Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

“woke” is the new caravan.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Petty moves from a petty man.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Books are my comfort food!

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Ask Not Toward Whom the Bus Rolls…

Ask Not Toward Whom the Bus Rolls…

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Over the past couple of days, I’ve thought maybe Trump would toss Rudy Giuliani under the bus. Trump grunted out mouth-noises in response to questions about Giuliani that were similar to what he said about Michael Cohen before that worthy esquire was introduced to the undercarriage. But nope — here’s a tweet from Trump circa this morning:

First, let’s pause a moment here to note the hilarity of TRUMP calling RUDY “rough around the edges.” I mean, a normal person could get away with saying that, but from Trump it’s like one Kardashian calling another a “shameless self-promoter.”

But the more substantive issue here is that Trump can’t really embussen Rudy now, even if alarmed sycophants in the White House are encouraging it, and no matter how many shady South Florida clowns, Eastern European mob bosses and oligarchs come tumbling out of Rudy’s closet.

Trump and Rudy are both publicly committed to a wacky conspiracy theory that exonerates Putin and legitimizes Trump’s 2016 win. So, if Rudy ever does meet mass transit steel, it’ll be double-decker style, accompanied by Trump himself, and the corrupt and absurd Republican Party’s fingerprints will be on both their backs.

That’s my new theory, anyway. Open thread!

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  1. 1.

    Spanky

    Hmmmm. I don’t know. “Embussen” implies putting on the bus, not under.

    Howzabout “subbussen”?

  2. 2.

    Sebastian

    Morning Betty!

    No, that’s just a temporary lapse. Rudy will get under the bus soon enough. Jared too eventually.

  3. 3.

    psycholinguist

    I don’t know, he said he’s a wonderful lawyer, but he didn’t say “my wonderful lawyer” Indefinite pronoun for the bus.

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    But the more substantive issue here is that Trump can’t really embussen Rudy now

    I don’t see why not. It doesn’t matter what he says today, tomorrow, or next week about how great Rudy is, how close they are, or whatever. He has exactly zero commitment to anyone other than himself, or to any normal human concept of self-consistency. Anything he’s said about Rudy will go out the window the moment he thinks it will help him stay out of prison or even make him look better, even if doing it requires him to contradict everything he’s ever said about the guy.

  5. 5.

    The Dangerman

    …it’ll be double-decker style…

    I’ll have mine as a triple, thank you (add Mitch into the mix); he and his wifey are in this “thing” up to their jolly, jolly jowels (and I know it’s not a single “thing”, per se, but rather this whole group is corrupt to the fucking core in so many ways)

  6. 6.

    ET

    It would really be poetic karma if Rudy and not throwing him under the bus, is what ultimately brings tRump down either through investigation or at the ballot box. And it would be even better if it hit hard down ballot.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    Trump is likely bad-mouthing Rudy off the record. The master of the snake pit knows how to schedule the busses. When Rudy is arrested we’ll hear a different story.

  13. 13.

    JoyceH

    Someone on Twitter posted a side by side comparison of this latest tweet and a tweet Trump did about Cohen before Cohen wound up inspecting the underside of the bus, and the similarities were uncanny. This over-complimentary tweet is just a step down the road to total disavowal.

  14. 14.

    JaySinWA

    @JoyceH: That’s what I thought on first read. It can’t be long before “I didn’t really know him” or
    “covfefe boy.”
    ETA I just remembered a very similar tweet after Mr Mayor’s first day as public defender for Trump. So maybe not.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    Fabulous title. Well done, Betty Cracker.

    Does attorney-client privilege attach until death? (Actual, not just political?)

  17. 17.

    bemused

    I don’t doubt trump would throw Rudy under the bus if he figured out a way Rudy couldn’t or wouldn’t turn on him. Trump world problems. May they rain down on him in a tsumami.

  22. 22.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “Crime Buster” is apparently about stop and frisk as well as disparate policing.

    And we know what that really means.

  24. 24.

    scav

    embussen — I went directly to echoes of a) whatever language buss means kiss and b) only secondarily embrace — which still made logocal sense of a sort, but the kind with nauseating imagery.

  26. 26.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Oh, and for those who are hearing about the boat orgy video that could take down Viktor Orban’s party in Hungary, don’t bother.

