https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/10/amazon-wants-to-depose-presi...
JEDI was cancelled (article also mentions results of investigations into Amazon's claims): https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/06/pentagon-cancels-10-billion-...
The lawsuit got tossed because it didn't matter any more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judge-ends-amazo...
The replacement program somehow includes all three of the usual suspects, plus Oracle: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/323937...
These billionaires usually buy money losing newspapers, or social networks, for personal reasons. If I was going to bet on it I’d very much lean on a personal motive beyond money.
Are you confusing revenue with profit? Yeah, a lot of money pumps in one end of Amazon retail and out the other, but there is very little margin: the $550+ billion in revenue on the retail side, as I understand, brings in significantly less net than the $90 billion in revenue on the cloud side.
And government contracts, where one might expect support or opposition from a potential cheif executige who has made overt promises of purges and other uses of office to punish enemies and reward friends to make a big difference, are an important part of that (not just that one $1B contract.)
...probably at a way lower profit range than most corporate contracts given how demanding gov deals are.
Citation needed
I thought they had fabulous margins
Am I wrong
So without consideration for upside[0], one of the most emotionless decisions a top executive can make is when there is no downside versus when there is.
[0] After all, further upside is not necessary if you already have experienced enough to where the needle can not move any further.
It's always been the case. That's how Supreme Court works.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/22/nx-s1-5161480/trump-media-thr...
Where are you getting this? He is down against Harris in most polls, and neither candidate is clearing a majority. There are projections that he has a narrow edge in winning the Presidency due to the electoral college, but that's not the same as being most likely to win a majority (or even plurality) of the votes (e.g., 538 gives Trump currently a 53% chance to win the electoral college, while Harris has a 65% chance to win the popular vote.)
If you think betters do not have the odds right, you should start betting right now.
> If you think betters do not have the odds right, you should start betting right now.
Sure, depending on my risk tolerance and existing exposure.
E.g, Polymarket, which gives Trump a 65% chance to win the EC compared to 538s 53%, has Harris at 58% to win the popular vote compared to 538s 65%. (And while it is possible for the popular vote winner to have a mere plurality of votes, it is not possible to get a majority of votes and not be the popular vote winner, so, no, the source of evidence you cite does not support the claim that "by the looks of it, the majority of people" will vote are going to vote for Trump, but instead support that the majority will most likely not do so.)
Paddy Power (as one example) has grown in 36 years to now have > £11 billion revenue per annum with a net income of some £1.2 billion.
You write this, apparently sincerely, as if the other side of politics do not and will not attack their political opponents.
That makes no sense at all. If the primary concern was avoiding canceled contracts, it would be in his best interests to ensure that the guy who is threatening to cancel contracts out of spite would not be elected.
Pressuring the Washington Post to not endorse the candidate who does not pose that threat goes exactly against that.
It's something else.
So cowardice has been the greater virtue all along?
Has it come to this, that political cowardice makes sense? That it makes sense when Democracy itself is at risk?
That it makes sense in Journalism?
That it makes sense at the newspaper of Bob Woodward [1] , now run by a billionaire with no guts to stand for Democracy itself?
That other oligarchs are tilting the election towards the obvious insanity of a leader who, in word and deed, will dismantle Democracy to indulge himself and his cronies?
We have sanewashed madness and the end of Democracy.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Dies_in_Darkness
It’s pretty simple here: he didn’t endorse Trump. But he doesn’t want to get on his bad side in the case he is elected.
Make sure you take a moment to comb your moral fabric and see if that jibes with how you think the world should work.
> In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it had lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft because Trump had used “improper pressure ... to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.
The implication being that endorsing Harris might cause Amazon to lose out on government contracts in case Trump wins the presidency.
Untrue. At the top, "KEY POINTS: In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it lost a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract to Microsoft because Trump used “improper pressure ... to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos."
Why not?
You personally can refrain from any speculation, if you wish, but it's nonetheless the most obvious explanation. Moreover, your own speculation is implausible:
> perhaps this is a return to more profitable and credible roots.
This last-minute backpedaling makes The Washington Post look much worse than an endorsement. The new non-endorsement "policy" wasn't announced in advance. It came only after the editors had already drafted an endorsement of Harris, and at least one editor resigned as a result. The Post now appears less credible rather than more.
What I see is a traditionally Democartic leaning newspaper, choosing "impartiality" as an excuse, because they cannot come out and support Republicans. And of course I believe that this is the choice of the owner.
The BBC is pro-UK government, who fund them.
To me only Reuters (disclaimer: I once worked there) and AP come to mind when I think impartial news.
What do others think? https://www.purevpn.com/blog/unbiased-news-sources/
The Guardian is a great source of news, and it has a curageous team of reporters, but even it has its biases. I recommend reading multipe news outlets and being aware what he individual biases might be.
You are not British, are you :-)
I can not really think of any truly impartial news source. Can you? At least no in the countries I have lived in
Such organisations for the general public are possible. You'd need a group that is interested in correct judgements on some matter and willing to form an organisation to pay for investigations on it.
