Congressional Hypocrites

[piper17 1]

Judicial Watch investigated possible congressional misuse of USAF aircraft for personal use. Funny how Congress and Obama berate corporations for their use of business aircraft then do the same thing themselves...at taxpayers' expense. I wonder why the airlines aren't "good enough" for them. Perhaps they don't like the TSA airport hassles to which they subject "the little people".

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.

Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."

The e-mails showed repeated attempts by Pelosi aides to request aircraft, sometimes aggressively, and by Department of Defense officials to accommodate them.

"I think that's above and beyond what other members of Congress are doing and what is expected of our elected officials," said Jenny Small, a researcher with the group.

The group reported that Pelosi was notorious for making special demands for high-end aircraft, lodging last-minute cancellations, and racking up additional expenses for the military.

In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.

"It is my understanding there are NO G5s (Gulfstream G-5 business jet aircraft) available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.

In another, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King wrote: "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker."
Pelosi's office has not yet responded to requests for comment."

I doubt that Nancy P. will be responding any time soon.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[Unstable 9]

Quote

"It is my understanding there are NO G5s (Gulfstream G-5 business jet aircraft) available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.

What a bitch. That's all I can say.

Now I know that certain perks are granted to government officials - is this one of them?

=========Shaun ==========

[Amazon 7]

Excuse me.. why are you complaining about this now... OH thats right Democrats can NEVER be allowed to use the same perks as the GOP Neo-Cons.

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Judicial Watch investigated possible congressional misuse of USAF aircraft for personal use. Funny how Congress and Obama berate corporations for their use of business aircraft then do the same thing themselves...at taxpayers' expense.

Read up on the new Marine One helicopter contract that Obama is going to have to approve or reject. That one is going to be real interesting to watch. He stands to approve millions of dollars to upgrade the presidential helicopter fleet, while at the same time he's criticizing executives for using personal jets. This one is going to be very entertaining.

[FreeflyChile 0]

Are you suggesting that the President fly commercial?

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Are you suggesting that the President fly commercial?

No. I'm suggesting that since he's asking everyone to tighten their financial belts and make do with less, that he should cancel the new helicopter contract for himself, and continue to make do with the current old helicopter fleet.

But I bet he won't. He'll approve those new shiny choppers.

[billvon 3,116]

>But I bet he won't. He'll approve those new shiny choppers.

Probably.

Of course if he does turn them down, you can bitch about how he's not helping the economy by ordering helicopters, and is therefore a lying hypocrite.

(Obama - there's no one a conservative loves to hate more.)

[Capt.Slog 0]

Quote

Quote

Judicial Watch investigated possible congressional misuse of USAF aircraft for personal use. Funny how Congress and Obama berate corporations for their use of business aircraft then do the same thing themselves...at taxpayers' expense.

Read up on the new Marine One helicopter contract that Obama is going to have to approve or reject. That one is going to be real interesting to watch. He stands to approve millions of dollars to upgrade the presidential helicopter fleet, while at the same time he's criticizing executives for using personal jets. This one is going to be very entertaining.

You mean these ones? The ones that Bush ordered?

February 24, 2009
Obama puts new presidential helicopters on hold

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the President has put on hold an order for a new fleet of presidential helicopters orginally ordered by the previous administration.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama put on hold an order for a fleet of new helicopters that will cost at least $11 billion, his spokesman told CNN Tuesday.

[Capt.Slog 0]

Are you NCCLIMBER come back to haunt us?

www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2657512#2657512

That turned out to be a totally bogus claim when the FACTS came out.

[Amazon 7]

Quote

Quote

Quote

Judicial Watch investigated possible congressional misuse of USAF aircraft for personal use. Funny how Congress and Obama berate corporations for their use of business aircraft then do the same thing themselves...at taxpayers' expense.

Read up on the new Marine One helicopter contract that Obama is going to have to approve or reject. That one is going to be real interesting to watch. He stands to approve millions of dollars to upgrade the presidential helicopter fleet, while at the same time he's criticizing executives for using personal jets. This one is going to be very entertaining.

You mean these ones? The ones that Bush ordered?

