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Economy

sony-executives-scott-rudin-amy-pascal-split-getty-image

Sony producer Scott Rudin and co-chair Amy Pascal. (Photo: BRUCE GLIKAS/FILMMAGIC; JASON MERRITT/GETTY)

The Nov. 24 Sony hacking scandal is a public relations nightmare for Sony Pictures Entertainment (NYSE:SNE) and, now, they are threatening news organization covering the story. Lawyers for the company told certain news organizations on Sunday to stop publishing email correspondences stolen by hackers who attacked the movie studio’s computer network last month.

In one exchange, producer Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal made a series of racial jokes about President Barack Obama.

Three media outfits — The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety — all published stories reporting that they had each received a letter from David Boies, a corporate attorney for Sony Pictures Entertainment, in which he demands that the outlets stop reporting information contained in the documents. The letter further demands that the outfits immediately destroy the documents.

The studio “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use” of the information in the emails, Boies wrote in the letter, according to the New York Times report.

“Any decisions about whether or how to use any of the information will take into account both the significance of the news and the questions of how the information emerged and who has access to it,” New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said.

A spokesman for Boies would only confirm he sent a letter to various media outlets on behalf of Sony, but declined to discuss details, including whether any other news organization received it, as well.

However, a spokesman for Sony had no comment, while Variety and The Hollywood Reporter were not immediately available on Sunday and have not responded to emails.

In addition to information depicting executives as hypocritical limousine liberals, the hackers have also leaked documents that include information regarding employee salaries and other financial information, marketing plans and contracts with various business partners.

But it has been the remarks about President Obama that has gotten all the media attention, and which forced the Sony executives to publicly apologize for — well — getting caught.

“I made a series of remarks that were meant only to be funny, but in the cold light of day, they are in fact thoughtless and insensitive,” Scott Rudin said. “I’m profoundly and deeply sorry.”

Pascal issued a public apology for what she referred to as “insensitive and inappropriate” comments in the various emails.

“The content of my emails to Scott were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am,” the co-chair said.

Now, Pascal is scheduled to meet this week with civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton, whose spokeswoman says he is weighing whether to call for her resignation. Many have instantly noted the double-standard toward liberal white elitists who make racially charged comments, and correctly argue that Paul Dean, for instance, wasn’t given such consideration, despite the plethora of good deeds in her life.

Sony, in a memo to staff seen by Reuters on Dec. 2, acknowledged only that a large amount of data was stolen by the hackers. It didn’t, however, address the issue that even employees are seemingly more concerned over.

“The entire staff was turned upside down when it happened,” an insider told PEOPLE of the Rudin-Pascal exchange.

Over the weekend, a message claiming to be from the Guardians of Peace, which is a group that claims responsibility for the cyber attack on Sony, warned of additional disclosures. Justice Department officials tell PPD they believe the hackers to have connections to North Korea, who felt slated by the company for reasons undisclosed.

“We are preparing for you a Christmas gift,” said the message posted on a site for sharing files called Pastebin. “The gift will be larger quantities of data. And it will be more interesting.”

The Nov. 24 Sony hacking scandal is

Economy

empire state manufacturing index

Readings from the Empire State manufacturing index reported by the New York Fed monthly.

New York manufacturing business activity shrank for the first time in nearly two years, according to the New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey released Monday.

The New York Federal Reserve’s Empire State’s index of business conditions plummeted to -3.58 in December from 10.16 in November. A reading above zero indicates expansion, while negative readings suggest contraction. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected the latest index to rise to 14, not contract as it did.

“Overall, readings for the headline index during the fourth quarter of 2014 mark a significant downshift in activity from the levels seen during the five-month period from May through September,” the report said.

ny-fed-manufacturing-chart

The December 2014 Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that business activity declined for New York manufacturers. (Source: NY Fed)

The Empire subindexes showed broad-based declines in December.

The new-orders index tanked to -1.97 this month from 9.14 in November, while the shipments index also bottomed-out in the negatives to -0.22, down from 11.83. Meanwhile, inventories contracted badly, plummeting to -11.46 from zero last month.

Labor indicators for the region were across-the-board negative, as the index for the number of employees fell to 8.33 in December, down from 8.51. The average workweek fell to -11.46 from -7.45, but the prices paid index was little changed at 10.4, indicating a continued modest increase in input prices, while the prices received index climbed to 6.3 from the flat reading in November.

The generally downbeat view on current conditions were paired with a softening of outlooks on business activity.

The general business-conditions expectations index for the next six months slipped to 38.58 this month after rising to 47.61 last month, though the New York Fed said the reading remains “fairly high” by historical standards.

