If you think that the UK politicians are the only ones to be at it with expenses, think again. Danny alerted me to the fact that the Republican National Committee spent almost $2,000 on a visit to a club where topless women hang from nets on the ceiling and simulate sex in a glass case.
The Republicans who are strapped for cash to fight the upcoming elections send out requests for contributions every day so they reckon this news will go down like a lead balloon.
“You send us money and we will spend it on lavish living in sex dens. Of course in the meantime we will preach to you about family values, the Church, and about fiscal prudence.”
The spending is disclosed in a Republican filing, required by US law, to the Federal Election Commission. It says that $1,946.25 was spent on 4 February for meals at the Voyeur West Hollywood by the Republican National Committee.
The club apparently has a heavy net suspended above the lounge area where performers writhe above the heads of clubgoers. Even more provocative scenes are played out in an enclosed glass booth area adjacent to the club's dance floor area, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The Daily Caller website discovered an RNC trip to California including a $9,099 stop at the Beverley Hills Hotel, and a trip to Hawaii for the party's mid-winter convention that cost $43,828. Hawaii is nice in the winter they say.
The Daily Caller also claimed that Michael Steele (Republican Chairman) had floated the notion of buying a private jet for his travels. As it is the party spent $17,514 on hiring private jets last month and $12,691 on limousines. Hey, make your contribution to the Republicans. They will spend it well.... or should that
be: Well, they will spend it.
Recently appointed Steele has, since January 2009, reduced a bank surplus of $22m to just $13m. That is considered nowhere near enough to fight the midterm elections which take place in November this year
Oh dear. I bet the Democrats are rubbing their hands together with glee unless of course they have similar skeletons in their closet.
Pics: Church where the Republican Party (Grand Old Party) was formed and Michael Steele, party boss.
The Republicans who are strapped for cash to fight the upcoming elections send out requests for contributions every day so they reckon this news will go down like a lead balloon.
“You send us money and we will spend it on lavish living in sex dens. Of course in the meantime we will preach to you about family values, the Church, and about fiscal prudence.”
The spending is disclosed in a Republican filing, required by US law, to the Federal Election Commission. It says that $1,946.25 was spent on 4 February for meals at the Voyeur West Hollywood by the Republican National Committee.
The club apparently has a heavy net suspended above the lounge area where performers writhe above the heads of clubgoers. Even more provocative scenes are played out in an enclosed glass booth area adjacent to the club's dance floor area, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The Daily Caller website discovered an RNC trip to California including a $9,099 stop at the Beverley Hills Hotel, and a trip to Hawaii for the party's mid-winter convention that cost $43,828. Hawaii is nice in the winter they say.
The Daily Caller also claimed that Michael Steele (Republican Chairman) had floated the notion of buying a private jet for his travels. As it is the party spent $17,514 on hiring private jets last month and $12,691 on limousines. Hey, make your contribution to the Republicans. They will spend it well.... or should that
be: Well, they will spend it.Recently appointed Steele has, since January 2009, reduced a bank surplus of $22m to just $13m. That is considered nowhere near enough to fight the midterm elections which take place in November this year
Oh dear. I bet the Democrats are rubbing their hands together with glee unless of course they have similar skeletons in their closet.
Pics: Church where the Republican Party (Grand Old Party) was formed and Michael Steele, party boss.
Is this club oan a bus route? Dae they huv a pensioners night?
ReplyDeleteIt is aw aboot the farther ye get away, the mair ye think ye can get away wi'. Oor members up in Holyrood cannae get away wi' whit they get up tae in Westminster, cos they're nearerhand, likewise oor cooncilors. If oor toon cooncillor tried hirin' an executive jet, tae get tae the Licquorice Club at Tollcross, or the Sapphire Rooms up Lothian Road, well ah wid hae somethin' tae say tae them, mark ma words.
ReplyDeleteOh! Ah'm gettin' right het-up at the thought.
Now you calm down. There's no bus trips that I'm aware of Sophia.
ReplyDeleteI imagine you are right, but I think that the means of controlling their expenditure that matters. Clearly these people need watching like a hawk. They weren't in Westminster until very recently. They had secrecy on their side and a Speaker who fought tooth and nail for it to remain that way, doubtless because his own record and that of his wife, if you please, did not stand up to much in the way of scrutiny.
I expect that they will behave a bit better now they know that we are counting every halfpenny.
Ah hope sae tris, ah really dae. Whit worries me is the half-baked so-called reforms o' the past year, first wan scrutineer, then anither, back-datin' his limits, some MPs payin' back thruppence-ha'penny, others in the dock (hopefully to be followed by another, even tho she managed tae get a sick-notefor a full year, her wi' the biggest aspedistra in the world stuck tae her heid.) Arbitrary an' ham-fisted.
ReplyDeleteWe've soon enough got back tae the start efter the past year. An' oor political classes hae managed tae string us along tae the election.
Followin' that, electorate fa's asleep, reforms get watered tae pish, hey presto! business as usual. We were aw near revolt last July. Wid ye ken it fae this campaign?
They shoulda went tae Las Vegas:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/y492ws3
LOL@ scunnert
ReplyDeleteOh Jeez! Gena oan River City's gaun tae make tea fer her clinch dressed in exactly the same frock as wan o' thae dancers oan the 'Girls jist want tae huv fun' video, no the '84 wan, the '94 remake. Mind.