February 24, 2009
Obama puts new presidential helicopters on hold

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the President has put on hold an order for a new fleet of presidential helicopters orginally ordered by the previous administration.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama put on hold an order for a fleet of new helicopters that will cost at least $11 billion, his spokesman told CNN Tuesday.

DUUUUUUUUDE

Thatt information is from an unreliable news source. You can NEVER use anything from the Commie News Network for JohnRich.

You will need to get an APPROVED source.. vetted for proper ideaology

[downwardspiral 0]

Please post a link to those "FACTS"

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Capt.Slog 0]

Quote

Please post a link to those "FACTS"

Read the thread I linked - it's all in there.

[downwardspiral 0]

Uh, yeah... I'm not going to read 14 pages of some thread from 2 years ago. You made the claim. You do the work.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Capt.Slog 0]

Quote

Uh, yeah... I'm not going to read 14 pages of some thread from 2 years ago. You made the claim. You do the work.

You wanted a link - I gave you one.

But here's where NCCLIMBER finally admitted to being wrong.

[Capt.Slog 0]

Quote

Uh, yeah... I'm not going to read 14 pages of some thread from 2 years ago. You made the claim. You do the work.

OK, I take pity on you:

www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/09/pelosi.plane/index.html

[nerdgirl 0]

To start: I don’t know the program intimately enough to recommend specifics – whether to cancel the current contract, revise/re-work, or continue. I can ask questions tho'.

If the Lockheed Martin project is cancelled or curtailed who will it impact most directly?

Probably not the President, who has already said the current model is “perfectly adequate” to him. He called it an example of “the procurement process gone amok.”

The contract was awarded in January 2005. The estimated cost has doubled in just over 3 years. Why? Have new requirements been added? (That's one common reason.) Or have the contractors encountered unexpected issues in executing the original design? (Another common reason.) Whose responsibility is it in each case?

“Lockheed Martin Corp.’s presidential helicopter program is now projected to cost $13 billion, more than twice its original estimate.

“The Pentagon, in a 15-page update on the program, blames the increased cost on delays and ‘unanticipated’ work.

“The revised estimate -- 113 percent above the original projection of $6.1 billion -- would bring the average cost per helicopter to at least $470 million, including the expense for research and development. That’s more than Lockheed’s F-22, the most expensive fighter aircraft in U.S. history.

“The president has vowed to curb billions of dollars in wasteful spending at the Defense Department, and the Pentagon is reviewing weapons programs for possible cancellation or delay as it puts together a fiscal 2010 budget. [NB: the DoD had already begun curtailing some, like the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS), as early as 2006 because of cost-overruns. Those are the same programs that generated much noise on the blog-o-sphere last fall because folks didn't understand that FCS was *a* specific program not a generic descriptor. He suggested "belt-tightening" of a program that has had 76% cost-overuns in a single year (I don't know off the top of my head the average per year), and he was criticized for it. - nerdgirl.]

“Obama, at a White House summit on fiscal responsibility Feb. 23, suggested he doesn’t need a new helicopter. The current version ‘Marine One,’ as the presidential helicopter is known, is ‘perfectly adequate’ and doesn’t need to be replaced, he said.

“Richard Aboulafia, an aircraft analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia, said the helicopter ‘was designed in a different budget environment when costs didn’t matter.’

To introduce another complicating factor: this is the same helicopter for which the navigation and flight management systems (avionics) were leaked – by one of the sub-contractors. The data was detected on an Iranian hosted server … so there may be more than just $$$ to consider in decision-making w/r/t the procurement. The details of those systems are highly classified. They should not have been on *any* unclassified network much less an Iranian one. At the same time almost a third (31%) of the respondents to my poll on domestic cyber security thought “no one” should be in charge, another 31% thought “someone else” (likely candidates private sector) should have authority.

At the same time, the President’s nominee for USD(AT&L), Ash Carter, is being criticized because he’s not close enough to industry ...

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

Quote

Read up on the new Marine One helicopter contract that Obama is going to have to approve or reject ... .

You mean these ones? The ones that Bush ordered?

To be fair, while one may argue that the President is at some level notionally responsible for every Executive Branch decision, i.e., 'the Buck Stops here," it is unlikely that President GW Bush had significant substantive input into the design, requirements, or contract decision. The Navy Acquisition Executive at the time, Mr. John Young (he became the UnderSecretary for Acquisitions, Technology & Logistics in 2007), deserves the most credit or criticism, imo.

