Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

People are weird.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

We still have time to mess this up!

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

… gradually, and then suddenly.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

No Justins, No Peace

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

“woke” is the new caravan.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Bark louder, little dog.

You are here: Home / Money, hos, and clothes

Money, hos, and clothes

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Populism:

Below is a list of what the indictment claims Manafort and Gates bought between 2008 and 2014 with illicit funds.

1. Antique rugs: Two offshore accounts wired multiple thousand-dollar payments to an antique rug store in Alexandria, Virginia, where Manafort lives, as well as a second vendor “related to” the antique rug store, for a total of $1,034,350.

2. Other antiques: Offshore accounts wired a total of $623,910 to New York.

3. Suits: A men’s clothing store in New York received $849,215, and $520,440 was transferred to a clothing store in Beverly Hills, California, adding up to a total of $1,369,655 in clothing purchases.

There’s also a million stories about Trump officials unnecessarily using private planes at government cost, rather than flying commercial like reg’lar Americans.

Is there a way to use this kind of thing to portray Republicans as the out-of-touch “elitist” grifters that they are? I tend to think there is.

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    I always love the argument of, “Bring in the really rich guys. They’re smart and they already have so much money they can’t be bribed or induced by more!”

  10. 10.

    Gex

    I think this is what they invented prosperity Gospel for. I bet this won’t bother the base at all. They are used to watching these grifters take from them and then flaunt their gains as having been earned.

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    I actually believe the amount spent on men’s clothes. They probably had to pay quadruple for everything to force the tailor to create such garish looking suits.

  12. 12.

    Wag

    Is there a way to use this kind of thing to portray Republicans as the out-of-touch “elitist” grifters that they are? I tend to think there is.

    Given our current fractured media culture I disagree that there is a way to portray the gop as anything other than the amazing society saving heroes they envision themselves to be.

    At least with certain segments that get all their information from Fox.

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @rikyrah:

    Certainly not! People have to know their place, and that one does not question one’s betters.

  15. 15.

    Felony Govt (formerly Old Broad in California)

    Apparently there’s been lots of speculation as to exactly where Manafort shopped in Beverly Hills. Most of the likely shops refuse to comment.

  16. 16.

    MattF

    What Manafort really really wants is to lose that GPS ankle monitor. Also, his lawyer says he’s not really all that rich. And he’s prepared to put up his Trump Tower condo as collateral for bail. Not the least bit suspicious, any of it. Believe us, we’re all composed of pure, simple honesty.

  17. 17.

    brettvk

    @Cheryl Rofer: Slate speculated a little on this. I think the closed store might be the answer. We peons have no idea how many layers of phony businesses/corporations/compliant banks have grown up to process the massive wealth being sequestered from the public.

  18. 18.

    TenguPhule

    @cervantes:

    Manafort does not appear to have $1.37 million dollars worth of clothing, from the photos I have seen. Just sayin’.

    Perhaps his wife likes expensive crossdressing.

  19. 19.

    Corner Stone

    @MattF: If he argued the GPS ankle off, how far do you think he would get when he ran? Paulie doesn’t seem much like the low key lifestyle, hostels and Motel 6’s of the world to me.

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    Nothing spells “winner” like a full on neck tattoo. Now get off my lawn while I adjust this onion.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    @Doug!:

    They only care that Hillary was laundering money through the DNC. Seriously. This is how I’ve seen the whole Brazile thing characterized. Somebody had the ‘bots and trolls all queued up with their talking points.

    Also, too:

    Is there a way to use this kind of thing to portray Republicans as the out-of-touch “elitist” grifters that they are?

    Sorry, but “elitist” has been a synonym for “uppity” since at least 2008. We’ll have to come up with a different word. “Cheaters,” maybe?

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    @MattF:

    What Manafort really really wants is to lose that GPS ankle monitor.

    I know Adam explained why he had 3 passports.
    Will someone explain why the names weren’t consistent on the passports?

  27. 27.

    Turgidson

    If these were Democrats, we’d still be hearing about this during the 2036 election. I mean, John Edwards spent how long answering for an expensive haircut?

    But this shit just doesn’t stick to GOP crooks long term. Between their tribal base, the Fox/Limbaugh puke funnel, and the fact that people just seem to accept that Republicans are often corrupt shitheads but vote for them anyway, this will have no lasting effect on the party or Hair Furor’s image. He’ll just keep making shit up about the beautiful Wall and bringing coal jobs back and all will be forgiven and forgotten, while the mainstream media moves on to whatever fake atrocity Hillary committed last week.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @cervantes:

    Rich people like ugly, ill-fitting clothes as long as they’re wildly expensive. It’s how the set themselves apart from the proles. Look at how Ann Romney dressed, and how Melania dresses.

