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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / East End boys

East End boys

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Here’s where Romney’s 47% fundraiser took place:

It was as if the Playboy Mansion met the East End at a wild party at private-equity titan Marc Leder’s Bridgehampton estate, where guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.

The divorced Sun Capital Partners honcho rented a sprawling beachfront mansion on Surf Side Road for $500,000 for the month of July. Leder’s weekly Friday and Saturday night parties have become the talk of the Hamptons — and he ended them in style last weekend with his wildest bash yet.

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Can you guys stop stepping on each other?

    Please?

    ABL covered this (and linked to the story you quoted) in her post of FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    The taped party was, I believe, at this gomer’s estate in Boca Raton. Or Del Boca Vista.

  4. 4.

    Nom de Plume

    Well, what are the rest of the frontpagers waiting for? You all need to post the same story now.

    ETA: Actually, what Villago Delenda Est said at the top.

  6. 6.

    beltane

    Is this the same fundraiser with the trashy “I am VIP” woman in the blue chiffon dress? Maybe the blue chiffon dress didn’t stay on for long.

    I would like to compare Mitt Romney to Silvio Berlusconi but that would be unfair to Silvio, who at least had the good political sense not to refer to his fellow citizens as worthless parasites.

  9. 9.

    ? Martin

    The values that Mitt Romney learned in his home have enriched his life immeasurably. With his parents’ example before him, he married, had five sons, and now basks in the joy of eighteen grandchildren.
    __
    Marriage is more than a personally rewarding social custom. It is also critical for the well-being of a civilization. That is why it is so important to preserve traditional marriage – the joining together of one man and one woman. As president, Mitt will not only appoint an Attorney General who will defend the Defense of Marriage Act – a bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton – but he will also champion a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

    Huh. Sex acts isn’t in there. I wonder if it’s under ‘Labor’…

  11. 11.

    Narcissus

    You guys really need an IRC room that you can pop into and say “hey, anyone getting a post ready or is it ok if I do one?”

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @? Martin: Mitt said something today or yesterday about not wanting to use Ann so much that people got tired of her.

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  14. 14.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Narcissus: @Villago Delenda Est:
    Newsflash: THEY WON’T LISTEN. I’ve bitched about the post-stomping for years. You have about as much chance of getting them to read the front page before hitting post as you do of getting a fucking comment system that works more than half the time.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @dmsilev: that’s kinda funny, I wouldn’t think he was capable of that much awareness about his campaign

  17. 17.

    raven

    Yea, I mean I pay all this fucking money for this blog sand them you don’t run it the way I like. . .Oh, nevermind.

  20. 20.

    Linda Featheringill

    Ya know guys, you don’t have to run to the latest post. If you like the previous thread you can stay with it.

  28. 28.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @DougJ: Look, splitting your commentariat up among three different posts in the space of 30 minutes isn’t “hitting it hard.” Dribbling out one post say, every 45 minutes to an hour makes more sense.

    You know, there is a “schedule” button in FYWP.

  29. 29.

    David Koch

    guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.

    The Party of Family Values

  31. 31.

    Narcissus

    I just don’t like repeatedly refreshing a thread and then finding out all the cool kids are in another identical thread

    It’s like Sunday school all over again

    except without the furtive homoeroticism

  32. 32.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    So, when will Limbaugh take to the airwaves to refer to Romney and Leder as “sluts”?

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @DougJ: I like this idea that you divvy up those individual vids from the Corn piece, even though I myself stuck to the text after watching the first one. That man makes my blood boil. My personal favorite under the Willard’s head is way stuck up his privileged white ass, reposting myself, but DougJ says go nuts and keep hitting

    Contending that he is a self-made millionaire who earned his own fortune, Romney insisted, “I have inherited nothing.” He remarked, “There is a perception, ‘Oh, we were born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and so forth.’ Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America.”

    Uh huh. Cranbrook, Harvard, son of a governor, the stock they ‘had’ to sell to pay for grad school, the religious draft deferments. He wasn’t handed a thing! Every kid born in a trailer in West Virginia or a project in Chicago has the same opportunity in this great land as J Willard Marriott’s godson!

  35. 35.