ReplyDeleteSomebody better stop her.
I think they want to put it to bed Sophia. They have tried to play it down on the basis that both of the main London parties are equally up to their necks in it.
ReplyDeleteI mean, the Tories may laugh at the fact that 3 ex-Labour ex Mps have been hauled up, but we're not likely to forget duck houses, manure and moats, tree surgeons and helicopter pads, not to mention servants quarters... all of which were Tory foibles.
I was interested in the fact that there is a growing number of people who want a hung parliament. Me among them. They say that (as Mrs Thatcher did) it brings weak government, well, bring it on, I say, look where so-called strong government and huge majorities has got us.
Hum... River City is a bit too up-market for me.... LOL
ReplyDeleteIt is a real annoyance thes hypocrites. For they blacken the name of any conservative minded person when we seek tp promote families, and offer new ways to help them out. These people make us all look like liers, for this reason I really dislike them [being polite].
ReplyDeleteTris...It's truly an irony that at a time the political blood is in the water, and there is serious talk that the Democrats will lose control of the House of Representatives (if not also the Senate) in the mid term elections this November, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has so seriously fouled up its fund raising operation.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, the purpose of the National Political Committees is to raise money for their next campaigns. That's pretty much the sole job of their Chairmen. But Michael Steele of the RNC, famous for having both feet firmly planted in his mouth, seems to be spending much more Republican campaign money than he's raising.
And what could possibly be worse than those declining RNC fund balances you quoted? Well it would be a lot worse if you managed to also anger your right wing Christian fundamentalist base in the process. And it's hard to imagine anything that could do that more effectively than spending campaign money on a visit to a Hollywood sex club. Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council and an influential social conservative, has urged his members to stop giving money to the RNC altogether.
One might not be all that surprised if some crazy young Democrats were caught partying in the West Hollywood sex clubs. But really....it seems SO UN-Republican.....LOL.
No more than I'd expect from you mate...
ReplyDeleteThey do their cause absolutely no good. Holier than thou for the public and at it, on the public's money. Now how many of them went back to their hotel rooms alone that night?
Danny,
ReplyDeleteIsnt it easier now than ever to fund raise for campaigning given that supreme court ruling last year was it?
Exactly Danny. We had exactly the same thing here from the Tories towards the end of their last reign.
ReplyDeleteFamily values was the name of the game, and a very good one too, even if it was somewhat ridiculously painted by John Major.
The trouble was there was hardly a Cabinet minister whose pants didn't spend more time round thier knees than their waist... and finally it was disclosed that John himself, Mr Dull, if ever there was one, was having a bit of rolypoly with Edwina Currie...
Mind you we should have known. He once told an interviewer that "I never go anywhere without a Trollope"....
Righty Ho!
Dean: Obviously I'll leave Danny to answer that one, but I can't help feeling that no matter what the law, it's not going to be too easy to get money from fundamentalist Christians, southern Baptist types, when you are spending it on lesbian sex clubs..... eeeeeek
ReplyDeleteHa, true! A little ray of sunshine right there.. lol
ReplyDeleteYes Dean...The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission was handed down last January, after being argued before the court last year. It upended decades of campaign finance law by allowing direct corporate political contributions (as a First Amendment free speech issue.) This will surely benefit Republican fund raising efforts, to the detriment of the Democrats, Michael Steele's leadership of the RNC notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteAnd BTW, how nice to open Munguin's Republic and see the picture of the Wisconsin birthplace of the Grand Old Party. While I may have some doubts about the Grandness of the current GOP, I must always remind myself that it was the party of Licoln, abolished slavery, and saved the federal union. GRAND indeed.
It was grand in its day Danny...
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity it's come to this. It does the country no credit... and no good.
Glad you liked the photo though... Happy to please you after all you gave me the story!
OMG.....Of course that should be LINCOLN, not "Licoln" in my comment. Just how dim do you have to be to misspell the name of Abraham Lincoln?!...LOL.
ReplyDeleteRegrettably for those people who, like Margaret Thatcher, think that all that is good and wholesome in the world came from the English speaking peoples of the world. Americans and Republicans in this instance count I think as English speaking. Ooops! Goes to show that corruption, greed, avarice and sexual perversion are as prevalent among English speakers as they are among French, Spanish or even Latin speakers.
ReplyDeleteGood point Munguin.....although, until this happened, I wasn't really sure that I would ever have met an American Republican in a West Hollywood lesbian-bondage establishment.
ReplyDeleteI once heard a guy say that Republicans are so conservative, that if Adam and Eve had both been Republicans, the world would never have been populated.
And really very compelling is Sophia's image of that club being on a bus route and holding a pensioners night. :-)
ReplyDeleteLOL Danny. I imagine that's where you would most likely find them...
ReplyDeleteSomeone once said that if there was a scandal (in the UK) parliament, if it were Labour it would be money, if it were the Tories it would be sex.
It's all a bit mixed up now, and they are all at all of it.
There are, to be fair a couple or maybe three or four* who are not at it.... or at least haven't yet be caught at it.
*Disclaimer: There may be as many as half a dozen or more.
PS The bus trip sounds like a plan.