Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

This fight is for everything.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Infrastructure week. at last.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The revolution will be supervised.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / As Crooked as Forrest Gump’s Back

As Crooked as Forrest Gump’s Back

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The list of Cunninghams bribes:

• $200,000 toward the purchase of his Arlington, Va., condominium.

• $140,000 to a third party for the “Duke-Stir” yacht, which was moved to his boat slip for his use.

• $16,867.13 to a marine services company for repairs to his own yacht, the “Kelly C.”

• $12,000 paid to an antique store for three night stands, a leaded glass cabinet, a washstand, a buffet and four armoires.

• $6,632 paid to a furniture store for a leather sofa and a sleigh-style bed.

• $7,200 paid to an antique store for a circa 1850 Louis Phillipe period commode and a circa 1830 Restoration period commode.

Good grief. That is just a partial list. (h/t Kos)

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    yet another jeff

    Gotta give him credit…no half-assery there. That’s some good, solid, blatant criminal behavior there.

  3. 3.

    Krista

    16,867.13 to a marine services company for repairs to his own yacht, the “Kelly C.”

    • $12,000 paid to an antique store for three night stands, a leaded glass cabinet, a washstand, a buffet and four armoires.

    • $6,632 paid to a furniture store for a leather sofa and a sleigh-style bed.

    • $7,200 paid to an antique store for a circa 1850 Louis Phillipe

    Just those last four add up to more than the annual income of 41% of four-person families in his state (California.) Disgusting.

  4. 4.

    Mr Furious

    “I don’t need no stinkin golf junkets…”

    Yachts and condos? This guy wasn’t mssing around. He’s taken a good first step towards atonement with his statement, but he was into some serious high-stakes criminal behavior. He deserves to have the book thrown at him.

  5. 5.

    Perry Como

    More criminalization of politics. How are our leaders supposed to do their jobs if we poke our noses into their private business?

  6. 6.

    baltar

    Has anyone seen any article/blog post that details what Cunningham did for the money? I know he pushed some contracts towards a coupld of defense firms, but which ones and for what?

    The list of what Cunningham got is interesting (but not important). The list of what Cunningham did is much more interesting (and, I think, much more important, since he was on Defense Appropriations and Intel).

  7. 7.

    demimondian

    The list of what Cunningham did is much more interesting (and, I think, much more important, since he was on Defense Appropriations and Intel).

    Josh Marshall over at talkingpointmemo.com was all over this from the start. The best work was actually done by Dukes home town paper, though.

  10. 10.

    neil

    Has anyone seen any article/blog post that details what Cunningham did for the money?

    I know of some web sites which contain video reenactments, but this is a family blog.

  13. 13.

    Otto Man

    Like the Abramoff scandal, this one may have legs beyond the initial indictments.

    According to TPM, Reps. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) and Katherine Harris (R-101 Dalmations) are likely implicated as well.

  14. 14.

    Otto Man

    $12,000 to an antique store for three night stands

    It’s nice to have a congressional scandal in which thousands of dollars spent on “three night stands” doesn’t refer to a weekend prostitution binge.

  17. 17.

    Lines

    I thought it was Katherine Harris (R-Have you seen my big boobs).

    I wonder what lobbyist paid for those baby toys.

  19. 19.

    yet another jeff

    I’m just waiting for her to get drunk enough at Andrews in Tallahassee to flash them…

  22. 22.

    Mike S

    One of my favorites that I read somewhere, can’t remember where, was that he had Wade pay his cap gains tax on his house sale. So not only did Wade lose $700,000 when he resold the house but he also paid the Duke’s taxes on whatever the profit over $500,000 was on his purchase.

    I’ve negotiated a lot of Real Estate contracts but that never even crossed my mind.

  24. 24.

    Lines

    just another jeff:

    Just get Harris on another Conservative talk show, she loves to shove them out there in profile. Get her with a tight sweater in the cold and there will be nothing left for the imagination.

    For those that don’t know what I’m refering to, Harris played “Big Boob Barbie” for Hannity, arching her back and standing in profile. Crooks and Liars had the video up some time ago. I was just waiting for her to start running her hands over them like some taudry porn flick.

  25. 25.

    Mike S

    For those that don’t know what I’m refering to, Harris played “Big Boob Barbie” for Hannity, arching her back and standing in profile. Crooks and Liars had the video up

    link

  26. 26.

