General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRemember when Jeb's wife hid $19,000 in purchases from CUSTOMS and had to pay a fine?
What kind of future first lady does that?
http://www.sptimes.com/News/62299/State/Gov_Bush_says_his_wif.shtml
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday that his wife misled U.S. Customs officials about $19,000 in new clothing and jewelry she brought into the country because she didn't want him to know how much she had spent on her five-day Paris shopping trip.
Forced to explain his wife's actions at the Atlanta airport Thursday, Bush said Monday that the episode had disrupted their family life. His wife, Bush said, feels "horrible about this."
"It was a difficult weekend at our house," Bush said.
On Friday, the Bushes disclosed that Columba Bush had paid a $4,100 fine and was briefly detained by Customs agents for failing to declare merchandise when she arrived at Hartsfield International Airport. With that, the low profile enjoyed by the governor's quiet wife ended. "Shop 'til you drop," read a headline Saturday in the Bush's new hometown paper, the Tallahassee Democrat.
SNIP
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)doesn't pick your car to search. You just got to be there to get it. Clearly this was her first time.
pnwmom
(108,996 posts)smuggling that is. But you're right -- it might have been easier going back and forth between Mexico.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)ballpark...way back when and bought down there. Oh, the California Dreamin' memories.
delrem
(9,688 posts)It's a minor infraction - that you want to make into a defining moment.
I have a confession to make, pnwmom, I've smiled my way past borders plenty of times. Yes, those weren't my most uplifting times - they amounted to being a very venal pleasure, since I succeeded. But hey, if someone is going to go back to 1999 to find out my sins, then publish them to show that my wife isn't fit for office because of me? They can just shove it because, IMO they aren't such saints either, that they can answer for the minor misdeeds of everyone in their family!
pnwmom
(108,996 posts)And look at it this way. In that year, her $19K in jewelry would have been as much as many people earned during an entire year.
delrem
(9,688 posts)So cut the crap.
pnwmom
(108,996 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)More pointedly, the comparison of spouses misdemeanours doesn't help.
Get it yet?
You aren't comparing Jeb's wife to Hillary, you're comparing Jeb's wife to Hillary's husband.
Get it yet?
I thought Hillary's supporters didn't want to associate Hillary with Bill's mistakes, with Bill's negatives.
I thought Hillary's supporters were saying that Hillary is her own woman, independent of Bill, and not to be judged on Bill.
But apparently not.
You're going into areas that are better left alone, because Hillary won't fare well in that particular battle.
pnwmom
(108,996 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)840high
(17,196 posts)pnwmom
(108,996 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)I would bet she spends thousands on her wardrobe. Designer dresses are not cheap. She probably has dresses worth thousands. Honestly, I don't care. Rich people spend more on clothes and jewelry than average people.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)Person 2713
(3,263 posts)LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)rock
(13,218 posts)pnwmom tells us a few facts and asks the question, "What kind of future first lady does that?"
Which I notice you have adroitly avoided answering. The answer is, of course, "Not a good one." I don't see why you're so rattled by it.
delrem
(9,688 posts)I notice that you adroitly avoid answering.
So that makes the Jeb/Hillary matchup fairly even, on that score.
That's just my opinion, of course
rock
(13,218 posts)Your's stinks. You're rattled because you are making such a big deal out of the whole situation. There's nothing to get that excited about.
mackerel
(4,412 posts)libdem4life
(13,877 posts)I'll bet their weekend was disrupted. She had to re-arrange all the closets and cupboards. Honey, just pay the nice Constable, OK?
With Bush Money, this is a slow shopping weekend. That's how the rich deal with "problems".
pnwmom
(108,996 posts)http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/documents-show-the-expensive-tastes-of-jeb-bushs-low-key-wife/2015/02/22/5bb480da-b9f4-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
The incident left the Florida first lady deeply mortified and her husband politically chagrined. Jeb Bush said the first lady had misled customs officials because she did not want him to know that she had spent about $19,000 on the trip.
The embarrassment I felt made me ashamed to face my family and friends, Columba Bush said in a July 1999 speech to the Central Florida Make-a-Wish Foundation, not long after the incident. It was the worst feeling Ive ever had in my life.
The ordeal did not stop her from spending freely, however. Less than a year later, she took out a loan to buy $42,311.70 worth of jewelry on a single day, according to records filed with the state of Florida by Mayors Jewelers.
That purchase was part of a pattern by Columba Bush of borrowing to buy tens of thousands of dollars of jewelry at a time from the South Florida store over a 14-year period. Documentation available online, which does not include the details of two transactions made less than six weeks apart in 1995, shows that she spent a total of more than $90,000 at the store.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)mahina
(17,705 posts)daughter became a drug addict would top that. Or the day you found out about it.
