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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Anything Not Nailed Down…

Late Night Open Thread: Anything Not Nailed Down…

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‘GIFTGATE’ KEEPS ON GIVING: It wasn’t just the whiskey. At least 20 types of items (meaning dozens, possibly hundreds of individual pieces) vanished from the State Department’s gift vault as the Trump administration gave way to the Biden presidency, two U.S. officials familiar with the issue tell our own NAHAL TOOSI.

The State Department inspector general is investigating what happened to the gifts — including, infamously, a $5,800 bottle of Japanese whiskey. The IG’s office declined to comment.

While the whiskey was a gift from Japan’s government, most of the missing items are gifts the U.S. was intending to give other countries. Many bore Donald Trump’s insignia, the U.S. officials said…

Count on a whole bunch of obfuscation about ‘low-level staffers pilfering souvenirs’, but what I want to know is how many of these missing items are currently being displayed at Marred-A-Lago or related Trump-crony crime scenes. Hey, those things had Trump’s name on them — of course he figured they belonged to him…

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  2. 2.

    tom

    “Giftgate” – shades of the previous thread. I agree with the commenter who said that “-gate” needs to die.

  3. 3.

    StringOnAStick

    Hey, they had his name on them so if course he took them, right?  Probably stuffed them in a bag in a fit of pique after realizing the coup hadn’t worked and he was going to have to have to vacate the premises.

  4. 4.

    Leto

    Count on a whole bunch of obfuscation about ‘low-level staffers pilfering souvenirs’

    Better hope they never put them up on a place like eBay. People actually monitor those sites for stolen goods.

  5. 5.

    Jerzy Russian

    Christ, Trump branded items were given as official gifts on behalf of the country?

    Jesus, take the wheel!

  6. 6.

    Ken

    I see from that chyron that Iran’s nuclear program is still stalled. They’ve been ten weeks away from a nuclear weapon for, what, 30 years now?

  8. 8.

    Emma from Miami

    Honestly, what makes me crazy is that all these people are goddamned petty thieves. None of them have the balls to go for the big time. (added) To be fair, they know that the Russians would feed them to a wood chipper while doing vodka shots off the belly buttons of $10 grand a night hookers.

  9. 9.

    StringOnAStick

    @mvr: While he was in office, Pompeo was hosting private dinners to burnish his chances to run for POTUS, you just know that’s where that bottle of whisky went.

  11. 11.

    There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)

    Ooooooh! That’s good boooooze!

    Really, though: Suntory, or what?

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    While the whiskey was a gift from Japan’s government, most of the missing items are gifts the U.S. was intending to give other countries. Many bore Donald Trump’s insignia, the U.S. officials said…

    Or career staff ‘accidentally’ encasing those insignia items in blocks of concrete and ‘somehow’ sending the blocks to Yucca Mountain.

  14. 14.

    mvr

    @StringOnAStick: Very plausible, though since he had no compunction about billing us for those dinners, I can’t see him using the gift liquor when he could just buy what he wanted on our dime.

  16. 16.

    sdhays

    The head of the USPS is funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to his own company, that he still owns. And he still has a job.

  17. 17.

    JoyceH

    Since -gate comes from Watergate, the original scene of the crime, suggest it be replaced with ‘a-Lago’. So this would be Gift-a-Lago.

  18. 18.

    RaflW

    Said it the other day, and will say it again: Pompeo was Sec’y of State for 996 days (more or less).
    If Mike ‘saw a lot of incompetence’ there, and didn’t fix it — well then that’s a self-own, blowhard.

  19. 19.

    Edmund Dantes

    If I could find odds on it, I’d want to bet on Trump stiffing us for the food he ate at the White House that wasn’t for state dinners or official government functions.

    Presidents and families don’t get to eat free. They have to pay up for the food they eat for the time they are there.  They have great amazing chefs to make food at any time, but the actual ingredients have to be paid for by the president.

  20. 20.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    @Leto: as the late donald rumsfeld said of the looted iraqi antiquities museum, democracy is messy

  21. 21.

    James E Powell

    @sdhays:

    The fact that this gets no attention from anyone other than shrill commenters on an almost top 10,000 lefty blog is amazing to me.

    If it were a Democrat, the NYT building would have flames shooting out the windows until the person resigned or was fired.

  22. 22.

    Keith P.

    At what point does it go from “pilfering” to “theft” (or in the case of the whiskey, grand larceny)?  I’m always parsing what Pompeo says about not knowing the whereabouts of the whiskey in the context of assuming that his wife knows exactly what happened to it.

  24. 24.

    Wag

    @mvr:   I disagree. Pouring that whiskey would be a perfect way to burnish his foreign policy credentials at taxpayer expense.  After all, it was our whiskey.

  26. 26.

    sdhays

    @Keith P.: I assume he drank it and literally pissed it away and therefore has “no idea” where his piss is now. It was given to HIM, after all.

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ken:
    To spend three decades being just weeks away from a long-coveted dream! I have no idea how I could stand that kind of frustration.

  28. 28.

    boatboy_srq

    It strikes me that we’ve just had (for lack of better words) a hotelier’s family in the WH. Given what pilfering occurs in hotels – and what guests try to get away with – it’s hardly surprising that they tried to strip the place bare on their way out.

  31. 31.

