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The Obama Bus Fraud
http://www.humanevents.com ^ | August 30 2011 | J.HAYWARD

Posted on 08/30/2011 8:39:40 AM PDT by Para-Ord.45

Almost eclipsed by the PR disaster of his lavish vacation at Martha’s Vineyard was the PR debacle of President Obama’s “listening tour,” in which he blasted through small towns in a gigantic motorcade dominated by two million-dollar Canadian buses, pausing to give political speeches before hand-picked audiences. Although clearly a part of Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, this was all funded by the U.S. taxpayer, and the expense was enormous.

It turns out it might have been even more enormous than we thought, because the whole “bus tour” was a gigantic fraud. As related by Rob Port at Say Anything:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the buses were necessary because “The president needs to get out in the country and meet with real folks in real places.”

“A plane [the size of Air Force One] is hard to get into small communities.”

But here’s the thing: Apparently President Obama only rode the buses for a couple of miles at a time, spending the rest of the time flying from community to community in Air Force One. What’s more, the buses were flown from stop to stop as well. It’s normal practice for the President’s entire motorcade to be loaded up on cargo planes and flown from destination to destination. The buses were just a new part of that motorcade.

But why wouldn’t the presidential limousine have sufficed? Or one of the other armored vehicles that routinely travel with the President? Apparently because the President wanted the imagery of a bus. And buses are what he got.

Ben Howe at Red State marvels at the gigantic carbon footprint of this operation:

So good news America! If these reports are true, then not only do you get the pleasure of having a $1.1 million dollar bus carting the President around to “enlist” voters to fight for his reelection, but you get to marvel at the hypocrisy of an administration hell bent on destroying industries with carbon footprints too large for comfort, while they themselves are flying entire caravans of SUVs and buses in giant 747s flanked by fighter jets.

All so the president can travel a couple of miles per stop with the image that he’s on the ground with the people when in reality, he couldn’t be more detached from them, their problems, or this continually declining economy. You couldn’t ask for a better metaphor.

Let us stipulate that these reports of the bus tour should be investigated and verified thoroughly. If they hold up, this seems like a pretty big deal, and not just because of the mind-shattering hypocrisy, and the way it perfectly captures the hollow fraud of the entire Obama presidency. Both of those qualities were already in evidence when we thought Obama was actually riding those buses between the towns he visited. The extravagance of his motorcade was a metal-and-rubber incarnation of blind, big-spending Big Government stomping through communities like a rampaging dinosaur.

The cost of flying the buses, and Air Force One, between campaign stops must have been staggering. What can the American people do to stop this man from burning through our money? Do we really have to wait until 2013 to get his hand out of our wallets? There must be some oversight that could be invoked to reign in the most egregious and wasteful of the President’s personal expenses.

The advantages of incumbency in a campaign will always be formidable, but Obama is taking it to an absurd extreme… and taxpayers aren’t even getting results for their money, because the President is tanking in the polls.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bus; bustour; carbonfootprint; hypocrisy; obama; obamabustour; sourcetitlenoturl
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1 posted on 08/30/2011 8:39:40 AM PDT by Para-Ord.45
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To: Para-Ord.45

All of the Obamas are OUT OF CONTROL!!!


2 posted on 08/30/2011 8:40:58 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion is the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Para-Ord.45

What a turd.


3 posted on 08/30/2011 8:43:05 AM PDT by keat
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To: Para-Ord.45
Obama's bus tour is an illustration of his presidency. He is a 'drive by' politician who breezes into town with a bus load of platitudes to toss around and then hits the road after accomplishing nothing beyond a little fund raising.

I am befuddled at the people who give him money and wonder what they want for our future.

4 posted on 08/30/2011 8:44:29 AM PDT by Baynative (If the government was in charge of the desert , we'd soon have a shortage of sand.)
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To: keat

A turd has more class than 0bama.


5 posted on 08/30/2011 8:45:23 AM PDT by cowboyway (Molon labe : Deo Vindice : "Rebellion is always an option!!"--Jim Robinson)
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To: Ann Archy
All of the Obamas are OUT OF CONTROL!!!

Out of their minds.

6 posted on 08/30/2011 8:45:52 AM PDT by the invisib1e hand
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To: the invisib1e hand

Out of IDEAS, too!!


7 posted on 08/30/2011 8:48:01 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion is the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Para-Ord.45
Hmm. Human Events is becoming, er, more human, lately.
8 posted on 08/30/2011 8:48:20 AM PDT by righttackle44 (I may not be much, but I raised a U.S. Marine.)
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To: Baynative

It’s remarkable how detached he is and always has been from this country. This is all stagecraft for the purpose of him getting re-elected. That’s all he cares about. He couldn’t care less about the country or governing. That’s why he’s always on the golf course, flying around the country to fundraisers, etc. - he is completely detached from the concerns of Americans. All Obama cares about is Obama.


