So does whoever wins the special election move into the Downton Abbey red rooms? Or does a more senior member get that suite?
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) March 17, 2015
Aaron Schock making a lot of friends on the way out the door by stepping on the GOP’s budget news cycle.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) March 17, 2015
It wasn’t the Dowton Abbey-themed office, or the private jets to the Taylor Swift concerts, or the $5k custom-made “Presidential” lectern that finally sent Rep. Schock scrambling for the exit — it was a classic penny-ante sales grift. According to Politico:
… Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car from January 2010 through July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by POLITICO under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was driven…
The OCE probe —and any potential Ethics Committee investigation — will disappear with Schock’s resignation. However, federal law enforcement could still look into Schock’s actions…
Well, maybe not that penny-ante…
Remember, 90,000 extra miles of reimbursements is about $50,000 — not a small amount of money.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) March 17, 2015
Any bets on how long until Aaron Schock’n’Awww shows up in a new Wingnut Wurlitzer media job, posing as another victim of the Great Obama Job-Killing Recession Crusade?…
Little Boots
seriously, no more aaron.
damn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
From what I read of that budget, they should be grateful, Medicare vouchers, block grants and a Blue Ribbon Bipartisan Social Security Commission!
Little Boots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C648sopLG1I
mdblanche
Will it hurt his employability with the Wingnut Wurlitzer that he’s a moderate Republican who goes to moderate bars and marches in the moderate pride parade?
Little Boots
@mdblanche:
if he comes out, he will be a hero. if not, a continuous joke.
jl
@mdblanche: If he were gay or something, a place could be found for him. But a moderate!? Never!
Edit: Fox News gets them some Satanic Democrats to play moderates on their shows. No use for a moderate GOPer.
Amir Khalid
To put things in perspective, what kind of criminal penalty
doesmight Aaron Schock face for fiddling his mileage claims?Mary G
I’m sure he will try to turn his situation into a job as professional victim, but it might not work out that way. Most of the right-wing sites in my admitted limited survey are just reporting his resignation without any opinionizing about it and there are only a few commenters, mostly calling him a RINO or not a True Conservative and basically saying good riddance to bad rubbish.
mai naem mobile
I couldn’t care less.about Schock but I’m just wondering was he possibly asking for reimbursement for doing mileage in another vehicle as well as this vehicle? Its a lot of miles regardless depending on how long a period it covered. I’m guessing even long distance truckers don’t do that kind of mileage.
David Koch
I was going to electronics store the other day and they were arresting some teen for stealing.
Are they gonna send Schock to jail for stealing $50,000?
Tree With Water
“Caleb Moore, the son of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore says that his arrest on Sunday for possession of marijuana and prescription tranquilizers is part of a liberal plot to bring down his father and “destroy” his family. According to AL.com, the 24-year-old took to Facebook on Monday afternoon to decry the “crooked cops” who arrested him and to declare his innocence”.
Caleb knows the score, but he’ll never be able to prove it. We liberals indeed plotted all three of his drug busts during the last four years. You should see the photos we have of the looks on his face after each arrest! It was all the cops who played along could do to keep from laughing out loud. About them: we were pleasantly shocked to discover how deeply liberal Alabama cops proved to be. That they also proved such good sports and played along in arresting young Caleb was instrumental in the plot’s success. Everyone else was in on it, too- Obama, Reverend Wright, Hillary, Acorn, our legions of illegals that do our bidding.. everyone. And I’d do it again..
WaterGirl
Do we think there has ever been a Republican who has thought “it’s my arrogance that landed me in this pile of trouble?”
jl
@Mary G: Cheating on mileage reimbursement for a damn Chevy Tahoe just doesn’t have much cachet. No ring to it. Who’s going to go for an Obama Chevy scandal, unless Obama saving GM was one of his diabolically clever (but, somehow inadequate) time machine traps,this time for Schock.
Now if Schock racked up those miles looking for the HRC Benghazi!!! server, that would be something else.
Crooked GOPer Congresspeople have to work out their post-political career character arcs before the shit hits the fan. Let this be a lesson for others yet to come.
Little Boots
@WaterGirl:
nope.
Tracy Ratcliff
@WaterGirl: Ever been, in the history of the US? Yes. Since Reagan took office? Can’t think of any.
Little Boots
needs more steeplejack.
Hal
I can’t help but wonder if he was afraid it was only a matter of time before he was outed in some way, perhaps related some of his spending.
Little Boots
or we could:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-J4xYOxJ9w
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: Too soon to tell, one lawyer I know said from fines to jail time, depending on what actually comes out about the mileage. That is pretty easy to understand for your average juror.
Evidently the mileage reimbursement forms are signed under penalty of perjury, which could make it worse, but with Republicans it’ll all be about Bill Clinton got away with it in regard to Monica, so Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch or whoever is just prosecuting poor Aaron on purely partisan grounds.
