The facts
Republican Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers spent over $100,000 in campaign funds on luxury travel in the last quarter, with a significant portion allocated to private jet trips. Campaign finance records reviewed by The Intercept show Rogers's campaign paid $93,152 to JL Jets for at least five private charter flights in September, including one transaction of $40,000. The campaign also spent $4,527 on luxury car services from Blacklane and $683 on limo rides between July and September. Additionally, the campaign paid $2,165 for BMW repairs for its deputy campaign manager. Rogers's opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has criticized Rogers's corporate ties and spending habits. El-Sayed's campaign, while having higher total travel costs of approximately $330,000 last quarter, utilized commercial flights and standard car rental services. A spokesperson for Rogers defended the spending, stating the car was used for campaign purposes and questioned El-Sayed's own campaign finance activities. Campaign finance rules permit such spending if it is strictly for campaign purposes, with personal use requiring reimbursement.
Our take
So the Michigan Senate race has its very own high-flying grifter, Mike Rogers, who seems to think his campaign donors are a fucking unlimited ATM for the private jet set. This absolute cunt dropped over a hundred grand of other people's money just to avoid the indignity of sitting in a middle seat with the rest of us plebs. Ninety-three thousand dollars to JL Jets? That’s not campaigning, that’s a lifestyle upgrade, you pompous dickhead. Five private charters, including one single forty-thousand-dollar joyride? What was the mission, a crucial strategic summit in the clouds to discuss which flavor of imported sparkling water pairs best with selling out the working class? And let’s not forget the four and a half grand for ‘luxury car services.’ Because a fucking Uber Black just screams ‘man of the people,’ right? This is a candidate so detached from reality he probably thinks ‘gas prices’ are what you pay to fill the hot air balloon he uses for his morning commute.
But the real cherry on this shit sundae is the two grand for BMW repairs for his deputy campaign manager. Campaign finance records show it, so it’s not alleged, it’s a verified fact: Mike Rogers used donor funds to fix a Beamer. His flack’s pathetic excuse that the car was used for ‘campaign purposes’ is the kind of transparent bullshit you’d expect from a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Oh, the BMW was vital for voter outreach? Was the alternator failing to communicate the core message of corporate servitude? Did the brake pads need replacing to slow the rollout of his terrible policy ideas? It’s a level of entitled graft so brazen it would make a used car salesman blush.
Of course his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, called him out on his corporate cuddling and spending like a drunken oligarch. Rogers’s camp, in a stunning display of what-the-fuck-ery, tried to pivot by whining about El-Sayed’s own travel costs. Here’s the difference, you monumental asshole: El-Sayed’s campaign spent more total but did it on commercial flights and standard rentals - the way normal human beings and actual public servants travel. Rogers spent a fortune to cosplay as a hedge fund manager. The rules might technically allow this if it’s for the campaign, but only a truly spectacular prick could look at a hundred-thousand-dollar private jet tab and a BMW repair bill and claim with a straight face that it’s all in the noble pursuit of public service. He’s not running for Senate; he’s running a luxury concierge service funded by rubes. What a total fucking cunt.
