There’s Dumb and Then There’s AMI
Okay, this is the definition of dumber than bean dip.
AMI (the National Enquirer) up and decides to extort the richest man in the world, if not the universe. When was the exact point in time that they decided that would work? One of the very cool benefits about having $137 billion dollars is that you become unembarrassable. You can write stuff all over public bathroom walls about somebody with $137 billion and it won’t change one single thing about their lives.
And let’s face it – The National Enquirer is the bathroom wall of journalism.
I would not mess with this man. He is very powerful. Hell, this man, with a whim all on his own, can make sure that you never enjoy free shipping for rest of your life. Are you nuts?
It’s not losing the free shipping that would scare me. Imagine how many thousands of packages (dog only knows what would be in them) Jeff Bezos could have shipped to your house every hour for the rest of his life and afterlife. Dude is like dead rich; rich enough to troll you for an eternity after he died.
1I don’t think The Nat’l Enquirer is the bathroom wall of journalism. That would be Faux Noose. Nat’l Enquirer is more the like the writing on toilet stall door.
2Why doesn’t Bezos squash AMI and Pecker like the cockroaches they are?
3“Publish, sir, and be damned,” said the Duke of Wellington under similar circumstances. I think the second part of that sentence is a little superfluous in this case — it’s a foregone conclusion.
4The even funnier (dumber) thing is that AMI signed a non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of New York prosecutors. In exchange for coming totally clean about their involvement in the payoffs to Stormy Daniels and the Playboy bunny (whose name I have forgotten) they wouldn’t be prosecuted, neither the company nor the senior execs… unless they committed another crime for the three years following the signing (September 2018). If a new crime was committed, any crime not just one related to the payoffs, then they could be prosecuted for not just the new crime but for every crime associated with the payoffs; a set of crimes for which they have provided the government with all of the evidence of wrongdoing and for which the agreement allows the government to use in prosecuting them; i.e. they waived their Fifth Amendment rights.
5Micr #3
IDK, don’t some of these publications occasionally expose signficant stuff that other better media stream media missed or refused to explore? I’m not saying that they adhere to high quality journalism practices.
6Is AMI publicly or privately held?
Enquiring minds need to know…
7Anybody see this?
https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/federal-prosecutors-are-now-probing-national-enquirers-reported-blackmail-in-light-of-its-role-in-trump-campaign-crimes-report/
8bob Borland #4 – you are quite right, in fact Rachel Maddox had a lengthy monologue on what could happen in criminal courts to the folks at AMI. Hopefully we will soon hear that they are back in court!
9OOPS Wrong thing. MY bad. Disregard. Thought it was something new.
10The Lawyers Full Employment Bill
11Spend your life as a bottom-feeding scumbag and certain elements of your past conduct will come back to you.
12Old Fart, it’s privately owned. AMI also puts out several other magazine, including Men’s Journal, Us Weekly, and Muscle & Fitness.
13Taking Bob Boland’s comment a step farther, the billionaire sues Nat Enq, the billionaire wins his court case and a settlement which includes Nat Enq and their locked safe chock full of Donald Trump stories from the last 3 or 4 decades. The billionaire also owns the Washington Post…
In the movie version (an Amazon Prime exclusive), Tom Hanks is cast as the reporter who opens the safe, and wins an Academy Award for the scene.
14The National Equirer helped Trump get elected. They targeted his rivals. I dont endorse rich people destroying the media, but for the National Equirer I’d make an exception.
15Bezos could buy AMI!
The National Enquirer, and any other “publications” would never be published again.
Bezo’s version of catch-and-kill!
16And if that’s not weird enough, apparently, National Enquire website is hosted on……Amazon cloud.
17https://www.businessinsider.com/national-enquirer-amazon-web-services-2019-2
I’m always the contrarian. Bezos is no prince so while I’m enjoying the comeuppance of AMI I’m also savoring the schadenfreude of Bezos, whose global internet service has its cookie tentacles every damn where, having his own personal bidness exposed. Ironic that even the internet emperor can’t avoid being hacked or spied upon. Surely he has an app for that, right? 🙂
18I hope Bezos squeezes that Pecker until his brains spray out his occular cavities.
Or words to that effect.
