“Have we got a deal for you!”

There were a few telltale signs in the posted photos:  the velvet Elvis on the wall in a guest bedroom, the walk-in closet full of pantsuits in a rainbow of fashionably questionable colors, the pantry shelf full of chips and dips, a McDonald’s bag on the kitchen table, and, of course, the saxophone resting in the corner.

It appears that Bill and Hillary “Dead Broke” Clinton have been using Airbnb to illegally rent out the $10.5 million apartment overlooking Madison Square Park where their daughter Chelsea lives with her husband.  According to an aide to the former Secretary of State:  “Oh, yeah, whenever Chelsea and her husband are away from the apartment for a few days, Bill and Hillary put the listing right back up on Airbnb.com.  They have no shame.”

Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, has been investigating illegal Airbnb apartment rentals in New York City.  Rentals of fewer than 30 days are illegal there unless the owner is present; the arrangements also violate building and safety codes as well as tax regulations.  The attorney general does not appear interested in pursuing individuals who occasionally rent out their apartments.  He is trying to identify those who are running de facto hotels without paying hotel taxes (the AG’s office estimates that about $33 million in hotel taxes have been illegally avoided).  As part of his investigation, the AG’s office looked at four years of Airbnb user data, which suggest, according to the AG, that over 70 percent of the rentals during that period were illegal.  Although the identities of those renting out apartments were meant to remain anonymous in the AG’s review, the Clinton name somehow leaked out.

Said Pierre Beauregard, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Southern Pride Institute at the University of the Confederacy,

“Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that Hillary was involved.  She’s got a weird relationship with money.  That interview with Diane Sawyer back in June suggests that she has a tendency to downplay her and Bill’s financial situation.  And in an interview published in The Guardian, also last June, she strangely implied that they aren’t truly “well off” even though they’ve made over $100 million since ransacking the White House on the way out the door in 2001.  The woman got paid a $225,000 speaker fee last week.  Her political aspirations might be all consuming, in which case they may have made her delusional.  She may have convinced herself that she’s poor.  It would allow he to feel justified in railing against the 1% on the campaign trail.  It would also explain scrambling for a couple hundred bucks on an apartment rental.”

Of Mrs. Clinton, the aide said, “She is beyond cheap.  She had me sell her pantsuits from the 2008 primary to a thrift shop.  When I came back, she asked for the money and receipts.”