Mediaboss Marketing

Shares of the happiest of exhibitors AMC Entertainment continued an upward trajectory Monday fueled by retail traders on Reddit chat rooms, even as a leading Wall Street analyst downgraded the stock to sell and valued it at $1.

In our view, the recent volatility and spike in the companys stock, thanks to the Reddit/WallStreetBets crowd, has decoupled AMCs share price and its valuation. Near term prospects of bankruptcy have been avoided thanks to $1.2bn of fresh capital being raised since mid-December. However, equity shareholders have been diluted by roughly 75% over the last couple months and there is still approximately $5.7bn of debt, a total which is growing each quarter due to deferred interest payments, writes Eric Handler of MKM Partners.

Dilution refers to millions of newly issued AMC shares, including to Silver Lake Partners, which last week swapped its AMC bonds for stock and subsequently cashed out in the midst of the #SaveAMC buying frenzy. Handler and others believe AMC is likely to explore an additional equity offering as a result of its elevated stock price and who could blame it?

GameStop and other Reddit-targeted stocks have also soared in a sudden upending of the traditional investment ecosystem by retail traders. (GameStops eroding business model and skyrocketing shares were derided on SNL Saturday.) The action, which targets stocks with heavy short positions, is mostly happening on e-trading platforms like Robin Hood, which caused a furor last week by limiting trades.

AMC is up nearly 6% at $14 in midday trading. GameStop whose shares had moved from $2.57 to a high of $483 is down 25% at $244.

Meanwhile, spooked commentators Monday attributed a sharp spike in the price of silver to the Reddit army, which, they said, is now expanding into commodities a move denied by some on Wall Street Bets.

Guys DO NOT listen to the poeple influencing you to buy silver . The media is litterly coordinating a situation to get us all distracted from GME$ and AMC %, said one WSB post, accusing mainstream media and investors of throwing out names that no one on Reddit is actually buying. Iv been reading stuff all weekend about how R/ WSB IS into this stock and into this and that atleast 5 different stocks there attempting to get us to chase and when you go on WSB not a single one is spoken of.

Others agreed, urging the Reddit community to focus on GameStop and AMC.

Theyre talking on CNBC as if people on Reddit are actually squeezing silver. Its f-cking absurd, theyre practically encouraging it, says another.

We are going to spread ourselves too thin, its important that we unite our strategy into one stock at a time. AMC is already on the verge of skyrocketing with 500M in volume, reads yet another (there are thousands). Focus on AMC guys, stop talking about all of these other stocks and stand together, if we want to screw these hedge investors its the only way to do it. Simply put the more of us that buy and hold AMC, the higher it will go this week.

This is being called a populist revolution on Wall Street but theres little clarity on the ultimate gains or losses that might be sustained by either individuals or institutions.

On AMC, Handler wrote, the emotion behind the #SaveAMC movement could carry the shares higher in the near-term, but we believe this valuation-be-damned momentum is not sustainable over the long term.

AMC theaters shuttered in March and have opened in fits and starts in the U.S. and around the world. The stock was pummeled as the pandemic lingered, key markets remained closed and studios postponed releases, fueling speculation of bankruptcy. Led by CEO Adam Aron, AMC announced a large financing package on Jan. 25 to see it through the year as moviegoing picked up. The stock responded, moving from a low of under two bucks to five or six before the Reddit frenzy wafted it skyward to over $20.

The convulsive Wall Street drama is morphing into Hollywood dramas plural. A Deadline scoop yesterday reported that MGM acquired in bidding a book proposal by Ben Mezrich about GameStop trading. Today, Deadline reported that Netflix is in talks to make an untitled film about the battle between day traders and Wall Street giants.

Link:
AMC Ent. Stock Rises More As Analyst Warns Its Worth A Buck; GameStop Dips, Reddit Furor Grows From Shares To Silver - Deadline

Events when they havent been cancelled altogether in the last 12 months due to the global health pandemic have gone virtual and online, and a wave of startups that are helping people create and participate in those experiences are seeing a surge of attention and funding.

In the latest development, New York video startup TouchCast which has developed a platform aimed at companies to produce lifelike, virtual conferences and other events without much technical heavy-lifting has picked up funding of $55 million, money that co-founder and CEO Edo Segal said the startup will use to build out its services and teams after being overrun by demand in the wake of COVID-19.

The funding is being led by a strategic investor, Accenture Ventures the investment arm of the systems integrator and consultancy behemoth with Alexander Capital Ventures, Saatchi Invest, Ronald Lauder and other unnamed investors also participating. The startup up to now has been largely self-funded, and while Segal isnt disclosing the valuation, he said it was definitely in the nine-figures (that is, somewhere in the large region of hundreds of millions of dollars).

Accenture has been using TouchCasts technology for its own events, but that is likely just one part of its interest: Accenture also has a lot of corporate customers that tap it to build and implement interactive services, so potentially this could lead to more customers in TouchCasts pipeline.

(Case in point: My interview with Segal, over Zoom, found me speaking to him in the middle of a vast aircraft hangar, with a 747 from one of the big airlines of the world I wont say which parked behind him. He said hed just come from a business pitch with the airline in question.)

A lot of what we have seen in virtual events, and in particular conferences, has to date been, effectively, a managed version of a group call on one of the established videoconferencing platforms like Zoom, Googles Hangout, Microsofts Teams, Webex and so on.

You get a screen with participants individual video streams presented to you in a grid more reminiscent of the opening credits of the Brady Bunch or Hollywood Squares than an actual stage or venue.

There are some, of course, that are taking a much different route. Witness Apples online events in the last year, productions that have elevated what a virtual event can mean, with more detail and information, and less awkwardness, than an actual live event.

The problem is that not every company is Apple, unable to afford much less execute Hollywood-level presentations.

The essence of what TouchCast has built, as Segal describes it, is a platform that combines computer vision, video streaming technology and natural language processing to let other organizations create experiences that are closer to that of the iPhone giants than they are to a game show.

We have created a platform so that all companies can create events like Apples, Segal said. Were taking them on a journey beyond people sitting in their home offices.

Yet home office remains the operative phrase. With TouchCast, people (the organizers and the onstage participants) still use basic videoconferencing solutions like Zoom and Teams in their homes, even to produce the action. But behind the scenes, TouchCast is taking those videos, using computer vision to trim out the people and place them into virtual venues so that they appear as if they are on stage in an actual conference.

These venues come from a selection of templates, or the organiser can arrange for a specific venue to be shot and used. And in addition to the actual event, TouchCast then also provides tools for audience members to participate with questions and to chat to each other. As the event is progressing, TouchCast also produces transcriptions and summaries of the key points for those who want them.

Segal said that TouchCast is not planning to make this a consumer-focused product, not even on the B2B2C side, but its preparing a feature so that when business conference organisers do want to hold a music segment with a special guest, those can be incorporated, too. (In all honesty, it seems like a small leap to use this for more consumer-focused events, too.)

TouchCasts growth into a startup serving an audience of hungry and anxious event planners has been an interesting pivot that is a reminder to founders (and investors) that the right opportunities might not be the ones you think they are.

You might recall that the company first came out of stealth back in 2013, with former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld one of the co-founders.

Back then, the companys concept was to supercharge online video, by making it easier for creators to bring in interactive elements and media widgets into their work, to essentially make videos closer to the kind of interactivity and busy media mix that we find on web pages themselves.

All that might have been too clever by half. Or, it was simply not the right time for that technology. The service never made many waves, and one of my colleagues even assumed it had deadpooled at some point.

Not at all, it turns out. Segal (a serial entrepreneur who also used to work at AOL as VP of emerging platforms AOL being the company that acquired TechCrunch and eventually became a part of Verizon) notes that the technology that TouchCast is using for its conferencing solution is essentially the same as what it built for its original video product.

