Quick, what’s the number one thing that would make you lose your mind if you saw a Republican doing it during a government shutdown that’s gone on for more than a month, robbing hundreds of thousands of workers of multiple paychecks, all so Donald Trump can continue demanding money for a vanity wall that only seven percent of Americans want?
I gave it away in the headline, I know. But still, I bet a lot of people would name “flying first class” at least in the top three things that would piss them off during the shutdown, maybe in between “buying hookers and cocaine” and “loudly complaining about how full they are from the lobster.”
And if I, a lowly news aggregator in only the 13th-biggest media market in America, can see what kind of optics it might present to show up on a flight traveling first class during the shutdown, you’d think that Rep. Rodney Davis, a Republican from Illinois’ 13th Congressional District, might at least have someone on his staff to tell him what a dumb idea that is.
For one passenger on a flight with Rep. Davis, it was too much:
Congressman, do you think it’s appropriate to fly first class while 57 [thousand] TSA agents aren’t being paid? (Silence from the Congressman)
Taking that as a ‘yes.’ Taxpayers paid for this flight? Fair enough.”
Of course, Rep. Davis’ spokeswoman Ashley Phelps told HuffPo that he had purchased a coach ticket and was upgraded to first class for free. So perhaps he does employ someone who understands how bad that looks. Clearly, he still doesn’t have anyone on his staff who can manage to scrub the internet of this DCCC campaign video from 2014 that pointed out how often he flies first class on the taxpayer dime, though:
Featured image via screen capture
