Tag: corporations

Neiman Marcus Scrubs the Word ‘Christmas’ From Iconic 98-Year-Old Holiday Gift Catalog

Department store chain Neiman Marcus has quietly scrubbed the word “Christmas” from its iconic, nearly 100-year-old holiday gift catalog.

The high-end retail company announced the change in a press release earlier this month.

The catalog is now called “The Holiday Book” instead of “The Christmas Book.”

When the Dallas Morning News asked about the name change, a spokesperson said it was done for “inclusion.”

The Holiday Book is a new name for what was formerly the Christmas Book, whose name was changed in the spirit of inclusivity as it welcomes customers of all backgrounds, religions and traditions to celebrate the season, a spokesperson said.

The “Holiday Book” will have over 100 pages of luxury goods.

“This year’s holiday activation and campaign is an invitation to embrace the magic of Neiman Marcus. The storytelling was inspired by the theatrical traditions and folklore during the period that the brand was founded,” said Nabil Aliffi, Chief Brand Officer, Neiman Marcus, in the press release.

Aliffi continued, “Through our comprehensive 360-degree marketing strategy, we will take our customers on a remarkable journey that transcends traditional shopping, immersing them in a world of fantasy both in-store and online. We invite our customers to step into this extraordinary realm, where every interaction is an opportunity to experience the excitement of the season, no matter how they choose to engage with us.”

An upset employee at the company’s Dallas headquarters complained to the New York Post that Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck is more focused on DEI than growth.

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Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries, two associates arrested on sex trafficking charges

New York prosecutors announced Tuesday that Mike Jeffries, former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, was arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges in West Palm Beach, Florida, along with two associates. 

Matthew Smith of West Palm Beach, Jeffries’ partner, and James Jacobson of Wisconsin were also arrested.

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York is expected to hold a press conference about the situation at noon Tuesday.

Jeffries served as CEO of the company from 1992 to 2014. 

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Macy’s Accused of ‘Destroying’ Records of Man Alleging Diddy ‘Orally Raped’ Him

Macy’s has been named as a defendant in a recently filed lawsuit accusing the department store of “destroying” records about a man being “orally raped” by disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs in May 2008.

The lawsuit also accuses the music mogul of orally raping a male employee of Ecko — Combs’ rival clothing company — in a Macy’s located in the Herald Square area of Manhattan, according to a report by Business Insider.

Macy’s covered up the 2008 sexual assault in order to protect a multimillion-dollar deal the retail chain had with Combs’ sportswear company Sean John, the lawsuit alleges.

The plaintiff, named in the lawsuit as “John Doe,” alleges that Combs and three of his armed bodyguards entered a Macy’s stockroom, where one or more of the guards struck him “around the base of the neck” with what he believed was a pistol, causing him to fall to his hands and knees.

From there, Combs, who addressed Doe simply as “Ecko,” demanded that the alleged victim perform oral sex on him while one or more of the music mogul’s armed guards threatened to kill the man, the lawsuit claims.

Combs then “orally” raped the plaintiff for around two minutes, he claims.

After the attack, Combs took armfuls of Sean John merchandise from the stockroom and entered the retail floor, where he “began passing out merchandise to an adoring crowd, as if nothing had happened,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit goes on to say that Doe reported the incident to Macy’s security on the same day it transpired, but no one in the company took any action.

The plaintiff “believes that the report of the assault was destroyed or otherwise purged from Macy’s records,” the lawsuit states.

“Approximately three weeks later, Terry Lundgren, CEO of Macy’s, pressured Ecko executives to fire plaintiff because Macy’s had just signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Sean John Clothing,” the lawsuit alleges.

The plaintiff was later fired and told by Ecko — which was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit — that he could no longer reside in his company-paid apartment in Manhattan, the complaint claims.

Doe still “fears for his life” to this day, the lawsuit adds.

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Smart TVs a ‘Vast System of Digital Surveillance’ That Targets Everyone, Especially Kids

The streaming television industry has morphed into a vast data-driven viewer surveillance apparatus, transforming people’s TVs into tools for monitoring, tracking and targeting, according to a new report from the nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy.

The 48-page report, “How TV Watches Us: Commercial Surveillance in the Streaming Era,” charts the evolution from broadcast, cable and satellite television to connected TV (CTV), a term that encompasses the wide range of content delivered through the internet to smart TVs.

CTV includes popular apps like YouTube TV, Free Advertiser-Supported TV (FAST) channels, and streaming services like Disney +, Netflix and Amazon Prime. It also includes Roku, smart TVs and smart TV devices themselves.

The report documents how CTV, whose surge in viewership is largely driven by young audiences, harvests user data through a “sophisticated and expansive commercial surveillance system” that privacy advocates argue undermines existing consumer protections.

“CTV has become a privacy nightmare for viewers,” said Jeff Chester, report co-author and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, in a press release. “It is now a core asset for the vast system of digital surveillance that shapes most of our online experiences … as it gathers and uses sensitive data about health, children, race and political interests.”

Over the past five years, CTV corporations have teamed up with data brokers like Experian and TransUnion to create new data-mining tools that capture and aggregate everything an individual user does on their smart TV. This information can be integrated with data captured from other devices and real-world activities.

Existing privacy policies don’t explain or protect people from these new forms of data capture, the Center for Digital Democracy said — so viewers should disregard any promises companies make about not collecting or sharing user information.

These new data-capture practices form the foundation for a system with “unprecedented capabilities for surveillance and manipulation,” the report warns. “As a consequence, buying a smart TV set in today’s connected television marketplace is akin to bringing a digital Trojan Horse into one’s home.”

