New allegations emerge in BondgeGate!
The Republican National Committee gave nearly $2,000 to a Southern California GOP contributor for meal expenses at Voyeur West Hollywood, a lesbian-themed California nightclub that features topless dancers wearing horse-bits and other bondage gear, according to newly filed disclosure records.
The RNC said Monday it is investigating the disbursement of the money to Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., who has donated about $10,000 to GOP candidates and is listed in public records as the CEO of Dynamic Marketing Inc., with offices in California and Washington. Brown did not immediately respond Monday to messages left by telephone and e-mail.
Wonkette has a priceless screen capture from Brown’s Facebook page:
And, yes, feel free to make up your own jokes about “non-committee staff“.
demkat620
Wow! What a bunch of clowns.
ETA: If Tucker Carlson gets Michael Steele fired, I will be very sad.
Andy
I understand the $2K was all in ones and fives.
Seriously, if Michael Steele didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.
The Moar You Know
Why is “Dynamic Marketing” ringing a bell?
PeakVT
“What can Brown do for you?”
Make me wonder how anyone could have thought that phrase would make a good advertising slogan?
Bill E Pilgrim
Please tell me that means the metal thing that goes in the horse’s mouth.
SiubhanDuinne
Awesome thread title, DougJ, as usual. But I feel kinda sorry for UPS now.
robertdsc
Yee haw!
Steele’s tenure is awful to watch. In one sense I want it to be over. In another, I hope it doesn’t end because he’s so big a fuckup.
Brian J
Let’s hope the media continues to run with this oh so amusing tale and then talk up the truly historic legislation passed last week without a single Republican vote. The juxtaposition of the two parties–one is spending wildly on, um, less than necessary things, the other is trying to solve problems for the country–couldn’t be greater. It’d be nice if voters were reminded of it, over and over and over again.
Sentient Puddle
You know what kind of sucks? My name is Erik Brown.
I’m surely going to be the butt of many jokes for the next week around the office.
The Populist
@demkat620:
Nah Tucker will be even funnier with his bow ties and his puffy look.
Fun times indeed!
asiangrrlMN
Horse-bits as bondage gear? I think someone is padding the bill! A bathrobe belt and a handkerchief will do the trick nicely.
gbear
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Gawd, I’d really hate to think that it means anything else.
robertdsc
LMAO. The HuffPo headline is now “Leather & Steele” LMAO!
asiangrrlMN
@Sentient Puddle: Oh, man. That’s
hilariousterrible! Don’t get too beaten down by the jokes.cliff
DMIdirect
some other guy
@Sentient Puddle:
On the upside, you can now get your bar tab reimbursed by by the RNC. In fact, you should send Michael copies of all your receipts. Maybe you’ll get some checks in the mail.
beltane
@The Moar You Know: It is ringing a bell. Something unsavory about this company, I think. Anyone have time to research this?
jl
Why do drab, dreary, collectivist, do-gooder blogs that hate human happiness and love misery and gloom (like Wonkette and this here poltically correct liberal blog) hate so much on the dynamic free-enterprise system?
Dynamic Marketing, Oh-yah! You go, boys!
They were just doing a marketing study of how to reach Democrats with Steele-style street cred, is all.
Easy to explain.
Anyway, Wonkette commenter says the ones with the horses bits were transvestites (And I will take a Wonkette commenter’s word for that any day, they are experts at that sort of thing), so this is same old same old with the GOP.
What’s the fuss about?
Sly
I already did that months ago. The RNC just needed a little time to make it a reality.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This has the makings of an epic Mastercard commercial
Entrance Fee to kinky strip club: $46
Champagne in private room: $500
Lap dances with teh hawt ladies and their “horsy bits”: $1400
Fucking over average American voters on everything from health-care and banking reform to tax cuts for the rich, via the RNC: priceless
Bill E Pilgrim
@jl:
That’s definitely taking the transvestite thing above and beyond the call. Not to mention the trans-species thing.
