Elliot, I just GOTTA know. Please... Gimme a little clue, here.

[TygrBright]

I could ask a lot of questions, starting with "What were you thinking(with)?" and ringing the changes through "How did you ever IMAGINE you'd get away with it?" and a hundred other questions being asked by a million other people.

I could drag the tattered effigy of Mr. Bill out from under the entertainment cabinet where it's been gathering dust and cat hair and leaking stuffing for the last ten or twelve years (my god, it's been more than a decade, already?) and brandish it in front of you and holler "Remember THIS guy, Bud? For Petesqueaks!@!%^!"

I could --and do-- sigh in frustrated bafflement over the inanity of someone with so MUCH to lose pulling the lever and letting an inspiring record of achievement fly up into the air for every journalist, political commentator, mugwump, late-night TV host, and ordinary voter in America (not to mention a good number from overseas) to take shots at. At the inability of someone with so MUCH to gain, who could accomplish so MUCH more, to simply keep his effing trousers zipped for a coupla years.

All of the above are good, relevant, typical reactions to the mind-boggling stupidity demonstrated by someone with a respectable IQ and a clear ability to do so much better. And I hope they are all questions, or reactions, that are going to get some kind of response from you to your fellow New Yorkers, your fellow Democrats, your fellow elected officials, and everyone else you've so grievously disappointed.

But they're not what I want to know most.

It's really, really eating me.

I have wrestled with it and tried to suppress it, because the question is unworthy, essentially trivial, and marginally (at best) relevant.

But it is GETTING to me, and I just HAVE to know:

Elliot, lemme in on this.

What in the name of dear, sweet, gentle heaven does a customer GET for FORTY-THREE HUNDRED BUCKS AN HOUR?

Post it on the Web or something, willya? E-mail me a link. I'm over twenty-one. I'll risk teh pronz.

I just gotta know.

curiously,
Bright

[MercutioATC]

1. For $4,300, they'll pee on you.

Sorry, you asked...

[AX10]

2. This wasn't on the broadcast news, was it?

:puke:

[TygrBright]

3. Nope, that's not it. I know hookers who'll do that for forty bucks.

I know hookers who'll let YOU pee on THEM for a coupla hundred. I know hookers who'll dress up in rubber nursie suits with nipple cutouts and give you an enema for three hundred bucks an hour.

WHAT costs forty-three hundred? What, WHAT?!!? C'MON....

amazedly,
Bright

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Maybe it's accounting for inflation?

[TankLV]

39. boy - that shits...

opps - that's probably ANOTHER thou...!

that must suck...

opss - that's just another fifty...

[garybeck]

4. I believe the answer is

It's SUPPOSED to buy you anonymity no matter how familiar your face is.

Unless... you are being targeted by the feds. I think this is another Rovian use of the Justice Department to target an individual and find anything they can on him. There was no investigation into the prostitution ring. This all began with an investigation into Spitzer.

It's like Siegelman in Alabama. Target the person, not the crime, and you'll find something. There's not a person reading this who, if targeted closely enough, couldn't end up in jail.

I'm not condoning what he did or making excuses. But the justice system is supposed to investigate crimes, not people. Rove and the neocons are turning the system upside down and using the system to target people.

When you're a faceless Joe, you can walk down the street in the city and get a hooker for a few bucks. When you're Eliot Spitzer, you can't do that.

That $4,300 was supposed to buy him safety, and it would have, if it weren't for what is happening to the justice system.

[Old and In the Way]

5. In the Brave New World of TIA,

No politician is safe from in his/her personal life. When the power is in the hands of criminals, you probably won't have to even commit a crime to get neutralized. I wish people could transcend Elliott's victimless 'crime' and understand the real issue here. If you threaten the system, the system now has the tools and technologies to bite back.

[garybeck]

6. yup, pretty much the same thing I said in post #4. n/t

[bagrman]

18. This is why they want to wore tape without oversight.

[kmkleff]

21. victimless...

It seems to me that there are nothing but victims in that type of thing.

