George W. Bush is today's winner. No fuel conservation when you're trying to save a presidency:
Attytood exclusive: Bush wastes roughly $170,000 in jet fuel as he urges nation to conserve
Just one day after President Bush urged Americans to cut back on needless travel and promised that the federal government would do the same, he boarded Air Force One for a trip to inspect hurricane damage that will burn up roughly 11,437 gallons of jet fuel, worth about $24,590 at today's record high fuel prices.
In fact, an investigation by Attytood -- using the best available numbers for Bush's travel since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, for the performance of Air Force One and for jet fuel prices -- estimates that Bush has spent $169,314 on jet fuel alone....
Many of the trips seem targeted towards conveying television images of Bush as an involved leader. In fact, Bush's flight schedule last weekend was rearranged because, according to aides, Hurricane Rita had shifted course and the weather would be sunny in San Antonio. At several of the meetings that Bush has attended other officials have taken part by teleconferencing rather than by attending in person.....
The cost to taxpayers for all of Bush's storm related travel has been much higher. Some studies have placed the total cost of operating Air Force One at at least $56,800 an hour or more, meaning that Bush's hurricane related travel has cost taxpayers somewhere in the range of $2 million or more -- just for the air travel!
A close second? Perennial contender FEMA:
Victims living 'like cavemen' after Rita
Residents still waiting for electricity, gasoline, water
Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz, whose own home was destroyed by fire after the hurricane, said "we've had 101 promises" for aid, "but it's all bureaucracy." He and other officials gathered at a hotel-turned-command center, where a dirty American flag found among hurricane debris was hung on the wall.
John Owens, emergency management coordinator and deputy police chief in the town of 57,000, said pleas for state and federal relief were met with requests for paperwork.
"We have been living like cavemen, sleeping in cars, doing bodily functions outside," he said.
Temperatures climbed into the upper 90s, and officials worried that swarms of mosquitoes might spread disease.
The Corruption:
If you give enough money to the GOP, you can take the "public" out of "public broadcasting" and substitute "GOP".
Gingrich-izing Public Broadcasting
On September 26, the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting elected its new chairperson and vice-chairperson, and the eight-member board--which contains only two Democrats--selected two conservative Republican funders for these posts. Cheryl Halpern will succeed the embattled liberal-hunter Kenneth Tomlinson as chair. Gay Hart Gaines will be vice-chair. The board chose Gaines over an independent.
As press accounts have noted, Gaines, who was first appointed by George W. Bush to the CPB board in 2003, is an interior decorator by training. But she and her husband have contributed at least half a million dollars to GOP causes since 1998. Notably, Gaines was a charter member and chairman of GOPAC, a political action committee headed in the 1980s and 1990s by Newt Gingrich. During that period, GOPAC attracted much attention for dodgy practices (which drew a Federal Elections Commission investigation) and for its harsh partisan practices. So now it's an appropriate time to revisit one of GOPAC's most notorious actions....
This is to say that Gay Hart Gaines, the number two on the CPB's board as of this week, was a leading official of an outfit that advised Republican candidates to brand Democrats "traitors." She now is in a position to search for bias in public radio and public television programming.
The Cronyism:
This one clerked for Clarence Thomas and the world opened up for her. Her qualifications? Wide-eyed wingnuttism. (Tip o' the cap to BTC News)
Kristen Silverberg
Kristen Silverberg has seen it all.
She was one of the wide-eyed conservatives who trekked to Austin in 2000 to get the George W. Bush for President train rolling. The former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was in the White House policy shop in the pre-9/11 days helping to dream up a health care plan, big tax cuts and "compassionate conservative" policies.
In 2003, she shipped out to Baghdad to advise L. Paul Bremer on the creation of an elected Iraqi government. Then it was back to the White House to help develop Bush's second-term agenda. She went to work for Andrew H. Card Jr. and Karl Rove, the president's two most powerful aides, on domestic, economic and foreign affairs....
Now, Silverberg, 34, is part of the exodus of powerful White House women to Foggy Bottom. The recently confirmed assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs joins some of her closest friends and mentors in a place where, one official jokes, "girl power" rules.
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2 comments:
the silverberg bit is weak as hell. the strongest condemnation seems to be "she's a she!" gasp!
attack her all you want for being a wingnut, but lay off women, would ya?
this is no different from criticizing condi as a "house... ahem." if you can't find somethin' smart to say (like that condi lied repeatedly about saddam hussein's aluminum tubes), don't say nothin' at all.
i've never, ever liked betty the crow.
Perhaps I should have been more clear. I could care less that she's a she. I care that she's a right wing idealogue with no policy making experience. I don't believe in on-the-job training in the White House.
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