@gbear: Yes actually I’m going to assume that they’re not using “bits” in the UK sense, just for my own sanity, despite the snark above.
I love the part about wearing horse-bits “and other bondage gear”.
You know, just the standard stuff, leather, stilettos, heavy makeup, English riding saddles….
dmsilev
@demkat620:
Really? I’ll be greatly amused. What a perfect coda to Steele’s term, to be taken down by Bowtie Carlson. Sure, it’ll mean that we won’t have Michael Steele to laugh at any more, but today’s GOP will probably find someone equally absurd to take his place. Alan Keyes is probably available.
-dms
Punchy
/changing voter registration to GOP as I type…
Corner Stone
@robertdsc:
Why would any one ever want it to end? I love this man.
Violet
Is this Michael Steele’s version of the hip hop makeover? Where mah bitches at? KnowwutI’msayin’?
demkat620
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: You win the thread.
What you also have to marvel at is this guy didn’t even blink at submitting this.
HumboldtBlue
Ride’em cowgirl! Here comes the posse! This gives a whole new meaning to Equus. Now that’s some serious horseplay. Yes teabaggers, the RNC, also known as the Cavalry of Kink is on the way to save Murka! If you’re gonna ride, don’t ride the white pony, ride the lesbian girls with horse bits in their mouths! Back in the saddle again. I hope I am not acting as a “Trigger” for any of our fellow commenters.
OK, I got nuthin.
Violet
@Corner Stone:
Exactly. Michael Steele is the gift that keeps on giving. Horse-bits for everyone!
Corner Stone
Finally! A real Party Platform I can get behind!
dmsilev
@Violet:
Fixed.
And nobody tell Mickey Kaus.
-dms
Tonal Crow
@robertdsc:
Why not “Lesbians In Steele Cages – Video at 11?”
Corner Stone
@demkat620:
People are fooling themselves if they think this guy will ever actually “pay” back this tab.
nagahappen
They’re doing their little pony bit for the cameras since someone’s actually watching for a change but pretty soon they’ll be back to their old tricks.
Bill E Pilgrim
@demkat620: someguy won both threads in the last thread already:
gnomedad
I’m coming to the position that I should not say anything at all to my potentially sane winger acquaintances. The craziest are not going to change, and the others will be more profoundly affected by the Republican insanity than by my arguments. All I need to do is stand out of the way and watch.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Corner Stone:
Back in 2003 who would have predicted that by 2008-2009 we would witness not just one but two once-in-a-generation political talents emerge seemingly from nowhere to destroy the GOP, that there would be one of them at the head* of each party, and that both of them would be black.
*After all, as RNC chairman Michael Steele is after all the titular head of the GOP.
/ducks and runs
Tonal Crow
@jl:
If true, this just keeps getting better.
me
@Corner Stone:
With blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the party platform and the blackjack!
maus
@The Moar You Know:
Sounds like either a spammer or MLM operation.
Nearly ever MLM exploits the “good christian patriot republican capitalist” myth to screw desperate people out of their cash.
thereisnorule6
Heckuva job, Brownie.
asiangrrlMN
A haiku:
Horse bits turn me on
Spank my ass, I’m a bad boy;
RNC values?
dmsilev
Also, what is it with the GOP, guys named Brown, and horses? Remember, HeckuvaJob Brownie’s previous position before FEMA Head was the director of some thoroughbred association or somesuch.
Coincidence? I think not.
-dms
Bill E Pilgrim
That club is going to make a flipping fortune, by the way.
Tonight: Abs of Steele!
stevie314159
When asked why $2,000 was spent at a lesbian bondage club, Steele responded, “beats me.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I wonder what Sally Quinn will make of all this fuss?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Goopers frequenting strip clubs is one of the few normal events in an otherwise crazy country of late. I relish the hypocrisy.
demkat620
@Bill E Pilgrim: That comment is full of win. Now I’m torn.
