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| December 17, 2023 |
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Ignoring
Clint Eastwood's advice in "Dirty Harry" that
opinions, like certain body parts, are best kept to
yourself.
 Something
kept from the public: There is a duplicate Air Force One,
and it is never more than 30 minutes away from the real one.
When the President flies anywhere he takes both of them.
I was reminded of this when I read an article a
couple of weeks ago, about the President heading to
California to attend a fundraiser organized by Hollywood
celebrities. You know, that group of people that pretend to
be other people on the big screen, so they tend to have big
ideas. We've been told, from various sources, that it costs
about $300,000 an hour to operate Air Force One. Since that
estimate comes from the government I suspect it is more than
that. And, they've done a pretty good job of keeping the
fact there are two Air Force Ones from the public. Add to
that, the cost of flying at least one of those giant cargo
planes to carry secret service vehicles and "The Beast",
the heavily armored car for the President, throw in a couple
of jet fighters to go along for protection, and we're
starting to talk about a lot of money. Could it be a million
an hour? Maybe.
Add the cost of hotel rooms for
the President, all the support staff and security, meals,
bar tabs, and maybe we'd be better off to just pay the
political party what they would have raised at that
fundraiser and have everybody stay home in Washington. The
White House bragged in the news last week that that
Hollywood fund-raiser was a big success, bringing in $15
million bucks. Almost enough to cover part of the cost of
raising it.
 Back
in 2015, a story broke about Hillary's travels to give
speeches, collecting hundreds of thousands per copy, but it
was really getting expensive for the taxpayer, with 65
Secret Service agents protecting her.
(Friendly
media got rid of this story pretty fast after it was
published, but not before
"the
Wayback Machine" saved it.)
Why
didn't we just pay Hillary to stay home, and save the
American taxpayers a fortune? Imagine what it costs to send
65 Secret Service agents traveling along with her and pay
for hotels, meals, and transportation?
If it looks
like I'm picking on just one political party today, I'm not,
they both do this stuff, except for the recent story in the
news about how
the
president's son blew $5 million dollars on hookers and
blow in just four years, leaving him short of money to
pay his taxes. I don't think both political parties do that,
but I could be wrong.
Please visit
my
travel blog to learn more about my life on the road.
Global
Air Aviation Referral Service
I welcome
responses, and will be glad to post them here. Email your
remarks to
ron@global-air.com |
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