$11,000 for meals, $30,000 for hotels for Trump's Kennedy Center MAGAt "executives"

[Miles Archer]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kennedy-center-goons-champagne-and-hotel-bills-exposed/

As Kennedy Center violinists scramble to figure out whether they’ll still have jobs after Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to shut the place down for two years, others connected to the Center are fiddling while Rome burns.

Senior MAGA-aligned executives at the storied arts institution have been racking up thousands of dollars in dining and champagne services, even as attendance tanked in the wake of Trump’s takeover. One set of receipts, for example, shows almost $11,000 being billed to the center for meals that included three bottles of $175 Veuve Clicquot, shrimp cocktails and racks of lamb, plus Hendricks and negronis thrown in for good measure. Three names popped up on the tab: Nick Meade, who was Ric Grenell’s senior adviser before being installed as VP of governance; former national chairman of the Young Republicans Rick Louhery, who is now the Kennedy Center’s EVP, and Taylor Strand, the senior head of marketing. The center also picked up a $740 bill for Meade’s birthday celebrations in May; a $400 delivery of water for its “Israeli Lounge”; five of invoices for $655 “champagne services”; and a $4000 bill for a “Chinese Buffets for the Ambassador”.

Then there’s the lodging. Around the same time Kennedy Center executives were wining and dining, $30,000 also went towards stays for newly hired executives, contractors, and Grenell associates at the famous Watergate Hotel, where rooms can cost up to $700 a night (unless you take the historic “Scandal Room”—Room 214—which sets you back about $1600 a night.) Strand, for example, clocked up a $3100 bill for 10 days at the Watergate last May; Lisa Dale, who was brought in as center’s new head of development, spent $4771 bill for an almost two week stay around the same period; while Marlon Bateman, an independent contractor who reportedly helped Grenell fire staff, had a bill of $2400 for six days.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Trump is generous

when he's spending other peoples' money

[Norrrm]

2. Good work if you can get it. Maybe it helps to know the right people.