FTC sues Microsoft to stop $68.7 billion acquisition of Call of Duty developer

Christopher Hutton

December 08, 02:13 PM December 08, 03:13 PM Video Embed

The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit to stop Microsoft from acquiring the developer of Call of Duty, the most significant attempt yet by the Lina Khan-led agency to hold up tech mergers.

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The two companies agreed to the purchase in January, one of the largest acquisitions in tech and gaming history. The commissioners voted 3-1 to issue the complaint, with Christine Wilson, a Trump appointee, voting no.

"Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals," said Holly Vedova, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, in a press statement. "Today, we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets."

APPLE ENGAGED IN ANTI-UNION TACTICS AT MARYLAND STORE, NLRB SAYS

The lawsuit warns that the deal would give Microsoft the edge in the console gaming market and an unfair advantage through its subscription gaming model.

Activision-Blizzard, best known for games such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch, has produced several highly successful games in the esports industry. However, the company has been reeling due to a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging a "pervasive frat boy workplace culture."

The FTC is not the only one to investigate Microsoft over the deal. The European Union also announced it was investigating the merger for monopolies.

The company attempted to dismiss antitrust concerns by announcing 10-year contracts with Sony and Nintendo to ensure that all Call of Duty games would appear on their platforms as before if the merger agreement closes.

"We continue to believe that this deal will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a press statement.

"The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn't align with the facts," argued Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. "And we believe we'll win this challenge."

Microsoft has "complete confidence in our case," Smith added, "and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court."

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The FTC has gotten aggressive since President Joe Biden's appointment of Khan. The agency took its first Big Tech-related case on July 27 by attempting to block Meta's acquisition of the virtual reality developer Within. Khan decided to block the merger despite its staff recommending against it, causing tension within the agency.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

Fox News host Tucker Carlson weighs in on the government's handling of America's southern border crisis on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

New Documents Shed Light on CIA’s Connection to Lee Harvey Oswald. The way things are these days, we have to ask what ISN’T our government into?

In a Tuesday press conference at the National Press Club, Jefferson Morley—a veteran of the D.C. press corps and a preeminent expert on JFK’s assassination with the Mary Ferrell Foundation—told reporters that he and attorneys with the foundation obtained documentation relating to a still-classified covert operation approved by senior CIA officials three months before Kennedy’s death that suggested the agency used Oswald for intelligence purposes several weeks prior to shooting.

“This is an extraordinarily serious claim, and it has profound implications for the official story,” Morley said Tuesday morning in Washington. “The CIA knew far more about the lone gunman than then they are admitting even today. So this story deserves the closest possible scrutiny.”

The post New Documents Shed Light on CIA’s Connection to Lee Harvey Oswald appeared first on I HATE THE MEDIA ™.

The Olympic legend has been released in a prisoner exchange along with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, but Paul Whelan, another American captive, was left behind.

WHEW! SURE GLAD THEY DIDN’T RUPTURE TIME AND SPACE!  Scientists make ‘wormhole’ without rupturing time and space, study says.

…. Would we know if they had?

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

Here’s a letter to a junior at Oregon State University who plans to write a long paper next semester on recycling:

Mr. S__:

Thanks for your e-mail.

You ask where I “stand on recycling.”

My answer is easy: I’m all for recycling when it doesn’t waste resources. Trouble is, most of what is today called “recycling” is wasteful and, thus, I counsel against it. I recycle only when it’s worthwhile to do so.

As I write to you I’m wearing clothing that I’ve worn before; I recycled my jeans and underwear in the recycling machines at my home known as “washers and dryers.” I recycled the shirt and jacket now on my back by bringing them a few days ago, after previous wearings, to a recycling service known as a “dry cleaner.” Likewise, the dishes and silverware in my home are regularly recycled with the help of a machined called “electric dishwasher.”

I live in a home that’s been recycled. Its original owner did not discard it when she moved to another town; instead, she refurbished it a bit and then sold it to me. Likewise, whenever I buy a new car, I recycle my older one by sprucing it up and then selling it to a willing buyer.

