Even though the MSM drooled over the Obama’s $24,000 Broadway date to NYC on Saturday, the fact of the matter is the Obama’s are millionaires and they used taxpayer funds to go on the junket. UPDATE: Or was it actually $70,000?
In addition, using the website GreenStudentU.com, I have calculated the Obama’s “carbon footprint” for their trip. I believe this is a VERY conservative estimate.
GreenStudentU estimates that three planes flying to/from DC to NYC used approx 0.4 tons of CO2. This is probably a low estimate as they were private planes and the carbon footprint was spread over fewer people than a commercial airline.
Then I estimated the carbon footprint of at least a 6 car Lincoln Navigator motorcade to/from The White House and Andrews AFB, and then the necessary driving in and around New York City. Motorcade’s carbon footprint? 0.24 tons of CO2.
Total Obama Broadway Cost To The Environment? 0.63 tons of CO2 for less than a day. (As a reference, I calculated my home’s carbon footprint for a year: 3.82 tons of CO2 — for a year.)
If you are as furious as I am about the Obama’s carelessly using taxpayer money for a Broadway junket, please sign my petition to ask for the full cost of the trip to be refunded to We, The People.
Thank you for your time. It will be interesting to see the next stunt that “Ovita” pulls with taxpayer money. Oh yeah, $30B more today for General Motors — I forgot that.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
OK, OK….I think we are getting a little hysterical about this. I remember a trip Ronnie and Nancy took to NYC at about the same time during his first term in office. He went to a play….Sugar Babies…..I know because I just happened to be there that night. You could not get within two blocks of the theatre that night without a ticket for that performance. And…the next night, I believe there was a spectacular “event” at Lincoln Center in Reagan’s honor. I had no tickets for this event. Here is my point…I think he (BO) is doing lots of misguided things, but he is entitled to his R&R. He is the President, and RHIP. And yes, the Reagan trip got tons of publicity.
Don’t even dare to compare this to Ronald Reagan. The audacity of this man and wife is unbelievable.
While we are signing GP’s petition, how about writing to your senators and congressman and telling them to get our money back.
I see FWG’s point, but I’m pretty sure Bruce’s point is not so much to decry Obama’s vacation but rather to highlight the hypocrisy of liberal politicians and their MSM enablers. At least, that would be my point. I don’t have a problem with Pres. Obama enjoying rest and relaxation, including the trip to NYC. The problem is just the hypocrisy: Bush’s vacations were distractions that kept him from doing his job whereas Clinton’s vacations and Obama’s vacations are well-deserved breaks; Bush was an enemy of the environment no matter how ecologically friendly his own house in Texas was whereas Al Gore is an environmental saint regardless of his excessive household use of electricity and gas and Barack Obama is a solidly pro-environment POTUS even though he apparently likes to keep the White House extra warm during the heating season.
The problem with liberals on environmental matters is that they can’t even seem to detect the irony they create through their hypocrisy.
(Another thing I think the MSM is hypocritical about is how they fawn over Barack and Michelle when they wear fancy clothes yet eviscerate Sarah Palin for the same thing. But I digress.)
Man, this guy Obama’s fall from grace is going to be hard and severe. His tin ear to how this looks and feels to regular Americans is frankly bizarre. I’ve always said the liberal media enables these Democrats. You can’t escape it now.
Most importantly, when Reagan took his trip we were between global cooling/The Coming Ice Age and global warming/Climate Change (in other words, the climate was in perfect balance). And Reagan wasn’t planning to impose a huge tax on all of us with a magical cap & trade bill that will immediately make us “green” (or is that “blue”?)
Obama is working his little buns off to make us all environmentally correct, but he’s completely unwilling to model the behavior he wishes us to adopt.
Of course, Nancy Pelosi is just as adamant about “saving the planet” and wants us all to inventory our lives to see what each of us can do to diminish our carbon footprint. Inventory your own life, Nan; lead by example.
You too, Barack. Show us how it’s done.
#3
Bush had 879 days of vacation funded by your tax dollars, during two wars. If after 6 years of office and Obama was on vacation for 700 days, then you can start crying about it.
Further a “date night” is hardly a vacation so…I think you might need to think this through
gillie & FWG – You are conveniently forgetting a lot of important points.
1 – GWB worked while in Crawford. Many foreign leaders visited him there.
2 – NO president in my lifetime that I can recall used the resources of the Federal government, took the media with them, on a ONE-DAY personal junket!
3 – There are PLENTY of Broadway-level theaters in DC.
4 – Liberals who are excusing Obama on this junket are showing themselves to be morally and intellectually bankrupt. No getting around it.
Well, arranging the bankrupting of two major auto companies, the dismissal of charges against Black Panthers, abandonment of key allies in the Middle East, strong words against the Norks…
Hey, it has been a long four days. I’m sure playing golf on memorial day didn’t refresh him at all.
You guys are really acting foolishly over this… why not spend some time focusing on how to make the Republican party more accepting of gay marriage, or gay Republicans for that matter?
And then there is the issue of health care, per chance. And how does the marriage issue impact on that?
give gille credit, he picked his head up just long enough to try to defend Obamateleprompter on this one. The toadies are still 100%.
