Ethics Office Victimized GOP Rep by Questioning Use of Campaign Funds for Airline Tickets for Pet Rabbit, says Spox https://t.co/JloMzm8x4z
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 4, 2017
Political nepotism is one hell of a drug. (Note his old man’s legislative history.) Remember — TPM, not the Onion:
When House Republicans met in a closed door caucus meeting Monday night to vote on reining in the Office of Congressional Ethics, aggrieved members of the House stood up to recount stories of being victimized by the out-of-control oversight office. In the aftermath of the ethics vote debacle, the spokesman for one member of Congress, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), discussed his boss’s victimization with the local paper, The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Hunter, who inherited his seat from his father and voted in favor of gutting the oversight office, was victimized when the Office questioned tens of thousands of dollars worth of campaign spending. Spokesman Joe Kasper noted one particularly egregious case of investigative overreach in which the Office questioned Hunter’s use of $600 of campaign funds for airline tickets for the family rabbit…
Beside the rabbit transportation fees, Hunter eventually had to reimburse his campaign $62,000 in charges that were either personal in nature or lacked proper documentation. According to the Union-Tribune these “included including oral surgery, a garage door, video games, resort stays and a jewelry purchase in Italy.” Release of the investigative report into Hunter’s campaign spending was postponed till after this week’s swearing.
Jared Kushner (not to mention Uday and Qusay Trump), no doubt taking notes.
But then, Dunc Jr. is only a member, not the Speaker…
Anyone done story yet abt how 3 of last 4 GOP Speakers have gone up in legal/ethical flames? cc @SpeakerRyan https://t.co/INgwyFbbED
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) January 3, 2017
Why would we ever need a House ethics office? https://t.co/OorSTZNwXC cc @SpeakerRyan
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) January 3, 2017
Also, Iowa’s Rep. Steve King remains, if not the single dumbest or meanest member of Congress, certainly the meanest dumb Congressman / dumbest mean Congressman.
Major Major Major Major
To be honest this all reads like standard venal bullshit until you get to the garage door.
debbie
I’d be really pissed off if I’d contributed to his campaign and that’s what my donation was being used for.
And while we’re on Republican venality, from a dead thread:
Not sure if it’s been mentioned here, but Ohio came perilously close to passing a hearbeat bill before the Christmas break which would make abortion illegal at 6 weeks (self-induced or not). Kasich vetoed it, but the group responsible for the bill vows to reintroduce it and to make Kasich suffer.
The spokesperson also stated that the group plans to introduce a national hearbeat bill in Congress a couple days after the Inauguration. Stay alert and don’t let Mango Mussolini’s ascent to the Oval Office make you forget all the other shit that’s going on.
Calouste
Sorry, how stupid do you have to be to cite an investigation into buying airline tickets for a pet rabbit as overreach?
It’s something you would cite as a prime example of wasteful spending, showing how out of touch with the average American your congressman is.
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: Kasich of course then signed a different, less draconian abortion restriction bill.
Mary G
I read somewhere that they were upset because they used miles for the kids’ plane tickets, so they should be allowed to charge the campaign for the rabbit fees, which are not eligible for miles. This is why they wanted to abolish the ethics office, because that is an excuse a child would make.
Patricia Kayden
Republican Representatives arguing about overreach when they put Secretary Clinton through multiple witch hunt hearings and investigations about her emails and role in Benghazi. My eyes cannot roll around hard enough.
rikyrah
GOP+ethics…. Never the two shall meet
geg6
Bet none of them sent any emails though. So no biggie.
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
Unfortunately, November 8 proved that those hearings ended up NOT being overreach — they did exactly what the Rethugs wanted them to do. As with their shutting down of the government in — when was it? 2013? — they will pay no fucking price at the polls for their destructive tactics/behaviors.