The above are examples of recycling that is not wasteful. The cost to me of recycling my clothing by washing them is lower than would be the cost to me of always wearing never-before-worn clothing.

But I don’t recycle the likes of paper, plastic, or cans. My time and labor are scarce resources. If the value of recycled paper, plastic, and cans were high enough to justify my spending my time and labor to recycle these items – as I spend my time and labor to recycle my clothing and cars – the market would price these items in such a way as to compensate me for recycling them. But the market price for recycling such items is virtually zero. This fact assures me that the value of such recycled items is less than is the cost of recycling them – meaning that time and effort spent to recycle such item are worth more than the result. Recycling such items, in short, wastes resources.

If recycling the likes of paper, plastic, or cans gives you gratification, by all means do so. But recognize that the market for those recycled items is signaling to you daily that there is very little value of your recycling to your fellow human beings.

By the way, as John Tierney recently reported, even Greenpeace has finally admitted that recycling of plastic is – to use Tierney’s descriptor from an earlier piece of his on recycling – garbage.

Good luck with your paper, and have a great holiday and 2023.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

A steep drop in the value of his Tesla stake and a US$44 billion Twitter buy saw the billionaire dip below LVMH’s Bernard Arnault before regaining the top spot.

Uber launches self-driving car service in Las Vegas

Christopher Hutton

December 07, 10:00 AM December 07, 10:00 AM Video Embed

Uber announced it would launch a self-driving car service in Las Vegas, further expanding the ridesharing service's interest in autonomous cars.

Uber announced the partnership with the self-driving car startup Motional on Wednesday. The two companies had signed a 10-year deal in October to offer driverless rides and have now launched the service in Las Vegas as the first step to bringing autonomous vehicles online.

SAN FRANCISCO OFFICIALS BAN LETHAL POLICE ROBOTS AFTER OUTCRY

"It's a testament to our technology and the power of our partnership with Uber that we're able to go from concept to consumer in such a short time," Motional VP of Commercialization Akshay Jaising said in a press release. "Las Vegas is the first of many cities in which Motional's AVs will become an everyday transportation option for Uber customers looking for a safe and convenient ride."

Las Vegas users will not be able to book Motional vehicles directly. Instead, they will have to select either the "UberX" or "Uber Comfort Electric" options in the app to get a chance to be matched. Users will also be asked to opt-in to being picked up by one of Motional's Hyundai IONIQ 5 electric vehicles. The vehicles will first start with safety drivers behind the wheel but will eventually become fully autonomous in 2023.

Motional was founded in 2020 as a partnership between auto companies Hyundai and Aptiv to develop autonomous vehicle technology. The service will be available starting Wednesday. Users will initially not be charged if they ride in a Motional vehicle, although this may change later on.

Uber also hopes to launch its fleet of Motional vehicles in Los Angeles, although the company has not set a date for when it intends to do so. The autonomous vehicle company will have to split its attention between Lyft and Uber since it is now working with both companies to provide autonomous vehicles for testing.

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Self-driving vehicles were a focus for Uber's former CEO, Travis Kalanick, who saw it as the future of transportation. However, the technology has been slow to develop due to ongoing safety investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Uber's competitor Lyft launched a similar partnership with Motional last month, and it aims to operate autonomous vehicles in Los Angeles after successful test runs in Las Vegas.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

The court is hearing a case that could allow the kind of naked discrimination that the gay rights and civil rights movements fought so hard to end

Netflix’s new coming-of-age supernatural comedy horror series “Wednesday,” based upon the character Wednesday Addams from “The Addams Family,” continues to resonate with streamers worldwide. Starring Jenna Ortega as the title character, the Tim Burton-directed series has become a global hit on track to match Netflix’s surprise South Korean behemoth “Squid Game,” which to-date is the … Continue reading "Ted Sarandos: New Netflix Series ‘Wednesday’ Chasing ‘Squid Game’ for Global Viewership"

The post Ted Sarandos: New Netflix Series ‘Wednesday’ Chasing ‘Squid Game’ for Global Viewership appeared first on Media Play News.

