Trump makes public contract personal by snubbing Amazon for $10 billion contract

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balloonshark

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2008
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Just to be clear this is the president of the united states possibly sacrificing OUR national security because his feelings got hurt. This is the same leader of the party that's supposed to be all about national security and the same party that calls everyone else snowflakes.
 
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Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
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Just to be clear this is the president of the united states possibly sacrificing OUR national security because his feelings got hurt. This is the same leader of the party that's supposed to be all about national security and the same party that calls everyone else snowflakes.

Yeah, I think that sums it up pretty well.
 

DarthKyrie

Golden Member
Jul 11, 2016
1,531
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Just to be clear this is the president of the united states possibly sacrificing OUR national security because his feelings got hurt. This is the same leader of the party that's supposed to be all about national security and the same party that calls everyone else snowflakes.

If everybody that isn't one of their own would just stop being mean to them they wouldn't be such snowflakes, and by mean I mean: using facts, not letting them discriminate against anybody that they want, and we won't let them build an 80-foot wall on the Mexican side of the border at Mexico's expense (if they don't pay we will seize more of their country, nevermind the fact we will have to build a new wall then).
 

nOOky

Platinum Member
Aug 17, 2004
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Bezos is self-made and worth about 37 times what Trump is, and pays less in taxes quite possibly. Trump is just jealous.
 
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Nov 8, 2012
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Just to be clear this is the president of the united states possibly sacrificing OUR national security because his feelings got hurt. This is the same leader of the party that's supposed to be all about national security and the same party that calls everyone else snowflakes.

I think you're overblowing it a bit on that one broceritops.

Going with M$ over Amazon is Apples to Apples. You're not going to pull out some type of statistics or whitepapers showing that one cloud service is more secure than the other... I guarantee you both are at equal footing.

Don't get me wrong, he's a piece of shit - and in no way should we be deciding our government bidding contracts based on partisan politics - but suggesting it is a security risk is fucking laughably stretching for a straw.
 
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UNCjigga

Lifer
Dec 12, 2000
24,802
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Bezos is self-made and worth about 37 times what Trump is, and pays less in taxes quite possibly. Trump is just jealous.

The sad thing is, Trump could have *his* DOJ hit Amazon with a legit antitrust case so hard it would force a breakup of the company... except his Administration is just too damned incompetent to pull it off.
 
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ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
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I think you're overblowing it a bit on that one broceritops.

Going with M$ over Amazon is Apples to Apples. You're not going to pull out some type of statistics or whitepapers showing that one cloud service is more secure than the other... I guarantee you both are at equal footing.

Don't get me wrong, he's a piece of shit - and in no way should we be deciding our government bidding contracts based on partisan politics - but suggesting it is a security risk is fucking laughably stretching for a straw.

This is impossible to say without knowledge of each companies internal business practices, security processes, breach events, etc...

It's not even balloonsharks point. The point is it wouldn't matter to snowflake-in-chief. MS could have multiple times the security breaches as AWS and president feels would still come into play.

Besides, how do you guarantee they're at equal footing? You have first hand knowledge of both?
 
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Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
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Just to be clear this is the president of the united states possibly sacrificing OUR national security because his feelings got hurt. This is the same leader of the party that's supposed to be all about national security and the same party that calls everyone else snowflakes.
You make it sound like Microsoft runs their Cloud services out of a bathroom
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
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You make it sound like Microsoft runs their Cloud services out of a bathroom

Lol, yea, cuz Trump's known for his very deep concern about national security. You know, the same guy who leads the Free world via Twitter.

You guys have vivid imaginations. Balloonsharks statement is accurate, the operative word being possibly....because it wouldn't matter if it did put national security at risk, Trump would still lead via feels and vendetta
 

dawp

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
11,345
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I think you're overblowing it a bit on that one broceritops.

Going with M$ over Amazon is Apples to Apples. You're not going to pull out some type of statistics or whitepapers showing that one cloud service is more secure than the other... I guarantee you both are at equal footing.

Don't get me wrong, he's a piece of shit - and in no way should we be deciding our government bidding contracts based on partisan politics - but suggesting it is a security risk is fucking laughably stretching for a straw.
it's isn't about who but the why it was awarded and it appears to be because he ordered it go to microsoft and not amazon due to Bezos hurting his feelings and wont bow down like FOX does.
 
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Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
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Lol, yea, cuz Trump's known for his very deep concern about national security. You know, the same guy who leads the Free world via Twitter.