The new-orders expectations index fell to 38.42 from, down from 46.99, while shipment expectations fell to 37.92, down from 44.68. The employee-expectations index also fell to 20.83, down from 24.47. However, the average employee workweek-expectations index actually showed a modest improvement at 12.5, up from 8.51 measured in November.

Spending expectations pulled back as well, with the capital expenditure-outlook index falling to 15.63 from 27.66.

The New York Fed survey is the first factory report released by regional Fed banks, and serves as a bellwether to forecast the health of the industrial sector nationwide due to its influence on the monthly manufacturing report conducted by the Institute for Supply Management.

New York manufacturing business activity shrank for

Economy

Even though U.S. homebuilder sentiment did inch up in the month of April, sparse credit conditions for buyers and a lack of supply for building properties and labor continue to drag down industry fundamental.

(Photo: REUTERS)

U.S. homebuilder sentiment declined slightly in December, according to a report released on Monday by the National Association of Home Builders.

“After a sluggish start to 2014, the HMI has stabilized in the mid-to-high 50s index level trend for the past six months, which is consistent with our assessment that we are in a slow march back to normal,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “As we head into 2015, the housing market should continue to recover at a steady, gradual pace.”

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell to 57 in December, down one point from 58 in November, and below the year’s peak of 59 in September. However, after a soft spring, builders remained relatively more optimistic.

“Members in many markets across the country have seen their businesses improve over the course of the year, and we expect builders to remain confident in 2015,” said NAHB Chairman Kevin Kelly, a home builder and developer from Wilmington, Del.

Still, despite two of the three HMI components posting slight losses in December, the reading marks the sixth consecutive month above 50, which is the threshold for whether builders see the environment as generally favorable or unfavorable.

A gauge of single-family home sales sentiment fell to 61 from 62, while an index of single-family home sales sentiment for the next six months fell to 65 from 66.

U.S. homebuilder sentiment declined slightly in December,

World

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UPDATE: Explosion heard, several shots fired as police in Sydney, Australia, storm cafe where an Iranian gunman had been holding hostages. Ambulance crews have entered the building. Reports suggest one hostage and the gunman have been killed, but no police injured.

EARLIER: What is believed to be one lone radical jihadist has been holding as many as 15 people hostage in a Sydney cafe for over twelve hours, and has demanded to speak directly with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Prime Minister Abbott released a pre-recorded statement calling the attack “very disturbing” and “profoundly shocking,” but his office has not responded to the gunman’s demands.

Police and news crews surrounding the shop watched the frightened hostages at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe pressed against the glass in the front windows with their arms in the air.

Television footage shows two people holding up a black flag associated with Islamic fanaticism, and Australian broadcaster Network Ten reported that the unidentified gunman, seen wielding a shotgun and a machete, has forced hostages to call him “The Brother.”

The standoff began Monday morning in Sydney’s central business district in Martin Place, a plaza in the heart of the city’s financial and shopping district that is packed with holiday shoppers this time of year. Five people have managed to escape the cafe and people have been ordered by police to stay out of the area. Journalist Chris Reason had tweeted the scene the moment the hostages escaped.

Three men were seen running from a fire exit of the cafe approximately six hours after the hostage situation began at 9:45 A.M. local time. Moments later, two women believed to be employees, followed suit. It was not immediately clear how the hostages escaped.

Reason described the gunman as unshaven, wearing a white shirt and a black cap, and holding what appeared to be a pump-action shotgun. The gunman could be seen pacing back and forth past the cafe’s four windows before the lights in the cafe went off, Reason reported.

New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner for Specialist Operations Catherine Burn said negotiators have made contact with the unidentified gunman, and said witnesses have told them they do not believe any children are inside.

“We do not have any information that suggests that anybody is harmed at this stage,” she said.

The gunman was reportedly relaying threats and giving demands through two hostages, who claimed  he said he planted two bombs inside the cafe and two others somewhere in Sydney’s central business district. New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione told reporters Monday evening that authorities were concentrating their efforts solely on the cafe. He said police are not currently concerned with any other location in the district.

The government raised Australia’s terror warning level in September in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group. Counterterror law enforcement teams later conducted dozens of raids and made several arrests in Australia’s three largest cities — Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. One man arrested during a series of raids in Sydney was charged with conspiring with an Islamic State leader in Syria to behead a random person in downtown Sydney.