Pursuant to which, I say: fuck you, Saint Ralph, you clueless, self-righteous prick. May you burn in Hell with a gazillion Corvairs grinding your bones. [No, the “fuck you Ralph” is not a total non-sequitur.]
geg6
@SFAW:
Word.
hellslittlestangel
@SFAW: Yup. Donald Trump, Ralph Nader — not a dime’s worth of difference between them. I’d enjoy watching either of them walking into an open elevator shaft.
Yarrow
We need to push our representatives to push back against Republicans every single day. I’m heartened by the heavy volume of calls to representatives’ offices that are being reported. We’re starting NOW, not waiting until mid-2018 to do things. Let’s keep it up! Resist!
BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW:
In St. Ralph’s world, that just proves they’re “Unsafe at Any Speed”.
lollipopguild
If the GOP has any ethics they stole them from someone else.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
I was 10 weeks pregnant before I even knew I was pregnant. FFS.
Patricia Kayden
@lollipopguild: Ha! Wish I could upvote that comment a million times. The sleaziness is going to fly its freak flag high while Republicans control all branches of government. We’re going down into the mud. This is a time when we will need some gutsy whistleblowers to step forward and keep us informed of the shenanigans.
Cacti
@SFAW:
Thank goodness we didn’t have an unsuccessful Democratic candidate of convenience agreeing with the Republicans that the Democratic candidate was hopelessly corrupt.
That really could have screwed us over.
Pogonip
Macy’s will lay off 10,000 people next year.
Raoul
Steve King, on his own, should be reason enough for Iowa to not be leading the quadrennial pre-presidentin’ showcase showdown.
Any state repeatedly stupid and mean enough to have him repping 1/4 of their population is not worth bothering with. Also, too, just saw yesterday some rumbling that Branstad favors voter ID now. Huh.
Suggestion to Dems: if Iowa passes voter ID, decouple your process from the GOP and pick another state to have the ‘1st in the nation’ status. Iowa shouldn’t get the sort of campaign spending from Dems needed to sustain the contest if they’re gonna go the disenfranchisement route.
If Iowa Repubs cry foul, just laugh at them for crying.
-Raoul (fka RaflW)
Baud
@SFAW: Did Ralph say something today?
@Pogonip: I read an article that retail was going to downsize bigly next year.
Baud
@Raoul: They should do that regardless.
Mnemosyne
@Pogonip:
Macy’s is way, way overextended, so I’m not surprised. They took over every other mid-level department store chain here in So Cal and killed off the competition, but they couldn’t keep up the quality.
MomSense
My fantasy is that the Ochre Ogre is presented with some hair raising evidence at his briefing Friday that is so damaging the Mandarin Monster will want to come up with some bullshit excuse about spending more time with his family business rather than risk it going public.
Baud
@Pogonip:
@Mnemosyne:
Mrs. BillinGlendaleCA works at Macy’s, I believe.
MomSense
Oh and on the way home I stopped at Marshall’s to do some shopping. I was looking at dresses when I saw an Ivanka Trump label. I think my grimace was really noticeable because the woman next to me had some wicked mean things to say about her. Swear words should always be spoken in a Boston accent.
Kathleen
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Call is hosted by Progress Ohio
Call started at 7PM.
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Speakers to include:
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Katherine Chipps, small business owner
Here is link to petition to Rob Portman.
http://act.progressohio.org/sign/dont-take-away-our-health-care?
Cacti
@Raoul:
Replace Iowa with Nevada.
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: In my area (DC/MD/N.VA) Macy’s took over Hechts which was much cheaper and had great sales all the time. Macy’s sells nice stuff but is way too expensive. Not surprised at all that they’re now cutting back.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: This is correct.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Any news on her job?
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: I think they did that all over the country. They did it in my area. The local department store chain was good. Macy’s bought it out, closed half of them and then closed more later. When Macy’s first came to town they were a good store. Now they’re just meh.
hovercraft
You did not mention my favorite bit about the story, the rabbit.
ETA: I guess we ld give him credit for bringing the rabbit inside
unlike RMoney.