[Old and In the Way]

34. Yeah, Elliot Spitzer.

[truedelphi]

36. The "Special Report" on Spiitzer last night (MSNBC)

Reported that what triggered the alarm bells first were the bank transfers from his bank to offshore banks to the escort service - and those alarms would not have gone off except for provisions inside the Homeland Security oversight of banking, meant to save us from terrorists.

That investigation led to the authoriites to listening in (ie Wiretapping) the escort services phone lines. And Elliot was caught talking to the head of the service about what he owed.

[troubleinwinter]

7. "mind-boggling stupidity", as you said...

Did you have an opportunity to go to the website of the prostitution company? Someone posted a link to the site via wayback machine.

The site was selling a line about how special the client himself is... how discerning, elite, deserving, etc., etc. of only the most rare and special things in the world. The whole thing was schmoozing and boosting the ego of the client.

My husband builds specialty wineries in Napa Valley, California. He was sitting around talking with an owner one afternoon, who cracked open a bottle of $600 wine to share. I asked my husband if it was good. He said, "Sure, but not three times better than a $200 bottle. Hahaha!" You can get a damned nice bottle of Napa wine for $20. The thing is, you can't just BUY this $600 wine, you have to get onto an EXCLUSIVE LIST to be permitted to buy it, and then you have to buy a minimum of two cases $14,400 but are limited to no more than three. I doubt most of the people who buy it could tell the difference between that wine and a $40/bottle. But in their imagination, they are having the finest. My husband got to know the wine maker, who works across several wineries and makes $40 wines the same week she makes the $600 wine. The grapes come from the same valley vineyards and are made by the same winemaker by the same methods. It's just image.

Why do women love Gucci handbags? They are ugly as hell. They THINK there is something special about them. This monstrosity is $2,450:



This one costs about the same as the hooker- $4,995:

[JDPriestly]

8. Thanks. The bags tell it all.

[xxqqqzme]

10. Those are butt ugly!

[defendandprotect]

9. Happy-penis often destroys Happiness . . .

I think it was only $1,000 an hour --- but he spent 2 1/2 hours with her 2/13 . . . day before Valentine's . . .

plus a down payment on the next visit . . . !!

Sadly, I think we're much better off that this guy isn't going to be going anywhere in the party any more . . .

[TankLV]

40. I think I read that in a fortune cookie once...

[Hissyspit]

12. I don't really care. The truth is that the following is what bothers me much more than

the prostitution thing:

"In July 2007, (Spitzer) was admonished for his administration's involvement in ordering the State Police to record the whereabouts of State Senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno."

Although they are part and parcel of the same thing. The entitlement that comes with the corrupting influence of vast power.

[defendandprotect]

27. It would seem that Spitzer has a heavy hand and a large pool of powerful people

who would have been trying to get rid of him -- !!!

[TankLV]

41. "heavy hand" - "large pool"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

stop - your killing me!

[Ifonly]

13. stop using CREDIT/DEBIT cards

I know next to nothing about Eliot Spitzer. But am I the only conspiracy-minded around here to think the following: Who knows what this is really about. Is it possible that Eliot Spitzer was getting a lot of powerful people very nervous getting near to something that he shouldn't have in his investigations? And was set up here? How do we know what really happened?

And something else I would like to mention. This morning on NPR I heard a report that really got to me more than usual. A reporter was telling how much banks nowadays are tracking everything people are doing with their money in order to look for patterns (this came about, the reporter said, because of the Patriot Act). I mean I was pretty incensed that this is going on! So what I want to tell people reading this is -- PLEASE AVOID USING CREDIT/DEBIT CARDS AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!! The powers that be want us all to start using electronic money exclusively, so then they have total control of us. As pointed out in the DVD "America: Freedom to Fascism", once we go completely electronic money, they can turn off your access to everything -- food, transportation, etc. -- if you are not a good little boy or girl! So PLEASE let's try to continue to use PAPER money as much as possible, as inconvenient as it may be...