German newspaper Die Tageszeitung: "The EU is monitoring Twitter very closely since its takeover [by] Elon Musk."

The post EU Threatens to Shut Down Twitter as Musk Eases Censorship Rules first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

One weird trick to solve America’s loneliness crisis

Conn Carroll

December 02, 02:30 AM December 02, 02:30 AM

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all spent less time with friends. Sure, many of us got to spend far more time with our family since we were not allowed to go outside the house. But apart from some carefully socially distanced driveway campfires, we didn’t really spend too much time with friends and neighbors.

Since the lockdowns have ended, the time people have spent with their friends has recovered slightly, according to the Census Bureau’s American Time Use Survey. But we remain far below where we were back in 2010, and when you look at the year-by-year data, it doesn’t look like COVID-19 is the real culprit here.

As economist Bryce Ward has recently noted, the real decline in time spent with friends started in 2014, which just happens to be the same year that smartphone market penetration passed 50%. It really does seem as though, collectively, we are all choosing to spend more time with our phones rather than with other people.

One boarding school in Massachusetts decided to put this theory to the test. The Wall Street Journal's Julie Jargon reports that teachers at Buxton School in Williamston were tired of students looking at phones during class and that many of them would retreat to their rooms to scroll through social media instead of gathering in student lounges like they used to.

When these problems all got worse after COVID-19, administrators decided to do something. “We found our students had disengaged more and more from real life as their phones became their world,” Buxton’s Associate Head of School John Kalapos told Jargon.

So Buxton banned smartphones from campus this school year. Teachers and students are already noticing a difference. Students report they notice other classmates more now that they aren’t constantly staring at their phones, and life is less stressful now that they are not being bombarded by social media notifications.

Teachers are pleased since students are now more engaged in class.

“I’m a lot happier being on social media less,” Buxton senior Yamalia Marks told Jargon. "I think I’ve been a lot more self-aware. Will I ever go back to having a phone with me all the time? I don’t know, but I hope not.”

Maybe we’d all be better if more institutions, whether they be schools like Buxton or other workplaces, banned smartphones too.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

Air Force to unveil B-21 Raider stealth bomber

Mike Brest

December 02, 04:03 PM December 02, 04:03 PM Video Embed

The Air Force will be unveiling the B-21 Raider, a high-tech stealth bomber, on Friday evening at Northrop Grumman’s location in Palmdale, California.

Friday’s event, which Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will be attending, will mark the first time the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft will be visible to the public. The newest American bomber in over 30 years, many questions remain about the B-21 Raider as nearly every aspect of its development is classified.

PENTAGON REPORT DETAILS CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY'S PLANS FOR MILITARY EXPANSION

“The B-21 Raider will be the backbone of the U.S. bomber fleet and pivotal to supporting our nation’s strategic deterrence strategy,” Northrop’s website about the B-21 Raider reads. “In addition to its advanced long-range precision strike capabilities that will afford Combatant Commanders the ability to hold any target, anywhere in the world at risk, it has also been designed as the lead component of a larger family of systems that will deliver intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic attack and multi-domain networking capabilities.”

Specifically, this aircraft will allow U.S. forces to penetrate enemy air defenses across the world, which Northrop reports that “approximately 90% of the nation’s current bomber fleet is incapable of doing.”

The Air Force has announced its intention to acquire 100 B-21 Raiders, though only six are in various stages of final assembly. The preferred basing location for the first B-21 is at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota while the alternative is Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.

"We needed a new bomber for the 21st century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia. The B-21 is more survivable and can take on these much more difficult threats," said then-Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James after the Raider contract was revealed in 2015.