    DougJ

    16,867.13 to a marine services company for repairs to his own yacht, the “Kelly C.”
    • $12,000 paid to an antique store for three night stands, a leaded glass cabinet, a washstand, a buffet and four armoires.
    • $6,632 paid to a furniture store for a leather sofa and a sleigh-style bed.
    • $7,200 paid to an antique store for a circa 1850 Louis Phillipe

    Come on, left-wing advocacy groups buy stuff like that for Democrats all the time.

    And what about all the bribes that Cunningham turned down? You never hear about those.

  27. 27.

    demimondian

    And what about all the bribes that Cunningham turned down? You never hear about those.

    Ahh, timeless, priceless, DougJ.

    Welcome back — my monitor needs more coffee spots.

  28. 28.

    demimondian

    I must concede the battle so far to Otto, though, for Katherine Harris (R – 101 Dalmations).

  29. 29.

    Krista

    Oh my god, I just watched the video. With the audio off, it’s even more noticeable. She’s definitely showing off her Florida Oranges for the camera…classy!

  30. 30.

    yet another jeff

    Ah yes, that was some timeless snark from Otto. I’m still gonna drive around downtown and wait for a drunk Katherine Harris to flash cars on Adams St., though…but I’ll be doing while singing “Cruella DaVille” softly to myself.

  31. 31.

    Al Maviva

    >>>Now, I wonder what took so long to nail this guy? I mean, after all, it’s been several months since we knew something was amiss in his congressional district

    Well, in spite of the rumors, summary roadside upside down crucifixion isn’t available as a remedy for public corruption under the PATRIOT Act. Wow… several months from indictment to guilty plea. Jeez. Clearly the Bush administration was trying to protect the guy.

  32. 32.

    neil

    Not me, demimondian, the Cruella DeVille gag was old 5 years ago. But ‘three night stands,’ that was good.

  33. 33.

    Mike S

    By The Associated Press Tue Nov 29,10:45 AM ET

    Some of the payments accepted by Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham as detailed in his plea agreement:

    • $200,000 toward the purchase of his Arlington, Va., condominium.

    • $140,000 to a third party for the “Duke-Stir” yacht, which was moved to his boat slip for his use.

    • $16,867.13 to a marine services company for repairs to his own yacht, the “Kelly C.”

    • $12,000 paid to an antique store for three night stands, a leaded glass cabinet, a washstand, a buffet and four armoires.

    • $6,632 paid to a furniture store for a leather sofa and a sleigh-style bed.

    • $7,200 paid to an antique store for a circa 1850 Louis Phillipe period commode and a circa 1830 Restoration period commode.

    • $13,500 toward the purchase of a Rolls-Royce.

    • $17,889.96 for repairs to the Rolls-Royce.

    • $11,393.56 paid to a moving company to ship his belongings from his Arlington condominium to his San Diego-area home.

    • $2,081.30 paid to a Washington, D.C., hotel for his daughter’s graduation party.

    • $9,200 paid to a manufacturer for two Laser Shot shooting simulators.

    • $10,000 paid to various hotels, resorts and restaurants for his meals and entertainment expenses.

    • Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to him and a company he controlled.

    • Source: Plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court.

  34. 34.

    Fledermaus

    • $9,200 paid to a manufacturer for two Laser Shot shooting simulators

    And the sad part was that the shooting simulator was an old nintendo and a “Duck Hunt” cartridge.

  35. 35.

    Faux News

    It’s nice to have a congressional scandal in which thousands of dollars spent on “three night stands” doesn’t refer to a weekend prostitution binge.

    Sadly only the old farts like me here will remember the brillance that was Wilbur Mills and his large breast bldond secretary “Fanny Fox the Argentinian Firecracker” (yes she was really called that)who were found drunk and splashing around in the Tidal Basin.

    Now THAT was a real politician!

  36. 36.

    demimondian

    old farts like me here will remember the brillance that was Wilbur Mills and his large breast bldond secretary “Fanny Fox the Argentinian Firecracker”

    Since I attended the College where the replica of Mills’ office still remains (inside the Wilbur Mills Center for the Social Sciences), I don’t necessarily think that’s true.

  38. 38.

    Faux News

    “ince I attended the College where the replica of Mills’ office still remains”

    PLEASE tell me there is a picture or a bust of Fanny Fox in the replica of his office

    :-)

  39. 39.

    rayabacus

    Like the Abramoff scandal, this one may have legs beyond the initial indictments

    Has to have. How could he approve defense contracts. Had to be someone inside the DOD that was getting paid too. As much as I hate to say it, someone else is stinking rotten.

  40. 40.

    Bruce from Missouri

    FIrst of many Republicans to go to jail.

    Congratulations, you Republicans have achieved a level of corruption in 10 years that the Democrats didn’t reach in 40. You must be proud.