[truth2power]

14. You're not the only conspiracy -minded one here, ...

and those of us who try to raise the alarm get a bad rap, IMO.

Anyone who doesn't know that our country is in the hands of the most execrable, loathsome, villianous creatures to walk the earth since Hitler are just not paying attention. Or....they have some sort of agenda.

Getting rid of this infestation is going to be analogous to ridding your home of cockroaches. And you know, where you see one, there are hundreds more lurking in the walls. I despair at the thought.

As to your remark about credit/debit cards, you are spot-on! I try to stay "off the grid" so to speak, as much as possible. Even at that, I can tell that the PTB know more about my life than is necessary.

People like you and I tried to tell them 7 years ago, but few were listening.

[Speciesamused]

17. I agree on both counts.

:grouphug:

[defendandprotect]

28. Thanks for trying to keep us aware . . .

I think all of this has to be considered --- that's part of this rising fascism ---
finally you don't really know what has been going on ---

As some have made clear, they've known about this for two months or more ---
yet went on with taping his phone calls -- probably would have been enough time to
"tape" the encounter at the Mayflower Hotel----??????

Needless to say, I'm sure his wife would know if this were real or not ---
and she looked pretty legitimately aggravated ---

Meanwhile, there is no way that the right wing comes to power without a long period of political
violence ---

Also noticed how all this "noise" about Spitzer helped make the Federal Reserve's move to
print another $200 billion to pass on to Wall Street/Banks had a soft landing -- !!!

These are economic considerations which our CONGRESS --- no the Fed --- should be making.

[defendandprotect]

26. Certainly must be considered . . . .

and I don't think it's far out thinking ---

As I replayed my thought in my own mind that, "We call Bush a moron and idiot" . . .
it opened the way to the thought that there is some possibility that Spitzer isn't
that stupid?

First, it would seem unlikely that he wasn't at least targeted ---
that seems quite clear to me ---

He's prosecuted prostitute rings so he understands what would cause questions ---
and how people get caught ---

Spitzer must also be aware --- unless his brain totally dropped to his pelvic area --
that there was strong hatred for him on Wall Street and with banks ---

If there was a frame up, difficult to say if we'll ever know ---
but if Spitzer with all his power and money couldn't withstand something like that . . . who could?

And --- I agree with you about the debit/credit card ---

[Ifonly]

37. Welcome to Fascist America

There was more to the NPR report that I had forgotten about. Below is another poster (from a different forum) talking about this. Remember, we are all now in databases kept by the banks where we have chosen to store our money, we all have been given a rating as to how closely we match the criteria for being a suspected terrorist, AND the banks cannot reveal this to us under penalty of law:

#
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/12/7639/

Published on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 by the Rocky Mountain News (Colorado)
Was Spitzer Targeted?
by Paul Campos


edward greer March 12th, 2008 4:14 pm

Were it not for the man’s record in prosecuting folks for prostitution + enlarging the legal scope of this group of crimes — and boasting about it as well — I would think the matter too trivial for any response. But by far outweighing any sentiment that, hoist by his own petard, he got what was coming to him, there is a really serious problem. As it turns out, since 9/11 every bank customer is secretly assigned a Risk Assessment Score (on secret criteria, and with no legal method of contestation & banks are subject to criminal prosecution if they provide any info on yours), and that (all?) elected officials are automatically given the equivalent of a top score. Based on this “anti-terrorism” intelligence procedure — which even the New York Stazte Attorney General didn’t know about, a handful of trivial and apparently legal money transfers — no more than 80k over several months for a guy whose annual income is $2million was targeted. These transactions apparently sufficed for a federal wiretap warrant to be duly issued by a federal judge. It seems that based upon discovering that this fellow was paying an affluent sex worker, the government THEN proceeded to target her employer’s business; and to commence a prosecution thereunder which in turn provided — in effect retroactively — grounds to expose his nefarious behavior and effectively force (because of general American craziness over sex)his resignation. What this confirms is that the bulk of the adult citizenry is now subject to ongoing detailed scrutiny over all their financial transactions; and that any “irregularities” in any of them can — at the entirely arbitrary whim of federal officials — provide the basis for secret searches of our private communications. I didn’t know that the technological basis existed for this level of oversight but it seems that no matter how many billions of bank transactions there are in this country every day, the government has the practical ability to sift out whichever individual(s) it chooses to for this precisely targeted surveillance, that it is at least facially legal for it to do so, and that it is already doing so. PS To the best of my knowledge, in exchange for this alteration in citizen-government relations, not a single terrorist has been uncovered: the only known person to be brought down was the Governor of New York.