    Yes, it is available at prOnhub, but is is REALLY boring and super short.

  29. 29.

    JaySinWA

    @JaySinWA: Not a tweet – a quote

    “Rudy knows it’s a witch hunt. He started yesterday. He’ll get his facts straight,” Mr. Trump said. “What he does feel is it is a very bad thing for our country, and he happens to be right.”

    A search for “Trump defends Guilliani” turns up a number of times he has made excuses for the G-man. So not really a tell.

  32. 32.

    jimmiraybob

    Fun fact that I learned this morning – “deep state” is derived from the Turkish “derin devlet” and apparently surfaced in the 1990s to describe a deeply corrupt dual political system.

    On the bright side, once Trump normalizes and nationalizes open state corruption he will, in a sense, have defeated the “deep state” and the zombie cult base will finally have something of which to be proud. What’s Turkish for blatantly and openly corrupt state? “Trump deviet?”

    Of course it will suck for anyone left standing that hasn’t had their brains eaten yet.

  34. 34.

    PPCLI

    I’ve got to agree with those who see Trump’s tweet as preparation for cooking Rudy in the sous-bus style.

    Entirely distanced, no mention of any personal connection, “a wonderful lawyer” rather than “my wonderful lawyer” as psycholinguist noted, …

  36. 36.

    geg6

    That is my favorite post title ever!

    Put me with the crowd who sees the bus heading straight for poor Nosferatu.

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    OT: If any of you have a New Yorker subscription, or want to use a click (the New Yorker gives you several a month), you should check out Charles Duhigg’s long profile of Jeff Bezos.

    The New Yorker: Is Amazon Unstoppable?
    Politicians want to rein in the retail giant. But Jeff Bezos, the master of cutthroat capitalism, is ready to fight back.

    Yikes. We have heard before of Amazon’s culture, which is pretty much inhumane and inhuman. The man himself is less to admire and emulate than you would think. Makes me want to use even less of Amazon.

    Amazon externalizes a lot of its costs. Have you tried to rent a small commercial van in your community lately? Per Enterprise, they were booked solid for weeks on end when I tried a few months ago. It’s people using them for delivery services. The rest of us get to rent pricier UHaul vehicles, with the ghastly fee per mile add on.

    Amazon is not paying their share of taxes. They push warehouse employees to the limits of endurance and exhaustion, and fire them frequently if they prove to not be machines in human form. Their corporate offices are no place for employees who value family and outside relationships – those get what’s left after Amazon has extracted everything they can. They are stripmining their communities and employees. And:

    Some of Bezos’s close friends and colleagues say that Amazon’s tightfistedness reflects his political leanings. “Jeff is a libertarian,” a close acquaintance, who has known Bezos for decades, told me. “He’s donated money to support gay marriage and donated to defeat taxes because that’s his basic outlook—the government shouldn’t be in our bedrooms or our pocketbooks.” One of Bezos’s earliest public donations was to the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank and publisher. In 2013, he bought the Washington Post and invested heavily in its editorial operations, which remain independent; the effort has helped restore the paper’s journalistic lustre (and expanded its readership). Yet he also froze the company’s pension plan—a move that offered no real financial benefit to Bezos, given that the plan was already significantly overfunded—leaving some Post employees with the prospect of fewer benefits when they retired. Fredrick Kunkle, a reporter who is part of the newsroom’s union leadership, said of Bezos, “He doesn’t think companies have obligations to employees beyond paying wages while they work.” Bezos’s close acquaintance agrees: “There’s an empathy gap there, something that makes it hard for him to see his obligations to other people. Seattle is filled with businesspeople—Gates and the Costco founders and the Boeing leadership—who have invested in this city. But the one time Amazon could have pitched in, on the homelessness tax, instead of taking the lead Jeff threatened to leave. It’s how he sees the world.”

    What a shitwad. Do you want to live in a world full of Jeff Bezos admirers, or those who admire Chef Jose Andres?

  39. 39.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @burnspbesq:

    Oh, it may still take down his shitty party – some linchpin 50-something mayor is doggystyling a hooker, some 60-something is playing with himself watching the action and somebody else is getting blown in a pretty large salon (which is a bad look for a “faith and traditional morals” political party) – but as far as titillation goes, this video ain’t it.

