Posted on 11/03/2015 5:38:45 PM PST by jimbo123
It has become legend in Florida political circles, a missing chapter in Marco Rubio's convoluted financial story: two years of credit card transactions from his time in the state House, when he and other Republican leaders freely spent party money.
Details about the spending, which included repairs for Rubio's family minivan, emerged in his 2010 U.S. Senate race. But voters got only half the story because the candidate refused to disclose additional records.
Now Sen. Rubio's past is under fresh scrutiny as he emerges as a top presidential prospect. During last week's debate he deflected questions about his financial discipline - most recently, he liquidated a retirement account - but those questions will only intensify.
"For years I've been hearing that his credit cards are a disaster," Donald Trump said Tuesday during a news conference in New York City.
"It's fair game," Jeb Bush said as he campaigned in New Hampshire, noting the party never gave him a credit card.
The Tampa Bay Times asked Rubio's team for the records in June and again in early October.
A top strategist, Todd Harris, said Tuesday they would be released soon, possibly within the month, but declined to answer questions about what they might contain.
As speaker of the Florida House, Rubio was one of about a half-dozen lawmakers given Republican Party of Florida credit cards. During the Senate race, the Times/Herald obtained Rubio's statements from 2006 and 2007, showing he routinely charged personal expenses, from a $10.50 movie ticket to a four-day, $10,000 family reunion.
In those two years he charged about $110,000, and he said he sent about $16,000 to American Express to cover personal expenses, though the expenses were never detailed. In a 2012 memoir, he wrote, "From January of 2005 until October of 2008 I charged about $160,000
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
If it’s true about Rubio cheating, wasn’t Jeb busted for cheating on Columba, too?
And Trump declared bankruptcy 4 times screwing people out of millions. Lets put the records together and compare who screwed more people out of more money.
Rubio is also known for conning voters as shown by his lies regarding amnesty. I agree he is not a moral man. There are also various rumors that may or may not be true.
As long as he followed the rules who cares. Want things to change? Change the laws.
Some of the expenses were when no-show Rubio
was wined by Mexicans and enjoyed their lap dances.
Sorry but I would rather Rubio get a lap dance then Cruz missing a key vote due to attending a gay pride party at his best friends home. I will take Rubio’s lap dance any day. We have to have some normalcy in this country and attending a gay party is not normal. Still love ya though....
imho, the TBT will try anything possible to take down a Republican to try to ensure the election of a Democrat. Articles in that ‘newspaper’ appear to lean liberal (putting it nicely)and, if not blatantly biased, use innuendo to diminish Republicans. Seems they’re concerned Rubio just might beat the preferred Democrat. And, if they can influence ‘no votes’ for Rubio .....well then, happy days ....another 4 years of Obama like government...free stuff for all and divide and conquer. of course, until the government comes for them.......
Rubio is a very devious liar amnesty operative. Good riddance
Come on, Rubio is not a Muslim.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/politics
Posted: 11/03/2015 1:51 pm EST Updated: 11/03/2015 1:59 pm EST
Follow the Money: Marco Rubio, Paul Singer, and the Argentine Connection
On Halloween morning, the New York Times broke the scary news that GOP presidential contender Marco Rubio just won the jackpot: the endorsement of billionaire hedge fund investor Paul Singer. But aside from citing Singer’s praise for Rubio’s “message of optimism” and “work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” the story offered little explanation of what could prove to be a decisive turning point in the Republican primary race.
On the policy front, Rubio clearly meets Singer’s requirement for a candidate who favors lower taxes on the rich and, even more important, a blank check for Israel’s right-wing government. With his hawkish stands on the Middle East, including fervent opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, Rubio had already won over another leading Republican “bundler,” New York attorney Phil Rosen, former chairman of American Friends of Likud and a believer that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians “was, and will always be, a holy war.”
Rubio is a protégé of Florida billionaire Norman Braman, who has contributed at least six figures to support the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Rubio reportedly leads the all-important “Adelson primary,” the race to tap the virtually unlimited cash box of gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the single most prominent U.S. supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
All that is music to Singer’s ears, but Rubio’s “work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee” is about something else altogether: his political support for Singer’s efforts to drain more than $1.5 billion dollars from Argentina in payments on old bonds that lost most of their value after the country defaulted in 2001. Singer’s Elliott Management bought that debt several years ago for less than $50 million, and then successfully sued in U.S. court to demand full recovery of the face amount — in the face of opposition from the Obama administration, most other bondholders, and, above all, Argentina’s government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Singer, who is famous for his bare-knuckles tactics against foreign governments, has gone after Kirchner’s government on all fronts. Most strategically, he supported the highly questionable claims by an Argentine prosecutor that the Kirchner government tried to cover up the involvement of the Iranian government in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.