  42. 42.

    demimondian

    PLEASE tell me there is a picture or a bust of Fanny Fox in the replica of his office

    Not in the replica office, no, but in the associated stuff attached…you betcha.

    Mills spent the rest of his life working on alcoholism treatment in Arkansas after his disgrace. He did a lot of good later on.

  43. 43.

    The Disenfranchised Voter

    Oh, Bruce, you cad!

    Doun’t you know that everyone will get a slice..

    I’m sure there are corrupt Dems, and hopefully they will be brought to justice.

    However, I’m willing to bet a shitload of cash that more Republicans will go down because of Abramoff than Dems.

  44. 44.

    Gt

    Dis.

    I’m inclined to agree but not for the reason your’re thinking.

    One-It’s just easier for Dem. follies to get swept under the rug. Mosly becasue the Media loves seeing the peopel in charge at the moment suffer and of course the inevitable (and widely denied) media bias to the left.(mind you thats bias, not some kind of conspiracy.*)

    Two- reasons, odds are if a stable percentage of politicians are corrupt if theirs more fo one group roght now than another than the larger group will, indeed have more corrupt pols.

    *Shake your head all you want, reporters and meda types (even in Fox) are registered Dem. 3 to 1 (at least) given that they are human they will lean one way or another.

  45. 45.

    yet another jeff

    Well, another big part is that you have to have influence to peddle it…and big corruption is easier to detect and prove than lesser corruption.

    Of course, there is one party that regained power in 1994 while making a hypocritical pledge to clean things up.

    Sad, out of power for forty years, which puts the loss of power in the 1954 range. Could that forty years have been a punishment for McCarthy? I’ve wondered that for a decade…

  46. 46.

    The Disenfranchised Voter

    *Shake your head all you want, reporters and meda types (even in Fox) are registered Dem. 3 to 1 (at least) given that they are human they will lean one way or another.

    You’re right, I’ll shake my head. People who think the media is liberal or conservative are lazy thinkers in my opinion.

    reporters and meda types (even in Fox) are registered Dem. 3 to 1 (at least) given that they are human they will lean one way or another.

    You have evidence of that?

    And just to get it out there while we are on the topic. Even if the majority of reporters are registered Dem, I think one could make the case that the majority of editors and executives–who own the media, mind you–are Republican.

  47. 47.

    Otto Man

    One-It’s just easier for Dem. follies to get swept under the rug. Mosly becasue the Media loves seeing the peopel in charge at the moment suffer and of course the inevitable (and widely denied) media bias to the left.(mind you thats bias, not some kind of conspiracy.*)

    The part about loving to tear down the people in charge I buy, but I don’t believe the media protects Democrats one bit. The NY Times and Washington Post were out front in the crusade against Clinton, and I remember Gary Condit getting hounded by CNN over the Chandra Levy thing. Whoever they can take down, they do.

    There’s a bias in the media, but it’s not a simple left-right one but rather a bias that reflects their own social class. They don’t understand the Religious Right at all, but they look down on labor unions just as much.

    Two- reasons, odds are if a stable percentage of politicians are corrupt if theirs more fo one group roght now than another than the larger group will, indeed have more corrupt pols.

    True. As someone pointed out elsewhere — TPM? Digby? — there’s a simple fact in effect here that you can’t peddle your influence if you have no influence to begin with. The GOP edged the Democrats out of power these past few years, and as a result, they’ve got nothing to offer.

    Ultimately, there’s a simple fact that suggests that Abramoff’s wake will bring down many more Republicans than Democrats — Abramoff isn’t some disinterested lobbyist just going where the power is, he’s a movement conservative who’s been deeply involved in Republican circles for decades. Abramoff got his start alongside Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist back in the Reagan era College Republicans, and he’s maintained close ties with those influential Republicans ever since. (Indeed, both are implicated already in the casino scandals.)

    This may take down a Democrat or two — and I’m all for that if need be — but it’s overwhelmingly going to hit the Republicans. And hard.

  48. 48.

    rayabacus

    Congratulations, you Republicans have achieved a level of corruption in 10 years that the Democrats didn’t reach in 40. You must be proud

    I’m not a Republican, but I think you had better check your premises on this one. Just off the top of my head I think that there were something like 20+ Clinton cronies indicted. You might want to do a little research on that statement.

    That being said, every damn one that is caught with his hand out should be locked up, I don’t care what political affiliation they have.

  50. 50.

    DougJ

    Ray, if you’re counting “Clinton cronies” indicted, then certainly we need to count everybody at Enron who has been indicted as a “Bush crony”.