After launching an earlier, less feature-rich version of what it has on the market today, it took the company about six months to retool it, adding in more mixed reality customization via the use of Unreal Engine, to make it what it is now, and to meet the demand it started to see from customers, who approached the startup for their own events after attending conferences held by others using TouchCast.

It took us eight years to get to our overnight success story, Segal joked.

Figures from Grand View Research cited by TouchCast estimate that virtual events will be a $400 billion business by 2027, and that has made for a pretty large array of companies building out experiences that will make those events worth attending, and putting on.

They include the likes of Hopin and Bizzabo both of which have recently also raised big rounds but also more enhanced services from the big, established players in videoconferencing like Zoom, Google, Microsoft, Cisco and more.

Its no surprise to see Accenture throwing its hat into that ring as a backer of what it has decided is one of the more interesting technology players in that mix.

The reason is because many understand and now accept that similar to working life in general its very likely that even when we do return to live events, the virtual component, and the expectation that it will work well and be compelling enough to watch, is here to stay.

Digital disruption, distributed workforces, and customer experience are the driving forces behind the need for companies to transform how they do business and move toward the future of work, said Tom Lounibos, managing director, Accenture Ventures, in a statement. For organizations to harness the power of virtual experiences to deliver business impact, the pandemic has shown that quality interactions and insights are needed. Our investment in Touchcast demonstrates our commitment to identifying the latest technologies that help address our clients critical business needs.

More:
TouchCast raises $55M to grow its mixed reality-based virtual event platform - TechCrunch

Republican lawmakers spent four years never seeing the tweets. They were on Twitterfeuding with Democratic colleagues, expressing disappointment in 2020s college football schedule, describing cloudsbut never seemed to be online when Donald Trump was firing off some of his wildest content, and were always suddenly too busy to see any news coverage of the presidents posts. When I wake up in the morning, GOP Senator Kevin Cramer said last June, after Trump suggested an elderly racial justice protester slammed to the sidewalk by Buffalo police had it coming, the presidents tweets are not in the top 100 things I think about.

It was an embarrassing out, but in Republicans minds, perhaps the lesser of two evils. Sure, they couldve condemned Trump, but that wouldve meant getting their own friendly Trump tweet. Seeking to avoid that at all costs, they left themselves two options: Defend the indefensible, or mutter something about being late for lunch and busting ass out of there before Manu Raju or Kasie Hunt could ask them another question.

That is, in essence, what some in the GOP are trying to do again as they face pressure to take punitive action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenethe QAnon Congresswoman whose prolific posting career has included promoting conspiracy theories, calling for Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to be executed, and proudly harassing a Parkland school shooting survivor. While some in the party like Mitt Romneyand even Mitch McConnellhave denounced her, others are going to hilarious lengths to avoid being pinned down. I havent even looked at what all shes done, Senator Tommy Tuberville, an ardent Trump supporter, told CNN Tuesday when asked about the highly-publicized Greene saga. Travel in this weather, its been a little rough looking at any news or whatever.

But the whole I couldnt watch the news because its snowing dodge only works when you cant be held to account. Republicans could or whatever their way out of commenting on Trump because they knew that no amount of pressure in the media or from Democrats would pose much of a threat to him, and if they could stay in his good graces while keeping a little distance, theyd be fine. Thats not quite the case with Greene. If Republicans ignore her abominable conduct and unfitness for office, Democratslooking a lot more assertive now that they control both the White House and Congresswill make her the ranting, raving face of the party. And if Kevin McCarthy and other GOP leaders dont do the bare minimum and remove her from her committee assignments, the Democratic majority led by Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have promised to do it for them, forcing a floor vote that would require all House Republicans to go on the record supporting or opposing Greene.