9 posted on 08/30/2011 8:50:37 AM PDT by rockvillem
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To: Para-Ord.45
More true now than ever...


10 posted on 08/30/2011 8:51:53 AM PDT by SparkyBass
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To: Ann Archy

Out of IDEAS, too!!
________________________________

Never had any to begin with. :-/


11 posted on 08/30/2011 8:57:20 AM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear (Mr. Weiner...Don' t Tweet your meat. It's too late to delete!)
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To: Para-Ord.45
A classless, Leninist, Muslim, scum from the sewers of Chicago and before that.....who will ever know?

He is the poorest example of a leader since the equally narcissistic Nero. His background, what we know of it, is not only sparse, but disgraceful.

Like Clinton, his father was never married to his communist tart of a mother. He is ashamed of any school transcripts that might be fetched out of the gutter.

He began smoking at an early age then progressed to cannabis furnished with liquor by his homosexual, pseudo-intellectual communist friend. He is the master of the lie, like Stalin and like Hitler.

He is an absolutely poor public speaker who talks in jive, short, choppy sentences with the stress placed on all the wrong syllables. His head darts back and forth between the teleprompter screens thinking, wrongheadedly as usual, that it looks natural moving you hear back and forth over the audience like a nitwit watching a tennis match.

It's fun to see the clips of Bozo bouncing, hands at side, down the ramp of the helicopter or plane like a schoolboy on a mission. Equally funny is watching this emaciated coward salute the uniformed military person standing by at the bottom of the ramp.

What we have here in the body of this usurper is a failure of any legitimate political party to communicate with the conservative voters by presenting a candidate that is, although not as ignorant as the ass occupying the White Hut, is a true insult to our intelligence.

Let's engage in one upmanship with the lousy, stinking corpse of a media we Americans barf in by jumping on their bones first. At first blush it would appear that the outspoken Perry might just be our winner.

I don't know whether America can wait until 2013 to haul these ashes out of the White Hut. Every day this pos occupies the presidency another piece of hurtful legislation hits the fan!

Down with Obama! Down with tyranny!

12 posted on 08/30/2011 9:00:56 AM PDT by IbJensen (Welfare: putting a cake under the sink expecting that it wonÂ’t attract cockroaches.)
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To: RushIsMyTeddyBear

does anyone know if the claims about flying the bus from stop to stop are true? Let’s start with the facts first.


13 posted on 08/30/2011 9:02:12 AM PDT by kushnejz
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To: Para-Ord.45

Does anyone have a picture of the buses being driven on or off one of the Presidential transport planes? That would be great confirmation of this story.

I could be wrong, but believe the only AF aircraft large enough to transport the buses would be the C5. Was one of those used? If so, it would likely have been noticed by a lot of people. Those babies are truly massive...


14 posted on 08/30/2011 9:02:55 AM PDT by LifePath
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To: Para-Ord.45
The Real question is, "What was the impact of this 'air-lift entourage' on our fighting forces overseas?"

Regards,

TS

15 posted on 08/30/2011 9:08:56 AM PDT by The Shrew (www.wintersoldier.com; www.tstrs.com; The Truth Shall Set You Free!)
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To: keat

Don’t give turds a bad name.


16 posted on 08/30/2011 9:09:11 AM PDT by DooDahhhh (ma)
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To: Para-Ord.45

It is apparently the goal of this president and his wife to spend as much of our money as possible and our Congress remains silent.


17 posted on 08/30/2011 9:14:59 AM PDT by drypowder
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To: Para-Ord.45

It is not the “carbon footprint” that strikes a nerve with me, it is the charade of running these buses from airport to airport. One video of the procession of police vehicles showed about 45 vehicles of all types involved in the security. It was all street theator designed for a big impact. It was a political campaign for reelection using the taxpayer’s dollar. That is my humble opinion.


18 posted on 08/30/2011 9:16:01 AM PDT by jonrick46 (2012 can't come soon enough.)
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To: the invisib1e hand

How could the POTUS be out of control? I thought that there was such a thing as checks and balances in our government?

Perhaps Congress doesn’t want to be accused of racism if they were to criticize the WH.


19 posted on 08/30/2011 9:26:15 AM PDT by 353FMG (Liberalism is Satan's handiwork.)
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To: cowboyway

That’s an insult to a turd!


20 posted on 08/30/2011 9:28:05 AM PDT by slimer (“I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people.)
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