    James E Powell

    Somehow Trump’s tax returns are back in court and the judge – a Trump appointee – set a hearing for November. WTF? Why is there even a hearing? I thought this matter was resolved? Can’t the Treasury Department just turn them over? Did the court issue a preliminary injunction? There are time limits for those.

    Why would the court continue to protect that asshole? Does the judge have some idea what would be revealed? Do you guys think other persons or business entities might be implicated in something?

    Or is it all just Fuck the Libs?

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    [. . .] most of the missing items are gifts the U.S. was intending to give other countries. Many bore Donald Trump’s insignia, the U.S. officials said.

    ??

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sdhays:

    Why the fuck isn’t DeJoy gone? Why hasn’t the Board of Governors, which is controlled by Dems now, fired him yet? Surely this can qualify as “for cause”

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    Repeated from downstairs (no new open thread when posted and was headed out the door at the time).

    Dick Farrel, a former right-wing radio host in Florida and anchor on Newsmax TV, died Wednesday of complications from Covid-19, NBC affiliate WPTV of West Palm Beach reported.
    [snip]
    Farrel was a vocal and staunch advocate against the coronavirus vaccines, which he posted about on social media, once calling them “bogus.” He also railed against figures like Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom he called a “lying freak.”

    However, after he contracted Covid-19, friends said, Farrel’s attitude about the vaccines and the virus changed, WPTV reported. Source

  37. 37.

    James E Powell

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I don’t get it. Apparently one of the D board members likes him & what he is doing. DeJoy being a cartoon villain who appears to be funneling taxpayer money into his pockets obscures the changes being implemented.

    The people who might be supporting him simply to show loyalty or to own the libs might actually oppose the changes he is making if they knew what they are.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    @James E Powell

    Expect the newest price increase for stamps to be laid on him and only afterward will he be given the boot.

    The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a second 2021 postage rate increase for mailing services (letters, postcards) to be implemented on Sunday, August 29, 2021 subject to approval by the Postal Regulatory Commission. This would be the second USPS postage rate increase of 2021, with the first rate increase going into effect on January 24, 2021. Source

  39. 39.

    NotMax

    Which calls to mind Rep. Marc Pocan (D-WI), from June:

    Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, who organized a letter signed by 90 House Democrats [last] August calling for DeJoy’s removal, said the postmaster general “is a guy who obviously has a lot of confidence in himself.”
    [snip]
    When Pocan pressed him during another House hearing about what grade he would give himself as postmaster general, DeJoy resisted answering, then finally replied, “An ‘A’ for bringing strategy and the planning and effort.”

    Recalling the exchange, Pocan joked that almost no one would give DeJoy’s performance an ‘A,’ “Unless it was followed by a derogatory name.” Source

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a second 2021 postage rate increase for mailing services (letters, postcards) to be implemented on Sunday, August 29, 2021 subject to approval by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

    So, up to 58 cents or so. Still a bargain.

    But doesn’t DeJoy also want to increase delivery times for first class mail?

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

    @Brachiator: I think they already did increase the amount of time it takes a first class letter to get somewhere.

    I sent one from the post office, hand cancelled, and it took 12 days to get to SoCal from the Seattle area.

  46. 46.

    Ten Bears

    Not to put too fine of a point on it, be as polite as can be, but just think about this for a second: the only people to find value in $5,000 a bottle whiskey or a $10 beer … are those that drink them.

    A bunch of drunks …

    Ever wonder why meth is so easy to get?

  47. 47.

    Ryan

    I think the answer is staring us in the face.  I think the bottle of whiskey is in that ginormous chin.

  48. 48.

    Amir Khalid

    If anybody cares, today is the first of Muharram,1443 in the Muslim calendar — new year’s day.

  52. 52.

    Batgirl

    @Brachiator: I’ve had 4 business checks get lost in the US Mail the last six months. That means a delay in vendors getting paid, having to stop checks and reissue and/or dealing with late fees. At one vendor a check showed up two months after we mailed and a week after they received the new check. It’s an absolute mess!

  56. 56.

    mrmoshpotato

    While the whiskey was a gift from Japan’s government, most of the missing items are gifts the U.S. was intending to give other countries. Many bore Donald Trump’s insignia, the U.S. officials said…

    And certainly those countries were happy to not get a gift that was scribbled on by the Kremlin’s bitch.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I suppose TFG figured that the Biden administration wasn’t going to hand out White House swag with TFG’s name on it; so rather than let it go to waste, he, TFG, should flog it at the Mar-a-Lago/Bedminster gift shop.

  58. 58.

    Tony Jay

    To be fair, once Tangerine Foxtraitor Golfer gets buried by in the rising tide of financial and ethical prosecutions splooshing his way, all of those signed relics of The Orange Interregnum are going to become collector’s items. I’m not surprised people low enough to work for that sack of congealed vices would lower themselves still further to outright theft, after all, there’s a buck in it, and isn’t that all that really matters?

  59. 59.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    It’s hilarious how these bores think they can become president.

    Pompeo is even boring than Lamar Alexander, Fred Thompson, Scott Walker, etc.

  60. 60.

    evodevo

    @Batgirl: ​
      I might note for the record that all this mail delivery problem started right after I quit as a mail carrier in Jan. 2020 LOL – just sayin’

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