    You need to use phrases that have definable meanings like “white house officials” or “members of congress”.

  51. 51.

    Perry Como

    You need to use phrases that have definable meanings like “white house officials” or “members of congress”.

    That’s an easy phrase: Democrat.

  52. 52.

    Otto Man

    Well, I think “administration officials” is the standard to go by. I’m not spending my time digging into the Enron web or, God forbid, the life of Roger Clinton.

    By that standard, I think the modern record for convictions belongs to the Reagan administration. As the Carpetbagger Report notes, between Iran-Contra (14), the HUD scandal (16), and the illegal lobbying (2) there were 32 convictions of Reagan officials. Plus, as CR notes, “Over 30 additional Reagan appointees resigned or were fired following charges of legal or ethical misconduct, including Secretary of Interior James Watt, Secretary of Interior Raymond Donovan, CIA Director William Casey and EPA Administrator Anne Burford. Many dozens more were investigated.”

    Clinton pales in comparison. For all the smoke and outcry over Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Lewinskygate, etc., and the investigations into Cabinet members like Babbitt, Herman and Espy, there were ZERO indictments of Clinton administration officials for these various “scandals.” The closest you can come to an administration official convicted of a crime are two who were convicted after they left the administration for things they did prior to joining the administration — Cisneros and Hubbell.

    And, as noted above, if we get a Democratic takeover of either house of Congress, I think we’ll see Bush surpass Reagan. Of course, Reagan is Bush’s idol, so it would probably make him proud to one-up the Gipper.

  54. 54.

    rayabacus

    If we’re using “Administration Officials” as the guideline, then there has been one Bush Administration official indicted and none convicted. I just thought the statement was outlandish with no cited back up. I have no sympathy for any public official from the local dogcatcher to the POTUS who has his frickin’ hand out.

    We have enough of that kind of garbage at the local level. Our local housing “corrupters” have somehow spent almost two million dollars rehabbing two $40,000 homes here in KC. Anybody caught, no matter what party, needs to spend some serious time in the big house.

  55. 55.

    rayabacus

    Clinton also had a Republican controlled legislature. Give me an oppostion controlled legislature and I guarantee 20+ convictions

    .

    Clinton had a Republican controlled House from 95 on. The Senate was still controlled by the Democrats IIRC.

  57. 57.

    DougJ

    If we’re using “Administration Officials” as the guideline, then there has been one Bush Administration official indicted and none convicted.

    Actually, it’s two, Safavian and Scooter. And we’ll probably get another one or two soon in the Fitzgerald probe. And you may have some definition of White House official that wouldn’t include Safavian, but if you use that definition I bet you wont’ be able to find any “White House officials” who were indicted while Clinton was in office.

  58. 58.

    DougJ

    The Senate was still controlled by the Democrats

    Huh? The Republicans controlled both houses starting in 1995. This was briely interrputed in January of 2001 for the last three weeks of Clinton’s presidency.

    You may as well just quit this argument now, Ray. You don’t have your facts straight. And I know you’re a reasonable guy who does believe in sticking to the facts.

    Look, you Republicans need to get your house in order and stop trying to blame Clinton for everything that your guys do wrong. We will all be better off when you do.

  59. 59.

    gt

    You have evidence of that?

    Ask and Ye shall.. we you know

    http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=829

    What’s important to look at here is not so much the self identification becasue most people think of their views as teh norm, thus self identify as moderates. Look closly at the views they hold in the survey and it’s clear that conservative they ain’t, not hardly.

    And just to get it out there while we are on the topic. Even if the majority of reporters are registered Dem, I think one could make the case that the majority of editors and executives—who own the media, mind you—are Republican.

    Actually I’ll ask for you’re proof this time, becasue i doubt that highly. It’s an amusing but flawed argument to assume that all big businesses are run by Repubs. and/or are conserviate politically. Most give pretty widely to both parties to cover their butts so it’s hard to tell.

  60. 60.

    Steve S

    Still….

    A $2.4 million bribe. That’s just staggering. I don’t think we’ve seen this much corruption since at least the Teapot Dome scandal.

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Trackbacks

  1. […] First, I find it difficult to compare the personal corruption of Rep. Jefferson to the systemic abuse of power as demonstrated by the DeLay/Abramoff/Reed “Axis of Crony.” Jefferson appears to be a cheat and a crook, much like the Duke, but it is not, to me, evidence that the Democratic party is suffering from a culture of corruption. It looks to me like he was taking money to fatten his pockets- not quite the same thing as the culture of corruption that the Democrats intend to run against (and I think there is more than ample evidence of widespread systemic corruption in the current GOP). […]