I’d be surprised if anything comes of it; he has cut off all the Congressional ethics investigations by resigning.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’m spending my time at work trying to learn the editor for Hero Lab. (Software for creating characters for various roleplaying games; I’m working with Pathfinder.) Good god, this thing is opaque. When I go to something that exists that does something similar to what I want, I can’t figure out how it does anything.
On one, I made a couple of changes, tried to compile it, and got an error message that Broadcast.SpellSuFoc wasn’t defined. That much I can understand, but for the life of me I can’t figure out where or how the item I changed, Broadcast.SpellGrFoc was ever defined. I’ve searched all of the debugging lists and I can’t find anything anywhere named SpellGrFoc or anything named Broadcast.
Other ways to figure out how to accomplish the same thing have run into similar walls.
jon
A white, employed, upper-class guy steals from the government, but we’re supposed to cut welfare because those blah people who already have a job or two or a disability or four are getting public assistance in the form of shame and Wonder Bread and government cheese?
Not that I ever could take them seriously, but every GOP argument about the poor and entitlements goes to shit if they can’t get at least 47 of them to sign a letter asking for this criminal to get at least ten years in the Federal Prison system.
I wonder if Eric Holder could hold a press conference about this tomorrow? Might be the best way to get his replacement voted in.
divF
As St. Patrick’s day ends here in the West, some
Mel Brooks.
piratedan
what is sad, is that is mope is actually taking away attention from that shitty budget that the GOP cobbled together. From what I’ve seen they’ve pretty much authorized the culture war agenda that they’ve always promised but wouldn’t you know it that this falls right on the heels of stepping on their dicks in foreign policy and one of their own becoming a cultural fashionista on the taxpayer dime. Hard to give it the full time derision that it needs but undoubtedly won’t receive courtesy of our purchased MSM.
jl
@piratedan: The bogus, crummy, dishonest, and hypocritical, GOP budget will be back. I hope it gets more attention next year.
microtherion
@jl: On the other hand, cheating on mileage reimbursements is a time honored tradition among Illinois Republicans: Abraham Lincoln was busted for the same scam:
TheMightyTrowel
@microtherion: Thanks for sharing! Made my day!
Tommy
@microtherion: Hey in Illinois here we are good at scams and grift. If you have not seen the TV show Boss that is just how we roll.
wasabi gasp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU1LB4StySo
PurpleGirl
but, but, but… I need that extra money! My congressional salary just isn’t enough to live on, it’s only $174,000 or so. How am I (and my family) supposed to live on that.
/snark
jl
@microtherion: Thanks. The lawlessness of the GOP goes right back to the beginning.
The story behind US Grant’s presidential speeding ticket is worse than I thought. And, apparently Grant wasn’t even drunk. Story says Grant admitted guilt and paid the $5 fine. Did he pay to get the carriage out of impound? Huh? Did he?
D.C. Police Once Gave the President a Speeding Ticket
http://dcist.com/2012/10/dc_police_once_gave_the_president_a.php
pseudonymous in nc
@mai naem mobile:
Possibly — I know that I’ve claimed, I dunno, 25 work miles on my significant other’s car when mine was in the shop. But I’ve documented it pretty damn thoroughly.
If he was claiming miles on his “photographer’s” car…
Another Holocene Human
@microtherion: that was fascinating!
Woodrow/Asim
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Yeah, I poked at Hero Lab for a bit for my FATE/Dresden Files game, and found it was a tougher slog than I really wanted.
I occasionally dream of having the time to work on a modern RPG app; there’s a lot of amazing modern design work that could make such an app really compelling. I suspect Roll20 comes close, but it’s online-only aspect makes it a little limited.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: whoa, US Grant sober sounds like a man bites dog story to me–!
Another Holocene Human
US Grant is truly the Boehner of presidents: completely ineffectual as a leader, stabbed in the back by his own party, and a lush.
Another Holocene Human
@PurpleGirl: Now, now, let’s not get carried away here, Jonathon with an “o” has a beard but Aaron Schock is saving himself until he runs for Senate.
Central Planning
I put around 18k miles/year on my car from work. One thing I know is that you never, EVER, screw around with expenses.
We have flexibility in many things at work, and the ability to make mistakes without repercussions, but expenses is not one of the places to do that.
Emily68
@Another Holocene Human
US Grant is truly the Boehner of presidents: completely ineffectual as a leader, stabbed in the back by his own party, and a lush.:
Grant wrote a great book. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for Boehner to do that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Another Holocene Human: You forget his civil war record and him forcing the 1st KKK to disband or face the return of General Sherman.
JoyceH
Orrrr – he rolled back the odometer before trading in the car.
mellowjohn
@mdblanche:
“To be clear, Congressman Aaron Schock (R-Downton Abbey) resigned because he bilked taxpayers for untraveled mileage not over his romantic interest in other mmm…oderates.” –Karl Frisch