The issue was perfect for a smear campaign: targeting alleged Iranian terrorism and government anti-Semitism, Singer could undercut the legitimacy of the one entity standing between him and huge profits on his speculative bond purchases.
Singer’s Elliot Management is a major backer of American Task Force Argentina, which advocates for full repayment of the Argentine bonds and has spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress. It also spends big bucks to blacken Argentina’s reputation.
As Huffington Post reported in 2013, the group “has launched a broad attack on Argentina in its PR campaign. [Its] Politico ad, paid for by ATFA, slammed the country as a safe haven for narcotics traffickers. Another ATFA ad accuses Argentine President Cristina Kirchner of making a “pact with the Devil,” pointing to a legal memo between her country and Iran involving Argentina’s effort to prosecute Iranian defendants in a terrorism case.”
As one of its lobbyists told Huffington Post, “We do whatever we can to get our government and media’s attention focused on what a bad actor Argentina is.”
An investigation by Charles Davis for Inter Press Service showed that employees of Singer’s Elliott Management contributed more than $95,000 to Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who wrote a letter denouncing President Kirchner’s agreement with Iran to investigate the 1994 bombing. Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who received $38,000 from Elliott Management employees, co-sponsored legislation demanding that Argentina’s bondholders receive full compensation, and called for an investigation of Argentina’s ties with Iran. Other recipients of Singer’s largesse, including AIPAC, The Israel Project, and the American Enterprise Institute, also hammered the Kirchner government, virtually accusing it of anti-semitism.
Last year, another member of Congress got in on the act: Senator Marco Rubio. While grilling President Obama’s nominee as U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Rubio complained that Buenos Aires “doesn’t pay bondholders, doesn’t work with our security operations... These aren’t the actions of an ally.”
Adding a dig at President Kirchner, he added, “We have this trend in Latin America of people who get elected but then don’t govern democratically. Argentina is an example of this.” His speech triggered an angry response from Kirchner’s Foreign Minister Hector Timerman — an Argentine Jew — calling Rubio an “extremist.”
This May, Rubio introduced a resolution in the Senate suggesting that Kirchner conspiried to “cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 terrorist bombing.” Rubio declared that the issues in the case “extend well beyond Argentina and involve the international community, and more importantly, U.S. national security.”
As Eli Clifton noted, “It turns out that Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, was Rubio’s second largest source of campaign contributions between 2009 and 2014, providing the presidential hopeful with $122,620, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.”
When Kirchner herself had the temerity this spring to link Singer to various neo-conservative attacks on her policies, citing a “global modus operandi” to coerce foreign states, the reliably neo-conservative editorial page of the Washington Post published a reply titled, “Argentina’s President Resorts to Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories.”
To which Jim Lobe and Charles Davis, citing a long list of Singer connections to Kirchner’s critics, replied, “follow the money.” That advice, made famous in the movie version of Watergate’s Deep Throat, remains the best guide to understanding billionaire funding of candidates in the 2016 election.
Yeah...I’ll give him that. And he’s probably not a communist either.
I saw this fool on Greta’s show this evening.
He talks at 90mph, like he’s hyped up on some drug. Whenever Greta tried to ask a question he would interrupt her half-way through and start reeling off his memorized defense rhetoric.
I finally had to hit the mute button, as his staccato rhythm of speaking in a monotone drives me crazy. How did someone who grew up in and lives in Florida learn to speak like that?
... and trying to trade on his race.
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Rubio is Caucasian.
I agree with all else you said.
I think Rubio has already said he’s not going to run for reelection to the Senate.
Like Carson and probably some others running, he’s just trying to amass personal campaign money that he can keep when he drops out.
And Trump declared bankruptcy 4 times screwing people out of millions.
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Is that you, Chris Wallace?
Four businesses filed for bankruptcy; Trump has never done so. He’s owned around 500 businesses, so that amounts to around 1%. He did nothing illegal.
gay midget porn
Perfect!
Yes you are correct. I meant his Latino-ness.
Waiting for all the facts to come in before judging, but at the very least, I do think Rubio is not ready for the presidency. He needs a little more experience and maturity.
Cruz is around his age, but much more mature and READY.
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