That's not factually accurate. The BBC is principally funded through the licence fee (i.e. directly by the viewers).
Unfortunately I don't think there's a single such organisation in the world-- controlled-by-members newspaper. Even almost-controlled-by-members newspapers here in Sweden aren't fully subject to member control, with this typically being indirect through some board or similar organisation.
This is the precise opposite of what would be required.
The Guardian's ownership is independent
The Guardian's views are very much not. Very predictable
The US government punishing Amazon is not.
The first amendments limits the governemt in its actions, not the people.
Obvious there is judgement for when consequences rise to the level of being coercive - someone giving you a dirty look is not, the de jure government sanctioning you is. But trying to define rights binary-axiomatically is really just creating lemmas for cryptofascism when the preconditions have been met but yet the rights are still missing (which is exactly what the cancel brigades are pushing).
Their coverage of international events only impartial if those events have no effect on UK.
In recent history, apparently the last time they did not endorse a candidate was the 1980's.
You're at the wrong meta level - if the paper's owner is making the editorial decisions, there's no impartiality to perceive in the first place.
I mean, if the question at hand was "should the editors endorse someone?" then what you're saying could stand. But that's out the window if they're being overruled by somebody without even a presumption of impartiality.
I also can’t comprehend the benefit of a biased editorial department, from a business or quality perspective. A diverse set of views is always more interesting to read, but I’m surely in the minority with that perspective. If someone could explain the benefit, I’m very interested.
I don’t see this is any different than the media black out that nearly all corporate employees enjoy, that exists for one reason: don’t make your opinions appear as those of the whole. Looking at the mixed responses to all of this, across the internet, that does seem to be the case, where people are confusing it all.
2. Moreover, that whole question is irrelevant when the editors aren't even making the decision. If Bezos is willing to override them, then effectively he is the paper's editorial board - so there's no "diversity of views" to talk about, except within the confines of what he's decided to allow.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#:~:text=Don....
2. I know some people say "straw man" as a swipe, but it's also a term of art for a rhetorical fallacy and that's how I meant it. The position you asked me to defend (that there's benefit in having a biased editorial board) isn't a position anyone here took, or agrees with. Hence the term.
3. "this isn't reddit" is a swipe - and one that's a bit mysterious to people who are unfamiliar with reddit, like me ;)
This makes no sense whatsoever. It is the editorial board deciding what candidate is endorsed by the paper. It is a company stance, made by the company's representatives on behalf of the company and based on the company's editorial guidelines.
I’d argue impartiality isn’t a thing in any human domain anyway.
* Effectively shutting down large swathes of the US economy during COVID, while allowing "essential" business to remain open. Where "essential" is arbitrarily determined based on the state governors political leanings.
* Biden-Harris admin strongly encouraging (ie strong-arming) social media companies to suppress what they deemed "disinformantion".
* Progressive state AGs using legal loopholes and technicalities to prosecute Trump, aka Lawfare. For example, a fraud case for overvaluing real estate properties. A fraud case with no victims that resulted in a $450 million judgment? The textbook definition of excessive fines as defined by the 8th amendment.
* Progressives stated goal to pack the Supreme Court, effectively neutering an entire branch of government. Thereby, consolidating power in the remaining two branches.
You believe people who don't consider Trump a fascist are delusional (close to half the electorate, if we believe the polls)? What actions or policies has Trump implemented that fit under that definition? In short, Trump being a fascist is not self-evident: It is your (and many others) strongly held opinion. One that is rarely backed by more than shallow progressive talking points.
Really?
Fraud is not a victimless crime
Can WaPo really be perceived as "impartial" if we know they already were going to endorse Harris?
- The rule of law and the republic as a process are superior to anything else.
- One of the candidates does not subscribe to these sufficiently.
In that case, and given the political duopoly, they could still claim to be impartial towards candidates. Their only allegiance/partiality would lie with the rule of law and the republic as a process.
Endorsing on a specific issue, party, gender, or any specific quality that a large number of individuals share, is not uncommon. The specific individual is not what the endorsement must be partial to. Maybe the choice (since it's inherent to the process), but that's the distinction that was being made.
>The Post’s decision has roiled many on the paper’s opinions staff, which operates independently from The Post’s news staff, a long-standing tradition of American journalism designed to separate opinion writing from day-to-day news coverage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/25/washin...
Just some context worth adding.
There's support in that Trump personally met with Blue Origin's C-suite, on the same day the Washington Post spiked their Harris endorsement—an apparent reward to Bezos, and one that put his business interests in the spotlight.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/10/25/2024-ele... ("Trump met with Bezos’s Blue Origin executives after The Post’s non-endorsement")
It seems like not endorsing candidates might be good for the Washington Post's business, by improving its perceived impartiality. In addition to this, the WaPo seems to have spent much of its history not endorsing candidates, and it has been doing (financially) poorly recently; perhaps this is a return to more profitable and credible roots.