Highflying Mnuchins Take the Country for a Ride

[spanone]

Public servants are supposed to serve the public, not themselves. What part of that equation does Steven Mnuchin not understand?

The Trump administration’s Treasury secretary is in hot water again. On Wednesday, ABC News reported that the Treasury Department’s inspector general’s office was looking at his request that a government jet fly him and his new wife on their European honeymoon. The jet costs taxpayers roughly $25,000 an hour to operate. Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, is worth more than $300 million.

A Treasury spokesman said Mr. Mnuchin made the request, later withdrawn, because he needed the jet’s “secure communications.” Since Mr. Mnuchin is fifth in line of succession should anything happen to the president, this excuse was at least a tad more credible than the one offered for a ride he took with his wife, Louise Linton, last month that is also under official review. That trip was to Kentucky, where the couple could view the solar eclipse in the path of totality. The justification then was that Mr. Mnuchin wanted to speak with Kentuckians about tax reform and he needed to check on the gold at Fort Knox, which is presumably as safe and sound after Mr. Mnuchin’s inspection as it was when he got there.

Taxpayers, who are being reimbursed for Ms. Linton’s travel, may never have known about that junket had she not decided to use a photo of herself alighting from the plane to show off her Hermes, Valentino and Tom Ford ensemble on Instagram. She then savaged a woman from Oregon who dared call the move “#deplorable.” As the clothes designers began distancing themselves, Ms. Linton apologized to America — in an interview with a Washington society magazine that ran a photo of her, in a ball gown, on the cover.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/mnuchin-funds-honeymoon.html?mcubz=0

[democratisphere]

1. It is NEVER enough.

Specially with creatures like this.

[Alice11111]

2. Resign. You present an ugly, crass, ostentatious portrait

of our country. Think of your country and not just getting off on your arm candy who advertises the costs and brands of everything she wears. You are even worse!

[hedda_foil]

3. Those two were really made for each other. Superficial users, both of them.

Can you imagine how awful they must be in real life?

[Glimmer of Hope]

4. GO away! We have enough to deal with.

[kairos12]

5. Thurston Howell III and Lovey on honeymoon rather than on Gilligan's island.

[Fritz Walter]

6. In an ideal world, he'd be sharing a prison cell with Martin Shkreli

And they could cry on each other's shoulders about how their dreams of wealth and fame have turned to ashes.

Until, that is, their cell block's trustee pays them a visit...

Then they'll have another reason to console each other.

[Atman]

7. That's why rich people are rich.

They spend other people's money, never their own.