The Federal Trade Commission filed a long-awaited antitrust lawsuiton Tuesday against Amazon claiming the company “has illegally protected a monopoly in online retail.”
The FTC asserts, “Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.”
Seventeen states have piled aboard the lawsuit, which alleges Amazon is operating without competition in two markets.
States involved in the lawsuit are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
FTC Chair Lina Khan told Bloomberg’s Peggy Collins the agency’s claim against Amazon notes “both a set of anti-discounting tactics that Amazon uses to punish any seller or retailer that dares to discount, and ultimately these sets of tactics deter sellers and retailers from lowering prices and closes off an entire dimension of price competition.”
Amazon responded to the lawsuit, touting the FTC has lost sight of its mission and insisting they are wrong. David Zaplosky, Senior Vice President of Global Public Policy and General Counsel to Amazon, posted on X, “We think the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon is misguided.”
Former FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson weighed in with concern that the organization could face backlash if the lawsuit is unsuccessful. Thompson didn’t mince words when he implied the FTC may be aiming to make an example out of Amazon to send a message to Big Tech about how they are expected to carry out their business activities.
The FTC also sued Amazon in June for allegedly using deceitful practices to fool customers into subscribing to Amazon Prime, as well as making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions.
Is cornering the market a faux pas? Absolutely not. If there is a devil to be found in Amazon’s business practices, he most certainly lies in the details.
California just sued two pro-life Pregnancy Resource Centers for one crazy reason
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels
It turns out it’s not just pro-abortion agitators who are targeting pro-life pregnancy centers.
Leftist politicians, judges, and bureaucrats are also targeting these lifesaving facilities. And the state of California just sued two pro-life Pregnancy Resource Centers for one crazy reason.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) recently announced a lawsuit against two faith-based organizations, Heartbeat International (HBI) and RealOptions Obria. Both groups operate pro-life pregnancy resource centers in California and provide abortion pill reversal services.
Not the first time they’ve been targeted
Of course, this is not the first time a California Attorney General has gone after pro-life pregnancy centers.
And they’ve targeted them for any number of reasons, real or imagined. This time the lawsuit is over “fraudulent and misleading claims to advertise an unproven and largely experimental procedure called ‘abortion pill reversal (APR),’” according to the AG’s news release.
But in fact he’s really just targeting the clinics because abortion pill reversal humanizes the unborn baby, makes the abortion industry look bad, and threatens the abortion mill industry.
So what are the “fraudulent and misleading claims” Bonta is referring to?
His news release tries to give some examples.
“The evidence shows that the vast majority of people do not regret their decision to have an abortion — more than 95% of patients who undergo an abortion later say they made the right decision,” said Bonta.
So his claims is that these pregnancy centers are advertising a product almost nobody wants.But even if Bonta’s claim were true (which they are not), it would not contradict what RealOptions states on their website, “after taking the first pill, some women regret their choice and want to reverse it.”
Even if it is less than 5%, it is still “some women.”
In fact, RealOptions even offers a 24/7 helpline for women seeking to reverse their abortions.
That would be a huge waste of resources for the group if no one ever called.
But HBI’s 24/7 contact center “answers more than 150 mission-critical calls a month.”
So the very existence of this hotline undermines Bonta’s claims.
Another false charge
But Bonta wasn’t done.
He continued, “Advocates of APR falsely claim that if a pregnant person takes high doses of the hormone progesterone within 72 hours of taking the first drug, mifepristone, it will safely and effectively cancel the effects of the mifepristone.”
Unfortunately for Bonta, once again the facts prove otherwise.The pregnancy centers he sued do not make this claim at all.
“Initial studies of APR have shown it has a 64-68% success rate,” said RealOptions.
“However, the outcome of your particular reversal attempt cannot be guaranteed.”
And both pro-life organizations repeated phrases like, “There may still be time,” or “It may not be too late.”
Bonta also claimed there is “no scientific basis” for abortion pill reversal.
But HBI cited academic sources for their claim that “The protocol used in the Abortion Pill Reversal process is nothing new. In fact, progesterone has been used routinely and safely with pregnancy since the 1950s.”
RealOptions explained how doses of progesterone could help. “By giving extra progesterone, we hope to outnumber and outcompete the mifepristone in order to reverse the effects of the abortion pill (also known as mifepristone). Mifepristone blocks progesterone’s actions by binding to progesterone receptors in the uterus and the placenta.”
Colorado passed a law prohibiting abortion pill reversals, also alleging a lack of scientific evidence, but the state’s lawyers didn’t even attempt to defend the law when a Catholic health system presented a mountain of scientific evidence against the law.
