Free Republic

In a first-look profile of Amazon’s eagerly anticipated The Lord of the Rings TV series, The Rings of Power, the project’s creative team had some words about online trolls who have been outraged that the show will feature a far more diverse cast than Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films. “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of [author J.R.R.] Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” executive producer Lindsey Weber told Vanity Fair, which also published several new photos from the series. “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their...

A homeless San Francisco man said during an interview with author Michael Shellenberger that the city pays him to be homeless and boasted about having a cell phone with Amazon Prime and Netflix in a video posted Wednesday to Twitter. “If you’re gonna be homeless, it’s pretty xxxxx easy here” the homeless man, named James, said to Shellenberger during their interview. “I mean if we’re gonna be realistic, they pay you to be homeless here” he continued. “When you said that San Francisco pays people to be homeless, what did you mean by that? Did you mean that literally?” Shellenberger...

"The maritime industry transports 90% of the world’s trade and cyberattacks on shipping increased 900% between 2017 and 2020, to the tune of one incident on a ship every day. How much of your supply chain runs across the ocean?" "“The disruption of ships, ports, communications and shipping lanes is a genuine threat. This is crippling to the larger economy/larger supply chains—especially with things stretched thin today,” says Steve Moore, chief security strategist at Exabeam. “Amazon is even building its fleet with its own technology to control these problems more effectively.”"

Chuck the old and start anew for we are breaking NEW ground and as we proceed there is no need to ever look back for you are my new wine skin and I have healed and removed all brittleness of heart now so invigoration and restoration flow freely through the rivers of your soul. Now come with Me as we redig the wells in others and stir the waters of revival and restoration lifting others up in need of "Hope Restored" for The Voice of many waters is calling to you for His Glory! Genesis 26:17 So Isaac left that...

A whistleblower who exposed illegal working conditions in a factory making Amazon’s Alexa devices says he was tortured before being jailed by Chinese authorities. Tang Mingfang, 43, was jailed after he revealed how the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Hengyang used schoolchildren working illegally long hours to manufacture Amazon’s popular Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices. He described how he was beaten by his interrogators, handcuffed in stress positions until he could take no more and signed a confession to the crime of infringing trade secrets. He said that before his arrest he saw a foreigner whom...

Neil Young, who recently chose to have his music removed from Spotify in protest of vaccine misinformation promoted by podcast host Joe Rogan, says his decision has nothing to do with censorship. “I support free speech,” Young wrote in a letter posted to his Neil Young Archives site. “I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information. I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers...

Warren sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy urging him to suppress the bestseller, ‘The Truth About COVID-19.’ Chelsea Greene Publishing is suing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for allegedly abusing her political authority to push Amazon to censor their book titled, “The Truth About COVID-19.” The publisher alleges serious First Amendment violations. On September 7, 2021, Warren sent an official letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy urging him to suppress the bestseller written by Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins in Amazon’s search results for “perpetuating dangerous conspiracies about COVID-19 and false and misleading information about vaccines.” Chelsea Greene responded...

Does anyone truly believe that our government -- which consistently creates monopoly privileges for companies with its own cronyism -- can be trusted to ensure that private markets remain competitive? Apparently so. Consider the resurgence of antitrust efforts against "Big Tech." If history is our guide, going after disfavored companies will result in less competition, not more, along with fewer choices and higher prices for you and me. Take the American Innovation and Choice Online Act recently approved by a Senate panel. This bill would block a handful of tech companies like Amazon and Apple from favoring their own products...

Photos and videos showing piles of empty boxes littered alongside rail tracks in Los Angeles County, California have gone viral as shipping companies say they've seen a dramatic spike in railroad theft. Some of the boxes are packages from companies like UPS, Amazon and FedEx. Union Pacific, one of the country's largest railroad companies, says it may avoid operating in Los Angeles County following the spike in thefts, which it blames on lax prosecution of crimes. The containers and trains are locked, but can be broken into. Union Pacific said last month in a letter to the Los Angeles District...

Shoppers will get personalized recommendations pushed to their phones as they browse the new Amazon Style store stocked mostly non-Amazon fashion labels, the Seattle based company said. Amazon declined to offer any more details on the labels. The store will be about 30,000 square feet, similar in size to a Kohl’s but about one-third the size of other department stores, like Macy’s. But it will offer more than double the number of styles as traditional stores do because it will show one of each style on display while keeping the rest in the back room. The selection is chosen by...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's two adult daughters work for big tech, raising questions about whether he has conflicts of interest as the Senate pursues legislation to rein in the companies. The New York Post reported Tuesday that Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist for Amazon, while her sister Alison Schumer works for Facebook as a product marketing manager. Schumer's first test could come soon, as a bill is making its way through the Senate Judiciary Committee that would prohibit companies like Amazon from 'self-preferencing' their content - essentially marketing their products over those from other sellers.