Brachiator
@Pogonip:
I didn’t realize that Macy’s was still in business. They closed some neighborhood stores near me a couple of years ago.
Wow. I see the news story involves a few well known stores.
These closing could also have severe impact on some malls.
I feel terrible for all of the people who will be hit hard by this.
Yarrow
@Cacti:
YES! Harry Reid has quite the machine in Nevada. They were a bright spot in the recent election. Large and growing Latino population. All sorts of good reasons to reward Nevada with lots of attention.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: Mnemosyne is correct, through a series of M&A what was The Broadway, Robinsons, The May Company, Bullocks all are Macy’s now(though many of the original locations have now closed). Bullocks Wilshire is now the Southwestern Law School law library.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Completely O/T but I have been hoping to catch you to ask you if you saw the photo of Patti Smith rocking a pu$$yhat?
I’m off the rest of the week taking care of my mom so I plan to make lots of pu$$yhats.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: She just became vested(though she’s part-time), so we were looking at 401k stuff last night.
debbie
@Pogonip:
And Trump’s done nothing about those lost jobs? Shocking!
Hungry Joe
The editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune (full disclosure: I was a reporter/editor there for 20 years) invited Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. to come in for an interview, and to give his side of the story. He has refused.
Sidebar: His whole life Duncan Hunter Jr. went by a name other than “Duncan” — his middle name, maybe, or a nickname. Then his father, Duncan Hunter Sr., retired from Congress and the kid wanted his seat, so he suddenly became … Duncan Hunter.
He’s even dumber, and worse, than Dad.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: That’s good at least.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I had not! I made a cat-ears hat years ago and now I’m wondering where I stashed it. Probably time to make a fresh one for 2017 …
SiubhanDuinne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Here too. What used to be Atlanta’s premier home-owned department stores, Rich’s and Davison’s, were M&A’d within an inch of their lives several years ago. And in my beloved Chicago the same thing happened to Marshall Field & Company around the same time. I can’t feel the same way about the State Street store.
Mike in NC
Emperor Trump will simply decree that all those Kmart, Sears, and Macy’s stores should remain open. Maybe by cutting employee salaries and benefits and forcing them to work longer hours.
Yarrow
@Mike in NC: I hope Macy’s employees are already screaming at Trump to save their jobs, why hasn’t he saved their jobs.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: We have 3 Macy’s within 5 miles of the cave(Burbank, Glendale, and Eagle Rock), I’d bet that at least one won’t survive(though none of them are on the chopping block list).
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: The Robinsons in Pasadena became a Target.
Mnemosyne
Tom Bihn update: I noticed a couple of days ago that the shoulder strap of my shiny new bag has already started fraying. I emailed them through the website with a picture and they responded back within a couple of hours that they would send me a new strap and a return shipping label so I can send the old one back and they can figure out what went wrong. Boo to the defective strap, but I’m feeling pretty good about their prompt customer service.
James Powell
@Mnemosyne:
I figured Macy’s must be in trouble. They keep raising the credit limit on my card even though I haven’t bought anything from them for over a year.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike in NC: I guess, since he’s Emperor, he can get around all those pesky state laws.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
Apricot Alien
Tangerine Troll
Jaffa Jerk
Persimmon Pestilence
Vermillion Villain
Cantaloupe Creature
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
We are making them in hot pink and sending them to Women’s March participants.
BillinGlendaleCA
@James Powell: Their credit card business is their bread and butter. They push it really hard with the employees, as well as “personal shopper” stuff.
BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: Valued Commenter efgoldman seems to come up with a new one in each and every comment he makes.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
Marigold Miscreant
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense:
Cool, will match the paint job in that room in Cole’s new place.
Thor Heyerdahl
I was going to watch “The Wrestler” but learned it was a version about Denny Hastert’s life. I passed.
/sarcasm
Villago Delenda Est
Duncan Hunter, Whiny-Ass-Titty-Baby.
hovercraft
@Hungry Joe:
Wasn’t he the one who the border showed the ‘evidence’ of ISIS crossing the border from Mexico to?