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The aircraft got its name in honor of the Doolittle Raid in World War II, when 80 airmen and 16 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, led by Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle, conducted an air raid on Tokyo in 1942.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

The attack on Lorie Smith is both authoritarian and unconstitutional.

A shelter in Tijuana for U.S.-bound Muslim immigrants exemplifies the Biden administration's dangerous mismanagement of the border crisis.

It was billed as a bombshell: Elon Musk, after rifling through his new company's internal files, would finally expose how Twitter engaged in "free speech suppression" in the critical run up to the 2020 election.

On Thursday afternoon, rapper Kanye West appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's show to discuss the former's theories about the Jews. Jones is no stranger to peddling antisemitic tropes - in the interview, he expresses belief in a nefarious "Jewish mafia" - but West went further than even Jones likely imagined.

DECOUPLING: Apple’s Chinese dream is over.

Apple’s relationship with China was one of the biggest bets in the history of the technology business, and it turned Apple into one of the largest and most-admired companies in the world. Its end will threaten Apple’s decade-plus dominance.

Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has added nearly $2 trillion to its revenues by taking advantage of China’s invitation. Credit for Apple’s growth also goes to Terry Gou, founder of its most important contract manufacturer, the Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn. And there are countless other Taiwanese firms that have helped build out the supply chain for Apple and other companies in China.

The consumer products that Apple made in China it changed the way we all live. But both Chinese and American tech figures have been thinking for years about what to do when the party’s over.

Apple’s biggest problems might lie right here at home. The company has managed to alienate developers, free speech enthusiasts, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Getting out of that mess might make getting out of China look comparatively simple.

MARK JUDGE: Hey Hollywood, maybe make a #MeToo film in which the men are innocent? “The new #MeToo movie She Said has bombed. The prestige picture, based on the crimes of disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, only made $2 million — ‘one of the worst results of a major studio in history,’ as Variety put it. Here’s an idea, Hollywood: Make a #MeToo movie in which the accused actually turn out to be innocent.”

Greeting cards mailed out without personalized messages say, 'Tell me how festive I am for doing this and by the way, isn't my family adorable?'

"My administration is determined to do more to assist people with mental illness, especially those with untreated psychotic disorders, posing a risk of harm to themselves, even if they are not an imminent threat to the public"

The post NYC Mayor Eric Adams Announces Plans to Hospitalize the Dangerously Mentally Ill, Involuntarily if Necessary first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

Ukraine’s president warned that he expected new attacks that could be as bad as last week’s, which left millions of people without heat, water or power.

In politics nowadays, there’s this general feeling that anybody from the party you don’t support is wrong, wrong, wrong.

But that’s silly, right? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut. And nobody is wrong 100% of the time.

Take Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic socialist from New York. She’s wrong about a lot — but not everything.

The young and hip AOC weighed in over the weekend on the Ticketmaster brouhaha. To refresh your memory, the concert ticket monopoly burst into the news last week during the sale of Taylor Swift tix, leaving thousands of fans frustrated and prompting scalpers to jack their prices into the tens of thousands.

Buying tickets for sports and music events has long been a joke. Even for the largest venues, tickets sell out online in minutes. Then they reappear on sites like SeatGeek and StubHub, but now that $35 ticket costs $300. And then there are the fees — the service fee, facility charge, order processing fee, and the ever-popular convenience fee.

AOC’s got it just right — and she correctly calls the company a “monopoly.”

“I was watching what was going on with the pre-release of Taylor Swift’s tickets,” she told Rolling Stone. “It came up on a more personal level; I actually have quite a few staff who were trying to get tickets that day. Between seeing their experience and seeing all the people online talking about it, I think it really showed how widespread the problem is and reflects the degree of market consolidation in this industry.”

She’s spot on. Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged in 2010, and it’s been a mess ever since. Ticketmaster controls the tickets and Live Nation often owns the venue, which means they’re 100% in control. Don’t like it, tough, don’t go to the show.