Annie
@some other guy:
Yes, when the IRS rejected these receipts as legitimate business expenses, Erik sent them to the RNC…
Gotta love the party of individual responsibility…Although I think Erik will claim that he really is a conservative Christian looking to make converts — the usual party line when they get caught…
Tonal Crow
@asiangrrlMN: Nice!
Chad N Freude
OK, someguy and ThatLeftTurnInABQ can share the Nobel Prize for horse-bit humor.
Let us take note of the fact that the non-committee staffer [insert play on “staff” here] was apparently being reimbursed with money he had contributed, so it was his in the first place and no wrong was committed. No scandal here, move along please.
scav
I honestly didn’t think the wingularity would quite have the chunky goofy bits that we’re experiencing.
Martin
@stevie314159: Actually I think he said: “Lesbians? Oh thank God they were girls…”
Nikita
A little OT but it looks like BJ readers have been writing letters to the editor. Check it this gem: Nazis also had health care
dmsilev
Just took a quick gander at RedState and they seem to be ignoring this whole mess. You’d think they’d at least be calling for some sacrificial goat to be sacrificed, or something.
-dms
Tonal Crow
Twisted hypocrites
Legislate their religion
But love kinky clubs.
Chad N Freude
@Nikita: Sudoku puzzles on the same page as the Hitler and “the end of the dream of the United States” letters. The mind boggles. Or Scrabbles.
gnomedad
@Nikita:
So you can attach an Obama-as-Hitler pic to your letter and get it published? That’s … interesting.
asiangrrlMN
@Tonal Crow: Fanks! I’ve been in a haiku mood lately.
On Twitter, Dave Weigel:
Talking RNC bondage on Olbermann tonight — spent some quality time today collecting “no comments” and background info…
Heh heh heh.
@Tonal Crow: Very nice! All elegant and shit.
danimal
I really expected more transition time before the GOP transformed into the hookers and blow party.
Corner Stone
@demkat620:
You forget your safe word again? I think the new HCR has a coda for that pre-existing condition.
Chad N Freude
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: She will have absolutely no regrets at all.
Corner Stone
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
If I had to guess I’d say she’d find a way to work her social scheduling conflict in there somehow.
asiangrrlMN
We don’t want tchotchkes
Faked lesbian sex will do
Bondage included!
By the way, onelook.com tells me that tchotchke also means mistress in Yiddish. Interesting.
Nikita
@Chad N Freude: @gnomedad:
I laughed so hard on my commute when I saw that. I’m absolutely convinced that someone like DougJ submitted it and the title? Oh lordy. It’s almost like the editors read BJ or something…
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: “coda”: Typo of the decade.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude:
Shit, yeah right. Until they show the security footage of this guy up in da club – and not Smiling Steele’s happy face – I’m all for speculating this is a massive FAIL attempt at cover for The Chairman.
This is Steele’s fooforaw until otherwise proven.
gbear
Is this the GOP version of ‘magical unity pony’?
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: I certainly don’t want to see Steele go. He so admirably fills the time between Daily Show episodes.
gbear
@stevie314159: Hah! Win!!
Cat Lady
@dmsilev:
Scott Brown and his horse pulling truck.
Scary.
gbear
Michael Steele, good friend.
We’ll never get over you.
Thanks for everything.
CaseyL
@Nikita: @Chad N Freude: @Nikita:
The letter is signed “Butch Cass.”
If not Our Very Own DougJ, then it’s definitely from some other spoofer.
robertdsc
@jl:
Gives new meaning to the term hung like a horse, I ‘spose.
dmsilev
@Cat Lady: Good point, I had forgotten about Senator Centerfold. So that’s three Republican Browns who have been horsing around. Definitely a pattern.
-dms
Corner Stone
Normally Yahoo! and AP put the absolute worst spin on Headlines for important stories.
This is actually one that’s accurate for a change:
Republicans spent $1,946 at topless club
Cerberus
What? They’re just doing outreach to the LGBT community.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: I agree, I want him staying round these here parts.
But I also don’t want the story to slip down to some mere “admin error” where it was a routine sign off or mistake by a …err…staffer, or some such nonsense.
