Did former Senator Krysten Sinema go on an end of year status run for Marriott Ambassador before her term expired? She spent over $20,000 of campaign cash on a single hotel stay at a Marriott property in Saudi Arabia right before the election (that she wasn’t running in).
Perhaps nobody enjoyed the perks of using donated campaign cash on travel as much as the former one-term Senator from Arizona. Halfway through her term she became an independent. The expectation was she’d avoid a Democratic primary this way, since the once-liberal firebrand had moved to the center while in office. She had plenty of money on hands in her campaign coffers, and she kept spending it on travel – even as she was no longer campaigning.
Sinema also used campaign funds to pay about $2800 for private car service in Paris before the election and $1900 for private car service in London after the election
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) February 1, 2025
She’s spoken publicly against Saudi Arabia about “torture and capital punishment against the LGBTQ community” and called for “a very strict stance” against the country for killing Jamal Khashoggi. Maybe she was campaigning for votes against the Saudi regime while in-country?
She spent $900,000 from her campaign for security detail expenses in 2024. Her leadership PAC also paid for security expenses. Her security consultant, by the way, is Tulsi Gabbard’s sister who may be making progress towards Marriott spend-based status as well? “In 2022, Sinema’s campaigns spent over $56,000 for security detail lodging at Marriott hotels alone.”
Maybe Sinema was making a run at Cobalt?
She’s known to be an American AAdvantage Executive Platinum member. Her campaign disclosures show 49 American Airlines charges in the second half of 2024 – mostly for airfare, but also for inflight wifi. She’s paying for a monthly multi-device subscription. She’s also paying for inflight wifi access on Delta. And her campaign makes payment on a Barclays credit card, which is presumably an AAdvantage Aviator co-brand. She also has a Chase card though it’s not clear if that’s a Marriott co-brand.
The former Senator’s campaign still had about $5 million cash at the end of September and no election to run. It wass like Brewster’s Millions. She could spend it on travel, but couldn’t have ‘stuff’ left after leaving office to be converted to personal use. So she couldn’t buy United’s Global Services with prepaid travel. And she probably couldn’t just spend it all on GHA Discovery Dollars to use on hotel stays later.
Don’t fear for her though, because she was able to use the leftover money to create a political action committee, and leverage that for ongoing (travel) expenses. That’s important because she is very particular about her travels. She likes room temperature bottled water available at all times (honestly, so do I). She likes a weekly hour-long massage. She wants to avoid flying Southwest though they’re a huge carrier in her home state and asks staffers to pick her preferred seats (also reasonable).
Should have staying at Hyatts and going for lifetime Globalist.
Kinda sounds like the mayor of South Fulton, GA, the mayor of Dolton, Illinois, mayor of New York, and a couple of others!
Are campaign contribution laws really this lenient allowing politicians to use funds beyond what they were originally raised for? Shouldn’t this be illegal and/or be enforced by some regulatory body so as to keep our politicians honest (at least with campaign funds)?
This should not surprise anyone. These laws are written by the people who will benefit from them the most. What happened to all the donated funds for the sitting president’s inauguration?
How does that surprise anyone? Dem politicians are the most corrupted group of anyone!
The difference is this last 4 yrs has cost 100’s of Americans their lives, so Now u wake up
I’d soil some hotel sheets with her.
How do you spend $20,000 at a mid-level hotel in Saudi Arabia?
Senator Sinema is yet another example of the corruption and bad taste that has become a hallmark of this sad era.
Kyrsten betrayed her party and her constituents in favor of special interests and her own personal greed.
She knew better. She had humble beginnings as a social worker. The money and power clearly changed her.
All for what? For AA/Marriott status? Massages? Pathetic. To funnel money to the Saudis? Disgusting. Shame!
All I can say about Krysten Sinema is “good riddance.” What a two-faced sell-out. I have to think everyone who sent her all that cash have to be furious.
PAC and other political donations are the the method pur political leaders have devised to legalize bribery.
Most could write a book “How to Live Like a Billionaire on Someone Else”
Right Bill, she and Manchin did a lot of damage that they happily walked away from. Reminds me of someone else too who is still in office, acting like an angry 5 year old with a box of matches…. But Citizens United has corrupted the whole system, bringing so much money in that nothing gets done without a payoff. It’s sad that people actually pay attention to political advertising as a way of “learning about the issues”, and sadder that everyone running for office is begging for more and more of it, but making up one’s mind and having the guts to stand up for what they believe has become a joke in Washington and the statehouses.
Maybe the current administration and its DOGE should look at campaign finance laws instead of the nonsense they are currently wasting taxpayer money on.
I’m so incredible disappointed in Ex-Senator Sinema, not just for this, which is completely unsurprising at this point, but for basically everything she did since being elected to the Senate.