At this point because the cost-overrun is so large, it's triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach and regardless of what President Obama wants or doesn't want there will be a Congressionally-mandated review of the program.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[jerryzflies 0]

Quote

In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.

"It is my understanding there are NO G5s (Gulfstream G-5 business jet aircraft) available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.

Air Force G5s - aren't they the aircraft Speaker Hastert (R- Illinois) used to fly back and forth on?

Seems a bit like the pot criticizing the color of the kettle.

If you can't fix it with a hammer, the problem's electrical.

[Coreece 190]

Quote

(Obama - there's no one a conservative loves to hate more.)

Yea....and imo their hatred of the idea of a blackman correcting their mistakes is pissing them off so bad that they actually "can't wait" for the DOW to keep dropping again so they can blame his failure....

....just a little straw, but I think it's accurate.

Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

[downwardspiral 0]

Quote

Quote

Uh, yeah... I'm not going to read 14 pages of some thread from 2 years ago. You made the claim. You do the work.

OK, I take pity on you:

www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/09/pelosi.plane/index.html

Thanks for the pity! It's been too long since someone has adopted a condescending attitude toward me on this forum. Was beginning to feel left out.

However, I see your excellent point. It was explained 2 years ago and this appears to be a rehash of the same story.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Amazon 7]

Quote

Quote

Quote

Uh, yeah... I'm not going to read 14 pages of some thread from 2 years ago. You made the claim. You do the work.

OK, I take pity on you:

www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/09/pelosi.plane/index.html

Thanks for the pity! It's been too long since someone has adopted a condescending attitude toward me on this forum. Was beginning to feel left out.

However, I see your excellent point. It was explained 2 years ago and this appears to be a rehash of the same story.

Hey I was trying kinda half heartedly in the other thread

[downwardspiral 0]

LOL I wasn't even referring to you! But now that you bring it up... Are you feeling ok?



Edited to add: Just realized what you meant and no you weren't subtle enough.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Amazon 7]

Quote

LOL I wasn't even referring to you! But now that you bring it up... Are you feeling ok?

Hey at least you have a sence of humor.. something that certain other posters are totally bereft of

[airdvr 210]

Getting back to the subject...
http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/mar/judicial-watch-uncovers-documents-detailing-pelosis-repeated-requests-military-travel
In response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, "Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi's team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?...[T]here's no need to block every weekend 'just in case'..." The email also notes that Pelosi's office had, "a history of canceling many of their past requests."

One DOD official complained about the "hidden costs" associated with the speaker's last minute changes and cancellations. "We have...folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets etc."

The documents include a discussion of House Ethics rules and Defense Department policies as they apply to the speaker's requests for staff, spouses and extended family to accompany her on military aircraft. In May 2008, for example, Pelosi requested that her husband join her on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) into Iraq. The DOD explained to Pelosi that the agency has a written policy prohibiting spouses from joining CODEL's into combat zones.

Documents obtained from the U.S. Army include correspondence from Speaker Pelosi's office requesting an Army escort and three military planes to transport Pelosi and other members of Congress to Cleveland, Ohio, for the funeral services of the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Pelosi noted in her letter of August 22, 2008, that such a request, labeled "Operation Tribute" was an "exception to standard policy."

The documents also detail correspondence from intermediaries for Speaker Pelosi issuing demands for certain aircraft and expressing outrage when requested military planes were not available. "It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable...The speaker will want to know where the planes are..." wrote Kay King, Director of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs. In a separate email, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King writes, "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset peaker."

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[piper17 1]

If you paid attention to my previous postings, I have complained about this very thing. I don't give a hoot about the political affiliation of the hypocritical politicians who criticize those in the public sector but do the same or worse themselves at taxpayer expense.

The politicians of both parties have abused the taxpayers long enough. The Democrats lost their hold on congressional power during Clinton's administration, the Republicans took over...and became "Democrat-lite". The American voters through them out and now history repeats itself. Those we send to Washington develop the idea that they are, somehow, better than those who elected them and are entitled to all these perks, self-granted pay raises, etc.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling