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The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Matthew
C. Solomon, the Chief Litigation Counsel for the SEC’s Enforcement
Division, will leave the agency early next month.
U.S. equities closed higher on Monday, led by energy stocks, as oil
prices rose on renewed optimism that OPEC was closing in on a deal to
cut production.
Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has
approved a final consent order with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Inc., settling charges that the company failed to adequately disclose
that it paid online influencers to post gameplay videos.
According to the FTC’s complaint, announced in July 2016, Warner Bros. deceived consumers during a marketing campaign for the video game Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor,
by failing to adequately disclose that it paid online “influencers”
thousands of dollars to post positive gameplay videos on YouTube and
social media. Over the course of the campaign, the sponsored videos were
viewed more than 5.5 million times.
The FTC also alleged Warner Bros. gave influencers a free
advance-release version of the game and told them how to promote it.
Warner Bros. also allegedly required the influencers to promote the game
in a positive way and not to disclose any bugs or glitches they found.
Under the final order, Warner Bros. is barred from failing to make such disclosures
in the future and cannot misrepresent that sponsored content, including
gameplay videos, are the objective, independent opinions of video game
enthusiasts or influencers.
The Commission vote approving the final order and responses to the public commenters was 3-0. (FTC File No. 152-3034; the staff contact is Linda Badger, FTC Western Region, San Francisco, 415-848-5151.)
The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357).
President-elect Donald Trump
and Vice President-elect Mike Pence after a day of meetings at the Trump
National Golf Club in Bedminster , New Jersey, on Saturday.
Hilary Swift for The New York Times
This
may well be the beginning of the end: the early moments of a historical
pivot point, when the slide of the republic into something untoward and
unrecognizable still feels like a small collection of poor judgments
and reversible decisions, rather than the forward edge of an enormous
menace inching its way forward and grinding up that which we held dear
and foolishly thought, as lovers do, would ever endure.
So
many of President-elect Donald Trump’s decisions herald a tomorrow that
is bleak for anyone who held hope that he could be a different, better
man than the one who campaigned (I was not among that cohort), or those
who simply assumed that the gravity of the office he is to assume would
ground him.
Hard-line Trumpism isn’t softening; it’s being cemented.
Increasingly,
as he picks his cabinet from among his fawning loyalists, it is
becoming clear that by “Make America Great Again,” he actually meant
some version of “Make America a White, Racist, Misogynistic Patriarchy
Again.” It would be hard to send a clearer message to women and
minorities that this administration will be hostile to their interests
than the cabinet he is assembling.
He has promoted Stephen Bannon, an alt-right, white nationalist cheerleader and sympathizer, to chief White House strategist.
Senator Bernie Sanders responded to the Bannon announcement with a blistering statement:
“The
appointment by President-elect Trump of a racist individual like Mr.
Bannon to a position of authority is totally unacceptable. In a
democratic society we can disagree all we want over issues, but racism
and bigotry cannot be part of any public policy. The appointment of Mr.
Bannon by Mr. Trump must be rescinded.”
But of course, Trump had no intention of rescinding the appointment. Indeed, he had more controversial appointments to come.
He has chosen the extreme anti-Islam hyperbolist Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — who also happens to be a stop-and-frisk apologist and has tweeted that “fear of Muslims is RATIONAL” — as his national security adviser.
“General
Flynn, for instance, has said that Shariah, or Islamic law, is
spreading in the United States. (It is not.) His dubious assertions are
so common that when he ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, subordinates
came up with a name for the phenomenon: They called them ‘Flynn
facts.’”
“Follow Mike @Cernovich He has a terrific book, Gorilla Mindset. Well worth the read. @realDonaldTrump will win on 8 NOV!!!”
The New Yorker dubbed Mike Cernovich “the meme mastermind of the alt-right” in a lengthy profile.
The magazine pointed out:
“On
his blog, Cernovich developed a theory of white-male identity politics:
men were oppressed by feminism, and political correctness prevented the
discussion of obvious truths, such as the criminal proclivities of
certain ethnic groups.”
Then there was the choice of Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general. In 1986 Sessions famously became only the second nominee in 48 years to be rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee, due to racist comments and behavior.
When confronted by the committee about remarks he was accused of making about the N.A.A.C.P. and the A.C.L.U., Sessions responded:
“I’m
often loose with my tongue. I may have said something about the
N.A.A.C.P. being un-American or Communist, but I meant no harm by it.”
But not all of Sessions’s issues regarding minorities have a 30-year vintage.
In response to the attorney general announcement, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a statement that read in part:
“But
we cannot support his nomination to be the country’s next attorney
general. Senator Sessions not only has been a leading opponent of
sensible, comprehensive immigration reform, he has associated with
anti-immigrant groups we consider to be deeply racist, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Security Policy.”
Indeed, FAIR was quick to congratulate Sessions on his nomination Friday, saying in a statement:
“It’s hard to imagine a better pick for the attorney general position
than Senator Jeff Sessions”; the group called on Sessions to rid the
country of sanctuary cities.
The S.P.L.C. has written about FAIR, saying:
“FAIR
leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have
made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected
because of racist content. FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has expressed
his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be
achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the
country.”
Trump
is making a statement that it would behoove America to heed: The
America he envisions, and is now actively constructing from his perch of
power, is not an inclusive America. It is a society driven by a racial
Owellianism that seeks to defend, elevate and enshrine the primacy of
white men and is hostile to all “others.”
That
orange glow emanating from the man is the sun setting on America’s
progress, however slow and halting, on race and gender inclusion and
equity.
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Trump
looks to Wall Street for Treasury Secretary, crude adds to its gains,
and it was a big weekend in European politics. Here are some of the
things people in markets are talking about today.
Don’t Bet On a Crash From a Trump Trade War
Even
if the next president were to start a trade war with China, as many
analysts fear, some restrictions on imports would do little harm — and
there’s even a chance they could help. In fact, Noah Smith says, the main risks from a trade war wouldn’t be economic at all.
U.S. stock index futures
pointed to a flat open on Monday morning, ahead of a four-day
Thanksgiving trading week, as traders anticipated comments from Federal
Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer.
Asian markets traded mixed on Monday as dollar strength took a breather and oil prices surged.
Helping to improve sentiment around Asia, the U.S. dollar index, which
measures the greenback against a basked of currencies, eased off a
multi-year high of 101.48 touched last week. The greenback was wavering at 101.09 against a basket of currencies as of 3:40 pm HK/SIN.
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