News @lemmy.world MicroWave @lemmy.world 3 wk. ago

Bezos faces criticism after executives met with Trump on day of Post’s non-endorsement

www.theguardian.com Bezos faces criticism after executives met with Trump on day of Post’s non-endorsement

Executives of Blue Origin briefly met with Trump within hours after paper spiked endorsement of Harris

Executives of Blue Origin briefly met with Trump within hours after paper spiked endorsement of Harris

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.

Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.

Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned business that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.

And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

63 comments

"Faced criticism" Yeah! That'll show him!
- Maybe he needs to be slammed
  
  I think if he's blasted then maybe he will think twice before doing it again
  
  Journalists have ruined this word.
  
  Another pet peeve I have of journalists in general: god-awful referencing. "A report by XYZ organisation shows...."
  
  Gee THANKS, "a report", that'll help me find the source... It's wild there aren't minimum regulations on news referencing in most countries (at least, I'm not aware of any).
  
  Thanks for being my 2¢ receptacle
  
  And welcomed to the Jam.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

― Benito Mussolini
- I like that quote, because it's so accurate!
- This quote is not true (see this article for further details).
  
  But even if it was it would mean something different. In Italian “corporazioni” are not “corporations” (corporations are “grandi aziende”). Corporazioni are organisations of people doing a specific work. For example masons could have their own Corporazione (they don’t, Mussolini created the “ordini” but mainly for professions so for example even today for being an engineer you must register with the engineers corporazione).
  
  Assuming that quote was true and assuming the translation was somehow literal (hard to say without an original text) it would mean that state and productive sector should collaborate (for the greatness of the nation likely, given his kind of speeches).
  
  Also, Fascism was definitely not capitalism. Mussolini imposed in the board of the directors of every large company one member of the Fascist party. This for controlling their behaviour and making sure that they were aligned with the fascist agenda. Not exactly freedom (it was never their point) but not unchecked power of the corporations either.
- This quote is extremely eye opening.
"Democracy dies in cowardice and greed"
- ^with thunderous applause^
In a way he's doing the country a favor by shining a spotlight on how the power created by wealth can be blatantly abused. This should make us rethink freedom of the press and corporate control of media. News publishing is probably the most important area where antitrust laws should be applied and strengthened. In general, wealthy individuals and corporate boards have gone way past a reasonable point of simply buying controlling interests in something to acquire more power and influence than the public has through government. Democracy means nothing if kings and queens can sprout up inside of it. And that's not "communism" talking, it's commonsense-ism.
My subscription was cancelled yesterday
- Keeping our Amazon prime until it’s 2025 expiration date. Spent today researching alternatives so I can placate my Amazon loving spouse. Fortunately coming armed with info and the promise that they’ll have a several month “get used to it” cooling down period, they took it pretty well. I also reminded them if they MUST get something from Amazon, they still do the free 2 day shipping if u spend over $35. But it’ll probably be easier than they think with all but the oddest of purchases.
  
  Been wanting to get rid of it anyways and this was the nail in the coffin.
  
  I dumped them last year cuz the products never got delivered on time. I'll never use the site again
  
  I was able to get a lot of things through Target, and the rest through individual venders that usually have a lower price than Amazon these days.
  
  Grove has become my go-to storefront for general household goods - they have a solid selection of generally reasonably priced jtems, and a strong aversion to plastic. They're by no means perfect but I feel a lot better with them getting a cut of my money than Bezos.
  
  They're not going to have the billions of niche items on Amazon, but they're pretty great for my needs.
- Cancelled mine today.
  
  Blue origin and Trump should both be in deep s*** for negotiating deals they don't have a right to deal
So… the Streisand effect is in full bloom now. They were going to endorse Harris. But they were told they can’t endorse Harris. Now, because of this- more people are aware that they intended to endorse Harris than anyone would have if they had just been allowed to from the beginning.

We all know they endorse her. They’re just not being allowed to actually say it.

Soooooo… TLDR?

The message remains. Despite Bezos being a coward, WaPo still endorses Harris.
- The thing is here Bezos isn't afraid of Trump because of retribution.
  
  He is afraid he won't be able to corrupt him if he pisses him off
  
  How the fuck is there someone that has to worry about whether they can make Trump more corrupt? Billionaires existing is a sign of a failed society.
  
  This is a distinction without a difference
- The problem is that the venn diagram of people who know about this and people who were undecided who to vote for has no overlap.
Cancel Amazon, shop local, shop direct from the manufacturer
- I wish it was easier to shop local :/
  
  I'm not even in the middle of nowhere, I'm in a city. But it's so hard to get anything that can't be found at a dollar store.
  
  I went without Prime for >1 year. I just online shopped directly from manufacturer if I can and paid shipping if free shipping not available. I minimized use of amazon only if I had $35 in my cart for the free shipping.
  
  However, I know I am privileged enough to do so.
  
  I honestly would encourage everyone not to have Prime though. Its like what $150+ now for a year? Save that money and wait until your cart is $35. If you cannot wait, you can pay for shipping (assuming $7) x20+ times before you make up price of that $150 for Prime.
  
