THE PELOSI AIR FORCE SCANDAL

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Judicial Watch Uncovers New Documents Detailing Pelosi’s Use of Air Force Aircraft

October 14, 2010

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-uncovers-new-documents-detailing-pelosis-use-air-force-aircraft/

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained new documents from the United States Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s repeated use of United States Air Force aircraft. According to the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pelosi used Air Force aircraft on 85 flights from March 2009 through June 2010. Members of Pelosi’s family were guests on at least two flights.
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Among the highlights from the documents, obtained pursuant to a FOIA request filed on January 25, 2009:

• Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 85 trips, covering 206,264 miles, from March 2, 2009 through June 7, 2010. Pelosi, her guests and Air Force personnel logged a total of 428.6 hours on these flights.
• Members of Pelosi’s family were guests on at least two flights. On June 20, 2009, Speaker Pelosi’s daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons joined a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to San Francisco International Air Port. That flight included $143 in on-flight expenses for food and other items. On July 2, 2010, Pelosi took her grandson on a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, which is northeast of San Francisco.

According to previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008 included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.
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Judicial Watch also previously uncovered internal Department of Defense documents (DOD) email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute cancellations and changes. For example, 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.”
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“Pelosi’s abusive use of military aircraft demonstrates a shocking lack of regard for the American taxpayer and the men and women who serve in the U.S. Air Force. Speaker Pelosi may have a frequent flyer record for taxpayer-financed luxury jet travel,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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[A friend writes the following]

USAF TOOK NANCY 'S JET AWAY
(verified by Snopes)

The real reason that Nancy Pelosi is considering retiring is that they took her Jet away. 

Ah, poor baby!

As a result of a Judicial Watch filing under the Freedom of Information Act, the USAF released documents detailing House Speaker Pelosi's use of United States Air Force aircraft between March 2009 and June 2010.

The data are published in the Judicial Watch Verdict of December 2010, Volume 16, Issue 12.

Here are the main highlights revealed by the USAF.

Keep in mind that all the data below relate to United States Air Force aircraft used by one woman over a sixteen month period.

Several of these flights included Ms. Pelosi's guests, such as grown children, grandchildren, various in-laws, friends and hangers-on.

Over 95% of the trips were between the west coast and Washington DC , for what you might call a commute between home and the office.

READ it and WEEP!!

Total trips: 85 over a 68 week period, or 1.25 average trips per week.

Total mileage: 206,264 miles, or 2,427 average miles per trip.

Total flying time: 428.6 hours, or an average of 5 hours per trip.

Cost to the taxpayers: $2,100,744, or $27,715 per trip, or $1,285,162 per year!

Cost of in flight food and alcohol: $101,429; $1,193 per trip; $62,051 per year.

On one junket to Baghdad, according to the Air Force report, she had the aircraft bar stocked with Johnny Walker Red Scotch, Grey Goose Vodka, E&J Brandy, Bailey's Irish Cream, Maker's Mark Whiskey, Courvoisier Cognac, Bacardi Rum, Jim Beam Whiskey, Beefeater Gin, Dewar's Scotch, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Jack Daniels Whiskey, Corona Beer and several varieties of wine.

This was obviously a very important "gubment bidness" trip.

Evidence generally speaks for itself, and in Ms. Pelosi's case it speaks the language of abuse and (evidently) a serious familial drinking problem, for in a single year she and her spawn drank an amount in excess of the net income of the average employed American!

When she said, "... If the stimulus doesn't pass, five hundred million people might lose their jobs...", I thought she was unintentionally revealing her ignorance.

I'm now more inclined to think she was pickled.

Even though she can no longer abuse the USAF, she can either fly on her broom, or fly Southwest Airlines, where bags fly free.

If you are an AMERICAN citizen it is YOUR DUTY to PASS THIS ON...

Because, you won't see this reported on MSNBC, or ANY Liberal mis-INFORMATION  Station .  

Backup Proof Below:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-uncovers-new-documents-detailing-pelosis-use-air-force-aircraft/

WHAT A FUNERAL: THE TRANSLATOR RUBS HIS BELLY WHILE OBAMA MAKES OUT WITH THE SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER

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Obama makes out with Helle Thorning-Schmidt while Michelle glares.

Opinion

Mark Steyn: Low comedy amid soaring rhetoric

 

  by MARK STEYN

Syndicated columnist

Published: Dec. 13, 2013 Updated: 1:45 p.m.