And yes he is really, really dumb, it’s so sad that the tittle for dumbest person in congress has become so competitive. Goehmert, Yoho, King, Hunter, the list is endless.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: They did the same thing in the Pacific NW and killed off a lot of long established brands. The Kroger people aren’t as stupid…when they bought out Fred Meyer, they kept the brand active.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I don’t look good in pink, so I would probably make mine purple. It’s not like I don’t have eleventy billion skeins of purple yarn, but my bad shoulder is not letting both knit and type right now, and I have a novel to finish. ?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I still have a couple of old cashmere cardigans from Robinson’s (once they became Robinson’s-May). They have holes in the sleeves, but they’re so comfy, I can’t give them up and just wear them around the house. No other store has made reasonably priced cashmere that I’ve liked as much.
seaboogie
@Mnemosyne: Department stores are dying, if not already dead. They were the online shopping in their day, and their physical spaces are no longer relevant. We’re back to the halcyon catalog (but now more nimble because of the internet) days, and small local retail. I bet Amazon takes up the NYC Thanksgiving Day parade in a heartbeat.
gene108
I’ll give Manchin credit for not switching parties. It’d be an easy thing for him to do, given how Republican his state has become.
Link
Conversely, I am not exactly sure what he hoped to accomplish by meeting with Pence today.
One thing I do believe is unified McConnell-like obstruction to the incoming administration will not be possible, given the fears red state Dems have to navigate to try to win re-election.
satby
@Brachiator: the mall that I work in the eye doctor’s has both a Macy’s and a Sears. It won’t surprise me if both close, though Macy’s seems to get more business.
gene108
@James Powell:
From what I read, Macy’s has at least a chance to turn things around.
Sears on the other hand will probably cease to exist in the next 5-10 years. The hedge fund whacko, who bought it years ago is finally clueing into the fact he does not understand how to run retail, and turned things over to people with retail experience, but it is probably too little too late to save the company.
gene108
@efgoldman:
In other countries, when politicians are corrupt they make big bucks off their office. Our politicians are so damn cheap and easy to bribe. We should up our standards.
MomSense
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I should send Cole a pu$$yhat! Man I bet that would be a conversation starter in his town.
@Mnemosyne:
Sorry to hear about the shoulder. I’ve been having some wrist/carpal twinges lately so I know how worrisome it is. Have you had it checked out?
gene108
@efgoldman:
Sears owns a lot of prime real estate. It can be sold off and money can be made. The retail stores are sucking up that valuable real estate, and source of easy cash.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108: Yup, I was going to point out, Sears owns many of their stores.
Adam L Silverman
@Hungry Joe: Same thing where my mom lives. The district is on its second Mike Bilirakis.
NotMax
Overflowing the swamp: Gee, look who’s been named Chief of Staff for V.P. in the upcoming (mal)administration. Shocked, shocked to find lobbyists being touted*.
No one in the MSM or blogland seems yet to have glommed on to how very many of Pence’s inner circle have been given White House spots by Carrot Flop, and not just in the veep’s office.
*Before getting noses out of joint, that sentence is snark.
danielx
As far as House Repubs are concerned, hey, what’s the odd 62 large among friends….bada-bing!
Botsplainer
So this happened in Kentucky:
Kentucky’s Senate President goes all in on never having sex with his wife ever again by saying something so fucking outrageously stupid that even a craven wingnut wife would cringe
This was my personal response to him.
“Genuinely disgusted with the absence of care on the 20 week abortion law rocketing through and the cackling and crowing from Mayberry Macchiavellis from the economic sinkholes of the state as they proudly and loudly up their pretenses of piety. You DO understand that those terminations after 20 weeks are of pregnancies that had initially been very wanted, but have gone terribly wrong due to maternal health and/or fetal abnormality? That you are imposing, in the name of a bullshit, degraded Americanized theology, a penalty of physical danger, emotional despair, economic ruin and psychological damage on families? As I understand, LRC was chomping at the bit to give you idiots chapter and verse on why this won’t float legally, but none of you wanted to hear it – you people wanted to noisily show your fealty to whatever it is your ridiculous preachers shout at you from the pulpit. SHAME!!!!”