The Islamic State group, which now holds a third of Syria and Iraq, has threatened Australia in the past. In September, Islamic State group spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued an audio message urging so-called “lone wolf” attacks abroad, specifically mentioning Australia. Al-Adnani told Muslims to kill all “disbelievers,” whether they be civilians or soldiers.

What is believed to be one lone

Polls, Video

As previously examined by PPD, a large majority of Americans overwhelmingly say that their local police are their protectors and give a high favorability rating in appreciation of the job they do on a daily basis. Most also believe deaths that involve policemen are usually the fault of the suspect, not the cop.

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport discusses the trend-line that has now led to a majority of blacks not having confidence in the police, a concerning data set that tell us a great deal about grievance.

“About one-third of blacks have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police,” says Newport, far less than the national average. But the data sets aren’t that black and white.

On average, 57 percent of Americans have said they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police, which places the police at the top of the confidence in major U.S. institutions list. This includes confidence ratings of 61 percent among whites, 57 percent among Hispanics, and 34 percent among blacks. However, while 26 percent of blacks living in inner-cities have confidence in the police, nearly 40 percent say the same in rural America. Unfortunately, one in three blacks nationwide live in these highly urban, extremely dangerous urban counties.

(Read More: Polling Finds Americans Side With Police Over Grievance Industry)

Subscribe to PPD Unlimited to view cross-tabs, gain unlimited access to detailed information on all public opinion polls,  and much, much more!

eVoiceAmerica.comDo you think law enforcement treatment of minorities is fair or equal? Vote Now On eVoiceAmerica!

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport discusses the trend-line

World

Peru_climate_change_talks

December 13, 2014: Delegates attend the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

LIMA, Peru –  After developed nations rejected language in an initial proposal, late-night climate change talks at the U.N. in Peru resulted in an early Sunday compromise. Negotiators from member nations struck a deal that sets the stage for a global climate pact in Paris next year.

The two-week session in Lima aimed to reach agreement on what constituted each nation’s responsibility had they pledged to submit to a global climate change pact, which is widely expected to be adopted in Paris. But, ironically, several developing nations were up-in-arms over a draft decision they claimed allowed rich nations to shirk their responsibilities, while expecting poor countries to do too much.

While it is true that Western nations have historically been responsible for emitting the most, it is currently developing nations that pump the most CO2 emissions into the air. Up until now, developed nations have conceded their increased role in pollution as developing nations attempt to grow their economies and lift millions of people out of poverty. Unfortunately, more often than not, a few of each nation’s elite get extremely rich, while still needing to receive billions (total) in international aid to combat poverty.

“We need a permanent arrangement to help the poorest of the world,” said Ian Fry, a negotiator for the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu.

The fourth draft, which was presented by Peru’s environment minister, was given to members just before midnight. Of those who still remained in the body of delegates, they had only an hour to review it. The final draft contained language that stated countries have “common but differentiated responsibilities” to deal with global warming, otherwise called climate change when convenient. However, it also restored language demanded by small island states that are at greater risk of being flooded by rising sea levels, which instituted a “loss and damage” mechanism.

It is the same language the U.S. and other member states agreed upon in last year’s talks in Poland.

However, the final draft undoubtedly weakened the language of responsibility, changing the phrase “shall” to “may” include quantifiable information showing how countries intend to meet their emissions goals. China, who is now the world’s largest economy on top of the world’s largest emitter of CO2, led other major developing countries to oppose a plan for a review process that would allow the pledges to be compared against one another before Paris.

Now, the new draft states that all pledges would be reviewed only a month prior to the anticipated meeting in Paris to assess their combined effect on climate change. Climate change activists are not happy.

“I think it’s definitely watered down from what we expected,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The text went from weak to weaker to weakest,” said Sam Smith, the chief of climate policy for the environmental group WWF. “And it’s very weak indeed.”

The Obama administration had hoped to build on momentum from last month’s joint U.S.-China deal on emissions targets, but it faded quickly in Lima if it was ever there to begin with. Speaking in Lima on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said addressing the problem of climate change was “everyone’s responsibility, because it’s the net amount of carbon that matters, not each country’s share.”

After developed nations rejected language in an

Opinion, Video

This week on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume, Julie Pace, Michael Needham, and Juan Williams join Chris Wallace to discuss the fallout from the Senate CIA report.

A Democrat-led Senate panel headed up by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) released the CIA report on enhanced interrogation Tuesday despite dire warnings from lawmakers and intel officials. In response, the GOP minority released a rebuttal report refuting the claims made in the Democrats’ majority report, which criticized the CIA enhanced interrogation program as ineffective and misleading.