“One of the things we’ve been increasingly seeing,” AOC said, “is that these price increases because of inflation and abuse of market power are due to market consolidation. It’s gotten so bad that we’re really seeing it affect our everyday lives, from how much we’re paying at grocery stores, to not being able to see our favorite artists without paying an arm and a leg.”

The Swift mess prompted the Department of Justice to announce it is opening a probe into the monopoly.

But Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts wrote a letter to the attorney general saying that’s not enough, noting “an investigation alone does nothing for the stakeholders already harmed by Live Nation’s market dominance and seemingly ongoing anticompetitive behavior.”

They said the company, which controls about 60% of the market — including many of the biggest venues — “has continued to abuse its dominant market position,” adding, “we urge the Department to consider unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.”

AOC once again nailed the exact problem. “It’s getting to a point where if you want to see one of these large acts, there’s so little protection for everyday people that if you go into a secondary market, we are no longer in this realm of someone even charging double of what a ticket was. Tickets are going as high [as tens of thousands of dollars] after what was supposed to be a presale operation designed for people who are actually going to be using the tickets that they purchase.”

And she was right again here.

“Other industries have oligopolies; Live Nation is a true monopoly. And it’s affecting our culture if regular people can’t even see a live show for a major act in person anymore, and this just becomes a domain for the wealthy. I think that that’s also something to consider, because If you can’t even see your favorite artists without paying [the equivalent of] a down payment on a house or a car, it’s so antithetical to what music really is,” she said.

One hundred percent right, congresswoman!

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

CHANGE: Bachelor’s degrees have become optional for more jobs across industries.

Now he's gone and done it. This time Donald Trump has crossed the Rubicon of misconduct. He's in so much trouble that only the Democrats can save him.

Former Vice President Mike Pence called on his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, to apologize for dining with White Supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes last week.

Trump met with Fuentes, 24, after rapper Kanye West brought him to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has since said that he agreed to the dinner because he wanted to give West, who he described as “a seriously troubled man,” some “much needed advice.” Trump has also repeatedly said that he did not know who Fuentes was when he met with him.

In an interview, Pence told NewsNation’s Leland Vittert that Trump should be careful with who he sits down with.

“President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize for it and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification,” Pence said.

Pence was careful to not cast the former president as a racist or an anti-Semite, and noted that he would not have served under him if he believed he was either of those things.

“People often forget that the president’s daughter converted to Judaism, his son-in-law is a devout Jew, his grandchildren are Jewish,” said Pence. “The broad brush of attack that the media leveled at him… I think the president demonstrated profoundly poor judgement in giving those individuals a seat at the table. He should apologize for it and denounce them without qualification.”

Former VP Mike Pence says Donald Trump should apologize for dining with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist, but said he doesn’t believe the former president is antisemitic. Watch the full interview on NewsNation tonight at 7p/6C. Find us on TV: https://t.co/TkQWhMl5oB pic.twitter.com/KEFBO8qa0j

— NewsNation (@NewsNation) November 28, 2022

A number of high-profile Republicans have spoken out against Fuentes in light of the dinner.

NRSC chairman Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) said all Republicans should condemn white supremacy and antisemitism, and Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said he hoped whoever advised Trump before the dinner had been fired. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called Fuentes “evil,” but emphasized that he doesn’t believe Trump is an antisemite.

“From everything I know about the guy, he’s a racist clown,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said of Fuentes.

GOOD FOR HIM: Man Keeps Rock For Years, Hoping It’s Gold. It Turns Out to Be Far More Valuable.

"Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why"

The post Elon Musk Confirms Apple Is Threatening Twitter’s Presence In Its App Store first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

A platform that once represented the new frontier of digital democracy is being used by the world's richest man to troll us all.

In between watching the scandalous FTX crypto scam unfold and making all the Thanksgiving fixings, I've joined Twitter, which I've refused to participate in for years. One reason for my about-face on the social media site is that Elon Musk, the new owner, is creating a genuine open forum and he's actively participating as a commentator in the most amusing way.