The Center for Digital Democracy submitted the report, along with letters to the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the California attorney general and the California Privacy Protection Agency, calling for an investigation into the industry.

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Gina Carano Scores Legal Victory as Judge Blocks Disney’s Appeal in Free Speech Battle

A California judge has ruled against Disney, denying its request to appeal a July decision that allows Gina Carano’s wrongful termination lawsuit to proceed. Additionally, the request to pause discovery during the appeal was also denied.

Gina Carano took to her social media platform, X, to announce the decision: “After the Judge DENIED Disney’s request to DISMISS my case, Disney requested permission to immediately appeal that decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and delay all discovery while that appeal takes place,” Carano posted. “Yesterday, October 16th, 2024, we learned that the Judge DENIED Disney’s unusual request.”

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

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Heinz Pulls Two ‘Racist’ Ads After Backlash

In a world where everything is racist, you can’t have a black person in an ad for tomato ketchup without legions of snowflakes complaining it perpetuates negative stereotypes and demanding that it be cancelled.

Ketchup kings Heinz folded like a soggy burger bun when they became the target of the angry puritan mob, pulling not one but two adverts after some complaints, likely mostly from white people with deep set guilt complexes.

The first ad, for a ‘family size’ pasta sauce, appeared on the London Underground and depicted a black woman getting married to a white man, with family members also in the picture.

At the meal they are eating the pasta with the sauce.

Seems diverse, right? Wrong.

Because there is no ‘black father’ present it’s actually deeply racist… or something.

It’s “shocking” that there are only two black people(?) out of five in the ad.

The lighter skinned people are looking at the black girl stuffing her face with pasta in a disparaging way, so it’s even more racist… or something.

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‘An Act of War’: Big Food Intentionally Addicting Kids to Toxic Foods

Big Food targets young consumers in the U.S. to get them addicted to unhealthy products — which frequently contain ingredients banned by other countries — according to two food safety and nutrition advocates interviewed on SiriusXM’s “Megyn Kelly Show.”

Vani Hari, an author and blogger known as the “Food Babe,” and Grace Price, an investigative journalist and filmmaker who produced “Cancer: A Food-Borne Illness,” are calling on U.S. food manufacturers to change their practices and produce foods with the same healthier ingredients the companies use in identical products they sell in other countries.

Last month, Hari and Price participated in a Senate roundtable on nutrition and the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.

“We have an opportunity right now to let the American public know” about unsafe ingredients in foods sold in the U.S., Hari said during the interview. “We are under a massive experiment. If any other country was doing this to us, it would be considered an act of war … We’ve got to do something about it.”

Price, who is 18 years old, said American food manufacturers are using tactics that Big Tobacco pioneered to market harmful products to youth. “My generation is so clearly being targeted by these Big Food companies,” she said.

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Children’s Diets Are Now “Over 70%” Ultra-Processed Foods; Dietitian Warns

It looks like the “Make America Healthy Again” movement could be showing up right on time…

At least according to one registered dietitian nutritionist in Los Angeles, who recently took to Fox News to lay out the risks from ultra-processed foods in the American diet. 

Ilana Muhlstein said on Fox news that America’s diet is 60% ultra-processed, but that kids consume even more than that. 

“With children, it’s actually over 70%. That is really wild when you think about it,” she said. “What we eat defines how our cells work, how our organs work, and we’re seeing a strong decline in mental health and well-being.”

And a recent BMJ study found that 60% of Americans’ daily calories come from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which are linked to 32 poor health outcomes, including mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic issues like cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes, according to Fox.

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The Corporate Transparency Act — The Most Aggressive Domestic Spying Program Since the Patriot Act

At a press conference on August 12th, 1986, President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

These words reflected the general and growing distrust of the government.

Today, this quote could be reinterpreted to say, “I’m from the federal government, give up your personal data, and as long as you don’t step out of line, we will keep you safe”. Not as snappy but truer today than ever before.

By the end of this year, every citizen in the United States will be required to hand over the personal data of their small business, S-corp, LLC, HoA, Board of Directors, Trustees, Real Estate Holdings, etc., to the Federal Government’s law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) under the Department of Treasury. Welcome to the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).

President Trump saw this act for what it was, just another way for the Federal Government to target the middle class and their political enemies. President Trump vetoed this unconstitutional power grab in 2019, but it’s back.

In an unprecedented act of overreach, the Federal Government is moving to aggressively collect data on all small business owners, who make up the backbone of the U.S. economy, for reasons that seem “murky” at best.

The sole goal appears to be setting up yet another new database of citizens to monitor, observe, and punish. The Feds are moving to implement the CTA at warp speed, and in seeming total secrecy, as the majority of the millions of small business owners in the United States have no idea this law even exists.

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Is your “private” VPN service controlled by Israel?

The group Palestine Declassified has put together a video report explaining that many of the world’s top VPN (virtual private network) services are controlled by a Zionist-controlled company called Kape Technologies.

The report suggests that Israel exploits technology used by millions of people, i.e., VPNs, to target individuals and conduct mass surveillance. What you think is private may actually be getting tracked by the Israeli government, according to the accusations leveled in the report.

Concerning Kape, the following “top brands” are listed on the company website as falling under the same umbrella of control:

• ExpressVPN

• Private Internet Access

• CyberGhost VPN

• Intego Antivirus

• Webselenese

Israeli businessman Teddy Sagi owns Kape. And according to Palestine Declassified, Sagi has an extensive background in working covertly with Israel Defense Forces (IDF), also known as the Israeli military, on secret projects – check out the report below:

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