“Across the country and around the world, pregnant women facing threatened miscarriages are commonly treated with progesterone — a naturally occurring and safe hormone that supports pregnancy,” Bella Health and Wellness argued in a lawsuit against Colorado.
There is no logic, no science, and therefore no law that backs up Bonta’s lawsuit.
There is only one reason for filing the lawsuit — politics.
The California Attorney General’s office is often seen as a launching point to seek higher office. The last two California AG’s, Kamala Harris and Xavier Beccera, leveraged their role into high-profile posts in the Biden administration.
The path forward for Bonta to reach higher office is to appease the rabid progressive pro-abortion activists who now control the Democrat Party.
And he doesn’t care how many have to die for him to do it.
Pro-Life Press will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
One in five students polled said they had witnessed a physical attack of an antisemitic nature (Photo: Getty)
Ninety per cent of Jewish students have suffered antisemitism whilst attending French universities or elite colleges, a survey has found.
Students said they have been subjected to antisemitic stereotyping, “schoolboy” jokes about the Holocaust and, in some instances, physical assault, according to a report published by the French Institute of Public Opinion.
The polling company surveyed more than 800 students, of which 237 were Jewish, in two separate surveys. Among the Jewish students who reported that they had suffered antisemitism, 12 per cent said a professor had been responsible.
One in five of all the students polled said they had witnessed a physical attack of an antisemitic nature at least once at their university or college, the survey, commissioned by the Union of Jewish students in France, found.
Speaking to French newspaper Le Parisien, one former student at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies claimed that fellow students had repeatedly harassed him, chanting Nazi slogans. “One said he wished my grandparents had died in the camps,” he told the newspaper.
France is home to the world’s second largest diaspora Jewish community after the United States, with approximately 550,000 French people having at least one Jewish parent, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
Three quarters of the Jewish repsondent said that they felt that they had to justify Israeli policies because they were Jewish. More than four fifths (83 per cent) said they feared antisemitism at the hands of the far left, while 63 per cent said they feared the far right.
Philippe Schmidt, vice president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, said: “Hostility towards Jews doesn’t come from any one community or especially from Muslims. Far-left propaganda is a bigger issue.”
The study also reflected on other reports of rising incidents of antisemitism in Germany and the UK.
In a separate report published earlier this month, non-profit organisation the Jewish People Policy Institute noted that incidents of antisemitism remains high despite the absence of apparent “stress factors”.
It said: “Jewish communities must acknowledge that the hostility will not disappear on its own. In coordination with local authorities, they need to take proactive measures to
90% of French students have suffered antisemitism at university, survey finds
France is home to the world’s second largest diaspora Jewish community
One in five students polled said they had witnessed a physical attack of an antisemitic nature (Photo: Getty)
Ninety per cent of Jewish students have suffered antisemitism whilst attending French universities or elite colleges, a survey has found.
Students said they have been subjected to antisemitic stereotyping, “schoolboy” jokes about the Holocaust and, in some instances, physical assault, according to a report published by the French Institute of Public Opinion.
The polling company surveyed more than 800 students, of which 237 were Jewish, in two separate surveys. Among the Jewish students who reported that they had suffered antisemitism, 12 per cent said a professor had been responsible.
One in five of all the students polled said they had witnessed a physical attack of an antisemitic nature at least once at their university or college, the survey, commissioned by the Union of Jewish students in France, found.
Speaking to French newspaper Le Parisien, one former student at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies claimed that fellow students had repeatedly harassed him, chanting Nazi slogans. “One said he wished my grandparents had died in the camps,” he told the newspaper.
France is home to the world’s second largest diaspora Jewish community after the United States, with approximately 550,000 French people having at least one Jewish parent, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
Three quarters of the Jewish repsondent said that they felt that they had to justify Israeli policies because they were Jewish. More than four fifths (83 per cent) said they feared antisemitism at the hands of the far left, while 63 per cent said they feared the far right.
Philippe Schmidt, vice president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, said: “Hostility towards Jews doesn’t come from any one community or especially from Muslims. Far-left propaganda is a bigger issue.”
The study also reflected on other reports of rising incidents of antisemitism in Germany and the UK.
In a separate report published earlier this month, non-profit organisation the Jewish People Policy Institute noted that incidents of antisemitism remains high despite the absence of apparent “stress factors”.
It said: “Jewish communities must acknowledge that the hostility will not disappear on its own. In coordination with local authorities, they need to take proactive measures to enhance the security of Jews.”
Posts