I want Steele to have the balls are up in the air for a few days so we can get a few rebuttals from him, you know classic Steele ‘Hood remixes and shit.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Cat Lady:
OK, now I’m visualizing the scene in Dr. Strangelove where General Jack Ripper has doodled the words “purity of essence peace on earth” etc… all over a scratch pad, and Cmdr. Lionel Mandrake is puzzling over it trying to figure out the recall code for the SAC bomber wing.
Only instead the words are “brown”, “horse”, and something else – but I just can’t seem to visualize the crucial third word. Crap.
Wait a minute! That’s it! The third word is “crap”.
It all makes sense now – the history of the extreme right from 1965 to 2010:
They’ve gone from purity of essence to brown horse crap.
Donald G
Methinks this story needs to be accompanied by the video of “Election Day” by Arcadia (the mid-eighties Duran Duran sideproject that wasn’t the Power Station.)
Calouste
@Corner Stone:
Who says they are covering up for Steele? Brown might have been there entertaining someone else on the RNC dime.
That club could be sitting on $100,000’s worth of security camera footage.
Annie
@Nikita:
and they also went to Church, ate food, had kids, and went to rallies where they talked about taking back the government…
Annie
@asiangrrlMN:
I think it is time that we hide our pets from the RNC….
Elie
@Violet:
LMFAO!
Y’all are tearing me up!
This kind of thing is like throwing the hapless Repubs another anvil… Whoa Boy, though, what a hoot!
jl
Oh yeah? Liberals should not celebrate too soon! I would be careful about this one.
Look at Krugman, wasting his time looking around Flickr for “North New Jersey: Embrodery Capital of the World” pics, and claiming that is “research”.
You know who wears ’embroidery’? Hookers, and naughty ladies, that’s who.
This one will bite liberals back. Kurtz will have a piece up soon, and this revelation about Krugman’s economic history of negligee fetish will go straight to Drudge. Then you’ll be sorry you ever brought this up.
“I was researching the history of the North New Jersey embroidery industry, and discovered that someone has a Flickr picture.”
Local Agglomeration
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/local-agglomeration/
scav
@jl: HA! Never underestimate geographers. First AAG I went to, I found an entire paper that involved the comparison of roles American Bars and British Pubs played in their local social networks. With Fieldwork. Hell of a discipline.
Chad N Freude
@jl:
You can stop there, the picture is just
for Krugman’s profound scholarliness. It might be interesting to know why he’s doing this, since the Nobel committee would be much more interested in Scandinavian embroidery.
scav
@Chad N Freude: Damn, lecture (technically the Regional Studies Association Annual Lecture) sounds interesting too. “The New Geography, Now Middle Aged.” Definitely for the wonkish or at least the geogeeky. Wonder exactly which of the New Geograhies he’s aging? — doesn’t seem pure quant-rev with the embroidery-agglomeration decoration. sigh o to be in D.C.
jason
Someone needs to audit this Erik Brown guy, I guarantee he has a history of corruption/stealing political funds!
Peter J
Got to love what the Louisiana Democrats are doing with it.
Anne Laurie
@asiangrrlMN:
Two years ago the Fox TV show Bones did an episode about a murder at a “pony play” retreat. Obviously certain Fox watchers were taking notes… and searching Google…
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: So simple, and yet, says so much!
@Annie: No kidding!
@Anne Laurie: That’s funny! “Pony play. What does THAT mean….oh my god!” Then immediately fantasized about engaging in it!
Liberty60
I want to start an over/under pool on how long it will be before a rubber wetsuit (or two)makes its appearance in this story.
Nutella
So the ‘contributors’ to RNC are paid by RNC? I guess DNC does it wrong when they expect contributors to contribute.
low-tech cyclist
Here’s a great satirical review of Voyeur West Hollywood.
mai naem
Is Erik Brown related to Scott Brown? Are they married?
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: That was a decent episode too, even if we never did get David Boreanaz shirtless in it. Le sigh.