The Washington Post, Owned by CIA's Webmaster, Blasts Venezuela's 'State-Financed' News

These unfortunate Venezuelans don’t have the Washington Post to tell them that it’s
normal for the US president to make up national security crises in order to exercise
emergency powers. (photo: Miguel Gutierrez/EPA)

By Jim Naureckas
Venezuelans are worried because US President Barack Obama declared a “national emergency” that called Venezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

But there’s no need for them to get upset, the Washington Post’s Nick Miroff and Karen DeYoung (3/11/15) reassure. The Obama administration explained that it just wanted to impose sanctions on some of Venezuela’s top officials because “it wanted to send a strong message in defense of human rights and democracy”:

The “emergency” declaration and labeling of Venezuela as a “security threat” are legal formalities used in many other instances when sanctions are applied, administration officials said. The language does not represent a more severe assessment of the Maduro government, they said.

Ah–the administration is just pretending there’s an “unusual and extraordinary threat” because it wants to invoke powers that it’s only legally allowed to use in an actual emergency. No biggie. Thanks for clearing that up, Washington Post!

Unfortunately, Venezuelans don’t have Washington-savvy publications like the Post to set them straight. Or, as Miroff and DeYoung put it:

Such nuances stood little chance in the meat grinder of Venezuela’s rough political culture, where state-financed and pro-government broadcasters dominate the airwaves.

Hmm–so we should be wary of “state-financed and pro-government” media outlets, huh?

The Washington Post’s owner is positioned to get more than $1 billion in state
financing from the Pentagon–in addition to the $600 million coming from the CIA.
(photo: DoD/Ken Hammond)

The Washington Post, as it happens, is owned by Jeff Bezos, the 15th richest person in the world, who derives his fortune from his position as the main owner of Amazon.com, with an 18 percent share of the company.

You probably know Amazon as an online bookseller; less famously, they’re also in the online data storage business, and one of their top clients is the US intelligence community, which paid Amazon Web Services $600 million for a “cloud” to store and process information for the CIA, NSA and other US spy agencies. As the Atlantic (7/17/14) noted at the time, this is far from Amazon’s only government contract; other agencies they store data for include NASA, the FDA, the CDC and HealthCare.gov.

Amazon “is rapidly becoming the leading supplier of cloud services to the federal government,” the trade publication EnterpriseTech (8/22/14) reported. When the Defense Department looked to spend $10 billion on cloud services, Amazon didn’t bid directly for the contract–but it will partner with five of the 10 companies who won pieces of the contract, allowing it to get more than the $1 billion each direct contractor is limited to (FCW, 8/28/13).

Is this serious money for Bezos? Well, he paid $250 million for the entire Washington Post in 2013, so it’s more than walking-around money. Suffice it to say that it’s very unlikely any Venezuelan broadcaster gets as much state funding as the Bezos empire.

As for “pro-government”–the Post may be more or less friendly to any particular administration, but it’s never going to lose its allegiance to the DC’s permanent government. As Keane Bhatt (Extra!, 3/14) pointed out, it’s the Post’s proximity to Washington’s imperial power that makes it more than just another mid-size daily like the Denver Post.

And part of the job of being Washington’s official court paper, apparently, is explaining to the inhabitants of lesser nations that they shouldn’t take it personally when the US labels them “an unusual and extraordinary threat.”

Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

Brazilians May Elect Their First Black President — A Woman Named Marina Silva

“She’s going to come with her tan skin and popular appeal.... She’s going to be so different, and for that reason, so similar to all of us.”—Marina Silva campaign song.

Photo provided by edu2424.

By Taylor Barnes
The official jingle for Marina Silva's presidential campaign discreetly refers to the candidate's skin color: “She’s going to come with her tan skin and popular appeal.... She’s going to be so different, and for that reason, so similar to all of us.”

The brief line – among diverse references to how she appeals to all Brazilians of all creeds – is symbolic. After her years in the public eye as a politician and activist, Brazilians know well the personal story of Ms. Silva: She hails from an impoverished family of 11 children in a remote corner of the Amazon, worked as a housemaid, and was illiterate until the age of 16. She’s a devout Pentecostal Christian and an outspoken environmentalist.