    Irving

    @Baud: Hell with that, I’m freakin’ dying to hear Sarah Proud and Tall’s take on this shindig. It’s almost like reality’s done gone and lapped her at this point.

  38. 38.

    Rhoda

    What are the chances the outside cash will hit the House and senate races instead of the presidential now? Romney’s got enough cash on his own to run his race; I can see the Crossroads types sending their cash to the senate and house races in an effort to hamstring POTUS and drown the democrats.

  40. 40.

    Hill Dweller

    @dmsilev:

    Mitt said something today or yesterday about not wanting to use Ann so much that people got tired of her.

    In other news, the First Lady had a crowd of 11,000 people come to see her today in Florida…

  42. 42.

    David Koch

    guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.

    David Brooks was on CRose the other night wagging his glasses on how decadent libertine values of the 60s lost.

  45. 45.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @raven: She’s preaching to the choir about the voter suppression, but to the extent anyone in the Village, or the national legal system, is paying attention, I’m glad she’s banging that particular drum.

  47. 47.

    Wag

    I personally like multiple takes on the same story. It feels like a community where everyone can share If we don’t want the FP’s to post on the
    Same topic we might as well become a bunch of Randian eat what you kill Red State morons.

  48. 48.

    David Koch

    This tape is actual Great News for Romney.

    It provides a distraction from his effort to politicize the tragedy in Libya.

  51. 51.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    I give the fuck up. The front pagers at this place can take a long road trip together and still can’t get together for shit. And now you can’t take the GIFT that Romney’s giving Obama without overplaying it with the whole “sex party” shit, which will almost surely be shown as bullshit?

    This is the thing that fucking sucks about this blog. I don’t know if it’s too many front-pagers or too many front-pagers with ADHD or what. But you are all working together to fuck up a pivotal moment in this campaign.

  52. 52.

    geg6

    @DougJ:

    Good, I’m glad it is and I’m glad you’re hitting it hard. It is growing on FB like a fungus and I’m doing my part there. Good to see you guys doing the same.

    This is how the GOP won for thirty years, or at least, it is a large part of how. Message discipline and relentless focus on taking the other side out. Repeating the message so much that it becomes conventional wisdom. They used that tactic for evil. I see no reason not to use it for good.

  53. 53.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Wag: Nobody’s saying they shouldn’t all have their say. The point is the comments get dispersed among five different threads about five different facets of the same topic in a short amount of time.

    ETA: Comments on the last 3 threads: 15, 46, and now 53 on this one. Mistermix does this all the time in the morning – 3 posts in quick succession, when he could schedule them to post farther apart. But whatever, it’s their FP.

  54. 54.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Wag:

    It feels like a community where everyone can share If we don’t want the FP’s to post on the
    Same topic we might as well become a bunch of Randian eat what you kill Red State morons.

    What does that even fucking mean? It’s a muddled God damn mess.

  55. 55.

    David Koch

    guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.

    The russian women where in all likelihood prisoners of the notorious white-slave trade in New York.

  58. 58.

    Chris

    @Anya:

    He didn’t actually say that. He didn’t. You’ve gotta be shitting me. You just gotta.

    Incredibly, I think he might’ve hit Peak Douchebag with that one. The contempt for everyone else, I get, but for his own wife?

    Wow. Just wow.

    (And also incredibly, I think I have even less respect for Ann Romney now. What kind of person has so little self respect they stay married to a pig like Mitt?)

  61. 61.

    jwb

    @DougJ: Because more threads means each of us is reloading the site more often or something. Not quite clear on your logic here—unless the FP posts have a lot more traffic through readers that don’t display comments than I’m aware of.

  62. 62.

    lamh35

    wow Mitt doubling down. has press conference not live on record.

    Zeke Miller ‏@ZekeJMiller
    RT @hollybdc: Romney: “This is the same message i give to people” in public

    The Fix ‏@TheFix
    RT @hollybdc: “Romney: ‘This is the same message i give to people’ in public”

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @raven: true, when she started pointing out that 3/4 of outside money was being spent on Romney and he’s still losing, I thought that’s where she was heading, toward mockery.