  41. 41.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Elizabelle:

    And, again, the pig with aviator sunglasses and porn mustache is beyond perfect.

    It truly is the only way to be able to read screenshots of Dump’s batshit tweets.

  44. 44.

    PJ

    @Elizabelle: Amazon needs to be broken up, and, at a minimum, fairly taxed and regulated, and if that happens, the American people will be furious, because they really value nothing higher than convenience and low prices, regardless of the costs to others or themselves. (I say this as someone who has Amazon prime.) Look at the obseqiousness municipalities and states showed to Amazon when they were “searching” for their new headquarters, and the outcry from politicians and pundits when Amazon pulled out of the Long Island City site they had picked long before their “search” ended (because of objections from unions, and from citizens about outrageous subsidies.) Bezos is a problem, but we the people are a bigger problem.

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    @PJ: I know. I agree with your whole quote.

    People don’t see the destructive and downside. They just see the cheap price. Which is way too expensive, when you add in all the societal costs.

    I really wonder what happens to all that cardboard and packaging.

  48. 48.

    PJ

    @Elizabelle: I was going to say you should try AbeBooks for your out-of-print book searches, and then I remembered, faintly, that they are owned by Amazon. (I confirmed this by going to Google, another entity that should be regulated and broken up).

  50. 50.

    jonas

    @Elizabelle: Fortunately Bezos’s ex-wife, who got tens of billions in their recent split (making her one of the richest women in the world), has pledged to donate at least half her fortune to charity. That probably pisses him off to no end, which is probably why she did it.

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    @mrmoshpotato: Betty provides a public service.

    Have you all noticed how Trump is on very few magazine covers? Lots of Time and Newsweek, and rarely in a flattering manner. But do you ever see him elsewhere?

    But people do not want to buy magazines with his ugly ass orange mug on the front. I see the Obamas all over the place. Singularly, or together.

    ETA: OK. He’s also on The New Yorker a lot. Never flatteringly. This week, he and Giuliani are throwing Uncle Sam off a bridge, with concrete shoes.

  56. 56.

    HeleninEire

    One strange thing I am noticing about Trump lately is that his NY (really, Queens) accent is really showing.

    ???? Regression???? Dunno.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    @mrmoshpotato: And Time seems to do drawings/graphics of Trump too. More than photos, although I don’t look at Time very often.

    People just don’t want to buy articles with his traitorous face on it. I speak of sane people, the not-Trumpenproletariate.

  61. 61.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax: #1 looks reasonable. #2 is crazy. But the Big Bus looks to be 70s disaster movie madness at its best. I’ll have to find it.

  62. 62.

    Yarrow

    Best title ever!

    Rudy is going under the bus. Trump will throw everyone under the bus. It’s what narcissists do when they feel threatened. A public statement of support now is only designed to keep Rudy in line. Will not affect anything Trump does about Rudy.

  64. 64.

    germy

    Pool report: Trump was asked about losing in court today.

    "I've had a great track record. … within a couple of months, we'll have 182 federal judges."

    Is he saying that the more federal judges he confirms… the more the courts will just rule for him? ?

    — Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) October 11, 2019

  65. 65.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @PJ:

    Why break it up? It sells only elastic goods, customer support is generally fantastic, and the payment portal is robust and trustworthy. As the modern version of the Sears catalog with next day service, it is perfect in performance.

    To the extent there are labor or local taxation issues, those can be dealt with.

  67. 67.

    trnc

    @Roger Moore:

    It doesn’t matter what he says today, tomorrow, or next week about how great Rudy is, how close they are, or whatever. He has exactly zero commitment to anyone other than himself, or to any normal human concept of self-consistency. Anything he’s said about Rudy will go out the window the moment he thinks it will help him stay out of prison or even make him look better, even if doing it requires him to contradict everything he’s ever said about the guy.

    I heartily concur. In fact, the more praise he lavishes today, the more wheels on the bus I expect tomorrow.

  71. 71.

    Rand Careaga

    Have I shopped this around here before? I can’t recall, but it seems on point:

    Do not throw Rudy under that big bus,
    Old fools should dodge and weave and softly say:
    “Evade, evade all this impeachment fuss.”

