Michael Steele is just wasting RNC money on limos and private planes and, yes, private bondage-themed nightclubs with topless ladies. Update: A Republican consultant charged the trip to the RNC, and the party says Chairman Mike was not actually there.

Tucker Carlson's The Daily Carlsoning has a wonderful story about how Michael Steele considered buying a private plane, because he spends so much time flying to nightclubs and Hawaii, but he decided not to. Instead he found many other creative ways to waste money.

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Now, Voyeur is not really a "strip club" so much as a terrible-sounding nightclub with bottle service, long lines, Lindsay Lohan, and, yes, half-naked ladies simulating oral sex on each other. Which, to be honest, sounds way stupider than a proper, respectable strip club. Shame on you, Michael Steele, for encouraging this kind of thing.

The GOP really has to get around to firing the embarrassing and inept Michael Steele eventually. Steele spent $1.4 million on the GOP's terrible new website, he charges $15,000 for speaking appearances, and his RNC continues to spend more than it takes in as we begin the campaign season in earnest.

But it would still present a bit of an image problem to fire the one prominent black Republican in America.

Update: In a statement, the RNC says Chairman Steele was not present for the Voyeur nightclub trip. That two grand was, apparently, "a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer."


And the disbursement appears to have covered the check of a Mr. Erik Brown of Orange, California. Brown is a longtime Republican donor and the owner of a direct marketing firm that recently did work for a Republican gubernatorial candidate in California.

We emailed Brown to ask if Steele was actually there that night, and we'll let you know if we hear back from him. (As Alex Pappas at The Daily Tucker reports, Brown has Tweeted about hanging out with Steele fairly recently. But now Erik has deleted his whole Twitter.)