    LO’D just said that Romney just announced a press availability tonight. As in, he’s gonna talk to reporters tonight. I don’t know where he is, but it’s after ten on the east coast. This is not a move born of confidence.

  67. 67.

    am

    I can’t believe there are more talking about whether there are too many front page stories about this (IT’s CALLED A SCROLLWHEEL OR DOWN ARROW).

    The shocking thing here is that Mr. 10% tax rate is complaining about the fact that the young, elderly, and unemployed don’t pay income taxes (that is the majority of the 47% figure). Most of those people either have or will pay greater percentages of their income as tax that Romney for most of their life. And all of them still get to pay regressive sales taxes, too.

    If this doesn’t sink his campaign, then something is sicker with this country that I ever suspected.

  68. 68.

    dr. bloor

    Mitt sets fire to his presidential aspirations and the BJ community is fixated on micromanaging someone else’s blog.

    Transcendent.

  69. 69.

    jwb

    @raven: Speaking of money, I’m now wondering whether it’s best to continue giving my weekly contribution to Obama or now send it off to help with House and Senate races. Anyone have thoughts?

  71. 71.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Maude:

    The more posts, the better.

    If DougJ farted, you’d think it smelled like rose petals and sounded like Mozart. I love this blog, but God damn it, you can’t rationally believe this.

  74. 74.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Wag: Well, true that. This blog will have absolutely no bearing on the overall outcome on the campaign. Point granted.

    So, DougJ, ABL, Cole, all of you. Jump in. Nothing you do matters.

  80. 80.

    dr. bloor

    @jwb: Send something to Elizabeth Warren. Between the latest polls and the breaking videotape, Being Scott Brown is a whole lot less fun than it must have been a week ago.

  81. 81.

    Dennis G.

    @Evolving Deep Southerner: No, I don’t think so.

    There isn’t a front pager operating manual. Folks try and space posts. I like to space mine to fall about an hour or so after the last one, but more times than I can count I hit the post button within moments (before or after) of somebody else.

    So it goes.

    Folks can play in all posts or just the one that strikes their fancy.

    Mitt is a whirling shit storm. We could put up a fresh post every five minutes and never cover it. Then there are other things we might write about…

    And at times like these it is a bit of fun to pile on. This is known.

    Cheers

  83. 83.

    dr. bloor

    @Evolving Deep Southerner:

    This is the thing that fucking sucks about this blog. I don’t know if it’s too many front-pagers or too many front-pagers with ADHD or what. But you are all working together to fuck up a pivotal moment in this campaign.

    This is just an extremely weird thing to say.

  85. 85.

    Violet

    So I happened to see NBC Nightly News tonight. They covered the 47% video. Brian Williams looked like he was trying not to crack up while covering the story. Chuck Todd had a rather disgusted look on his face, along the lines of “I can’t believe I the Romney campaign has fucked up this bad again.” But then he fell into Both Sides Do It and talked about how Obama made the “clinging to guns and religion” comment during a fundraiser”. Then he pointedly looked at the camera and reminded Brian Williams that that comment still came up even four years later.

    My favorite part was Brian Williams trying not to crack up at the utter disaster that is the Romney campaign and Chuck Todd’s disgust at the Romney campaign’s ineptitude.

  87. 87.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Dennis G.:

    There isn’t a front pager operating manual. Folks try and space posts.

    Dennis, I love you, brother. But your first point is painfully obvious. And I see not a God damn bit of evidence as to your second point.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @jwb: further suggestion, if you don’t mind: send it through act blue, or donate through progressive candidates who are fundraising for more conservative ones. I donated my $50- to Tester in response to an AL Franken email. I gave to Tim Kaine through somebody else, Boxer maybe. They keep track of these things, and when you consider how few people donate to campaigns, 1% of the electorate donates, I think it’s not nothing if we let them now they’re getting money from us crazy leftists.

  89. 89.

    dr. bloor

    @Violet:

    My favorite part was Brian Williams trying not to crack up at the utter disaster that is the Romney campaign and Chuck Todd’s disgust at the Romney campaign’s ineptitude.

    I’d be pissed too if my paycheck depended on calling a horse race and one of the jockeys kept firing bullets into his horse.