    Though bagmen, caught, are scarcely beauteous
    Who go on CNN unwisely, they
    Should not go gentle under that big bus.

    Such men, enablers all, surround us, thus,
    Why sacrifice one pitiful roué?
    Evade, evade all this impeachment fuss.

    A clown who sought to suborn Kievan Rus’
    To make of “Sleepy Joe” Trump’s lawful prey
    Should not go gentle under that big bus.

    Lawyers, high-paid, will warn their client, “Just
    Stonewall, or plead the Fifth, and then you may
    Evade, evade all this impeachment fuss.

    “And on the news, Mayor G., do not discuss,
    But merely hint at pardon, and you’ll stay
    Far from the path of that advancing bus
    And thus elude all this impeachment fuss.”

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    I don’t think Trump has anything to gain from throwing Rudy under the bus. He’d do so without hesitation if there was a molecule of personal gain in it, but how’s it going to work? He can’t say oops, Rudy went rogue and hijacked foreign policy behind my back to smear a domestic opponent and prove a fever swamp conspiracy theory — Trump’s on record telling the president of Ukraine to work with Rudy to run that theory to ground.

  75. 75.

    sukabi

    Drumpf “embussen” Rudy? Think it’s more likely that Rudy suffers some “natural causes” that render him 6 feet under with any evidence he’s squirrelled away.

  76. 76.

    Doug R

    @Elizabelle:

    Yikes. We have heard before of Amazon’s culture, which is pretty much inhumane and inhuman. The man himself is less to admire and emulate than you would think. Makes me want to use even less of Amazon.

    I do not get how on these lefty blogs how much people are proud to order sh*t from Amazon.
    I know a lot of you live out in the boonies and there’s no stores nearby etc, etc but living in town is actually better for the environment. I never really got the lure of CATALOG shopping, if I can make a short drive to a store that has something that I want, why not pick it up then, rather than wait for a company to squeeze a bunch of folks so that I can have it in a couple of days?
    It’s like they know we’ll eventually figure it out if products take more than a day to ship.

  77. 77.

    Calouste

    @Betty Cracker: When has something being on the record ever stopped the shitgibbon, or most of the. GOP? Wasn’t it Gingrich who complained about people quoting his own words back to him?

  78. 78.

    Bobby Thomson

    @lumpkin: It does protect the client. That’s why it goes away when the attorney dies and not the client. The attorney has an ongoing obligation under the rules not to reveal information provided in confidence or use the information for her own advantage.

  79. 79.

    Bobby Thomson

    That Amazon episode on John Fuckin’ Oliver was pretty revealing.

    Bezos is not a good guy. Going into space because he can’t figure out how else to spend his money while his employees are scraping to get by and destroying their knees and he’s squeezing suppliers.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @Calouste: The impeachment inquiry centers on Trump asking a foreign power to investigate an opponent. Trump confirmed he did it by releasing a partial transcript, then did it again on live TV. I suppose he could claim none of that ever happened, but I really don’t think he’s got enough Jedi mind-control mojo to pull that off.

  81. 81.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mrmoshpotato: It was a parody of the disaster-movie genre, years ahead of Airplane! It doesn’t have anything like same density of jokes but it does have some laughs. Always thought NBC’s flop Supertrain was basically The Big Bus played straight.

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    @Doug R

    Well isn’t that special? Pissing on people because of where they live.

    It’s a reliable source for items which simply cannot get here. And as shipping costs to Hawaii from other places are often prohibitive, having no additional shipping costs is a definite plus. Next day (or second day, for that matter) delivery doesn’t happen here anyway, so not a consideration. 5 to 7 days is the norm.

    As for catalog shopping, even major chains don’t keep every single thing in stock, so ordering from a catalog for pick up at the store on arrival is an appreciated convenience.

  84. 84.

    FelonyGovt

    @PPCLI: I agree with those who think Rudy is about to view omnibus underside. I think the “rough around the edges” reference shows Trump is beginning to understand that Rudy’s not doing him a lot of favors.

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: Speaking of Ukraine…

    Al Jazeera:

    Exclusive: Giuliani associate linked to Yanukovych’s stolen cash

    Semyon Kislin, long-time friend of Trump’s personal lawyer, tried to obtain millions of dollars stolen from Ukraine.

