THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
OBAMA 'SAVAGES' REPUBLICANS ON TAXPAYER DIME
Prez bashes 'political opponents' during $866,000 trip on Air Force One
A new report from a Washington watchdog says President Obama recently flew from Washington to Florida to deliver an Earth Day message and back, but his speech was more about bashing Republicans than anything else.
And it cost taxpayers more than $866,000, the report from Judicial Watch said.
“Though billed as an opportunity for the president to talk about climate change, press reports indicated he used the speech to attack potential 2016 Republican president candidates,” the report, released Wednesday, said.
Documentation obtained by Judicial Watch said the Earth Day trip on April 22 to the Everglades cost taxpayers $866,615.40 in flight expenses alone. That would include fuel, flight consumables, aircraft overhaul and engine overhaul.
Excluded would be all of the related expenses of a presidential trip, such as Secret Service personnel, vehicles, ground transportation and more.
Judicial Watch reported Air Force records show the flight to and from Miami totaled 4.2 hours, at $206,377 per hour for Air Force One.
White House records show Obama left Washington at 10:30 a.m., spoke at 3:55 p.m. and was back in Washington by 8:10 p.m.
Obama had spoken about the trip just a few days earlier. Judicial Watch reported in his April 18 radio address, “Obama said he was going to the Everglades to ‘talk about the way that climate change threatens our economy.’”
“Press reports following the speech, however, suggested that he used the occasion to launch hard-hitting attacks on his political opponents, particularly those vying for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and those leading the opposition to his global warming agenda,” Judicial Watch reported.
It cited the New York Times description that, “His trip was also intended to sharpen a political contrast with Republicans in ways that he believes will help the Democratic Party in the next presidential contest, especially in states like Florida, where the impact of climate change is already being felt in profound ways.”
Reuters, too, reported, “He mocked Republican Senator Jim Inhofe [a leading opponent of the Obama global warming agenda] for throwing a snowball on the Senate floor during Washington’s cold winter.”
Judicial Watch said its request to the Secret Service for details about its costs had yet to be answered.
“The irony of using Air Force One for an unnecessary jaunt to discuss global warming aside, these documents show that taxpayers are being gouged for President Obama’s abuse of the perks of office,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for his continual savaging of political opponents.”
Judicial Watch long has documented outlandish expenses on the part of the Washington elite, at one point reporting that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, when she was House speaker, had accumulated total expenses of more than $100,000 for inflight amenities as taxpayers paid for her private jet commutes to and from Washington.
The organization said, “Since the beginning of his administration, the president and the first family have become increasingly notorious for lavish political junkets and extravagant vacations, often under the guise of official business.”
The records it has obtained through various Freedom of Information Act cases reveal that the Obamas and Bidens “have spent more than $40 million taxpayer dollars on trips since 2009, beginning with the Obamas’ much-publicized New York City ‘date night’ in 2009 up through the president’s most frequent golf outings and the first lady’s Aspen ski jaunts.”
The organization reports, “The most lavish expenditure on record to date was the first lady’s Africa trip and a single Honolulu vacation, which cost taxpayers $15,885,585.30 in flight expenses alone. The single largest expense for accommodations was for Michelle Obama’s side-trip to Dublin, Ireland, during the 2013 G-8 conference in Belfast, when she and her entourage booked 30 rooms at the five-star Shelbourne Hotel, with the first lady staying in the 1500 square-foot Princess Grace suite at a cost of $3,500 a night. The total cost to taxpayers for the Obamas’ Ireland trip was $7,921,638.66.”
WND has reported on the expenses throughout Obama’s presidency, including when hundreds of Secret Service agents were sent to Africa in preparation for an Obama trip.
At the time, the Washington Post reported a Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious ship, with a fully staffed medical trauma center, was being stationed offshore in case of emergencies. Also sent were 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines.
During the 2013 Christmas break in Oahu, presidential security essentially took over the entire island. In addition to concrete blockades and security patrols around Obama’s vacation quarters, his rental home was installed with bullet-proof glass, existing security systems were disabled, secure phone lines installed and his entourage brought in 20 to 30 vehicles. The Coast Guard enforced temporary exclusion zones in Kailua Bay, and armed Coast Guard dinghies patrolled the canal near the president’s rental home.
The 2013 17-day vacation in Hawaii for the president, his family, and staff and security was estimated to cost over $4 million.
The Washington Examiner Secrets noted, “While former President George W. Bush took more vacation days than the estimated 175 by the Obamas, critics slap Obama because most of Bush’s vacations were taken at his ranch in Texas, not the lavish digs [Obama] prefers in places like Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/obama-savages-republicans-on-taxpayer-dime/#EoD05FohdoRUibLw.99
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