Re: Who voted for Bezos as President?
" Democracy means whichever side gets the most votes, wins."
By that argument, your leader is Hillary Clinton who won the popular vote, despite what Trump says.
Amazon has taken the extraordinary step of moving to depose the President of the United States as part of its appeal against the Pentagon's decision to award the $10bn JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft. Attorneys for the internet shopping giant on Monday filed a motion [PDF] to depose Donald Trump, and senior government …
Franco, the media has shown time and again they cannot be trusted to report accurately on anything like this. If they were actually telling the truth then nearly everyone in the country must have voted for Hillary, or to remain in the EU, or for anyone else who the media support but who still managed to get beat.
And then there's the people who say "the only reason anyone would vote for [insert winner here] is because they are a stupid, racist idiot" - which totally ignores the fact that we looked at the issue from both sides, judged one against the other and decided which we would rather support.
If you want an example of the intelligence of the sort of person who voted Remain, look at how many of them still insist that the Treaty of Lisbon is a fiction created by the rabid, idiotic Leave supporters - which is funny because the Treaty of Lisbon, with the Treaties of Rome and Maastricht, is what is supposed to guide the European Union into the glorious Fourth Rei... oh sorry, set of non-national Administrative Regions with "One Citizenship, One Flag and One Leader" (allowing for some latitude in translation, obviously).
And one final thing - even if she somehow managed to fool enough of the electorate and somehow get herself elected, Hillary will NEVER be my leader.
You do realize that Hillary and the Democratic party as a hole continuously receives more fraudulent ballots than any other party. Hillary received far more fraudulent ballots than any other candidate in history. Case in point, when Michigan was withheld from calling the state for Trump and they demanded a recount, that recount was almost immediately stopped after 16 districts in Detroit were discovered to have in many cases to have submitted a count of more than 3X the actual number of physical ballots received at those polling locations. In one location, 306 votes were reported with only 50 physical ballots.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/07/election-issues/95121934/
Hillary didn't win shit. You want to claim she did, the first thing to demand is a physical ballot recount. When the fraudulent tallies and illegal ballots by dead people are eliminated her "popular vote" win would be proven just as fake as the rest of her campaign.
In addition, in the United states, there is another reason that popular vote is meaningless. Its called the electoral college and its purpose is to prevent a single city or a small number of cities controlled by one party from overturning the will of the majority of the country.
There is a reson that the Democrats win in Democrat controlled districts and nowhere else. Thats where the crime is.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/pbox.php?url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/files/2016/11/map-crime-election.jpg&w=1484&op=resize&opt=1&filter=antialias&t=20170517
Turns out there's a website for that.
The tl;dr and/or "I never follow links" version:
114 games of golf played during this Presidency, at a cost to US taxpayers in excess of $125,000,000 ... and counting.
"I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go play golf." —-Donald J. Trump lies his ass off, as usual ... This time August 2nd, 2016 in Ashburn VA.
This does seem like sour grapes. Like almost everything else, biases play a part.
Plus, MSFT products are used extensively in the govt - and their cloud offering would seem to offer better integration with their products.
Now, as goes the current POTUS and views for/against him, it would help to keep in mind that the political climate in the US has become very polarized over the past so many years (even before his winning the presidency in 2016)
So much so, that people voted for him to keep the other ones out - those they considered to be against their way of life, going just by the public statements made by such political figures.
To echo the words of another president, "a house divided against itself, cannot stand."
However, in this case, it's identity politics creating the divisions by catering to fringe / populism.
Well, populism goes both ways...
Those of you who do not live in the US cannot understand - you're like obstetricians (from the outside, looking in)
Fun to see all these anti-Trump comments coming from a country that just elected Johnson with a much larger majority than Trump achieved. In the UK 70% of the population voted for Boris ... oh wait a moment - it was only 43% that voted for Boris but that's British democracy for you - you only need about 30% of the population to support your rule over the entire country. And you think the US has problems?
No one ever said that the UK was free of issues, that's not the argument here and only a total fuckwit would try and defend his country by comparing it to the situation in another.
By your logic we in the UK can justify our own situation by saying that France is gridlocked by Mouvement des Gilets jaunes protests so we're OK. That's an utterly false equivalence, or "twitter logic" if you prefer. The sort of thing Trump does when confronted about gun control, when he says it's not as bad as knife crime in London.
There are too many people who don't get off their arses and vote, then complain when things don't go their way.
That might have been "only" 43% of the population, but it wasn't 100% of the population who voted. Getting nearly half of the votes in a place where there are often 4, 5, or more choices is a lot harder than it sounds. America has a choice of 2.
To be fair, some of this is down to the way our glorious politicians promise one thing in their pre-election campaigns then do choose to do something completely different once elected. Which is not the same as, for example, Boris saying he would take us out of the EU but then getting blocked at every turn by the voter-hating political elitists infesting the Houses of Parliament (Go to SCOTLAND to overturn the voters' decision? Tell your constituents that it doesn't matter how they voted in the Referendum, you're going to keep them in the EU regardless? And then wonder why they turn around and kick you out of office at the next election. And you thought their votes didn't matter...)
There are too many people who don't get off their arses and vote, then complain when things don't go their way. - I agree, but it's politicians on both sides of the Atlantic that keep telling us that their victory is democracy in action and any opposition to them is antidemocratic. A 30% approval is politicians in action, not democracy.