You guys have vivid imaginations. Balloonsharks statement is accurate, the operative word being possibly....because it wouldn't matter if it did put national security at risk, Trump would still lead via feels and vendetta
And if you read the article, it appears the DoD ignored that directive.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
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And if you read the article, it appears the DoD ignored that directive.

The prior secretary of defense ignored that directive. He's been gone a long time now though, so who knows what ended up actually happening.

Congress should immediately subpoena all documents related to the award of this contract and get to investigating.
 
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brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
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The prior secretary of defense ignored that directive. He's been gone a long time now though, so who knows what ended up actually happening.

Congress should immediately subpoena all documents related to the award of this contract and get to investigating.

Careful that might offend some voters who would totally vote Democratic if only they would stop investigating Trump.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
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This is impossible to say without knowledge of each companies internal business practices, security processes, breach events, etc...

It's not even balloonsharks point. The point is it wouldn't matter to snowflake-in-chief. MS could have multiple times the security breaches as AWS and president feels would still come into play.

Besides, how do you guarantee they're at equal footing? You have first hand knowledge of both?

Having POTUS seemingly attempting to influence the contract decision is obviously bad (and would get most any other federal employee into hot water ranging from reprimand and potential loss of job if not jail) but I don't see why MSFT wouldn't be a viable option. I'm not an expert on every single service Google offers but for the ones I do know about it seems Microsoft has a plausible alternative. Google Identity Platform vs. using the LDAP and Microsoft Azure MFA is a wash if not positive for Microsoft for example. Both Google AWS and Azure Cloud might use Alfresco for their CMS depending on what DoD chooses, etc. Plus I'm guessing Microsoft probably threw a bunch of their Microsoft Dynamics SaaS tools into the deal as freebies also. Ultimately if the TCO and other value factors were truly all to AWS's favor I highly doubt there could have even been the option to pick Microsoft instead. It's not like a $10B/ten year contract just involves uploading a few files to the cloud, there's efforts underway for the federal government to move all services into the cloud and to SaaS/IaaS/PaaS architecture.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
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The prior secretary of defense ignored that directive. He's been gone a long time now though, so who knows what ended up actually happening.

Congress should immediately subpoena all documents related to the award of this contract and get to investigating.
Yes they should. Oracle made a compelling case for scrutinizing Amazon lobbying efforts in favor of single procurement, so I expect there is a lot of dirt to uncover. Huge government pork projects are the epicenter of the swamp.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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The President is a selfish, thin skinned turd however I do believe the President should be able to make decisions like this. Even if it’s simply to tell a business to fuck off.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
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The President is a selfish, thin skinned turd however I do believe the President should be able to make decisions like this. Even if it’s simply to tell a business to fuck off.

And that decision is based upon Trump's deep understanding of cloud architecture? His deep expertise of just-in-time provisioning, hadoop map reduce using the bash function, and whether BouncyCastle is a sufficiently robust cryptography API? I'm guessing the dude couldn't tell a stratocumulus cloud in the sky vs. AWS cloud if his life depended on it.
 
Feb 4, 2009
34,506
15,737
136
And that decision is based upon Trump's deep understanding of cloud architecture? His deep expertise of just-in-time provisioning, hadoop map reduce using the bash function, and whether BouncyCastle is a sufficiently robust cryptography API? I'm guessing the dude couldn't tell a stratocumulus cloud in the sky vs. AWS cloud if his life depended on it.

While the president is leaning on Amazon for the wrong reasons I do believe Presidents should have power to apply pressure to big businesses.
I’m talking at a 10,000 foot level on this. Something else could come out about this and change my mind.
 

dainthomas

Lifer
Dec 7, 2004
14,572
3,401
136
He's just butthurt. If Trump had put all his money into Amazon stock back in the 90s, he'd be far better off than he is running half empty, bug infested hotels. Then he wouldn't have to rely on laundered Russian mob money from Deutsche Bank.
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
68,852
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While the president is leaning on Amazon for the wrong reasons I do believe Presidents should have power to apply pressure to big businesses.
I’m talking at a 10,000 foot level on this. Something else could come out about this and change my mind.
A federal contracting officer selecting a contractor based on personal whim would be fired. A federal contracting officer selecting a contractor based on a perceived personal benefit would go to jail. It's illegal to award contracts based on criteria other than what is written in law. Congress and the President can and do insert biases into federal contracting selections but these biases are expressed in law. Small business, veteran owned business, minority and woman owned business set asides are examples of bias written into law. Contracting officers, including a President, don't get to make up their own contracting rules.