  One of the reasons I love my town is there is a great, thriving small business culture. It's relatively easy to shop local for a lot of things.
  
  That said, it can be expensive, and there are certainly things it's not easy to find locally, so sometimes I do, unfortunately, turn to Amazon. But I try to minimize it.
  
  I haven't used Amazon in over 5 years now. Unless you've got some truly critical equipment that is only available through their platform, then it's just a matter of buying from other sources, or in most cases, not at all.
  
  I just think back to the 90s, where I wasn't able to get literally anything I wanted unless I went to a big city. Somehow I survived. I was ever happy sometimes, if you can believe it :p
  
  I am on the outskirts of nowhere and disabled. All my options are big chains. I wish they weren’t – my small town is now all hair salons, Tai Quan Do studios, pubs, florists, and yard or antique shops. No local shops here carry life supplies (food, toiletries , drinks, medicine) except the gas station (in very small quantities).
- shop local
  
  Be nice if "shopping local" didn't mean 2-6x higher prices, a lot of us can't afford that kinda price hike
  
  Think of it as supporting your neighbors.
  
  There is value in keeping money within your own community, instead of giving all the profit to Bezos.
- A family member recommended target circle as a replacement for Amazon prime and I am researching it. It’s still a big company…but where I live there really isn’t TRULY local options (I.E. small businesses) for household goods and such. I figure target is a pretty good alternative and since we have a store pretty close, I can pickup stuff instead of getting so much extra shipping.
  
  So we did exactly this when we dropped our Prime membership a few years ago as part of working against Amazon building a massive warehouse in our fully residential borough (we won if anyone was wondering, they chose not to continue fighting it in court). We shop mostly in store at Target and other brick and mortar stores. We will also shop online still, but almost always directly from the manufacturer. This usually means paying shipping, but I figure our UPS driver and mail person need a paycheck too so we are fine with that. We will occasionally use Amazon for things that are just hard to find elsewhere but only order once our cart is in the free shipping price range. It turns out, Amazon is not only a shit company the uses dark patterns to push a mostly superfluous subscription, most things we buy are cheaper elsewhere. Combined with not buying nearly as much random crap, we have saved a butt load since quitting Amazon.
- Not yet. Happy to jump when there is a viable alternative. I'm not willing to give up all the conveniences and efficiency for a cause. Also, these campaigns rarely actually work. I would be more interested if there were an actual well thought out migration pattern in motion for regular consumers who will never care but spend most of the money
  
  And this..will be our end. There are so many world problems where this is the answer. I'm not poking at you directly, just that this right here is why we can't have nice things.
If true, that might be a campaign finance violation. Any agreement with value to the campaign counts, and must be reported. That's one of the reasons why the Stormy Daniels thing got him in hot water.
- So we have a little over a week until the election, and one side committed crimes that will take years to go through the courts, if they even do. Whooptie-fucking-doo.
  
  In my country for administrative cases with short deadlines courts have fast tracks. So in such a case the court probably wouldn't issue any final judgement but could order everyone involved to stop further committing potentially illegal actions.
- What ended up happening over the Stormy Daniels thing?
  
  He was convicted on dozens of counts, and sentencing will occur in late November. A little treat for Thanksgiving.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_in_New_York
  
  I don't know but Trump is still running for president
The best thing about nepo-bootstrap baby bezos seems to be his wife, who divorced him.
Doubt Bezos has done enough to outbribe SpaceX. He should have gone all in on Harriss even if that is somehow a longshot now.
- And risk the ire of emperor Trump?
  
  I don't know details of space contracts. Seems SpaceX has more capabilities, and so on merits, could be argued to get new contracts or replace underperforming contractors. It got paid to fix Boeing failure, for example, despite Musk being all in on GOP. The bribe level favouring Trump is sure to outweigh Bezos influence on top of merits.
Is Bezos more comfortable with the prospect of a fascist regime or an FTC headed by Lina Khan? His recent behavior seems to indicate the former.
fascists flock together
They didn't "not endorse" someone. Silence is complicity.
oh yes, im sure that criticism is just going to rattle him to the bone while he sits on his billions of dollars.
not lookin good
Bug-eyed villain
Blackberry-Honey Mustard Sauce

Total Time: 1 hr 20 mins
Yield: Makes about 1 1/4 cups

Ingredients:

1/3 cup sugar

1 (6-oz.) container fresh blackberries

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon dry mustard

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
1. Bring first 2 ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally and mashing berries with the back of a wooden spoon. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring often and mashing berries, 2 to 3 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from heat, and pour mixture through a fine wire-mesh strainer into a blender, pressing with spoon to release juices; discard solids.
2. Add honey and next 4 ingredients to blender; process on low 20 seconds. Increase blender speed to high, and process 30 seconds. With blender running, add oil in a slow, steady stream, processing until smooth. Transfer mixture to a small bowl; cover and chill 1 to 12 hours.
- Saved!
- This recipe is great but it could use a little more billionaire in it.
  
  It’s a nice sauce for pork dishes, and I hear humans have been called ‘long pork’…

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