“I don’t want to be emotional but this is one of the greatest moments of my life,” declared Nelson Mandela upon meeting the Spice Girls in 1997. So I like to think he would have appreciated the livelier aspects of his funeral observances. The Prince of Wales, who was also present on that occasion in Johannesburg, agreed with Mandela on the significance of their summit with the girls: “It is the second greatest moment in my life,” he said. “The greatest was when I met them the first time.” His Royal Highness and at least two Spice Girls (reports are unclear) attended this week’s service in Soweto, and I’m sure it was at least the third-greatest moment in all of their lives. Don’t ask me where the other Spice Girls were. It is a melancholy reflection that the Spice Girls’ delegation was half the size of Canada’s, which flew in no fewer than four Canadian prime ministers, which is rather more Canadian prime ministers than one normally needs to make the party go with a swing.
But the star of the show was undoubtedly Thamsanqa Jantjie, the sign-language interpreter who stood alongside the world’s leaders and translated their eulogies for the deaf. Unfortunately, he translated them into total gibberish, reduced by the time of President Obama’s appearance to making random hand gestures, as who has not felt the urge to do during the great man’s speeches. Mr. Jantjie has now pleaded in mitigation that he was having a sudden hallucination because he is a violent schizophrenic. It has not been established whether he is, in fact, a violent schizophrenic, or, as with his claim to be a sign-language interpreter, merely purporting to be one. Asked how often he has been violent, he replied, somewhat cryptically, “A lot.”
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Still, South African officials are furiously pointing fingers (appropriately enough) to account for how he wound up on stage. “I do not think he was just picked up off the street. He was from a school for the deaf,” Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, the Deputy Minister for Persons with Disability, assured the press. But the Deaf Federation of South Africa said it had previously complained about his nonsensical signing after an event last year. Mr. Jantjie was paid a grand total of $85 for his simultaneous translation of the speeches of the U.N. secretary-general, six presidents, the head of the African Union and a dozen other dignitaries. Ms. Bogopane-Zulu notes that the going rate for signing in South Africa is $125 to $165. So she thinks a junior official may simply have awarded the contract to the lowest bid.
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That would never happen in Washington, of course. But how heartening, as one watches the viral video of Obama droning on while, a mere foot-and-a-half away, Mr. Jantjie rubs his belly and tickles his ear, to think that the White House’s usual money-no-object security operation went to the trouble of flying in Air Force One, plus the “decoy” Air Force One, plus support aircraft, plus the 120-vehicle motorcade or whatever it’s up to by now, plus a bazillion Secret Service agents with reflector shades and telephone wire dangling from their ears, to shepherd POTUS into the secured venue and then stand him on stage next to an $85-a-day violent schizophrenic. In the movie version – “In The Sign Of Fire” – grizzled maverick Clint Eastwood will be the only guy to figure it out at the last minute and hurl himself at John Malkovich, as they roll into the orchestra pit with Malkovich furiously signing “Ow!” and “Eek!” But in real life I expect they’ll just double the motorcade to 240 vehicles and order up even more expensive reflector shades.
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Also pondering security issues was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He returned home from the service to find that, while he’d been out hailing Mandela as the father of the new South Africa, his house had been burgled. One suspects that Mr. Mandela, for whom a little of the garrulous archbishop went an awful long way, would have enjoyed this rather more than he ought. Speaking of enjoying themselves, back in the VIP seats President Obama, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British Prime Minister David Cameron carried on like Harry, Hermione and Ron, snogging in the back row during the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup presentation. As the three leaders demonstrated their hands-on approach, Michelle Obama glowered straight ahead, as stony and merciless as the 15-foot statue of apartheid architect Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd that once stood guard outside the government offices of the Orange Free State. Eventually, weary of the trilateral smooching, the First Lady switched seats and inserted herself between Barack and the vivacious Helle. How poignant that, on a day to celebrate the post-racial South Africa, the handsome young black man should have to be forcibly segregated from the cool Aryan blonde. For all the progress, as Obama himself pointed out, “our work is not yet done.”
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Amidst all the jollity, one man was taking things awfully seriously. Ted Cruz ducked out of the service when Raul Castro rose to speak. I confess I’m not quite sure about the etiquette of walking out during a funeral. Unlike Sen. Cruz, whom I doubt Mandela had even heard of, the Castros were old friends. It seems a little churlish to show up at the funeral of a longtime communist and complain that they’ve booked the president of Cuba. It would be like attending Obama’s funeral and complaining that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is officiating, and Bill Ayers is singing “How Great Thou Art.” Surely, Cruz could have done what Obama and Cameron did during the longueurs and found a Scandinavian prime minister to make out with.
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Alas, far from the face-pulling selfies, Mandela jokes are no laughing matter. Simon Amstell (who appears to be a comedian in the same sense that Thamsanqa Jantjie is a sign-language interpreter) visited BBC Radio and quipped that “it’s so white in here Mandela would not approve.” Shortly thereafter, the host apologized on air lest anyone was offended. Which they were, because Mr. Amstell himself subsequently apologized on Twitter. Neil Phillips did not get off so lightly. During the final stages of the African leader’s slowly deteriorating health, Mr. Phillips, who runs the Crumbs sandwich shop in the English town of Rugeley, had gone online and complained: “My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela.” The Staffordshire Constabulary arrested him, seized his computers, and, in the course of an eight-hour detention, fingerprinted and DNA-swabbed him.
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“There are no jokes in Islam,” Ayatollah Khomeini sternly warned, and that’s true even for its “moderate” redoubts, where Shez Cassim, a U.S. citizen from Minnesota, has languished in a Dubai jail cell since April for making a video mildly parodic of United Arab Emirates youth. But, as Mr. Phillips discovered, there are fewer jokes outside Islam, too. Once upon a time, it was the communist Eastern Europe that policed gags, as captured in Milan Kundera’s first great novel. Now even in free societies an infelicitous jest can lead to a rap sheet. In such a world, we should treasure the hilarity of the Mandela service. “Nelson Mandela stood for freedom,” his successor Jacob Zuma said. “He wanted everyone to be free.” Unfortunately, some of the crowd booed Zuma, so he’s now having them investigated for embarrassing him.
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Still, let’s take Zuma at his word: Mandela wanted everyone to be free. Free to sign-translate the U.N. secretary-general’s speech into total codswallop. Free to cop a feel from the Danish prime minister. And free, for all the loftiness of the forgettable rhetoric, to relish the low comedy all around it.
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©MARK STEYN