Pushback from the CIA head, former CIA heads and former CIA officials once again resurrected the debate over alleged torture — or “enhanced interrogation techniques” that may or may not actually equate to torture — which has been ongoing in the U.S. since the post-9/11 period.

While the FNS panel speculated on public views on enhanced interrogation, PPD released survey results from the most recent PPD Poll, as well as examined other public polling.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill late Saturday around 10:00 P.M. ET that funds the government through next September, avoiding a partial government shutdown. Congress will now send the measure to President Barack Obama’s desk to be signed.

Video via RightSightings

This week, Brit Hume, Julie Pace, Michael

US

deblasio_sharpton

Photo at: National Action Network near 145th Street and Lenox Avenue in Manhattan, where New York City Mayor Elect Bill De Blasio is at with Al Sharpton and others talking about the issues of New York City. In this image: Mayor-Elect Bill De Blasio and Al Sharpton. Photo Credit: G.N. Miller/NewYork Post.

The NYPD police union is urging cops to tell leftist Mayor Bill de Blasio not to bother showing up to their officer’s funerals in the inevitable event they are killed in the line of duty.

“DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!”, reads a flier from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which is also encouraging cops to sign and submit the “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver to ban the cop-bashing mayor and city council speaker from their funerals.

“I, as a New York City police officer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attending my funeral services in the event that I am killed in the line of duty,” the waiver states.

“Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve, I believe that their attendance at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.”

The PBA posted a link on its Web site where officers can download the form and drop it off signed and dated to their PBA delegates.

The New York Post reports the mayor and council speaker are calling the effort “deeply disappointing.”

“Incendiary rhetoric like this serves only to divide the city, and New Yorkers reject these tactics,” they said in a joint statement.

Sources say the union is furious over the mayor’s comments following a grand jury decision not to indict the officer involved in the death of Staten Islander Eric Garner. In a press conference following the grand jury’s decision, de Blasio claimed that he had told his own 17-year-old, mixed-race son, Dante, to be careful around police officers.

“[The Garner case] was profoundly personal for me,” de Blasio said, because of “the dangers Dante may face, we’ve had to literally train him in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.”

“We need a mayor to stand up with and for us,” police union head Pat Lynch said, adding that NYPD officers feel as if de Blasio is “throwing them under the bus.”

“That’s not true!” Lynch shouted. “Our city is safe because of police officers. All of our sons and daughters walk the streets in safety because of police officers. They should be afraid of the criminals. That’s what we should be teaching.”

Meanwhile, Americans overwhelmingly say that their local police are their protectors and give a high favorability rating in appreciation of the job they do on a daily basis. According to a recent PPD examination of public opinion, most Americans also believe that citizens’ deaths that involve policemen are usually the fault of the suspect, not the police.

The NYPD police union is urging cops

Politics, Video

Lt. Colonel Allen West, the former congressman from Florida, slammed Rev. Al Sharpton for ignoring the “real issues facing the black community.” West said that Sharpton and other self-proclaimed civil rights leaders on the left cannot discuss these real issues because they would have to confront the failure of progressive policy since the “Great Society” reforms.

“Al Sharpton is not talking about the real issues in the black community,” West said. “And that’s really what should lead the discussion. Michael Brown is part of a black teenage group that has almost a 45 percent unemployment rate. They’re not talking about the failure of the public school systems in the black community. They’re not talking about the decimation of the black family. And the reason they’re not talking about that is because of the Democrats’ policies.”

Incidentally, witness testimony in the case of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson shooting Michael Brown offered an explanation as to how and why pro-Brown witnesses embellished a story that turned into “hands up, don’t shoot.”

“You have to understand the mentality of some of these young guys,” witness #14, an African-American witness told investigators. “They have nothing to do. When they can latch on to something, they embellish it because they want something to do. The majority of them do not work, all they do is sit around and get high all day.”

Witness #14 said within minutes a crowd appeared and began to “embellish when the stepfather showed up.”

(Watch Video: Ben Shapiro Unpacks Ferguson Grand Jury Evidence)

West went to cite the correlation between the “Great Society” reforms of the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson and “the decimation of the black family.” He also said that the teachers’ unions, which control the Democratic Party’s platform on education, won’t let them talk about school choice, or giving the parent’s of black children in failing public schools the choice to send their children to better schools.

“It’s the low hanging fruit,” West said of Sharpton’s and other leftists’ focus on alleged racism. “If they were to confront this, they’d have to confront the failure of the Democrats’ policies that caused this,” he added. “It’s their own policies that have created what is almost a 21st century economic plantation in the inner cities.

