Bush Landing on USS Lincoln too Costly

[shooten]

moa wrote:

Bush could have flown to Pearl Harbor which was the Lincoln's first port of call. But that would have meant flying to Hawaii on Air Force 1 (a jumbo jet ala 747) along with two C130 cargo planes caring all the Secret Service's vehicles and gear. Compared to that, the Viking flight was peanuts.

I was in a private boat watching the USS A. Lincoln come into SD friday. They also had a C-17 carry 3 different Marine 1's into North Island in addition to AF 1 and his security detail. They would have had to fly that out to Hawaii too.

BTW, it was incredible watching the ship come in. We were waving our flags proudly and the crew really seemed to appreciate the turnout. There were probably 30 to 40 private boats. The gunboats with marines with their fingers on the trigger of the 50's was something I've never seen before . They meant business. The Dem's are clearly desparate to make this an issue.

Scott

 

[Mike Irwin]

"Again, why couldn't he have taken a helo and worn a business suit?"

He certainly could have.

Lord knows other Presidents have done so.

But why should he have?

Dozens of Naval aviators land and take off on a carrier every day.

Why shouldn't Bush have taken that route if he truly wants to experience what he (and we) ask of the men and women in our armed forces?

Bush also wore the flight suit for another very specific reason.

It's a water survival suit just in case the plane were to go down.

As for stolen tax money...

You couldn't be talking about the Clintons stripping the White House and Air Force One of tax payer supplied furnishings and accessories, would you?

 

[ahenry]

Hmmm, I just read what Mike wrote. Did I completely misunderstand what you were saying Lendringser? Are you saying tax money is stolen from you or tax money was stolen from gov’t coffers so the Prez could land on the carrier? If the former, then I stand by what I said. If the latter, then I apologize. I disagree but it is a valid issue to bring up.

 

[DFBonnett]

Better to land on a flattop at sea than a fat intern in the Oval Office.

 

[UnknownSailor]

The Democrats need to learn that throwing stones while living in a glass house is a Bad Thing TM. Clinton's little Africa jaunt cost well over 300 million dollars. We won't even get into how Hillary used official US Air Force transports to jet around in while running for her US Senate seat.

The Clinton abuses of the Air Force MAC are well detailed in Deriliction of Duty by Lt. Col Robert "Buzz" Patterson, Ret.

 

[GeorgeAtl]

The Democrats need to tell us the costs of 2 or 3 different events:

1. John Glenn's flight on the Shuttle....which we all know was PAYBACK for his efforts in obstructing the "ChinaGate" investigation.

2. Clinton's trip to China....with his entourage of over 1000!!

3. The cost of shutting down LAX while Klinton got a haircut aboard Air Force One...from some Hoity Toity Hair Stylist!!

I guess there's 2 sets of rules....silly me.

 

[STW]

When flying for the Air Force out of Andrews AFB, my brother-in-law once flew some congressmen and their wives to Italy to do some fact finding. The aircraft (a C9) was also used as a backup to AF1 when the president needed to fly into airports that couldn't handle a 747. In this case the aircraft needed to be back by a certain date because presidential commitments. Unfortunately, a congressman's wife wanted a day of shopping in Florence that made for aconflict with the president's schedule. So they sent the empty plane back across the Atlantic for the President's use and brought another one back to Italy for the congressmen and their wives.
A 30 mile hop in a Viking doesn't seem like that big a deal in comparison.

 

[Waitone]

The images captured during Bush's visit are so powerful that the opposition will have major problems countering them. We all know those images will show back up during the next election. Democrats will have a horrible time spinning or discrediting the effect.

What is going on now is the Democrats are discrediting the images which will be used later. Sorta reminds me of the tactics used by a former president.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"I guess there's 2 sets of rules..."

Of course there's two sets of rules.

It's the two sets of rules that allow a Republican who obliquely praised a man considered to have a racist past to be run from his leadership position, while the second set allows a former member of the Ku Klux Klan to be a Democrat in good standing.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

How quickly their memory fades....

Clinton's travel left military overextended and wasted taxpayer dollars

Top military officers have expressed concern that an excessive number of military cargo planes were required to take former President Clinton and his large entourage last year to India, Vietnam and other distant places.
These officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Air Force Air Mobility Command's ability was perilously stretched to supply airlifts for exercises, as well as troop deployments in the Persian Gulf, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo and South Korea.