  90. 90.

    lamh35

    So now all the “remember Dan Rather” chicken little folks can be quiet. With Romney’s “presser” there is no denial that it was him.

    Lawrence showing the video and Mitts hair is all mussed up! He feelin’ it ya’l

  96. 96.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    Willard looks like a stooge, in my very biased view.

    ETA, it was three questions, I think, not two, and he left the stage with a smile that looked like he was about to burst into tears

  102. 102.

    eric

    everyone wondering what it would have looked like with palin at the top ticket now has a pretty good answer by proxy

  103. 103.

    ? Martin

    Done. Holy fuck is he done. His argument is that the moochers won’t vote for him because they won’t benefit from his tax cuts. That’s basically it. And then he ran away mid question.

    The ads are going to be brutal. The debate is going to be brutal – first one is domestic policy.

    Honest to God, this is worse than McCain suspending his campaign.

  104. 104.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Wasn’t there a vice presidential candidate who cried once? Supposedly wasn’t good for the campaign? I’m trying to think of another time the wheels came off a campaign so quickly. Will be frightening to see what’s next.

  105. 105.

    geg6

    @Evolving Deep Southerner:

    And just what is the problem with that? It works and it’s a tried and true thing that Dems never seem to manage because people like you seem to think that only complex and varied arguments are what works on the vast majority of the public. I hate to be the one to break the bubble of the rarified air you breathe, but most Americans don’t have the time, the interest, the energy, or the education to listen to your complex arguments. You find an effective way to paint your opponent as being something repellant. The GOP did it with lies and exaggeration and fear and bigotry. We can do it by using the truth, albeit a simple explication of that truth. It’s how products get sold and, in America in the 21st century, our politicians and policy ideas are products. We have to sell them. Sorry it doesn’t fit your high faluting ideals of what winning politics looks like, but thems the breaks.

  106. 106.

    dmsilev

    @Southern Beale: Because nothing says calm response to crisis more than dragging reporters out of their hotel rooms late at night just to answer a couple of questions and declare things settled.

    I’ll give Romney this: We’re no longer talking about his Libya fuck-up.

  107. 107.

    BenA

    The fund raising from this thing is going to be huge. I donate a set amount every month to a few candidates… but I don’t usually respond to emails. I had been offline for a while and the first I read of this was an email from the Obama campaign. I was so pissed off after reading that that I immediately donated more money.

  108. 108.

    jwb

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: I can see giving to Warren because although she’s undoubtedly getting a lot of money from all over, she’s also in a very tough race in a very expensive media market. At the same time, I also like the idea of helping some of these more conservative candidates because holding and perhaps even increasing the Dem control of the Senate runs through these races. I would love to give money through Al Franken. Any way to do this without having received the email from him?

  109. 109.

    kay

    “Private equity titan” Marc Leder bought Friendlys, the restaurant chain, and then pushed the company into bankruptcy to unload pension obligations.

  114. 114.

    Tom Q

    @? Martin: Remember last week, we thought his embassy statement was the analogy to McCain’s campaign suspension? How bad do you have to be at this politics thing to have two disqualifying events inside a week?

  121. 121.

    David Koch

    This was an Obama operation.

    He had the CIA buy a ticket to the fundraiser and then record the remarks, which was then leaked to the liberal media to distract people from Obama’s abysmal stock market.

  122. 122.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Maude: The flames are advancing on me. With my last smoke-addled breath, I send this message of concession. Have at it.

  124. 124.

    Anya

    @raven: Thanks!

    @Chris: I was shocked and disgusted. How can anyone be that much of a douchebag that he talks about his wife in that manner? I actually felt sorry for Ann Romney. Not only does he sacrifice her health for his ambitions, but it appears he has little respect for her. What an asswipe!

  125. 125.

    The Thin Black Duke

    If this becomes the pivotal moment that destroys the Romney presidential campaign, it’s wonderfully appropriate that it was because of the 99%, a working class hero who did it by capturing it on video. I guess Karma does have a liberal bias.

