March 18

 

 

 

 

The rise and fall of Rep. Aaron Schock

The heat was perhaps a little too intense for “totally, totally straight” 34-year-old Republican Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois, who has been dogged by gay reports, financial irregularities and ethics violations. He announced yesterday that he would resign his House seat at the end of the month. Heretofore, Schock was considered a "rising star" of the Republican Party.

"I do this with a heavy heart," Schock said in a statement that included the comment that he had given the people of his Peoria-area district “his all” since his 2008 election. "But the...questions over the last...weeks have proven a...distraction that has made it too difficult for me to serve the people of the 18th District with the high standards that they deserve and which I have set for myself."

Schock has come under heavy scrutiny following revelations of lavish spending, payments to donors for flights on private jets and improperly categorized expenses. On Monday, the Office of Congressional Ethics began an investigation.

Your blogger admits that Schock's political fall is tantalizing and well-deserved. Schadenfreude never felt so satisfying. In spite of a journalist revealing that he had caught Schock showering with his gay roommate a year ago, Schock still insists that he is 100% “not gay” (they were perhaps just “saving water”?) Hypocrisy at this level is deserving of a little tongue-clucking and ridicule. Sorry, I just can’t help myself.

Even though Rep. Schock has been caught by TMZ cameras trolling gay bars, he has voted against the repeal of the “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell” policy and Defense of Marriage Act, and against LGBT hate crimes legislation. The man is scum.

Regarding lavish spending, his staff panicked when Washington Post reporters recently came snooping around his lavishly newly-decorated congressional offices, completed with scarlet red walls and brass urns filled with pheasant feathers.


















Taxpayers coughed up tens of thousands of dollars for trips on private planes owned by his political donors, and shady real estate and banking transactions involving his donors has led to public scrutiny.

Schock traveled to India on official business in August 2014, a trip during which he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A young “personal” photographer and videographer named Jonathan Link accompanied him, and Link’s expenses were covered by The Global Poverty Project. The problem is that House rules allow a member to accept private money for a companion's travel expenses only if the companion is a staffer, spouse or child; furthermore, Schock never disclosed that Link (below) had accompanied him on the trip.

Representative Schock in happier times:

Locker room voyeur:

 

 

Frat boys: Hell week (bondage night)