McCarthy, who evidently wants to keep the MAGA crowd happy without hitching himself to its looniest representative, had clearly hoped thered be an easy way out. In a two-hour meeting with Greene Tuesday night, the minority leader gave her three options, Politico reported: She could (1) publicly denounce QAnon and apologize for the conspiracy-mongering and violence-promoting on which her entire political career is based, (2) step down from her committee assignments, or (3) have them taken from her by her own colleagues. Its not clear how she responded, but its probably safe to assume that it wasnt what McCarthy wanted to hear; after the meeting, sources told Politico, the House minority leader convened a second late-night meeting with the panel that designates committee assignments to discuss stripping Greene of hers. McCarthy and his Republican colleagues are desperately hoping to avoid letting the matter go to a vote. Theyre reportedly banking on cutting a deal with Hoyer in which they would voluntarily remove Greene from the Education and Labor committee but allow her to remain on the Budget committee, if hed just please refrain from putting the matter to a vote on the floor.

Hoyer may have some incentive to agree; there has been concern among Democrats that removing a member of the opposing party from committees, particularly for conduct that in part preceded her time in office, could be used against them in the future. But this is about more than the political gamesmanship of forcing Republicans to choose between MAGA and moderates. Its about confronting the very real danger posed by Greene and others like her. She has continued to post with reckless abandon. Responding to Politicos reporting on Twitter, she charged that Democrats and the bloodthirsty media are bent on destroying Republicans, your jobs, our economy, your childrens education and lives, steal our freedoms, and erase Gods creation. One lesson of the Trump era is that there are real-world consequences to that kind of rhetoric, even if it comes in a tweet that Republicans say they didnt see.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

Embedding With Pentagon Leadership in Trumps Final, Frenzied Days Donald Trump Refused to Take No From WomenAnd Then From America Itself How Trumps COVID Chaos Drowned the FDA in Junk Science Inside the Epic Bromance of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump After Wrecking the Country, Jared and Ivanka Plot Vacation Plans Can Trumps Cult of Followers Be Deprogrammed? Trump Makes an Exit With His Brand in Tatters From the Archive: How Donald Trump Turned Palm Beach Against Him Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.

View original post here:
Republican Senator Says He Hasnt Seen the Marjorie Taylor Greene Scandal Because of Bad Weather - Vanity Fair

(Reuters) - Dozens of Republicans in former President George W. Bushs administration are leaving the party, dismayed by a failure of many elected Republicans to disown Donald Trump after his false claims of election fraud sparked a deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol last month.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia, U.S., on the eve of the run-off election to decide both of Georgia's Senate seats January 4, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

These officials, some who served in the highest echelons of the Bush administration, said they had hoped that a Trump defeat would lead party leaders to move on from the former president and denounce his baseless claims that the November presidential election was stolen.

But with most Republican lawmakers sticking to Trump, these officials say they no longer recognize the party they served. Some have ended their membership, others are letting it lapse while a few are newly registered as independents, according to a dozen former Bush officials who spoke with Reuters.

The Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists. Id call it the cult of Trump, said Jimmy Gurul, who was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the Bush administration.

Kristopher Purcell, who worked in the Bush White Houses communications office for six years, said roughly 60 to 70 former Bush officials have decided to leave the party or are cutting ties with it, from conversations he has been having. The number is growing every day, Purcell said.

Their defection from the Republican Party after a lifetime of service for many is another clear sign of how a growing intraparty conflict over Trump and his legacy is fracturing it.

The party is currently caught between disaffected moderate Republicans and independents disgusted by the hold Trump still has over elected officials, and Trumps fervently loyal base. Without the enthusiastic support of both groups, the party will struggle to win national elections, according to polling, Republican officials and strategists.

The Republican National Committee referred Reuters to a recent interview its chair Ronna McDaniel gave to the Fox Business channel. Were having a little bit of a spat right now. But we are going to come together. We have to, McDaniel said, predicting the party will unite against the agenda of President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Representatives for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

A representative of former President Bush did not respond to a request for comment. During the Trump presidency Bush made clear he had retired from politics.