    Semyon Kislin, a business associate of Donald Trump who is due to give evidence at the US president’s impeachment inquiry on October 14, tried to obtain millions of dollars that Ukrainian prosecutors deemed stolen, Al Jazeera can reveal.

    Kislin is a long-time friend of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The Ukraine-born businessman donated to Giuliani’s political campaigns in the 1990s.

    In January last year, Kislin lobbied the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to help him unlock millions of dollars that had in fact been seized in a major criminal inquiry.

    […]

    Hmmm…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  87. 87.

    japa21

    Quick warning. No matters what happens in the OT, Raven is not going to be in a good mood tonight. Having to go to OT against SC is not good for Georgia.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Another Scott:

    Exclusive: Giuliani associate linked to Yanukovych’s stolen cash

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

    “Alexa! Do all the crimes!”

  95. 95.

    japa21

    @Betty Cracker: My youngest son went there for 1 semester in the 90’s as an exchange student from Bowling Green in Ohio. He was alternately fascinated and horrified.

  96. 96.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @NotMax:

    Personally, I can’t stand the brick and mortar shopping experience. I can remain in my home and buy exactly what I want or need without having to deal with retail employees who are paid even less than the Amazon employee while being treated worse.

    Yes, I can (and do) use other net shopping options, but I’ve never had a problem with Amazon, so I’m likely to use them first.

    What do earnest progressives think Rakuten and Alibaba do, or why they’re entering the North American market?

  99. 99.

    J R in WV

    @Doug R:

    I do not get how on these lefty blogs how much people are proud to order sh*t from Amazon.

    I don’t order anything very often from Amazon, but e-books. No delivery. The delivery trucks don’t come to either of our rural homes, here in WV or the winter place in AZ, way too far off the paved road in AZ, just too confusing here in WV. I always have to pick stuff up out at the post office.

    Sometimes a piece of techy stuff when the local shop doesn’t have it in hand.

  107. 107.

    sukabi

    @Another Scott: something tells me drumpf & Rudy’s interest in Ukraine has more to do with extracting ^^ that money than anything else…the Biden’s are the cover.

  112. 112.

    Aleta

    So, if Rudy ever does meet mass transit steel
    (Whoa, nice phrasing. I can almost hear it in the future, the type of song that goes ‘So take heed you gamblers while I tell the grim tale…’

    That tweet may indicate T is being yanked back and forth like a contested piece of rope. Maybe Rudolf got his ear just before or after he was on Fox doing what looked like the seduction routine of a sociopath. Calmer voice from a nice chair under quiet lighting, softened face, with the grossly intimate eyelid pull-ups of a bounder pretending to be a knowledgeable friend.

  117. 117.

    LuciaMia

    He “may seem a little rough around the edges.”?? The guy looks like a more crazed version of Nosferatu!

    (Ha! I see Im hardly the first to make that joke)

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Princess Grifterella declares her lack of shame, self-awareness and seriousness to be a triumph for women in the national security field.

    Ivanka Trump @ IvankaTrump
    Women are absolutely critical to the National Security of a Nation & need to be brought to the negotiating table during peace talks. Great being at the @statedept addressing the #WarsawProcess today w/ Brian Hook on #WGDP and #WPS.

    (and what hare-brained scheme was Brian Hooks involved in just a couple of weeks ago? a plan to bribe an Iranian oil-tanker captain to turn over his ship to the US so that we could [underpants gnome step here] totally own the Iranians?

  122. 122.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax:

    It’s a reliable source for items which simply cannot get here.

    +1.

    And they’re often not the cheapest. B&H is often cheaper for what they carry, and B&H is still doing the lets-cheat-local-governments-out-of-sales-tax-revenue stuff that Amazon quit years ago (at least around here in NoVA).

    I don’t really care about Bezos’s politics very much. Gates and Ellison and all those people aren’t good guys. They didn’t crush their competition by being nice.

    Yes, Amazon (like every company) should treat its employees better, and the localities where it has facilities. But that is largely up to those states and localities to enforce their existing rules and laws and not give away the store to them.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Who wrote to Bezos and complained about him not collecting local taxes.”)

  125. 125.