19No matter how you feel about AMI or Bezos, certainly the New York Post has the best headline on this:
Bezos Exposes Pecker
Yes, I know it is childish to make fun of someone’s name. But I never claimed to be mature, just old.
20Witless must have had deodorant all over his forehead. I did not see rivers of sweat dripping down his face……
21Surly Professor, that was wonderful. I don’t like its politics but I have to admit the NY Post has memorable headlines (“Headless Body In Topless Bar”).
Miss Juanita Jean, it’s not just the free shipping. One day there will be a third season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and Bezos can ban you with the touch of a button.
22Have never had anything good to say or feel about Enquirer (AMI). Frankly, they are getting their just desserts and they are being beat up by somebody who could swallow them whole yea verily he be not saintly as well. Its just that the antagonize – AMI – is and always was a pile of caca that this world just did not need or deserve. If Bezos succeeds in legally annihilating AMI, so much the better.
23It appears that there is a Saudi connection to all this. Will they pop for the billions of dollars AMI will need to survive Bezos?
24@Whites Creek…the Pecker/Saudi saga was laid out for those of taking deep dives! Pecker is desperate for $ and as we now know, is so desperate to silence Bezos’ who learned about his playing footsie with villains in Saudi Arabia in tandem with the Oval Office….Pecker was trying seduce Saudi Arabians to let him sell his rags there and get Arab investors. He took an Arab investor to the Oval Office with him to meet up with Kushner and Trump.
https://tinyurl.com/yam579hh
(ya’ can’t even expose your arms in Saudi Arabia, his mags would have to be without pictures?)
Side note: Killer Prince in Saudi Arabia is trying to lure American media to give him a makeover by offering to let them do business there. Vice has been one of his targets, there was another mentioned and Pecker is pretending he’s press vs tabloid to also get an invitation by the revered murderer.
There’s more! “…We all know that Donald Trump – who is mired in massive personal debt – is indirectly on Saudi Arabia’s payroll. It’s why his first overseas visit was to Saudi Arabia. It’s why he cooked up the huge arms package with Saudi Arabia. It’s why he sided with the murderous Saudi Crown Prince. It’s why Trump has the U.S. military doing Saudi Arabia’s brutal genocidal bidding in Yemen. David Pecker is also in deep financial trouble; Pecker is also a career criminal, so it would follow that he’s been trying to get illicit funding from somewhere. Jeff Bezos is making a compelling argument that Pecker is every bit as much of a financial puppet of Saudi Arabia as Donald Trump”…posted by Business Insider.
25There’s an old joke in journalism that you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, and that’s just what Pecker did. Of course, he buys ink by the barrel, too, so this could get interesting. Especially when the SDNY weighs in.
26Course, one way to avoid being blackmailed over dick pix is not to take them, just sayin’. Especially not when you’re married.
27@BFSMan
Yep, “ink by the barrel” and “paper by the ton”.
28I just don’t understand how it can be legal to publish stolen pictures and documents. How is this threat different from revenge porn? Which *is* illegal, but maybe only by state…
29Old Fart #29,
There are laws about publishing or selling photos of sports/movie celebrities, etc. because of image branding and copyrights. I’m not lawyer so I don’t know how or if those laws would specifically apply.
ThrowCautiontotheWind #27,
What happens in Vegas, keep it to yourself, don’t take pics you wouldn’t want on the internet.
30I could see Bezos and countless others involved in civil suits that bankrupt Pecker. His empire will shrivel like Jason Alexander in a cold swimming pool.
31The old rule of “never put anything in writing that you don’t want the world to see” applies more so to sexting and selfies. That said, what Pecker attempted to do to Bezos falls under a number of blackmail and extortion statutes. It can be anticipated that the current DOJ would do nothing, but the state of NY might.
32“…won’t change one single thing about their lives.”
Umm, yeah, except for that little divorce thing.
33https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/not-smart-to-pick-a-fight-with-the-worlds-richest-man/
34Updated:
Never pick a fight with someone who buys bandwidth by the terabyte.
35You hit the nail on the head.
36@BarbinDC #35:
My dear, Bezos buys bandwidth by the yottabyte^.
^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte
371 yottabyte == 1 trillion terabytes (ʘᗩʘ’)
May we borrow “The National Enquirer is the bathroom wall of journalism”? That is brilliant. I will give your credit.
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