REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Let them eat cake !

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Friday, August 6, 2010 08:15
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Thursday, August 5, 2010 2:01 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

Material girl Michelle Obama is a modern-day Marie Antoinette on a glitzy Spanish vacation


Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama's inaugural address to the nation, and he's referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don't seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Reports are calling the lodgings of Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious," "posh" and "a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.

Perhaps it could be that the Obamas, who seem to fancy themselves more along the lines of international celebrities than actual leaders, espouse a different view of sacrifice. When Michelle Obama accompanied her husband to Copenhagen along with best buddy Oprah Winfrey, she billed the trip - an ultimately unsuccessful bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago - as follows: "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the President to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home."

A quick jaunt to Denmark is a sacrifice? What portraits in courage!

The Obama modus operandi is becoming clear. From lavish trips to Spain to reportedly flying Bo, the President's Portuguese water dog, on a separate aircraft to vacation with them in Maine, to a date night in New York City that perhaps cost nearly $100,000, their idea of austerity is really just the lap of luxury, at least for ordinary folks.

Incredibly, the Obamas have long portrayed themselves as precisely such commoners. Just this month, Obama told ABC the First Couple is "not that far removed from what most Americans are going through." And that "it was just a few years ago that we had high credit card balances, we had two kids, thinking about college. We had our own retirement accounts, wondering if we were going to be able to get enough assets in there."



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/04/2010-08-04_material_gir
l_michelle_obama_is_a_modernday_marie_antoinette_on_a_glitzy_spanish.html#ixzz0vjS1ETjz









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Thursday, August 5, 2010 3:50 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


But it's OK when Bush does it. And of course, the banksters "deserve" their billions.

Did you know that of all modern Presidents, Bush took the most vacation days?

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 3:57 AM

BYTEMITE


I can see how the Secret Service thing might be a point...

I wonder if they're staying in the same hotel, though, it seems to me like they'd only need to form the human shield thing and hover around Michelle in the daytime, which the hotel would probably allow, and Michelle probably isn't going to spend the entire time lounging at the pool anyway, and at night they'd just need surveillance equipment and one team in close proximity to Michelle. Other teams would take night shift on guard near exit points, and monitoring equipment from nearby hotel rooms or in surveillance vans.

I think it's making an assumption to say all 70 reserved rooms here are for Michelle and her honor guard, or that the money for the 70 rooms came from the taxpayers (unless it's in the sense of the Obama presidential income coming from taxpayers). If not, then the only thing the taxpayers are currently paying for would be the wages to the secret service to protect the first family, which is what we'd be paying anyway. I also suspect the secret service, because of the whole bureaucracy/beancounter thing every government agency has going, that they would figure out a less expensive work around.

If they're paying for this out of the money the president has been making, it does makes me wonder if and how presidential vacation time is budgeted, because it clearly has to be budgeted somehow. Is there some sort of leave time the President and/or the first family get? Like, a regular working stiff, each pay period they work, they get like four hours paid administrative leave. Is that how this works?

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 4:35 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends."



Apparently not their dirt poor relatives.

Found in a rundown Boston estate: Barack Obama’s illegal alien aunt Zeituni Onyango
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_electio
ns/article5042571.ece


Obama's impoverished brother George Obama arrested on drugs charge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/obama-brother-marijuana

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 5:48 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
But it's OK when Bush does it. And of course, the banksters "deserve" their billions.

Did you know that of all modern Presidents, Bush took the most vacation days?



So many lies and distortions in just two lines... amazing.

Bush didn't take as many vacations as Barry and Michelle have.

The " banksters" ?? I'm not even sure wth that's suppose to mean. How's that come into the conversation ?


As for Bush and his " vacation days", most of those were clearly when he spent time away from the WH and was on his ranch, in Crawford, TX. Yes, lovely, serene, picturesque , exotic CRAWFORD!

Barry and Michelle only go "home" to Chicago when they're not in Hawaii, Spain, England, France, Africa, or jetting across country......


It's beyond silly to compare the two, because there is no comparison.

None, what so ever.





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Friday, August 6, 2010 8:15 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


You shouldn't set yourself up like that, it's waaay to easy:
Quote:

George W. Bush seems to have taken this to the extreme early in his tenure as president. A humorous, fake resume for Bush suggests that he set the record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.

According to an August 2003 article in the Washington Post, President Bush has spent all or part of 166 days during his presidency at his Crawford, Texas, ranch or en route. Add the time spent at or en route to the presidential retreat of Camp David and at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That's 27% of his presidency spent on vacation. Although to be fair, much of this time is classified as a "working vacation."

As for his first 18 months compared to Obama:
Quote:


Ronald Reagan took 349 vacation days at his California ranch during his eight years in office. In his first year and a half as President, George W. Bush vacationed 96 days. Over that same time period, President Obama has taken 36 days.

As of currently:
Quote:

President Obama has spent all or part of 65 days on vacation, including days at Camp David. At this point in his tenure, George W. Bush had logged 120 days.
In total:
Quote:

George W. Bush took 977 vacation days, out of 2,923 days in office, roughly 33%. He spent 487 at Camp David, 490 days at his Crawford Ranch. That doesn't count things like the Olympics or days in Kennebunkport, Maine.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_vacation_days_did_george_w_bush_tak
e_while_president


I'm sure Crawford was really "roughing it"...probably no indoor plumbing or anything! Dumbya has the record for the most vacation days of any sitting President: "Heartfelt congratulations to President Bush, who on Friday August 19th breaks Ronald Reagan's all-time record for most vacation days. The old record was 335 days, though Reagan took his sweet time of eight years to accomplish this feat. President Bush did it in nearly half the time. And with another two weeks of vaction on tap, he's obviously not content with simply breaking the record, he's going to smoke that record right out of the hole."

You're right, there's no comparison. It's downright silly to compare them.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off




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