “did not happen.”
Meanwhile, the prominent Democrat is also facing a growing scandal over his controversial policy of ordering COVID-positive patients into nursing homes in the early months of the pandemic and is now reportedly facing investigations by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney over an alleged cover-up of nursing home deaths in his state.
CNN, the home network of Cuomo’s kid brother Chris Cuomo, has given the governor unprecedented cover in downplaying his various scandals. The far-left network previously gave developments into his nursing home controversy little to no airtime — and allowed the “Cuomo Prime Time” anchor free rein to conduct friendly, comical interviews with the embattled Democrat in the early months of the pandemic. CNN also went roughly 24 hours without acknowledging Boylan’s damning sexual harassment claims after she came forward.
Cuomo himself appeared to offer a holier than thou stance during the contentious 2018 confirmation battle of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. As President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee faced allegations of sexual misconduct, Cuomo suggested that he take a “polygraph test” like his prominent accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford did.
“If he does not take a polygraph test, it is the ultimate, ‘he said, she said,'” Cuomo said at the time.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suggested that Big Tech firms should be treated like utility or phone companies in terms of regulation.
Over the past several years, there have been calls for the federal government to regulate Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and other Big Tech firms as these companies can exercise great control over what can and cannot be discussed on their platforms. Some conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, have said the Section 230 law in the Communications Decency Act of 1996 should be repealed or at least changed, while others have said that Big Tech companies have violated antitrust laws and have pursued monopolistic practices.
Paxton, a Republican, told The Epoch Times’ “Crossroads” that these companies “control the entire platform” and can choose who to keep or who to cancel.
“And so there is no other choice other than” regulating them, he said, suggesting they be regulated like a “utility company.”
These firms “have to provide power to everybody, because you’re the only choice,” Paxton remarked. “Normally, I’d say your rights private company can do what they want,” he said, “And consumers have choices.”
But in terms of social media, “consumers don’t have a choice, they have no choice,” he said. “And so we have to regulate that and make sure that free speech is not being controlled by a few very wealthy tech people.”
In the wake of accounts being suspended or posts being deleted by moderators on Facebook or Twitter, there have been arguments that conservatives should instead create their own social media platforms. However, with Parler being taken down by Amazon Web Services and being deleted from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, some have argued that it’s a sign these companies hold too much over. Another alternative social media platform, Gab, suffered similar blows several years ago after a mass shooting suspect posted his intentions to open fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue. As a result, Gab was forced to create its own payment processor and host its own servers.
When applying the term “public utility” to social media, it implies that these websites are public necessities and as a result, should be regulated by the government. These companies are being increasingly viewed as vital for living in an interconnected world, some have argued that living a successful life would be difficult without them.
Paxton also said that his office is investigating five companies “related to the whole issue of the president being deplatformed” last month.
In mid-January, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Twitch, and others suspended Trump’s accounts following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Twitter executives later said that Trump likely will never be able to return to the social media account.
But Trump, who favored Twitter to make announcements and voice his frustrations, said last week that Twitter has “become very boring” and suggested that “millions of people are leaving.”