  31. 31.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MattF:

    If you had money would you run to Russia? I sure in hell wouldn’t – the climate is lousy and the culture sucks.

  35. 35.

    tobie

    @Mnemosyne: It’s hard to know how much the DB book release and the thunderstorm about HRC and the DNC that followed was orchestrated but it certainly felt like a grenade had been lobbed at the party. I’m also trying to figure out Joy Reid’s sudden and unexpected turn this weekend. Up until this weekend she was pretty critical of the Bro brigade, but she’s gotten very defensive about Brazile and has adopted the line that the party stands for nothing and maybe really needs a purge. She’s also down on Northam, whose panicked response on sanctuary cities was not good but who otherwise seems to have run a clean campaign.

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It was never, ever, about economics.

    It was always about xenophobia, racial and religious bigotry, and resentment.

    From Nixon onwards.

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    Trump reportedly told tribal leaders to ignore federal laws
    11/06/17 12:49 PM
    By Steve Benen

    The Constitution’s Article II doesn’t go into a lot of detail when describing the duties of the president, but it does include a rather specific responsibility: a president, the Constitution mandates, “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

    Whether Donald Trump cares about honoring this obligation is open to some debate. Axios, for example, published a report yesterday on a recent meeting in which the president allegedly told a group of people they should feel free to ignore federal laws.

    In late June, President Trump hosted a group of Native American tribal leaders at the White House and urged them to “just do it” and extract whatever they want from the land they control.

    The exchange turned out to be an unusually vivid window into the almost kingly power that Trump sees himself as holding, and which he has begun describing with increasing bluntness. The scene was recounted by a source in the room and confirmed by another. The White House didn’t dispute the story.

    ………………

    The chiefs explained to Trump that there were regulatory barriers preventing them from getting at their energy. Trump replied: “But now it’s me. The government’s different now. Obama’s gone; and we’re doing things differently here.”

    As Axios described the scene, it was at this point in which the tribal leaders paused, looked at each other, and seemed uncertain about how to proceed.

    Trump, however, was reportedly emphatic, telling one of the tribal leaders, “Chief, chief, what are they going to do? Once you get it out of the ground are they going to make you put it back in there? I mean, once it’s out of the ground it can’t go back in there. You’ve just got to do it. I’m telling you, chief, you’ve just got to do it.”

  39. 39.

    Corner Stone

    @tobie:

    but she’s (Joy Reid) gotten very defensive about Brazile and has adopted the line that the party stands for nothing and maybe really needs a purge.

    I have been puzzling over that as well. It sure seems like a turn on a dime from her initial couple days of reaction. Joy has also been spouting the same nonsense that frequent guest Krystal Ball always repeatedly intones about the D Party.

  41. 41.

    J R in WV

    Navy Admirals, you crack me up sometimes, great one.

    Those destroyers that collided with giant cargo ships, one of them the bridge crew on watch couldn’t properly manage the hardware consoles used to manage the steering (“Helm”) and engines — they couldn’t steer the fucking thing!!!

    And the Combat Information Center, supposed to be able to observe missiles, fighters, the periscope of a submarine, couldn’t detect the speed and location of a giant cargo ship rapidly approaching in the dark and advise the bridge Officer of the Deck how to dodge the monster thing.

    We are so fucked! The crew was so exhausted some of them didn’t wake up when their berthing compartment (bedroom) was flooding after the collision… lots of blame to go around here. More senior Admirals need sacked, lost pensions. BuPers on staffing, training, fired for cause.

  43. 43.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Cheryl Rofer: Well, it is possible to spend a lot of money on carpets is you’re committed to the project (link goes to a site called 1st Dibs, which serves as a place for dealers in expensive things, some of them rare and beautiful, to widen their marketing reach–the most expensive rug currently at that site is a17th century Kerman clocking in at over $3 million). But you should then be able to produce the items you purchased–and if you are buying rugs at that level, you’re probably also carrying insurance riders on them, just as you would on your other antiques and the really good jewelry. At the price points mentioned in the SLATE article, it’s no longer a floor covering, but an investment you can walk on–carefully.

    Absent the goods purchased, or proof they were tragically destroyed in a horrific catastrophe, I’m not buying it. Really expensive household furnishings are less fungible than clothing and while it’s possible to drop nearly $14k on a sweater by a big name, you’d expect much of that clothing to survive, even some of it was purchased as gifts.

