Aaron Schock, the “celebrity Congressman,” is resigning

[TaftFan]

http://theconservatarianreview.com/aaron-schock-the-celebrity-congressman-is-resigning/

Good riddance!

[AuH20]

Finally!

[AuH20]

Boehner is crying somewhere for his colleague...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2015-01-09/AP/Congress_Immigration-00709.jpg&w=1484

[AuH20]

The final straw?


UPDATE (2:50 p.m.): According to Politico’s report, Schock’s resignation came less than 12 hours after they asked him questions about some rather sketchy mileage reimbursements:

Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car between January 2010 and July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had only roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by POLITICO under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was ever driven.


(For scale, 90,000 miles = roughly three and a half trips around the circumference of the entire planet Earth.)

The Washington Examiner’s Rebecca Berg points out that since lawmakers are reimbursed 56 cents per mile, “Schock might’ve pocketed $50,000+ from overreporting mileage”.

[NoOneButPaul]

I dont know anything about this guy and he's from the state I used to live in. NeoCon I'm guessing?

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Looks like Boner's pool boy.






https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2015-01-09/AP/Congress_Immigration-00709.jpg&w=1484

[TaftFan]

I dont know anything about this guy and he's from the state I used to live in. NeoCon I'm guessing?

Yes, actually.

[AuH20]

Ha ha. Being a crook is the issue.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/19/hey-gays-leave-schock-alone.html


Nearly every gay man I know in Washington, D.C., knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who had sex with Schock. The height of this innuendo was reached last year when Itay Hod, a freelance journalist, posted a note on his Facebook page relating a story from an anonymous friend who claimed that he’d witnessed his roommate exiting the shower with an unnamed Republican congressman. Hod didn’t name Schock in his post, but he didn’t have to. “Even though news organizations know this guy is gay, they can't report it because he hasn’t said so on Twitter,” Hod complained. This hearsay account then became the subject of an entire story in The New York Times.

According to his gay antagonists, Schock deserves to be outed because of his anti-gay voting record. That consists of opposition to gay marriage, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the institution of harsher criminal penalties for hate crimes. Disagreement with the latter proposal should hardly be considered a requirement by the gay community for qualification as an ally, considering that many gay intellectuals, policymakers, and writers (this one included) oppose hate-crimes legislation on freedom of conscience grounds. There’s no evidence that Schock personally discriminated against gay people, nor did he ever crusade against homosexuality, like Ted Haggard, the former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals who railed against gays and was later exposed by a male escort as a client.


The grounds for outing Schock, then, are not as clear as they are for some of the other, high-profile outings of professional homophobes who make it their job to keep gays down. And yet, there has been an ugly undercurrent in the deportment of much of the gay male community, which is taking a perverse delight in Schock’s downfall. The unseemly giddiness with which so many gay men are reveling in the news of his resignation brings to mind the saga of Mark Foley, the former Florida Republican congressman who resigned after it was revealed that he had sexually harassed male congressional pages. Unlike Schock, however, Foley had a largely pro-gay voting record, something that the gay liberals who tore him apart conveniently ignored while whipping up hysteria about a predatory homosexual, a stereotype that has done so much harm to gay men. One Democratic congresswoman aired an ad accusing Republicans of “covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used
 the Internet to molest children,” a blatant lie. The inquisitorial demeanor that so many gay men have assumed in discussion of Schock—demanding that he out himself immediately or face the consequences—hardly differs from the religious right-wing scolds they claim to despise.

Per usual, the Torquemada of this campaign is gay journalist Michaelangelo Signorile, who pioneered the tactic of outing in the 1990s. “It’s odd that [Schock’s being gay] is missing now in virtually all the current coverage, because it's a part of Schock’s media history that also points to deception,” Signorile wrote last month, providing no evidence whatsoever as to Schock’s sexuality, other than his penchant for “flamboyant” clothes.

Former Congressman Barney Frank, now hawking a memoir, got in on the act, telling Business Insider, “I have to say, if [the rumors are] not true, he spent entirely too much time in the gym for a straight man.” Given Frank’s own acknowledged schlubbiness and history of being reprimanded by his House colleagues for fixing a hustler’s parking tickets, this was an odd remark for the Democrat from Massachusetts to make.

