Amazon Brags It 'Cultivated' California Mayor With Donations in Leaked Policy Document (vice.com) 28
Amazon said it has "cultivated" a Southern California city mayor by donating PPE to the city and taking him and his team on tours in a confidential company document leaked on Tuesday. From a report: The document, which is undated but refers to 2024 plans, also describes the company's intent to combat legislation that would harm its interests by courting non-profit groups in California. The company said "Warehouse Moratorium Legislation" in the state -- like AB 1000, which would prohibit companies from building large warehouses in residential and public areas -- "would be detrimental to Amazon's interests."
The document, titled "Community Engagement Plan 2024," was shared in screenshots on X by Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former California State Assembly member and AFL-CIO leader, who described it as an "interesting read about how [Amazon] plan[s] to use $$ to non-profits in communities of color to fight legislation that limits environmental affects of warehouses & labor organizing." The document states that Amazon is facing "significant reputational challenges in Southern California, where the company is perceived to build facilities in predominantly communities of color and poverty, negatively impacting their health." The document then names City of Perris Mayor Michael Vargas, who Amazon refers to as "Perris Mayor Marty Vargas" in an apparent typo, as an "influential elected leader that we have cultivated through PPE donations to support the region, touring him and his team, and ongoing engagement."
The document, titled "Community Engagement Plan 2024," was shared in screenshots on X by Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former California State Assembly member and AFL-CIO leader, who described it as an "interesting read about how [Amazon] plan[s] to use $$ to non-profits in communities of color to fight legislation that limits environmental affects of warehouses & labor organizing." The document states that Amazon is facing "significant reputational challenges in Southern California, where the company is perceived to build facilities in predominantly communities of color and poverty, negatively impacting their health." The document then names City of Perris Mayor Michael Vargas, who Amazon refers to as "Perris Mayor Marty Vargas" in an apparent typo, as an "influential elected leader that we have cultivated through PPE donations to support the region, touring him and his team, and ongoing engagement."
Is bribery legal in California ? (Score:2)
Who should be prosecuted: the Amazon execs who signed this off or the city mayor - or both ?
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Bribery is legal in all 50 states, as long as the one receiving the bribe is an elected official. Just file it under "campaign contributions" and call it a day.
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Money is free speech. Corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections. And criticizing our new political-economic system is treason.
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Bribery is legal in all 50 states
Definitely is not. It is strictly illegal.
The feds will come for your ass.
as long as the one receiving the bribe is an elected official. Just file it under "campaign contributions" and call it a day.
Come on, dude.
I'll concede that the pressure to turn a donation into a bribe (quid-pro-quo) is high, if you concede that indeed it can be done without that, and that donation with a hope of favorable policy is not quid-pro-quo.
There are definitely things we could do to improve the system, but taking money out of politics is absurd. As long as there is money, people will use it to get ahead. In this case, that means advertising, op
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Ask George Santos how misusing campaign contributions goes.
Better question, who did he piss off?
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There are ~300 bribery convictions a year in the US.
Donations are not bribery, any more than giving someone a rebate coupon is bribing them to buy your shit.
Nobody's arguing that there's an air of ick surrounding campaign finance, but that doesn't justify using the wrong word to describe it in an effort to make it sound worse than it actually is.
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There is 500,000 politicians out there, and with them being as morally bankrupt as they are, 300 is such a small piddling number.
A tool to keep opponents in check and make it look like they are doing something.
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Re:Is bribery legal in California ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bribe is such an ugly word....
But seriously: The American system is based on philanthropic individuals. Businesses and/or their owners getting involved in local affairs is normal. Too many people rely on donations from their churches (or worse: gofundme) for their medical bills. Whole communities only can survive with food banks.
And it somehow works. Enough people step up and actually donate to do what in other countries would be seen as one of government's most fundamental jobs. But this donation culture leaves cities (and whole states, regular citizens and politicians) dependent on those donations. Which makes them, by the end of the day, bribes.
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You want to know what is truly ugly? Trying to compare churches serving those in dire need, to campaign contributions. You'll find exactly zero former losers of political campaigns begging for food on the streets to survive. No ex-presidents are living in destitute. No former congress members are starving on a street corner.
And if it all somehow "works", then explain downtown San Francisco. The crime and death specifically associated with every liberal city. Leaders of failed cities getting re-elected
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It is true that the cities with the highest crime are run by Democrats.
It's also true that many large cities run by Democrats have better crime rates than cities run by Republicans and vice versa.
The only way you can paint your narrative, is if you make sure the list stops before you hit the first Republican city on it.
Stop that list before you get to Anchorage, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Miami, Stockton.