  44. 44.

    MattF

    @J R in WV: Article (WaPo, I think) this morning about how 60 (six-zero) admirals are now being investigated in the ‘Fat Leonard’ business, out of a little over 200 total. Seems the Feds did their investigation and then passed on the info to the Navy– just in case the admirals violated any Navy regulations.

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    @MattF:

    @J R in WV: Article this morning about how 60 (six-zero) admirals are now being investigated in the ‘Fat Leonard’ business, out of a little over 200 total. Seems the Feds did their investigation and then passed on the info to the Navy– just in case the admirals violated any Navy regulations.

    Saw that and went WTF????

  46. 46.

    MattF

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): In fact, there’s quite an industry of appraisal/insurance/catering to the wealthy for that sort of thing. It’s all very organized– and if there’s a faint odor of disrepute about it (who, me, money laundering?) you won’t hear about it from the practitioners.

  47. 47.

    Butch

    Accountant, reviewing receipts: “Oh yes – this one comes up again and again – Don Alfonso de Columbo?”
    Edwina: “Wicker baskets.”
    Sorry. You need to be familiar with Absolutely Fabulous. It just struck me as fitting.

  48. 48.

    ruemara

    @tobie: She doesn’t want to criticize a hero. But she needs to remember something, her fan base ain’t having this bullshit. Because I call Krystal Ball out and will not spend 2 seconds of hesitation to call Joy out for bullshit too. She knows better.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @MattF:
    That’s roughly one of every three US Navy admirals. I don’t approve of that corpulent Penangite any more than you guys do, but I’m half-tempted to punch the air and shout, “Malaysia boleh!”

  50. 50.

    FlipYrWhig

    Doug, to Republicans “elitist” doesn’t mean “wealthy and obnoxious.” “Elitist” means “good at school.”

  53. 53.

    gvg

    @FlipYrWhig: Sorry you are wrong here. Elitist has been a cuss word used by the rabid GOP base against democrats for awhile now. It’s als reflecting the current disdain for experts and schooling. the dumbing down has been happening.

    when the democrats took Congress in 2006, it was because of a bunch of republican corruption scandals kept happening. Bush’s Iraq debacle was part of it but scummy corruption for money bugs people. so does knowing about sexual abuse of minors and not investigating or doing anything because it was your party. Some of their coverups got found out.

    We need to document actual money going to specific GOP politicians and also I am sure prove some knew and covered up. I think that is what can sink them.

  54. 54.

    JR

    the short answer is that most republicans — predominantly white and prosperous — are not going to be up in arms about financial scandals as long as they are doing well (or at least okay) for themselves. But if the bottom falls out on the economy then look out.

    p.s. I don’t think that scenario would benefit the democrats in particular, or liberalism in general.

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Corner Stone: You can’t put in the necessary work to accumulate billions of dollars unless the diminishing marginal value of money basically doesn’t work on you (or unless your response to it is to want even bigger doses, like an addict).

    Or unless you just inherited it all, in which case you probably don’t even have a well-formed concept of “enough”.

  58. 58.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    WTF?

    Fat Leonard had a shipyard company that did big contracts with the US Navy to work on ships in the South Pacific. He paid bribes, gifted Admirals and their wives with expensive stays in hotels in exotic places, plain old hookers and blow, to get those contracts.

    I think all those Admirals, Generals, Captains, Commanders, etc, need to go to prison, and come out with no pension and no benefits. At least. A teaching moment. It isn’t just the Navy either.

    So far we can point to 17 volunteers dead, minimum, as a result of USN incompetence and deliberate neglect. Negligent homicide times 17, and you know there are far more dying because of shoddy material, poorly designed machinery ( like the control consoles on that destroyer ! ) that give it up at a crucial moment and cause conflagration and death.

    I remember the dashcam video of a giant USAF cargo aircraft suddenly thrown completely off balance, pilots struggling to control a huge aircraft loaded with something large and heavy that had rolled to the back/side of the aircraft, They plunged to the earth and exploded in a huge fireball, because something designed and built to mil-spec broke or was misused. The You-tube video is quite amazing, you know immediately when the aircraft whips over that in a few seconds all those crew-members are gonna die.

    Mil-spec used to be a synonym for over built to the point where mil-spec was a definition of a highly desirable item. Then the M-16 was adopted for soldiers in Vietnam whose weapons would not work in battle. They threw them away and bought shotguns and picked up AK-47s out of the mud which worked better than their shiny mil-spec rifles. Grrrr!

    And Fuck LBJ!

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