ITS APPALLING

More than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of the election just hours after the Capitol siege.

Most Republican Senators have also indicated they would not support the impeachment of Trump, making it almost certain that the former president wont be convicted in his Senate trial. Trump was impeached on Jan. 13 by the Democratic-led House of Representatives on charges of incitement of insurrection, the only president to be impeached twice.

The unwillingness by party leaders to disavow Trump was the final straw for some former Republican officials.

If it continues to be the party of Trump, many of us are not going back, Rosario Marin, a former Treasurer of the U.S. under Bush, told Reuters. Unless the Senate convicts him, and rids themselves of the Trump cancer, many of us will not be going back to vote for Republican leaders.

Two former Bush officials who spoke to Reuters said they believe it is important to stay in the party to rid it of Trumps influence.

One of those, Suzy DeFrancis, a veteran of the Republican Party who served in administrations including those of former presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, said she voted for Biden in November but that breaking the party apart now will only benefit Democrats.

I totally understand why people are frustrated and want to leave the party. Ive had that feeling for 4 years, DeFrancis said.

But she said its critical the party unite around Republican principles such as limited government, personal responsibility, free enterprise and a strong national defense.

Purcell said many felt they have no choice, however. He referred to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman Republican congresswoman from Georgia who promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely claims that top Democrats belong to a secret governing cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Another newly elected Representative, Lauren Boebert from Colorado, has also made supportive statements about QAnon.

We have QAnon members of Congress. Its appalling, Purcell said.

Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Grant McCool

Excerpt from:
Exclusive: Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it 'Trump cult' - Reuters

In any case, the Senate always decides on disqualification after the offender is a private citizen, since that is what he becomes upon conviction of an impeachable offense. The Constitution does not even specify that this second vote on disqualfication must be immediate. The Senate could vote weeks later, after deliberation and debate, well into the former presidents private life.

Still more fundamental: This late impeachment argument fails to grasp the constitutional framework within which the question must be considered. The Federalist Papers made plain the framers preoccupation with protections against the demagogue, the unworthy candidate of perverted ambition who practices with success the vicious arts, by which elections are too often carried. The provision for disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit was one of many instances of constitutional checks against popular passions that could lead to the election of officeholders who would threaten to subvert the Republic.

No basis exists for claiming that the drafters of the Constitution intended to leave presidents who have demonstrated danger to the Republic to seek the position again based on a mere happenstance of timing: that a Senate trial cannot take place after the president has been voted out of office.

Mr. Trump is being tried for conduct that the Constitution expressly singles out as a basis for disqualifying someone from office. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies from federal or state office anyone who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to them. Mr. Trump has been impeached for taking such actions for the express purpose of promoting opposition to the transfer of power to his duly elected successor.

The House voted this impeachment with urgency, intending to have the Senate try, convict and remove Mr. Trump to disable any further maneuvers by him to retain office. This has hardly been a generalized political witch hunt against vague offenses.

Moreover, Congress holds a similar power in its ability to police its own ranks. Under Article 1, Section 5 both the House and Senate may expel a member by a vote of two-thirds. Neither has regularly exercised this power, but of the 15 Senate expulsions, 14 involved members who had supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. The House also expelled three members for support of the secession.

Enough Republican senators may adopt this argument against late impeachment to block conviction and the ensuing vote on disqualification. But the moment should not pass without calling out in clear terms the damaging constitutional precedent that this outcome will produce.

The Republican senators are effectively seeking to establish a loophole in the critical constitutional mechanism for holding presidents accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors in this case, a trial and decision on disqualification of a former president who, while in office and as set forth in the article of impeachment, gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government, threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government.

Bob Bauer, a former senior adviser for the Biden campaign, is a professor of practice and distinguished scholar in residence at New York University School of Law and an author, with Jack Goldsmith, of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency.

Read more:
Opinion | The Republican Argument Against Trying Trump Is Dangerous - The New York Times