Oracle et all challenged the original award as they knew they could not provide the entire contract and the "legacy systems" being replaced were mostly theres
their suit was frivolous.
There are only 3 firms that might have been able to provide the entire contract: AWS, Azure and GCP
GCP didnt really have the capability, Microsoft pulled out of the process first time around, that left AWS to win it.
Trump then got involved, then all of a sudden MS were winning a contract they gave up on...
Am I the only one here uncomfortable that the world's richest man is trying to depose a democratically elected president because the president denied him the chance to become even richer ? Or is Bezos saying that AWS is so superior to the alternatives that it trumps democracy itself ?
The USA has a collegiate system and he won that, live with it, POTUS has a lot of executive power. Thats the point of having one. Elect a crap one and you have to accept the consequences for 4 years until you get to choose again. That's the downside to democracy but its a lot better than the alternatives.
"Depose" is used here in its legal sense of taking testimony, usually from a witness that isn't being brought to court. It's a normal part of the American legal system, but it also allows for amusing headlines that (sadly or hilariously, depending on your point of view) confuse people who don't know about the American legal system, have never heard of a deposition and would rather lecture fellow readers on the nature of democracy than actually read the article.
And when the alternative is to replace democracy wholesale with something immediately available altogether better and infinitely smarter?
Which all brings us back or propels us again forward into this possibility with the expertise to do it all clearly enough on show and showboating on El Reg ..... https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2020/02/10/amazon_trump_deposition/#c_3973027
For now when all the necessary lacks of intelligence are easily provided to worthy novel intellectual property stakeholders.
There is ample abundance of caution in supplying for all such necessary lacks of intelligence and information are almighty secrets that easily destroy all discovered unworthy of powers uncovered and levers revealed for an Almost Absolute Phorm of Real Command and Virtual Control with Earthed Assets Trading Freely and Openly in Pioneering AI Markets ..... a Wet Dream Come True for Investors in Venture Capitalists Adding Valuable Programs and Valued Projects ..... for just such as can easily be this Right Royal Gem of Mighty Munificent Vision/Intelligent See ..... https://vision2030.gov.sa/en
I Kid U Not :-)
Commander In Chief.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the_United_States
The Constitution explicitly assigns the president the power to sign or veto legislation, command the armed forces, ask for the written opinion of their Cabinet, convene or adjourn Congress, grant reprieves and pardons, and receive ambassadors. The president shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed and the president has the power to appoint and remove executive officers. The president may make treaties, which need to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, and is accorded those foreign-affairs functions not otherwise granted to Congress or shared with the Senate. Thus, the president can control the formation and communication of foreign policy and can direct the nation's diplomatic corps. The president may also appoint Article III judges and some officers with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. In the condition of a Senate recess, the president may make a temporary appointment.
and
Executive powers
Within the executive branch itself, the president has broad powers to manage national affairs and the priorities of the government. The president can issue rules, regulations, and instructions called executive orders, which have the binding force of law upon federal agencies but do not require approval of the United States Congress. Executive orders are subject to judicial review and interpretation.
The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 put additional responsibilities on the presidency for the preparation of the United States federal budget, although Congress was required to approve it.[31] The act required the Office of Management and Budget to assist the president with the preparation of the budget. Previous presidents had the privilege of impounding funds as they saw fit, however the United States Supreme Court revoked the privilege in 1998 as a violation of the Presentment Clause. The power was available to all presidents and was regarded as a power inherent to the office. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 was passed in response to large-scale power exercises by President Nixon. The act also created the Congressional Budget Office as a legislative counterpoint to the Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. Jeff Bezos can pound sand. The President can tell you so directly or simply dismiss your request outright. He doesnt have to tell you anything.
How about two of the words you quoted - Judicial Review. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review which is a link from the page you reference.
Judicial review is a process under which executive or legislative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority: an executive decision may be invalidated for being unlawful or a statute may be invalidated for violating the terms of a constitution. Judicial review is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers: the power of the judiciary to supervise the legislative and executive branches when the latter exceed their authority. The doctrine varies between jurisdictions, so the procedure and scope of judicial review may differ between and within countries.
Does that not suggest there are controls in place to prevent this kind of unilateral action?
Should be a good fight. But both sides could cheat. Instead of faffing about with a legal system designed for plebs, a person who controls state agencies may feel it's easier & quicker to cheat and arrange for his adversary to be charged with a terrorist or paedophile offence. When you are a billionaire, instead of hiring an army of very expensive lawyers you could cheat and hire one highly competant assasin.
If Bozos via The Washington Post cannot do to Trump what the dear old WP managed to do to Nixon, then forget it. Bozos knows deposing the President is an absurd idea, and the sooner he backs off from it, the better. Investigative journalism still has the potential to wreak havoc on Trump and his reign, not least because he himself has but a limited comprehension of what Deep Throating can actually be.
Trump played the long game. Democrats in disarray and harmless. The most dangerous was Biden. Called Zelensky, knowing it wasn't private, knew it would be public. He's an expert confuser that knows confusion works and has the Senate won. End result? Pleases base and ensures they will vote. Biden fights for 3rd place having been the front runner. Trump sure knows how to play the political game better than the politicians!
Please note, applause for playing the game is not an endorsement of the player!