It's like putting a crisp one dollar bill in the Maitre d's pocket.

One Ol’ George Washington ought to get me a table at this fine establishment.

I was lead to believe there would be at least a briefcase of cash

It’s still the 70’s to somebody.

Is money inside of an envelope inside of a bag of chips technically a burrito?

We have reached Bribery Sandwich Theory, we can turn the internet off, all is complete.

Does that mean my wallet is a sandwich?

That's what I'm saying!

....who carries $200 in cash? I won't even venmo for less than $750

Them: Oh garçon, here’s a fiver to get a table by the window, please. Garçon:: puts them by the door to the kitchen or the front door that gets a cold blast when anyone new comes in ::

“Another insult - and, I think, a light one” (Love a bit of G&S)

Well, any time you open a potato chip bag with bribe money, you're going to be disappointed by how much of it was air.

The explanation was that “In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude”. I have questions. 1. Gratitude for what? 2. Is the potato chip bag a required part of the cultural gesture?

It always mostly air in the chip bags

To be fair, she wasn't offering a bribe. She mistook her for her dealer.

All That And A Bag Of Chips

It's a reporter, how much could it cost?

"Go buy yourself something nice!"

Cheap assed bribers. It probably wasn’t even the good chips.

Herr's are good and from Eastern PA, so at least they are buying local, well, regional. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhn...

Also the whole "in Chinese culture bribes are a symbol of affection" rationale is both racist and weird, mind you they didn't use the word "bribe"

Yeah. They call it a gift. And it comes in a specific form and format. And is reserved for people you know well either personally or in business. So what she did is *totally* the same.

Explanation is still BS, but I suggest you look up "red envelopes in Chinese culture."

Going out on a limb, but I assume it's not part of Chinese tradition to deliver it hidden in an old packet of chips in a discreet meeting in a supermarket, like you're some sort of 1960s Berlin spy.

At least have some huge dried abalone in some gaudy fake gold plated box or something my people have standards

Yeah, a chip bag is NOT a hong bao, sorry. It’s a straight up bribe and typically for Adams, just corrupt and disgusting.

the actual cultural practice she's trying to use as an excuse is not a bribe, but it's something you do for friends and family, on holidays and special occasions. not a random reporter you just met

Yep. I saw the red envelope first without knowing the names of the people involved and was wondering if an Asian did it. But since it isn't Chinese New Year, nor any special occasion, and it was in a bag of greasy potato chips, we know the explanation is bull.

I thought that was a McDonalds French Fry pocket.

Well, it’s a little more complicated bsky.app/profile/beij...

And, you know, you just hand them a red envelope, without hiding it in a bag of potato chips.

Plus gifts of money are usually given outright, not hidden inside an open bag of potato chips.

Echoes of the defense strategy by Bob and Nadine Menendez: "Gifts of gold bars are common between friends in Egypt; this bribery is prosecution is based on ignorance and cultural insensitivity."

I'm Chinese American and I think we all know better, even though bribing officials is so culturally relevant that it's in our funeral customs to bribe the bureaucrats of hell

www.chineseamericanfamily.com/how-to-buy-a...

I just keep questioning the delivery package of a potato chip bag. If it were a gift, shouldn’t she have wrapped it up?

I’m not aware of any culture where friendly gifts are shoved into old food bags as wrappers and given in a way to avoid detection rather than out in the open, absent perhaps between affair partners. Which seems like maybe not the defense angle they wanna take here.

Oh, I have definitely palmed a twenty to a niece or nephew and said, “you don’t need to tell your mother/father..”

I've always preferred "baksheesh" because it's fun to say.

"Yeah, well this ain't China.."

Sadly that was true in many of the eastern bloc countries during the USSR. When it’s part of a budgetary line item on your financials for a business…

sometimes people call it this instead en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagniappe

They should have just handed the journalist a Starbucks gift card! 💳

I don't know why I find the $200 so funny.

All that amd a bag of chips, eh?

But how many chips were left in the bag?

She just wanted one friend!

A prof of mine once told of a parent who tried to bribe him for a better grade for his son. He offered $20K. The prof told him that even if he were so inclined, that wasn't nearly enough to make up for losing his career. For a million or two maybe they could talk.

Two grease-stained Benjamins are the perfect symbol for Eric Adams’s mayoral tenure.

That's like leaving A 1-cent tip to a server.

Yeah, but have you seen the price of chips lately?!

It's just a downpayment. He uses Klarna for all his bribery needs.

the "all that" in "all that and a bag of chips" is supposed to be more than $200

But think of how many bags of potato chips that can buy, like maybe 10! (No idea what grocery prices are in new York city, nor how far you'd need to go to get to the nearest place that sells them)

It just goes to show how cheap it is to bribe someone in that government. I mean are you offering someone a bribe you wouldn't take? Probably not.

"How dare he try to bribe me. How dare he try to bribe me so *small*." -Moist von Lipwig, "Making Money"

There's a Discworld quote for every occasion, it seems.

Reminds me of the old joke with the punchline, "We've already established that, now we are just haggling over the price."

It's always astounding just how little corrupt politicians can be bought for.

The real scandal was the friends we bought along the way.

I hope it was a $2000 bribe and they used the extra $1800 to buy a printer before reporting.

… i wouldn’t brake for that guy when he was crossing the street for 200$

Wow, that article was insane. This is the sort of thing that stops some people from voting because they start to believe everyone is corrupted.

It probably started as $2000, but the advisor took his cut off the top

Or perhaps it's a more serious use of my standing joke of: "I'll be nice and not tell anyone about that $1000 bribe you tried to give me." "It was $5000!" "Want to tell a judge that?" In this case, understating the amount as a plausible typo to bait an admission.

Sir, this bribe is from the 1950s.

And a method from Saturday morning cartoons.

But how many chips were left in the bag?

She likely assumed that The City was a smaller publication compared to NYT, and consequently, their reporters must be financially constrained, so $200 must be enough. In Ghana, where most elected officials engage in this practice, it is referred to as “SOLI.” akademie.dw.com/en/cash-for-...

Everyone laughing at the small amount, you know what journalism pays these days? They would've kept him in ramen for a *month*.

I once had a boss semi-accuse me of taking $5 from the till. I told her I was more insulted by thought that I would steal so little than that I was a thief.

And an off-brand of chips (Herr's), too. Presumably, a reporter for one of the big dailies would've gotten Lay's or Wise.

Herr's is not an off-brand, tyvm.

This is like, one of the stupidest bribery attempts I've seen in a while. Every detail makes it all the more ridiculous.

I like to think it was more, and the reporter took some of it before reporting it. They never make enough!

It's tough out there for journalists these days, John!

"Psst! Here's $128.47, make sure you write a GOOD story, okay?"🤣🤣🤣🤣

Conservatives are out of touch with the world. Who thinks $200 is enough to bribe a journalist? There's way more value in reporting this bribery attempt.

“… $200? That’s all? Thought you said you were going to validate my parking!”

You are known by the company you keep. Adams needs to improve everything around him (and within him).

So, for bribes of $199 or less, you can just use petty cash. Less paperwork that way. There’s a manila envelope in the filing cabinet in the corner. But make sure you let me know when it gets low.