But in one of the most diverse nations in the world, few are talking about the fact that, if victorious, Ms. Silva would be Brazil’s first president who identifies as black. It’s put a spotlight on how race is – and isn’t – discussed here, and what that means for a nation that often describes itself as a “racial democracy” but still suffers from deep inequality and discrimination that fall along racial lines.

“If you look closely, people don’t speak about racial issues. It’s so complicated,” says Rodrigo Ledo, a press manager for the Brazilian Socialist Party, for which Silva became the presidential candidate after her running mate died in an August plane crash. “We have the aura of living in harmony, despite there being so much prejudice. It’s part of our education as Brazilians,” Mr. Ledo says.

Brazil is the second-largest country of afro-descendants in the world, behind Nigeria. Some estimates say Brazil accounted for 30 to 40 percent of the trans-Atlantic slave trade during its colonial period, a higher percentage than the United States. And according to the 2010 census, Brazil is now a “majority minority” nation, where more than half the population does not identify as white.

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Amazon's Jeff Bezos Takes Washinton Post's Advice: Rips Off Post's Workers — Retirement Benefits Snatched Away

Looks like Jeff Bezos has discovered some more employee benefits
he can take away. (cc photo: James Duncan Davidson)

By Jim Naureckas
The Washington Post (9/23/14) reported that the paper's new ownership would be slashing retirement benefits for employees:

The Washington Post announced large cuts in retirement benefits on Tuesday, declaring that it would eliminate future retirement medical benefits and freeze defined-benefit pensions for nonunion employees.

The company also said that in negotiations that started Tuesday, it will seek to impose the same conditions on employees covered by the union–one of the first indications of how the Post's new owner, Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, will manage relations with the staff of the news organization.

The changes will hit hardest at employees hired before 2009 who could plan on receiving pension payments based on their income and years of service. Each of those employees could see scores–or hundreds –of thousands of dollars less over the course of a retirement.

Now, that's a rotten thing to do–taking away large sums of money that you promised people for their retirement after years of service. Where could Bezos have gotten the idea that it was OK to act that way?

Well, maybe he reads the paper he just bought.

The Washington Post has a long tradition–in its news reports and its editorials–of calling on politicians to treat public employees and their pensions the way that Bezos is treating the Post's. As Peter Hart (FAIR Blog, 9/12/14) wrote earlier this month:

The Washington Post (9/10/14) was unsurprisingly happy with the primary's result, noting that Raimondo faced down "ferocious opposition from labor" because she had dared to explain "the plain budgetary impossibility of maintaining pensions" as promised. To the Post, "her primary victory is an encouraging sign that many voters, including Democrats, have woken up to the peril posed by years of reckless promises by office-holders beholden to public-employee unions."

Anything that hurts labor unions, workers and moves Democrats to the right must be something to cheer about.

Now, I want to make it clear that I oppose sauce for the goose as well as sauce for the gander. But hopefully the Post staff will attend to this reminder that they and the ruling class do not share the same interests, though they often write as though they do. You may see yourself as part of Team Billionaire, but Jeff Bezos sees it differently.

Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

Amazon's Wholesale Slaughter: Bezos' $8 Trillion B2B Bet — The Corp That Wiped Out Retailers Wants to Wipe Out Wholesalers

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com (Photo by James
Duncan Davidson)

“The question is not whether AmazonSupply will be a threat,” says Richard Balaban, who has studied the site for management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. “Rather it is which customers, purchase occasions and categories will be attacked first.”

By Clare O'Connor

Forget the delivery drones and TV deals. Jeff Bezos’ stealthy foray into the unsexy world of B2B distribution is likely his most disruptive move yet — and it has an $8 trillion swath of the economy running scared.

In recent months global Internet retail behemoth Amazon.com has green-lit six new original TV shows, announced an online streaming deal with HBO and tested same-day grocery delivery on the West Coast.

Up next? Possibly a smartphone. And, if billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos has his way, packages dropped off by unmanned drone.

But there’s one thing Bezos hasn’t been talking about: AmazonSupply, an e-commerce site targeting the unsexy but hugely lucrative wholesale and distribution market. His silence is especially surprising as the site has the potential to turn into the most important development in the company’s history since it started selling books. Yet Bezos has uttered only 28 words in public–ever–about AmazonSupply, describing it in passing as “an incredible category” during the company’s 2012
annual meeting.

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