Nay
(12,051 posts)of "super-shopping" leaves a bad taste in the mouths of any decent person. It leaves a bad taste because this sort of avarice, whether you can afford it or not, often is due to some pretty horrible character flaws. So we automatically will think less of this person and also of any person who accepts or enables this behavior.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)but, doesn't want to feed hungry kids pro-lifer Bush, than this thing with his wife, who I assume has her own agency.
flamingdem
(39,328 posts)with that juicy bit.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)What's with chiseling the government over such penny-ante stuff? Do they hate funding the country that has brought them such enormous wealth that much?
delrem
(9,688 posts)Why do the Koch bros. want even more, when they have more than most people think even the gods could dream of? There's no answer in pure reason.
Why is it that the more money I have in my account, the less generous and open and forgiving I am in casual pan-handler type situations?
Why did Anthony Weiner continue to post crotch shots to essentially anonymous accounts, when he already knew that his internet usage was monitored?
In this case it's an individual woman, married into the Bush power structure, who brings her baggage.
IMO she probably brings more good than bad (targetable) to the table.
But more important, to my mind, is that focussing on these kind of gutter take-downs distracts from the issues that ought to count, putting what I'll call a "candy of self-righteousness" in its place. And it doesn't help.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Not that other people might do well. It's that they may be bested or they may have to 'give up' their wealth in the name of fairness for all, and also the total belief that 'not everyone can make it, so therefore I must be one of those who do make it'.
Some actually believe they've been bestowed with more love from God than others have. Because if God didn't want them to be rich then they wouldn't be, so therefore that explains how God has some sort of arbitrary displeasure with those who end up poor.
Initech
(100,104 posts)Shit, Jeb!, some of us don't even have $19,000 let alone $19,000 to blow unnecessarily on expensive jewelry. Get a fucking clue!
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Seriously. No one cares.
Drop the ugly bone with maggots crawling on it that you think is a treasure.
No.
One.
Cares.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)and their fucking spouses.
Response to lonestarnot (Reply #25)
Post removed
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Response to lonestarnot (Reply #31)
Post removed
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)City Lights
(25,171 posts)alphafemale
(18,497 posts)The box of cookies has retail value.
Your opinion? lmao
Let's attack the wife of a candidate!
Yeah!
That makes us AWESOME!
City Lights
(25,171 posts)I won't laugh at yours...you're entitled to it. But you do not speak for everyone and I don't understand why you think you do.
City Lights
(25,171 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)benefit and steal, birds of a feather flock together. And you can peddle cookies to her more than likely. Don't forget to lick all of them first.
City Lights
(25,171 posts)Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)maybe she shops because her life is a misery married to that man. Who know? As a Floridian this is ancient news and I really really do not care. Get him on his policies and leave family out of it.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)Is that the message?
tymorial
(3,433 posts)It is making me want to ignore large groups of people.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)if it had to do with a Tea Baggers.
Oh wait. They don't hold meetings or conferences anymore, cuz no one comes to them, putting lie to their claims of popularity.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)She paid her fine, and that's the end of this specific case.
I've had some friends that tried to smuggle in items to this country.
If it's wrong or illegal, then one must pay the consequences, and that's pretty much that.
awake
(3,226 posts)The only way the Republicans can win is to depress turnout and the best way to do that is to hope the campaign gets nasty, by going in the mud and bringing up issues of ones family will only backfire on any of our candidates. We have the true issues that effect the American public and nothing will make republicans happier than changing the subject and talk about the past transgressions of a spouse. Let us not be tricked into going there.
Deadshot
(384 posts)daredtowork
(3,732 posts)While People of Color have to go to jail because of their "behavior" and be subjected to mass incarceration and the new Jim Crow. Breaking the law can never be handled "in the family" if you're poor.
Of equal importance, the victims of crime can't be made whole through restorative justice at the lowest levels. Mass incarceration does jack for them either. And the police don't really bother with victims below a certain zip code.
dembotoz
(16,844 posts)On let's say a cruise ship
Depending on the ship...expensive vs as minow...
Would imagine her crime not uncommon
Perhaps she was a bit too flagrant
dflprincess
(28,082 posts)had stuck some of her receipts in her passport. -- Pretty much par for a Bush.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)This particular post may not be entirely the same but over the past 2 days I have seen non stop rants about Columba Bush that are hypocritical and quite frankly adolescent.
pnwmom
(108,996 posts)And we know that the Rethugs will make this personal. If Jeb Bush is the candidate and they go after Bill Clinton, they'll be on very shaky ground.
gwheezie
(3,580 posts)Trump has his people looking into it.
I don't care honestly. She got caught and paid her fine.