    PJ

    @Another Scott: Amazon, like other online vendors, including B&H, collects sales tax from states which require that they do so, which for most states, means if they have an “economic nexus” there – whether they sell above a certain dollar value of merchandise per year. From states which don’t make them collect the tax, they don’t. Until the Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v Wayfair in 2018, this meant that Amazon only collected sales taxes from states where they had a physical presence, like Virginia (where they have fulfillment centers). B&H, as far as I know, only has physical presences in New York and New Jersey, so until 2018, they didn’t collect sales tax from sales in other states (but they now do, just as Amazon does.)

  128. 128.

    PJ

    @Another Scott: @PJ: In effect, all large online vendors, like Amazon and B&H, now collect sales tax for sales to customers in states which have a sales tax.

    As you can see from their behavior in Seattle, where they forced the city council to revoke a tax designed to help alleviate homelessness, and the fact that they paid no federal taxes last year, Amazon does not like to pay taxes and does not do so because they are a “good citizen”, but because they are forced to by the law.

  129. 129.

    PJ

    @Another Scott: If you think Bezos doesn’t use his economic power to prevent regulation and taxation of Amazon at the federal and state level, you haven’t been paying attention. This is why work conditions there are shitty and the company pays few taxes and goes unregulated.

  130. 130.

    Another Scott

    @PJ: WHSV:

    Amazon launched its Virginia fulfillment operations in 2013 and has since grown its workforce in the Commonwealth to over 10,000 full-time employees. Amazon currently operates 10 fulfillment and sortation centers, as well as delivery stations in Ashland, Chesapeake, Chester, Clear Brook, Petersburg, Richmond, Springfield, and Sterling. The company also operates one Tech Hub, 13 Whole Foods Market store locations, and Prime Now Hubs in Richmond, Springfield, and Virginia Beach.

    In addition to the full-benefit jobs created within the company’s facilities, Amazon has also contributed thousands of jobs in construction and services. Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $34 billion in Virginia through its customer fulfillment and cloud infrastructure, as well as compensation to employees. Using methodology developed by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Amazon estimates its investments in Virginia have created an additional 40,000 indirect jobs in addition to the company’s direct hires.

    I live in NoVA. Amazon ships stuff to us mostly from Kentucky. Before they started paying sales tax here, I’m sure they were doing so at least partly for tax reasons. I don’t know why they keep doing it.

    B&H offers a credit card where they will “rebate” the local tax back to you. B&H sued by US DOL for having segregated bathrooms (in 2016).

    Big companies pay accountants and tax lawyers to figure out ways to game the tax system. They all do it. It’s our responsibility as voters to be informed about this stuff and to tell our representatives that we don’t like the race to the bottom.

    As bad as Amazon is, their HQ2 does not appear to be a fantastical grift the way Foxconn’s plant in Wisconsin was.

    I’m not playing “whataboutism”, I’m saying that we need to be aware of the whole system. I don’t know of any large corporation that has clean hands.

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    Aleta

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    The illogic sets my hair on fire. Oh, she forced the HR Working Group to waste their time listening to her because peace and security and all women? Right. Clip: twitter.com/thehill/status/1182675069400702976/video/1

    Btw, the Warsaw process seems a weird or ignorant choice by the T administration.

    (wiki) The assassination of Bronisław Pieracki, referred to as the Warsaw process in the Ukrainian historiography, was a well-orchestrated target killing of Poland’s top politician of the interwar period, Minister of Interior Bronisław Pieracki (1895-1934) by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) as a retaliation for the government policy of Pacification which was carried out by the police.

  134. 134.

    Just Chuck

    So Trump won’t throw Rudy under the bus. Be interesting to see if that holds for Rudy. Makes it all the more likely they go down together, and I’m rooting for injuries with every rock they hit along the way.

  135. 135.

    Ken

    @Elizabelle:

    Have you all noticed how Trump is on very few magazine covers? Lots of Time and Newsweek, and rarely in a flattering manner. But do you ever see him elsewhere?

    No, but as I think I’ve mentioned before, many magazines have switched to a “Remembering Dead People All The Time” format. I took a tally in the checkout line a couple of weeks ago, and Robin Williams was the most-recently-deceased person. Others “remembered” included Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Natalie Wood, and “The Wizard of Oz at 80”.

    I assume, like so many things, this is the Boomers’ fault.

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