West also cited Booker T. Washington, a quote he has come to cite often in recent interviews over race, which talks about a certain group of black leaders who purposefully create and perpetuate grievance as a means to keep their station. If anyone fits that mold to West and other black conservatives, it’s the so-called Rev. Al Sharpton.

Sharpton, who has made a great deal of money on racial grievance, apparently has trouble with the tax man — again — which West addressed in the opening of the interview.

“If myself or any other black conservative owed $4 million to the IRS, I doubt we would be leading marches in D.C. or anywhere else in the country or have our own talk show” West said. “Absolutely, I’d be in jail.”

Lt. Colonel Allen West, the former congressman

Politics

senate leaders

On left, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sits to the right of the man who has taken his job, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill late Saturday around 10:00 P.M. ET that funds the government through next September, avoiding a partial government shutdown. Congress will now send the measure to President Barack Obama’s desk to be signed.

The Senate had approved a short-term stopgap funding bill earlier in the day, which bought Senate lawmakers more time to debate the separate $1.1 trillion long-term funding bill.

In the end, the Senate voted 56-40 for the long-term bill that funds the entire government until Sept. 30, with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is funded only until Feb. 27.

Republican floundered during a symbolic challenge to Obama executive action on immigration, allowing Democrats to ram through two dozen of Obama’s stalled nominees to various federal benches and administration posts before their majority is kicked out at year’s end.

Establishment Republicans blamed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for giving the nearly expired outgoing majority an opportunity to seek approval for presidential appointees, including some that have been long-stalled by Republicans.

“I’ve seen this movie before, and I wouldn’t pay money to see it again,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA). The Georgia Republican was referring to Cruz’ effort to defund ObamaCare a year ago that led to a 16-day partial government shutdown. Establishment Republicans frequently cite falling poll ratings during the shutdown and claim grave electoral harm will befall the party if voters blame the GOP. Of course, it were those very same media outlets and their pollsters that misfired badly on the election.

“I wish you hadn’t pointed that out,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “You should have an end goal in sight if you’re going to do these types of things and I don’t see an end goal other than irritating a lot of people.”

Cruz pushed for the Senate to vote on Obama’s executive action on immigration, which did what even President Obama said at least 25 times he didn’t have the authority to do — unilaterally suspended deportations for millions of illegal immigrants living in the country. The vote failed Saturday night by a 74-22 margin, with 23 of the 45 GOP senators voting no the point of order.

“If you believe President Obama’s amnesty is unconstitutional, vote yes. If you believe President Obama’s amnesty is consistent with the Constitution, vote no,” he said.

However, while the media repeatedly discusses divisions within the Republican Party, the debate over the spending bill exposed bigger fissures within the Democratic Party.

At the behest of leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urged members to oppose the $1.1 trillion spending bill and shutdown the government. Warren, who is now a member of the party leadership and widely thought to be the leftist alternative to Hillary Clinton, said the effort was aiming to preserve the financial regulatory policy known as Dodd-Frank.

The stand kicked off a showdown between the White House and the far left members on Capitol Hill, which turned out to be more than half of the Democratic caucus, despite the fact that 70 of them voted for the same bill a few short months ago. President Obama and Vice President Biden were calling House Democrats appealing for their support. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough also arrived on the Hill late Thursday to meet with members of the Democratic caucus.

The legislation preserves current spending levels, and includes provisions regarding the environment, funding for abortion, and the legalization of marijuana in the District of Columbia.

The second provision Democrats objected to — even though it is backed by the Democratic National Committee and the left’s congressional leadership — was the provision to raise the amount of money that wealthy donors may contribute to political parties for national conventions, election recounts and headquarters buildings. In fact, the provision was championed by outgoing Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), whose own PAC spent more than any other political action committee in 2014, hands down.

It’s an astonishing revelation considering the Reid-led Democratic criticisms of Citizens United, the billionaire philanthropist Koch brothers and Karl Rove. American Crossroads, Rove’s Republican-backing group, reportedly raised a little more than $28 million in 2014, but Reid’s group far exceeded those numbers by simply tapping Wall Street and K Street.

Nearly two-thirds of the money raised by Reid’s PAC — $34 million— came from big contributors giving half a million dollars or more, according to research of the Center for Public Integrity. Further, despite their objection to Citizens United, Democrats’ super PACs vastly outspent Republican super PACs in 2014.

Democrats lost control of the Senate in January because they took heavy losses in what was their second historic midterm defeat last month. Republicans will now have 54 seats in the Senate and the largest number of seats in the House than they have had in nearly 70 years, or during the Hoover Administration.

The Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending

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