Unofficial internal estimates show that Mr. Clinton's trip to Vietnam in November cost the military about $60 million. Air Force Air Mobility Command deployed 26 C-5, 33 C-17 and 4 C-141 cargo jets as well as 10 refueling tanker aircraft and one C-130 propeller jet. Estimated costs for Mr. Clinton's trip last March to India and Pakistan ranged from $25 million to $50 million.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a7e4362784a.htm

Hillary Clinton's campaign travel nears $1 million

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton logged nearly $1 million worth of travel in the last year in her bid to be New York's junior U.S. senator, with taxpayers picking up $779,500 of that amount, according to figures released Tuesday by a congressional panel.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/07/18/campaign.hillary.travel.reut/

First lady and daughter leave for tour of North Africa

(CNN) -- Hillary and Chelsea Clinton plan to combine business with pleasure during a spring-break tour of North Africa this week.

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are scheduled to visit ancient and modern landmarks in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia as both tourists and U.S. ambassadors.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9903/20/hillary.africa/index.html

 

[Jim March]

The President IS the commander in chief of the military. This jaunt didn't cost all that much, and the value in troop morale was incalculable.

GRD: ehhh....how, exactly, did I spank Waxman?

 

[Marko Kloos]

There is zero justification for you to claim that tax money is stolen from you and frankly, its become a tired and worn out argument.

Taxation is theft. Actually, it's worse than theft. A mugger will take my wallet, but leave me alone afterwards, and won't make me work for him under threat of force five months out of the year. Therefore, taxation is slavery, and I don't care one bit what some black-robed Statist enablers have to say about the subject. Call it what you want, cite all the "duly authorized" authority you want, it still boils down to the fact that taxes are forcible confiscation of my hard-earned money.

Moreover, you even chose to come live under a system that is authorized to tax its citizens.

The government of the United States only has the powers delegated to it by the people via the Constitution. Forcible taxation is not one of them. The fact that it's being done doesn't make it constitutional or moral.

Therefore, it doesn't matter to me one bit whether my stolen money is spent on a Presidential carrier landing, Hitlery's trip to Africa, or White House china for the Clintons. I don't care whether my mugger spends the contents of my wallet on booze, or donates them to charity: the fact remains that he got the money by holding a gun to my head and threatening me with death if I do not comply.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. – President Calvin Coolidge

The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime. – James Bovard, Lost Rights

The American Dream was not about government's taking huge sums of money (under the label of "taxation") from citizens by force. The American Dream was about individualism and the opportunity to achieve success without interference from others. – Robert Ringer

tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others – on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program. – Leonard Read

If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. – Henry David Thoreau

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. – Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father

 

[Mike Irwin]

So move to Montana, declare yourself a free man, and refuse to pay taxes.

Maybe someone will send you a cake with a saw in it.

Or at least some soap on a rope.

As for the Constitutionality of taxation, we've played that game, I believe.

Taxation 6, aggrieved masses 0...

Even the Founding Fathers recognized the necessity of taxation...

 

[Marko Kloos]

So move to Montana, declare yourself a free man, and refuse to pay taxes.

Nope...I think I'll stay right where I am, pay what I must under threat of force, and play the time-honored American game of "Screw the Government Back". The fact that I can be strong-armed and killed if I defy the system openly does not change the fact that taxation is theft. It's institutionalized gang violence, effectively extracted because people would rather pay what they must than lose their lives.

Taxation is the notion that theft becomes legal and moral when enough people are in favor of it. No matter how many people vote themselves the right to confiscate my money, and no matter how noble or well-intentioned the stolen money is spent, it is still theft at the point of a gun.

 

[mons meg]

Before this train goes completely off the tracks, back to the original subject of this thread:

I would like to point out from a logical argument perspective, it matters not a whit if the Clintons stole all the Twinkies from the White House commisary. The question at hand is was Bush's trip to the Lincoln needlessly expensive?

Personally, I still think he should have taken a helo and forgone the flight suit. The trip to the carrier can be justified several different ways. Troop morale, as Mr. March pointed out, is a great reason to visit.

So there.

 

[moa]

Mons Meg says:

"Oh, and 30 miles offshore is too far for a helicopter? He didn't have to take Marine One, he could have taken a Sea Stallion. And he spent the night because they couldn't make the last 30 miles? Hey, I'm just asking...wouldn't want to get labeled as a "demon rat" or whatever is in vogue."


When Bush landed on the Lincoln I do believe it was a much farther than 30 miles off-shore from the San Diego naval base. The Lincoln was two or three days out from San Diego. And traveling about 30 knots makes it hundreds of miles out to sea.

Let me know if I got this wrong.

I think the Viking flight took about 45 minutes and Bush flew the Viking for 15 minutes of the flight. I imagine the Viking can fly at about 500 MPH.

 

[mons meg]

Well, I read they were no more than 30 miles or so offshore. The same report said the Lincoln slowed its pace so that they would be out an extra night for the President ot be able to spend the night on board.