She was a proud progressive voice in Arizona politics and also an accomplished triathlete who completed the IRONMAN Arizona. I gladly supported her career even as a non-Arizonan, only to see her apparent betrayal of her principles once she took office and that sweet donor and PAC money flowed.
Good riddance, Kyrsten, and I hope I never see you on a group ride. You probably stay in draft and never take your turn on the pull.
@drrichard
With you on Citizens United being the beginning of the end—Congress (might as well be renamed the ‘State Duma’) and the Supreme Court are now rubber stamps for the Emperor. When the next crisis hits, it’s just not gonna go well.
The only beneficiaries appear to be our foreign adversaries (Russia, China) who want us to tear ourselves apart from within, and the tech billionaires (the bro-ligarchs), our modern day robber barrons, who appear unstoppable unless literally pushed out of a window or Luigi’d, which personally I do not advocate for. Who knows, maybe they’ll grow a conscience and actually try to make the world better. Nah, probably not. Build those bunkers and spaceships instead! Pay your bodyguards well so they don’t revolt!
Of course, there are those who believe they incidentally benefit, but only in the short-term, including the so-called ‘culture warriors’ who just wanna ‘own the libs’ by supporting the downfall of our once actually great country. Fellas, mass deportations of the people who grow, pick, process, and prepare our food is not going to help anyone. Fine, use eVerify, and go after the employers for once! Otherwise, yup, let’s all starve together—woop! Likewise, trade wars against our allies and closest trading partners is definitely going to turbo-charge inflation—so, I guess it really wasn’t about the ‘price of eggs’ or ‘her emails’—but it sure was about ‘DEI’ (you know, the n-word, c-word, r-word, etc.) because some of y’all are just insecure racist, sexist, bigots who would rather vote against your own self-interest in order to hate and harm others. You’ll ‘pay the price’ in the end, too. Sad.
There has to be a better way than this chaos, destruction, and violence. I’d love to fast-forward from this ‘cold’ civil war and second ‘Gilded’ age to a new ‘Progressive’ era, but I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon. Such needless suffering. We know better.
I’d like to still live in a safe, welcoming, productive, creative, caring society—and to be able to travel around the world, where folks have similar support systems and can actually ‘thrive’ too. Darn me and my silly empathy.
Anyway, since you brought it up, you got any better ideas for us?
I wish, 1990. Thom Hartmann has an excellent daily column about our current situation, and has written quite extensively about the issues facing this country. He frames them quite well and having a sound knowledge is a first step, so I recommend his work (among others) be read and critically considered. Discussing what one finds with people who have open minds and will consider alternatives is the second, but most followers of you-know-who (to borrow from the Harry Potter books) are not going to listen to anything else.
It is possible things will have to be run into the ground here before they turn around, though sometimes change can be nudged faster than that. Twenty years after Franco Spain was a liberal democracy with an economy that was taking off, the same with Germany. Honest leaders with a plan to turn things around can still rise, and if enough folks get fed up with a declining Oligarchy America based on fear, lies and misinformation then there can be change, if we want it.
Thank you for the genuine recommendation.
There are still ‘smart’ people out there, courageously sharing their thoughts. I also have appreciated and followed closely the historical and topical analysis of Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter, Letters from an American, which eerily echos journalist William L. Shirer‘s works in 1930s Europe. Hoping for a different outcome than there. Yikes.
Of course, there’s the daily satire of light night television hosts, for as long as they are ‘allowed’ to do what they do—after all, thin-skinned dictators are notorious for ‘getting rid’ of the ‘court jesters’ because they cannot have anyone speak even partial truths.
I’m not one of these ‘burn it all down’ accelerationists—though, I enjoy the occasional George Carlin riff like anyone else. I much preferred hard fought, hard won incremental progress, but that clearly wasn’t enough. People do want ‘change,’ but then rely on con-men and simple answers to complex problems. Nuance and expertise are practically dirty words these days.
Time will tell if we actually learned from our ancestors, or are doomed to repeat their mistakes. Take care out there.
Politicians are without a doubt some of the worst VIP type airlines have to deal with. In addition to the total abuse of public funds, it’s not limited to Congressional abuse like Senima’s, but the local political hacks who are quick to try and take full advantage. They expect kid glove treatment and many pay noting for it. More often than not, a dedicated airline employee has to be assigned to deal with their every whim and desire. Expectations from the best seating and special processing; private areas in clubs and special processing thorough airports – i.e. the recent Ted Cruz initiated separate security area for them. The airlines are in a Catch-22 situation fearing legislative retribution if they do not cow tow to them.
I’m in Az and all I know is that Sinema did way less damage to this state and country than Kelly (the poser astronaut) and Gallego.