[BrklynLiberal]

15. Kudos..You asked every question that was on my mind...including what the hell does a woman do to

earn $5,000-$15,000 per hour....

[azygous]

16. His motivation for zealous crime fighting

obviously was not a reverence for the law. He did provide some clues over the past year that he was motivated by his contempt for certain people and groups than for true justice. For anyone to engage in such self-destructive behavior indicates a degree of self loathing as well as a general burden of anger directed outward. There's apparently a lot more to Spitzer than he's let the world see. Until now. Unlike GW Bush, this is a classic example of a tragic figure - what a waste.

[bagrman]

19. Live by the sword, and die by it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. you bring up an interesting point

Have you noticed that the men who fled from any military serivce are the ones who are starting wars. Esp. Bush's AWOL from National Guard now using National Guard for a back door draft.
In Fla. an Assistant US Attorney General who was prosecuting child pornography was arrested in a sting for child sex, turns out he had a Facebook or MySpace web sight with pics of women in diapers. He killed himself in jail.
A major emphasis of DOJ is child pornography.

In our "fight against terrorism" we terrorize others.
"voter fraud" is used as an excuse for committing "election fraud".


This whole administration has a major case of projection.

[Time for change]

20. Let's face it -- If you have enough money, $4,300 an hour is like me spending

$5 an hour.

[mirrera]

22. As a woman, I want to know as well...

Hubby has a birthday...;-)

[TomInTib]

23. Dang, that is hilarious. nt

[mirrera]

24. Yeah hubby liked it too... inquiring minds want to know.

[YDogg]

25. Pictures?

;-)

[defendandprotect]

29. Is something else going on . . . ????? ????

Governor Spitzer has long battled with the former comptroller for New York States Pension Fund, Alan G. Hevesi, who holds duel Israeli-American citizenship, and prompted a US Federal Probe that charged Comptroller Hevesi of using the over $100 billion of funds entrusted to him for the personal benefit of his friends and family, and to which Mr. Hevesi pled guilty for and paid a $5,000 fine.

The focus of Governor Spitzer’s investigation, these reports state, revolve around the growing crisis embroiling the Carlyle Group as it nears total collapse and is facing insolvency due to Larry Silverstone’s withdrawal of over $14 billion from the embattled groups coffers, and which could see the loss to New York States already troubled massive pension fund of over $10 billion.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1077.htm

Hevesi uses $100 billion o ffunds for his personal benefit and is FINED $5,000 ... !!! ????
WHAT???

The Carlyle Group is collapsing and Larry Silverstone was heavily invested in the fund and having
withdrawn now $14 billion . . . ???!!!!

[0007]

31. A well thought out plan did the family guy in. Hate can fuel a heat

score like Love fuels action.

Who knows for sure????

[defendandprotect]

33. Is Elliot Spitzer this stupid . . . ????

[0007]

30. Good question! Without a doubt, it may been to confirm the transaction

between bank and the set-up person. Who knows for sure.

[NMDemDist2]

32. ROFL, sorry I'm too late to recommend heheeh n/t

[reorg]

35. A young hooker eager to launch a singing career, apparently

Name, picture and mention of MySpace page seem to be everywhere (incl. BBC, NYT)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/ashley_alexandra_dupre/index.html?inline=nyt-per

and on her "MySpace" page (5 million views yet), the following friends (their pages appear to be authentic) are in the "top five":

Whitney
Madonna
Mary J. Blige
Amy Winehouse
Celine Dion

Hm.