Politics Random, Random

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

As usual WSJ article is behind a paywall.

[ponchi101]

Side thought.
Why is this guy so down on Biden's economy? It has been during THIS administration that his fortune has grown the most. All his companies are booming. Tesla, an EV company, will do much better under a dem administration that favors EV's than under a GOP administration that will favor ICE's.
I know he is bipolar in a sense. But you cannot say he has not been a successful businessman. Yet, here he is, courting the wrong clown.
(Talking about Musk).

[mmmm8]

Side thought.
Why is this guy so down on Biden's economy? It has been during THIS administration that his fortune has grown the most. All his companies are booming. Tesla, an EV company, will do much better under a dem administration that favors EV's than under a GOP administration that will favor ICE's.
I know he is bipolar in a sense. But you cannot say he has not been a successful businessman. Yet, here he is, courting the wrong clown.
(Talking about Musk).

I think once you rewatch that video of him jumping at the rally, any hope that he makes decisions using logic will evaporate.

[Owendonovan]

Side thought.
Why is this guy so down on Biden's economy? It has been during THIS administration that his fortune has grown the most. All his companies are booming. Tesla, an EV company, will do much better under a dem administration that favors EV's than under a GOP administration that will favor ICE's.
I know he is bipolar in a sense. But you cannot say he has not been a successful businessman. Yet, here he is, courting the wrong clown.
(Talking about Musk).

Because he's a classic bully. Anything other than being an a-hole is considered being a weak man to musk, tfg, jordan, mcmahon, vance etc. They're some of the worst representatives of masculinity, basic.

[Suliso]

I have a feeling Trump will win this time... Democrats have been succesfully painted as anti men and anti white.

[ti-amie]

Jeff Bezos reportedly killed the Washington Post’s Kamala Harris endorsement

/ Democracy dies in darkness!
By Elizabeth Lopatto, a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human behavior. She joined The Verge in 2014 as science editor. Previously, she was a reporter at Bloomberg.

Oct 25, 2024, 2:56 PM EDT

The Washington Post’s editorial page had drafted an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president when its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, intervened to cancel its publication, The Washington Post reports. In its place, The Post ran a bizarre column by its current publisher (and former Rupert Murdoch henchman) Will Lewis, saying The Post would not endorse anyone.

In his editorial, Lewis cited the Post’s decision not to publish an endorsement in the race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon would later be implicated in the Watergate scandal, which generated 69 indictments and 48 criminal convictions in one of the biggest political corruption scandals in American history.

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis wrote. (It is unclear who the “we” is, here. Lewis? Lewis and Bezos? Some secret third group?) “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

This is now the second American newspaper, after The Los Angeles Times, to kill a Harris endorsement at the owner’s behest. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong similarly blocked a planned endorsement, prompting the newspaper’s editorials editor to resign in protest.

The Post’s union says it is “deeply concerned” that the paper would do this just 11 days before a “immensely consequential” election. “The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management has interfered with the work of our members in Editorial.” Readers are already canceling subscriptions, the statement notes. Neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan resigned his position as editor-at-large, according to Semafor’s Max Tani.

The Washington Post, which bears the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” published endorsements of candidates for Virginia’s 7th district on Oct. 13 and for senate in Maryland on Oct. 2. It has routinely published investigations into Donald Trump that allege wrongdoing and illegal behavior.

Two Washington Post board members, Charles Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg, wrote the Harris endorsement, according to The Columbia Journalism Review. David Shipley, the editorial page director, told staff the endorsement was “on track, adding that ‘this is obviously something our owner has an interest in,’” according to The CJR. Today, Shipley told the board there would be no endorsement. That was followed by Lewis’s peculiar editorial.

NPR also reported Shipley had approved and then canceled the editorial, saying that Shipley “told colleagues it was being reviewed by Bezos.” Bezos’s other companies have contracts with the American government. Among them: Amazon’s $10 billion cloud contract with the NSA and Blue Origin’s $3.4 billion contract with NASA to build a lunar lander.

“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” said Marty Baron, the former Washington Post executive editor, in a text message to the Post. “Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/242 ... ndorsement

[ti-amie]

Hello readers,

I'm Michael Blackmon, comments editor at The Post.

I see that many of you have strong feelings regarding the note from Mr. Lewis about The Post's decision not to endorse a presidential candidate ahead of the upcoming election.

If you'd like to submit letters, you can do that here: https://wapo.st/letter. My colleague Alyssa Rosenberg will be reading every one of them and we'll publish as many responses as we can.

The total number of reader responses is 19,000+

Now the above post makes sense.

David Folkenflik
@davidfolkenflik
Mini update: The furor at the WaPo is such that its chief tech officer is getting engineers to block Qs about its decision to not make an endorsement pm the Post's own AI site search,

This according to internal WP correspondence I've reviewed

[Owendonovan]

What a bunch of pathetic, weak, spineless MEN.

[ti-amie]

David Folkenflik
@davidfolkenflik
·
As I reported on the air tonight, the Washington Post registered 1600+ cancelations of digital subscriptions in the first three hours after my story broke, according to internal WP correspondence I’ve reviewed.

That’s bananas.

Janice Hough
@leftcoastbabe

Trying to cancel Washington Post subscription and the site says "We are down for maintenance."

So did they take their website down in hopes people calm down?

Or are millions of cancellations crashing the site?

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

We can't run a parallel experiment in two parallel worlds, one in which the WP endorses Harris, and one in which they endorse Trump.
And see how many cancellations each scenario generates.
Plus, I am sure the WP gets hundreds of cancellations a day. And hundreds of subscriptions.
The numbers are meaningless without statistical context.

[ti-amie]

The stench of possible kompromat enters the conversation:

[ti-amie]