  126. 126.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Anya:

    Not only does he sacrifice her health for his ambitions, but it appears he has little respect for her.

    now, i loathe mittens as much as any human outside the 27 percent, but there’s no evidence he’s “sacrificed her health” for his ambitions. She has the best health care money can buy. His statement is high douchebaggery, though.

  130. 130.

    dead existentialist

    You’re using the NY Post as a source? That’s who the links go back to. Jezuz, talk about ‘both sides do it.’ Fuck, show some integrity.

  132. 132.

    apulrang

    I just had a thought. If Richard Nixon and Mitt Romney had gone to college together, would privileged pretty-boy Romney have played cruel pranks on nerdy, uncouth Nixon?

    The Republican party is so messed up, even their mean prejudices contradict themselves.

  133. 133.

    Anya

    @arguingwithsignposts: It’s been reported that she didn’t want him to run. Campaigns are highly stressful and the woman has MS; why is he putting her through this. He’s like John Edwards, except the infidelity part.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chris:

    To be fair (ahem), I think that was a swipe at Michelle Obama, who’s been on a major media tour lately (my boss was just swooning over Mrs. O’s appearanceo on the Dr. Oz show). So I think Mitt was saying that they weren’t going to let Ann get overexposed in the media like That One.

  137. 137.

    gwangung

    @Mnemosyne:

    To be fair (ahem), I think that was a swipe at Michelle Obama, who’s been on a major media tour lately (my boss was just swooning over Mrs. O’s appearanceo on the Dr. Oz show). So I think Mitt was saying that they weren’t going to let Ann get overexposed in the media like That One.

    If so, that’s was an incredibly stupid argument (par for the course for Mittens). Given Michelle is even more popular than her husband, I think you can credibly argue that she’s UNDERexposed.

  138. 138.

    DPS

    I think there’s a good chance that this doesn’t hurt him. The people whose vote he might get whom he’s identifying as moochers don’t think of themselves as the moochers he’s talking about; they think of themselves as getting from the government what they’re entitled to and what they’ve paid in at one time or another, and they resent all of the other people whom they view as actually mooching (i.e., young bucks with steaks, Cadillacs, etc.). If all of Willard’s potential votes among undecideds think that he’s talking about somebody else and not them, I don’t see how it hurts him. I guess it might hurt him by contributing to the general sense that he’s kind of a tool and not running a well-organized campaign, but that’s about it. I am of course happy to be wrong.

  139. 139.

    dead existentialist

    @Maude: What story are you referring to? This post linking to the NY Post is hardly the type of “news” that is damning if only because it smells of a Fox newsy stench of hearsay. You actually think that Mitt attended and talked to people who were so drunk off their asses that they skinny-dipped? WTF? And what vid is there of this?

  140. 140.

    the Conster

    @DPS:

    Prepare to be happy. Everyone but the 27% now know he’s an incompetent sleazy dick and with his gaffe a day record, by election day, people will only show up to his events to point and laugh if we even see him out in public now. Mitt = FAIL.

  142. 142.

    DPS

    @the Conster:

    OK, but everybody knew he was an incompetent sleazy dick already, and he’s still polling only 4 points behind Obama. What I don’t see is what group of votes he has lost access to via this particular display of dickish incompetence.

  143. 143.

    Waynski

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I’m guessing Willard didn’t win this news cycle.

    Are you kidding? He totally won the news cycle. Everyone talked about him from morning till night. They’re getting really good at winning the news cycle.

  144. 144.

    Applejinx

    I think this is a REALLY GOOD time for the amnesty thing to come out. Anybody out there capable of making that happen?

    If you have to ask how much better can this get, then you haven’t put 2 and 2 together to consider how all this looks if Mitt Romney is an admitted felon for criminal tax evasion, who’s been given a pass thanks to the extension of amnesty by the Obama administration.

    You could say that this decision to give rich tax-criminals a get out of jail free card was a mistake that they’d learn nothing from- or you could say HOLY FUCKBALLS is that ever 11-dimensional chess…

    DID anything ever develop with the tax stuff? Isn’t it still logjammed in just the way it would be if the secret is (legal) amnesty for felony tax evasion, with the truth of it locked up within the IRS and not really accessible through above-board means unless Romney himself chooses to make it a public record?

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