He WAS a law school friend, and we still have multiple close friends in common.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
It’s an old whiplash injury aggravated by an even older carpal tunnel issue. I need to go to physical therapy but I’ve been putting it off.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
The May Company owned Lord & Taylor, then merged with Robinson’s and became Robinson-May Co. which owned a whole bunch of regional department stores. They were expanding really rapidly, so of course became overextended. Believe me I know, I was part of the operations team that travelled around the country setting up the new stores and hiring/training the new staff. It never made sense to me the way we clustered stores, years ago I spent 6 weeks in the Baltimore area opening up 4 stores , Annapolis, Owing’s Mills , White Marsh and something else in the area, not surprisingly, within a few years we were shutting some of these brand new stores down. My favorite opening was when we converted the John Wanamaker building in Center City, Philly into a Lord & Taylor. It was a beautiful old building, out of which they essentially carved out a store in the muddle of it, but behind all the fake walls they put up, all the old architecture remained intact. May then began to flounder, which was when I jumped ship and went to Bloomingdales which is owned by Macy’s, who then turned right around and bought May. You would think that having just ought a company that got in trouble by overextending themselves, would not do the exact same thing. Bloomingdales was supposed to be the counter to the desire for ever deeper discounts and the internets, they were positioned to compete with the high end department stores, Niemens, Barneys and the like, but that also meant losing a lot of their old clientele. Online shopping has been a huge factor in retailers travails, with wages stagnated and the slow recovery, people have to maximize their buying power, people no longer buy things at full price, they wait for the sales, they bring back the stuff they bought full price to get the price adjusted. Brick and mortar stores have much higher overhead, and will never be able to out discount Amazon. Digital killed first the record store, then bookstores, and now it’s doing the same thing to department stores. People will go into stores to try stuff on, but then they go home and order online.
In-house credit cards are a huge profit center, the interest is exorbitant, it saves you from need ing to advertise, direct mail is cheaper than TV. The biggest suckers in this racket are actually the employees. You only get your ‘discount’ on your store card, depending on the retailer your discount is 15 to 40 %, they bait you with extra discount days roughly every 6 to 8 weeks, but unless you are paying your balance in full at the end of every month, when you do the calculation your discount amounts to less than 10% on average. Believe me I know, I used to have to analyze the numbers. And since you are in the store all day everyday, employees are constantly shopping, and they always cite the discount to justify shopping for shit they do not need.
NotMax
List of Sears and K-mart closures.
List of Macy’s closures.
Aleta
Here’s another escapade of Mr. Corrupt Representative Hunter, who used his committee chairmanship to pressure the Coast Guard to buy or lease a ship (not up to their standards) that belonged a company connected to his 2nd highest campaign contribution.
Lizzy L
So if Sears tanks, what happens to service on Kenmore appliances: refrigerators, washers, dryers? They’ve been a reliable brand for many years. Any guesses?
NotMax
@efgoldman
Pretty much the same thing as regards the Macy’s in Douglaston, NY (the store, not the tenor of the community). There’s a gigundo Macy’s (with a parking lot which would be too large for the Pentagon) only a few miles up the road near Manhasset’s “Miracle Mile.” Tiny strip mall was built semi-attached to that large Macy’s, and that has had a series of unsuccessful tenants.
NotMax
@Lizzy L
In all likelihood, reverts to the actual manufacturer.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Please get it checked out. I should do the same.
RobertDSC-iPhone 6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Comrade Orange.
GxB
@SiubhanDuinne: Saffron Shitstain
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne:
It does look odd with a Macy’s sign.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Yeah, Macy’s swallowed up longtime island retailer Liberty House too, and still can’t get used to changed signage.