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In Major Antitrust Case, Judge Finds Google’s Search And Ads Monopolies Illegal

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In a ruling that likely carries big implications for the future of several other Big Tech antitrust lawsuits, a federal judge found Google abused its amassed power to illegally dominate at least two U.S. search and advertising product markets.

U.S. District Judge of the Washington D.C. District Court, Amit Mehta, decided Monday that Google’s attempt to secure exclusive distribution agreements that guaranteed it would be users’ default search engine amounts to monopolistic behavior that deserves rebuke.

By paying smartphone and web browsing companies such as Apple and Samsung tens of billions of dollars, the Alphabet technology company violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits unfair monopolies, and harmed competitors’ abilities to make gains in both the general search services and general text advertising markets.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in the 277-page ruling.

The lawsuit, first brought by former President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice and 11 state attorneys general in 2020, alleged that Google, “one of the wealthiest companies on the planet” with a track record of censorship, became a “monopoly gatekeeper to the internet for billions of users and countless advertisers worldwide.”

“For years, Google has accounted for almost 90 percent of all search queries in the United States and has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising,” the DOJ press

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Biden-Harris Hid Info On Suspected Terrorists Crossing The Border From The Public, Former Border Agent Claims

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The Biden-Harris administration instructed Border Patrol officials from releasing information to the American public on suspected terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, a former senior agent claimed on Wednesday.

Speaking before the House Homeland Security Committee, retired Chief Border Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke alleged that administration officials told him he “could not release any names or information” on the increase of “significant interest aliens (SIAs)” — illegals with “significant ties to terrorism” — apprehended at the southern border. Heitke was promoted to chief patrol agent of the San Diego sector in February 2020 and retired last summer.

The former Border Patrol agent noted that the San Diego sector “averaged 10 to 15 SIA arrests per year” prior to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris taking office. Once “word got out” about the administration’s open border policies, the sector experienced an exponential increase in the number of SIAs apprehended by U.S. agents, Heitke contended.

After Biden and Harris took office, “San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year,” he said. “These are only the ones we caught.”

Heitke claimed that in keeping information about suspected terrorists crossing the border hidden, the administration was “trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”

In addition to a mass influx of fentanyl into the United States, the retired border chief noted how he had to “release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into

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Democrats’ Abortion Extremism Would Not Be Possible Without Help From Corporate Media

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The abortion extremism that Democrats have made the hallmark of their campaigns in recent years did not sneak into red states and onto debate stages by accident. It is the corporate media’s years-long willingness to amplify abortion activism that gave Democrats desperate to control the narrative on unborn life the ability to make killing babies the center of their 2024 election strategy.

For years, top Democrats have rejected any limits on ending life in the womb. Those blue party members who refuse to admit to their affinity for unlimited abortion so plainly, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, make it clear where they stand when they throw their support behind bills and ballot measures that seek to codify killing unborn babies through birth.

Democrats have publicly advocated for abortion for all regardless of the circumstances in all 50 states. They’ve even pledged to stop at nothing, including the filibuster, to ensure it happens. Yet, corporate media have deliberately avoided forcing pro-abortion politicians to reconcile their radicalism with Americans’ widespread support for restricting abortion.

To put it bluntly, the propaganda press quite literally let Democrats get away with murder without saying a word.

Even the talking heads that dare to ask Democrat candidates and officials exactly what week of pregnancy abortion permissions should end do so meekly and without adequate follow-up.

.@VP Harris calls on Congress to codify the abortion rights protections of Roe v. Wade, and does not say which week of pregnancy should be the cutoff

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99 Percent Of Challenged Signatures For Arizona’s Ranked-Choice Voting Ballot Initiative Are Duplicates

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A court-appointed special master report revealed on Tuesday that roughly 99 percent of challenged signatures collected for a pro-ranked-choice voting Arizona ballot measure are duplicates.

In his report, court-ordered Special Master and retired Arizona Superior Court Judge Christopher Skelly disclosed that 37,657 pairs of signatures gathered in support of Proposition 140 are, in fact, duplicates. As argued by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AZFEC), this discovery “now place[s] Proposition 140 thousands of signatures under the constitutionally required signature threshold to qualify for the [November] ballot.”

Proposition 140 would amend the Arizona Constitution by instituting an open primary system in which candidates of all parties run in the same primary. It also paves the way for the state to potentially adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) for general elections.

Under an RCV system, voters are asked to rank candidates of all parties in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

As described by AZ Free News, Skelly’s report noted how “hundreds of the alleged duplicates were overruled and removed from consideration and 3,333 were removed from consideration by agreement of attorneys on both sides,” and that “[w]hile the signatures were classed into ‘exact matches’ and ‘near matches,’ Skelly [wrote] that he was instructed to ‘not read anything into those descriptions and … did not.’”

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