As to whether or not Schock is actually gay, pardon me for speculating that the assertions affirming that he is are largely aspirational. Gay men want Schock to be gay because, well, they want him. More importantly, they also want him to be gay because it would fit into a convenient narrative about gay conservatives: that they are all morally compromised, self-hating, untrustworthy sellouts. What really angers the gay mob is that Schock is conservative. By trivializing a serious story of corruption with unfounded allegations of homosexuality, they demonstrate their inability to judge the real issues because they’re transfixed on minor ones.

While Schock’s gay inquisitors have a theory that his downfall is a direct result of his being gay, the actual reason is likely much simpler: Like many politicians, Schock soon started to believe that he was above the people who elected him, and that the rules didn’t apply.

And just as likely an explanation for Schock’s seemingly gay appearance is that the Illinois Republican is like many straight, metrosexual, socially unaware young men from the Midwest who don’t always understand the social signals they’re broadcasting with their fashionable clothes and finicky grooming habits. That might account for the $40,000 office redecoration and the Michael Jackson gloves. It’s more responsible, journalistically, then simply asserting that someone is gay.

What if Schock is gay? Maybe I’ll have to turn in my gay card, but I would have some sympathy for him on that score. Schock grew up in the extremely conservative Apostolic Christian Church, a Baptist sect. The rambling comments that his father recently delivered to a press scrum offer a clue as to how his family might deal with the revelation of his homosexuality. Casually waving off very serious accusations of corruption as bunk, Richard Schock was clear to point out that just because his son wears “stylish clothing” and isn’t “running around with women” does not mean that he’s gay. Heaven forfend if he were.

Not every gay public figure needs to be a hero or trailblazer. Not every gay person’s life is characterized by parents who don’t look askance at their son’s listening to Judy Garland records at a young age. If Schock is gay and lying about it, with a moderately anti-gay public record to boot, then that makes him a coward, and nothing more. Schock hails from a solidly conservative Republican district and voting against repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is presumably what his constituents wanted. He would hardly be the first dishonest politician who covered up some aspect of his life to further his career.

But this taunting of Schock, this using homosexuality as a weapon, can only backfire. That’s what the religious right does. Count me out.

[angelatc]

Yes, actually.

He is an Illinois Republican. As AF says, "throw it in the woods."

I have no love lost for this guy, but note the media's treatment of this versus Tammy Duckworth's tax fraud.

[Valli6]

...

Prosecutors in Chicago to drop charges against former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock if he pays back IRS, campaign
Jason Meisner - Contact Reporter - Chicago Tribune
March 6, 2019

In a surprise move for a high-profile public corruption case, federal prosecutors in Chicago have agreed to drop all charges against former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock if he pays back money he owes to the Internal Revenue Service and his campaign fund.

The stunning deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, was announced Wednesday during what was supposed to be a routine status hearing for Schock.

According to the agreement, Schock, 37, must pay back taxes to the IRS and $68,000 to his congressional campaign funds. If he does so — and stays out of any new trouble for six months — prosecutors would drop all felony counts against Schock in September, leaving him with a clean record.

As part of the deal, Schock’s campaign committee, Schock for Congress, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of failing to properly report expenses.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly approved the deal after prosecutors said they had taken a fresh look at the charges and decided this would be a “fair and just” outcome, especially given that Schock has no criminal record and resigned from public office.

The abrupt resolution came six months after Schock — in a stroke of luck — had his case transferred out of Springfield because the judge overseeing the matter was accused of having improper contact with the prosecutors’ office in an unrelated case. Schock had been scheduled to go to trial June 10 in Chicago.

Schock’s attorney, George Terwilliger, said Wednesday he offered to speak to prosecutors under U.S. Attorney John Lausch almost as soon as they took over the case last summer.

“We felt all along that if some reasonable prosecutor would sit down and objectively look at the facts here, they would come to the same conclusions that we did — that is, that mistakes are not crimes,” Terwilliger said.

The case “began with a bang, and that bang turned out to be a blank,” he said. “And now it’s ending with a whimper.”

MORE: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-ex-congressman-aaron-schock-guilty-20190306-story.html

In paragraph 4 - his "campaign committee" pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of failing to properly report expenses? :confused:

[Anti Globalist]

I see he resigned on my birthday.

[acptulsa]

I see he resigned on my birthday.

Don't say he didn't give you anything.