I’d have a lot more patience with the defenders if they’d show up to defend the daily blunders of Obama and his comrads though. hehe
Still waiting for Obama toadies to defend Biden. There’s a list of the blunders. Mocking Baracks use of teleprompters, blowing the cover on the $100 million VP bunker, yada yada. Or defend the racist Sotomayer….defending the wasteful all expenses paid trip to NYC, while the unemployed are forced to eat dog food, NICE. hopenchangeoo.
New unemployment data out this Friday. Another report card for the chosen one.
Bruce, you’re being a child and you know it.
oh, it’s going to be a LONG, LONG decade for you people. You’re crying about this? LOL.
bnl,
Since you have time on your hands, perhaps you’d like to follow up from other posts the challenge you have.
Seen how President Obama has done such a great job for the state of Ohio? thousands of jobs lost.
Not going to be as long as you hope. Just don’t know if it’s because the people throw the bums out, there’s no country left, or the Black Panthers won’t let us vote.
So let’s pretend to accept ghillie’s premise that presidential “vacations” are a damnable sin. The message that he and that DFW guy want us to take from this is that we shouldn’t expect better from a liberal President.
And let’s not forget that liberal trip where an Amtrak train was rented to ferry liberals to a Virginia health spa and Obama flew AF1 94 nm to get there.
And then there is the issue of health care, per chance.
No, there isn’t. Let your leftists like Soros and others who are spending billions to force inferior government healthcare on the rest of us pay for it themselves.
Obama Party healthcare can be summed up very simply: “By law, I am going to require you to pay me $1 for healthcare whether you want to or not. I, on the other hand, need only give you in exchange an IOU that you can redeem at a later time of my choosing for the amount that I decide you should get, with no recourse whatsoever if you don’t like my decision.”
Obama and the Obama Party want to be able to take the trillions of dollars that Americans currently spend on healthcare and direct it to their pet welfare projects, like giving Obama’s illegal immigrant aunt free housing and welfare checks, because they know those welfare addicts will then kick back campaign contributions and votes. It has nothing to do with healthcare; it’s simply an attempt, like Social Security, to open up a new channel by which Obama can get money from us today which he doesn’t necessarily have to pay back tomorrow.
“Ovita”! I love it.
Fort Worth Guy,
The reason this is not remotely similar to your Reagan anecdote is because Ronald Reagan didnt go around scolding Americans for their expenditures. Reagan didnt say it was unacceptable that Americans use 20% of the worlds energy while being only 5% of the worlds population. Reagan didnt tell us that we couldnt turn up our thermostats and eat whatever we want and never would have, ESPECIALLY while turning the White House thermostats up to tropical levels and flying in Wagyu beef from Japan and Pizza from Chicago to feed himself and his fellow thugs.
Reagan didnt tell us we need to consume less; he didnt complain about Americans buying too much on credit while adding million dollar date nights to the over ten trillion dollars in debt he has already heaped on the backs of Americans.
Obama did all these things.
Bruce,
Your estimates leave out the cost of motorcades and security. Im betting the total cost to taxpayers for Obamas “date night” was well over a million.
Whether it is large or small…..$9 trillion in new debt, a cut for every new expense, a record 6.8 million unemployed/ to unable to not use a teleprompter, bowing to the Saudi King, having AF one flyby the sacred WTC site, this Obama administration is far more like a sitcom than a workable governing executive branch. None of us expected him to lower the expectations of the Executive Branch as Obama has done. There are soome days maybe we should encourage Barack and Michelle to go to the theatre, a movie, dinner, go bowling, sailing, anything to avoid any more screw ups. Now this gang that couldn’t shoot straight, the administration that couldn’t find Cabinet members who actually paid their tax obligations, is going to run Chrysler and GM. Now that should be a SNL skit. Hey maybe Michelle could fly to London and present the Queen with some of her home grown, south lawn, tomatoes. hehe
What a clown act. Democrats. Boobs, dummies, morons, crooks,clampets.
Nah. Sitcoms are canceled when nobody likes it. We have to live with this and the disasterous results that come with it.
Presidents leaving the gilded canary cage cost money and cause disruption. They should not do this for “light and transient” reasons. So far, Obama has used the Presidential taxi service in a fairly typical way. However, bopping off here and there for supper or a play is out of the ordinary. Even Clinton learned early on that his “man of the people” jogs and runs to McDonalds were disruptive, expensive and not very fulfilling.
Obambi needs to grow up a little. He sought the isolation of the Presidency and he has a responsibility to weather it like a man. Currently, he acts more like a kid with a new toy at best or an arrogant rock star at worst.
Bruce,
The hole in the comment by FWG is that the following night there was an event in Lincoln Center iïn honor´ of Ronald Reagan. Since he was being honored, obviously, he had to be in New York, so they went a day earlier to take in the play. It was nothing like the junket that Obama took.
FortWorthGuy,
As an aside, I was a cast member in Sugar Babies during Reagan’s visit that you spoke of. He came backstage during intermission and, I believe, he had to leave early before the end of the performance. There were a lot of interesting stories concerning Secret Service during that visit.
I’m a Democrat and shook Ford’s hand twice and Reagan’s hand once (long story). I still keep washing my hands. I never shook the hand of a Democratic president whick could explain why I still have my wrist-watch. 🙂
I hope you enjoyed the performance.