Not sure how much of this is true. Sure would be nice if the captain of the Lincoln would post his coordinates at the time of arrival on this board.

 

[Intune]

Someone on Fox News addressed the helo/Vik trip by saying that helos have a habit of inverting and then sinking like a rock when unintentionally landed in deep water. Safety issue. All the Dems said "Rats!" at the decision and went about their fleecing.

 

[Monkeyleg]

Was GW's landing expensive? Perhaps, but not in the historical perspective provided us by Clinton.

Example: the 1996 Escalante Steps land grab in Utah. Clinton put hundreds of thousands of acres of Utah land under the control of the federal goverment, depriving the state of Utah of revenues from mining in those areas. Clinton's photo-op was at the Grand Canyon (which, for those who attended public skuls, is in Arizona). To give a panoramic view of the Grand Canyon behind Clinton, the SS cut down trees and threw them into the canyon. Ya gotta love environmentalists.

Clinton's photo-op in a rainforest in South America. They built a paved road to he could get in.

Perhaps the most expensive Clinton photo op was in the early 90's when he went to California to announce that the federal government was going to connect all California schools to the internet. The cost for that photo op shows up every month on your phone bill as a line item cost, one that you'll be paying forever.

 

[ahenry]

The government of the United States only has the powers delegated to it by the people via the Constitution. Forcible taxation is not one of them. The fact that it's being done doesn't make it constitutional or moral

You sure about that? Allow me to quote that esteemed document: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union...†and “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.†And from the Sixteenth Amendment (like it or not, the current court determination is that it is a legal amendment): “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.†You still want to say that the constitution (which you specifically chose to live under) does not delegate the power of taxation to the gov’t? Implicit with delegated authority is the authority to enforce such authority. Such is the nature of the best you chose to live under.

The fact that I can be strong-armed and killed if I defy the system openly does not change the fact that taxation is theft.

No, what changes the fact that taxation is not theft is that you decided to come to America and live under a system knowing full well that the constitution that creates our gov’t authorizes taxation. Even our own Revolutionary actions such a the Boston Tea Party were not against taxation, but rather taxation without representation.

 

[Marko Kloos]

I merely chose to live in a system that steals a little less from its citizens than other governments. Unfortunately, there are no governments left in the world that do not resort to armed robbery to finance the machinery of State. In this Constitutional Republic, however, I still have the right to voice my dissent and my disagreement with forcible taxation. I also have the right to work towards changing this system back to where it becomes compliant with the Bill of Rights again.

Look, I am not against taxation at all. As a libertarian, I am pricipally and fundamentally opposed to forcible taxation. It violates the basic principle of libertarianism, the Non-Aggression Principle. The desire to make the world a better place does not give you the right to hold a gun to my head and demand money for a stealth bomber, or an orphanage. If the cause is worthy, why not rely on voluntary taxes? (Such a system exists already, at least in theory: it's called the free market.)

If you think coercion is a necessary ingredient in the tax system, then the causes are not supported by the population, and you merely share the Liberals' opinion of your fellow citizens: they need to be forced to pay for what's good for them.

You don't have the right to come to my house, hold a gun to my head, and ask for money. What makes you so convinced that you suddenly gain that right if you authorize a bunch of guys with badges and guns to do it on your behalf?

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Personally, I still think he should have taken a helo and forgone the flight suit.

I disagree. The trip on the fighter did not cost the taxpayer any more money than the cost of the helicopter(s) which normally accompany him. It was a great coup by a Republican President pulling off something none of the democratic president's in this or the last century could have pulled off.

The Democrats are following the official Democrat play book which states when your opponent is hugely successful and popular and you don't know what to do, attack your opponent with everything you can think of so that maybe something sticks and you can feel better about yourself.

 

[mons meg]

I'm willing to give on the method of transportation, but I think he should have changed into his civvies forthwith rather than hang out in the flight suit and let the cameras roll. It may seem a minor point, but I don't think Presidents should appear in a military uniform, ever.

 

[CZ-75]

The fact that I can be strong-armed and killed if I defy the system openly does not change the fact that taxation is theft. It's institutionalized gang violence, effectively extracted because people would rather pay what they must than lose their lives.

IOW, the biggest "protection" racket in existence.

 

[TarpleyG]

but I read that Eisenhower after he became President made it a point to never appear in uniform

I don't remember any emblems nor insignia in which case it isn't a uniform, just an ordinary flight suit.

Also, I heard that the carrier was WELL ahead of schedule and could not have docked at any rate until its scheduled time to do so. Therefore, they could have been 30 miles out and had to stay another night.

GT