The only thing you can really say is, "In the cities with the top
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It's nowhere near that fucking simple. It is true that the cities with the highest crime are run by Democrats.
When the response to that is no shit, sure seems pretty fucking simple.
It's also true that many large cities run by Democrats have better crime rates than cities run by Republicans and vice versa.
Really? Let's take a look at trend lines then. Prove me wrong.
The only way you can paint your narrative, is if you make sure the list stops before you hit the first Republican city on it. Stop that list before you get to Anchorage, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Miami, Stockton.
Did you really just make a stretch all the way to Alaska to try and prove a point? Seriously? I've actually lived farther north than Anchorage for years in the past. Alcoholism is quite prevalent there due to lack of other shit to do for months in the winter. Depression and divorce are too. Miami? You mean the main blue part of an otherwise red state? Tulsa and Oklaho
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When the response to that is no shit, sure seems pretty fucking simple.
Are you fucking stupid? I literally addressed how it's not below.
Really? Let's take a look at trend lines then. Prove me wrong.
Again, I can only conclude that you're fucking stupid.
The trend-lines are nearly the same minus a small selection of cities at the top. Over the vast majority of cities, party-in-power is not predictive of crime rate.
Did you really just make a stretch all the way to Alaska to try and prove a point? Seriously? I've actually lived farther north than Anchorage for years in the past. Alcoholism is quite prevalent there due to lack of other shit to do for months in the winter. Depression and divorce are too. Miami? You mean the main blue part of an otherwise red state? Tulsa and Oklahoma City? the two with the largest Democratic support in the last election? Stockton? As in right next to the liberal shithole capital known as San Francisco? In a Democratic dominated sanctuary state? Color me surprised that even your own cherry-picked examples are more proving my point than yours.
What the fuck are you talking about?
There's no stretch to anywhere. There's a list of cities by crime rates per capita, and party affiliation of that government.
From Anchorage to Miami, the literal entire breadth of the contine
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Enough people step up and actually donate to do what in other countries would be seen as one of government's most fundamental jobs.
And boy is the government pissed. It's the government's job to see to it that funds pass through its hands so as to direct patronage to those that they deem worthy. No fair you giving directly to the needy through your own charitable organizations. So we'll slap a (totally inappropriate) term on that activity and call it "bribes". Even though bribes more accurately describe passing your money through a government entity, hoping that some will trickle out in the end.
Re: Is bribery legal in California ? (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Who should be prosecuted: the Amazon execs who signed this off or the city mayor - or both ?
Neither.
The main give seemed to be PPE for the city, so Amazon gave the city (not the mayor) something of value in return for goodwill.
The rest of it was "touring and ongoing engagement", if fancy enough that might start to count as bribery [propublica.org], but it you're just bringing them around the warehouse to talk up your operations then that's just ordinary lobbying and salesmanship.
It's more akin to the 'old boys club'. People who get a lot of face time together tend to get friendly and help each other out. So if you
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That's absurd.
Unless there is evidence of quid-pro-quo, this is just nameless megacorp A sending money toward politician B's political endeavors in the hope of favorable policy. What was this politician supposed to do, say no? We won't take that donation of PPE?
So the answer is nobody, because no crime was committed.
It does however something for us, and that's that corporations are shitty fucking humans.
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Fight Legislation? (Score:2)
> about how [Amazon] plan[s] to use $$ to non-profits in communities of color to fight legislation
Are these (c)(3)s (c)(4)s?
Surely Amazon isn't a public corporation knowingly violating tax code?
Amazon breaks the 11th commandment (Score:2)
DON'T GET CAUGHT
In this modern era, that should include making no such statements in anything you write down. The British government at the time of Covid is currently being embarrassed by the WhatsApp messages that were flying around between high level politicians and officials... Don't do it; keep embarrassing conversations purely in person.
Which property is cheaper to buy (Score:3)
Which property is cheaper to by, the 2-1 acres in an affluent neighborhood or a non-affluent neighborhood? Hmm.
Different rules for different classes (Score:4, Informative)
Puts all those HR-mandated trainings I was forced to watch in the 5 years I worked at Amazon into perspective, where they emphasized how it was against company policy for me (a software engineer working on video games) to give anything that might be construed as a bribe to state officials. I wonder if the executives who did this sort of thing had to sit through the same videos.
Lobbying? (Score:2)
Now, the good news (Score:2)
Good news: Their employees can bicycle to work and buy medicines (because job), both good for their health. If Amazon removes soccer mum's fear of black people driving blue-black vans, the bribes, sorry, donations will be totally justified.
With a change to electric vehicles, most of the pollution caused by cars is gone. (There's still tyre-rubber dust.) That leaves higher traffic volumes and the council increasing road maintenance (in poor suburbs) because of that volume.