A new report by The Washington Free Beacon exposed how Amazon, whose web services division nuked the free speech platform Parler reportedly for “violent content,” has been peddling Nazi propaganda films. The Free Beacon said the Big Tech giant “sells and streams more than 30 Nazi propaganda films, according to information from a watchdog group provided to the Washington Free Beacon.” The watchdog group, Americans Against Antisemitism, “found 30 Nazi propaganda films that were available for sale or streaming in their entirety without any disclaimer or editorial content." The group told the Free Beacon that Amazon was "'presently the world's...

The upscale grocery chain Whole Foods claims the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) order to allow its employees to wear “Black Lives Matter” masks violates its constitutional rights. In October 2020, the Amazon-owned Whole Foods stoked controversy when it announced a new dress code policy that banned its employees from wearing “busy patterns on clothing or face coverings, buttons or pins on employee aprons, ripped jeans, athleisure, and t-shirts with visible logos, slogans, messages, or flags of any kind,” according to Insider. “When a lot of us started working at Whole Foods back in the day, it was a place...

Amazon's gender recognition system identified former First Lady Michelle Obama and tennis superstar Serena Williams as male.

Three people ran a scheme to steal thousands of undelivered Amazon packages but were busted by cops after they dumped hundreds of boxes in Oklahoma, authorities said. One man accused in what the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office called a “massive Amazon theft ring” was apparently a third-party delivery driver for the company who may have loaded extra pallets on a truck, cops said. The stolen packages were taken to a home in Luther... some still wrapped on pallets, cops said..."...stored throughout the home in almost every room and filled the storm shelter..."

An Amazon Echo owner was left shocked after Alexa proposed a dangerous challenge to her ten-year-old daughter. AI-powered virtual assistants like Alexa that power smart devices and speakers such as Echo, Echo Dot, and Amazon Tap, come with a plethora of capabilities. These include enabling the users to play simple verbal games or request "challenges" on demand. A 'shocking' challenge When sitting idle, such as during the holidays, it wouldn't be unusual for an Amazon Echo owner to ask Alexa, "tell me a challenge to do." Typically such an auditory request has the AI prompting the user with a quiz...

Democrat Texas state Rep. James Talarico proudly boasted about receiving a Dr. Fauci ‘real life political action figure’ doll (with removable mask!) for Christmas Saturday, provoking the expected reactions from Fauci detractors and supporters. But former Trump 2020 communications director Tim Murtaugh posted a disturbing image from the Amazon page of the Fauci doll seller, FCTRY: A mock image of Fauci torturing President Trump who is seen strapped on a rack with an electrode cap on his head as if they were in a torture chamber, with Fauci pouring a purple (poison?) potion into a cup in front of Trump.

A general failure to comply... Family members daring to co-mingle this holiday season... Americans who refuse (or reject) the mandatory triple jabs... Un-masked deplorables...These are a few of the things that will likely infuriate the world's foremost authoritarian on COVID catastrophe porn - Dr. Anthony Fauci.But, we suspect this may just be the straw that breaks the angry little bureaucratic camel's back...Yes, Robert F Kennedy's book exposing "The Real Anthony Fauci" was the most-bought non-fiction book on Amazon this week!How is that book even allowed to be published in today's censored world?How long before Bezos gets a tap on the...

Beloved, just wanted to share this truly a sweet and great Christmas nativity movie musical with a total Jewish feel to it!! Not seeking to push Amazon but they don't make movies like this any more. It is especially great for children. Can't recommend it enough! This 45 minute movie is called; Promise: Birth of the Messiah. Check it out now on Prime Video! Enjoy and a Savior was born! The Kingdom of God is at hand! https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Birth-Messiah-Clara-Scott/dp/B08NJY36WH

Amazon’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), experienced issues Wednesday, taking multiple internet services offline. AWS posted a notice on its service health dashboard early Wednesday saying it was “investigating increased EC2 launch failures and networking connectivity issues for some instances in a single Availability Zone (USE1-AZ4) in the US-EAST-1 Region,” The Verge reported. The incident reportedly affected “a single data center within a single Availability Zone (USE1-AZ4) in the US-EAST-1 Region.” The incident resulted in widespread outages for various online services and applications across the world. Internet services outages are currently impacting the Epic Games Store, affecting logins, library,...