President Obama took his wife on a date Saturday and some people are going nuts. The RNC I can understand since they are the “ZOMG we lost, now what?!” party. But regular folks who are in arms about this need to get a life.
Mostly about my amusement
Mostly about my amusement
President Obama took his wife on a date Saturday and some people are going nuts. The RNC I can understand since they are the “ZOMG we lost, now what?!” party. But regular folks who are in arms about this need to get a life.
Johnny says:
I have no problems with the Obama’s going on a date. My only problem is that he made the taxpayers pay something like $56K per HOUR on Air Force One for his little flight to and from NYC for that date. That was on expensive date night … for the taxpayers.
June 4, 2009 — 1:49 am
Jan Dembowski says:
Sorry, that does not wash at all Johnny.
If the President goes anywhere by plane at all, then that plane is Airforce One (in this case it was a smaller craft). Should President Obama taken Amtrak? He’s the president 24 hours a day.
Also, how come there is no outcry when the President goes to “Elect this guy” rallies in the U.S.? The political parties don’t howl “Tax Payer Expense” when the President goes on vacation or plays golf somewhere. You don’t think we paid for Clinton to go to Camp David or Bush to go to Crawford?
This whole “Payed by the taxpayers” outrage is just manufactured nonsense. The President took some time off and, just like always, we paid for it.
June 4, 2009 — 5:50 am
Johnny says:
Camp David … I consider a fringe benefit of being the President … kind of like a company having a gym, country club, or tennis courts for its employees.
When the Bush family went to Crawford, they flew Air Force One as a means to “go home”. That too is like a company paying your travel expenses from home to a business function and back.
Traveling on Air Force One for a dinner date is totally at taxpayers expense when he has no official business for that travel to NYC; that in accordance to the IRS is an inappropriate “business” expense. I am really curious how the IRS is going to see this. Understandably that a lot of corporate America probably deducts expenses like these but, is it appropriate according to the tax laws?
According to what I’ve heard in the news, no other President has done something similar; at least not so publicly and obvious.
President Obama should use better judgment. In my opinion he not being a very good steward of taxpayers money. He has many resources at his fingertips that taxpayers are already paying for, why must he waste taxpayers dollars for unnecessary stuff?
June 8, 2009 — 8:19 pm
Jan Dembowski says:
You see wasted taxpayer dollars and I think that’s just nonsense. Personal time is personal time and Crawford was no different than going to NYC.
Nit picking the President’s actions is silly and it usually comes down to this: people who do this just plain don’t like President Obama.
Short of President Obama up and resigning, with Joe Biden in tow, there really is nothing that this president can do to make people like that happy.
I called this sort of silliness for the past 8 years when President Bush’s detractors did the same thing. I am by no means a fan of the last Bush administration but I assume that they tried their best even if their actions sometimes repulsed me (yeah, I’m talking about the torture).
Unless President Bush and Cheney had upped and quit at the same time (and went to jail!), none of President Bush’s detractors could possibly be satisfied.
Nit picking like this is childish when applied to any president.
That’s the number one reason most political blogs drive me crazy and I don’t visit them. They all dissolve into taking every small nuance and inflating it into a giant non-issue.
Johnny, I’m just going to leave it as we disagree and move onto to new topics. I hope you’ll appreciate that and do the same.
June 8, 2009 — 9:25 pm
Johnny says:
Agreed. Let talk about more fun stuff instead.
June 9, 2009 — 2:45 am
Jimmy says:
If its ok for the President to go out on date nights on the tax dime then why does he shoot down people using corp jets when taking Tarp money or executive compensation. They are also working and using Company assets too. Stop the hypocrisy.
June 9, 2009 — 7:41 pm
Jan Dembowski says:
Sigh. Hyprocrisy, what a thing to say.
Seriously, you really think that companies that come for huge handouts should NOT be criticized for partying like it’s 1999? I worked for Citi until 2007 and I can honestly say that NOT killing that plane purchase was just plain stupid and bad press on Citi’s part. Citi used to manage it’s own image better than that and they deserved the public flogging.
CEOs that actually are working for their company don’t head to Colorado with the whole family and then expense their whole family vacation; they pay for it out of their own pocket if they have any decency.
Jimmy, the President of the U.S. gets personal time. He took his wife out on a date on a Saturday night. To NYC. It was a great thing for him to do for his wife.
Guess what? During that time he’s still the president. He gets paid the WHOLE time. He gets travel arraignments for being the president, he get’s Secret Service the whole time, he even get’s followed around by his staff and the press. And shockingly the tax payers paid for that too.
I do not begrudge any President, current, past, or future from engaging in personal time. They have the most important job in the world. They do not get a break, ever. Some president’s would go to their ranch, estate, what not. Other’s went to Camp David, it’s all the same thing.
The man went on a date with his wife. It would be great if people would stop making this a big deal. But since this really is about people just not liking President Obama regardless of what he does, I don’t expect this to end until well after he is out of office.
June 9, 2009 — 8:09 pm
Jimmy says:
Ok “Date night” fine, how do you justify the Paris family vacation he just went on the tax payer dime again, or the Wednesday night dinners he has every week. How about that time he imported some 100 lbs of Kobe beef from Japon. If he is truely just doing his job destroying American then don’t make it a pattern. The man is a big fat liar that attending Rev.Wright’s church for 20 years. The chickens are coming home to roost.
June 11, 2009 — 5:39 pm
Jan Dembowski says:
Now it comes out. You just can’t stand President Obama.
Like I said above, your talking points are nonsense. You can take any of the last 4 presidents and nit pick anything and everything they did. It was a BS thing to do to President Bush and it’s a BS thing to do to this president.
Be honest with yourself: what could President Obama do that would satisfy you? And don’t bother with the talking points of “Socialism” and “Hussein”, just let me know what actions he could take that you’d say “Good job, Mr. President”.
The last several years created a problem that we are all dealing with today. Just saying “no, don’t do that” will not solve anything. I want to hear real ideas that actually work as opposed to this philosophical nonsense.
President Obama’s administration is dealing with the mess and I have yet to hear anything from his opponents even vaguely resembling a plan. I have heard lots of rhetoric but it’s all “they’re tax and spend socialists!” foolishness.
June 11, 2009 — 6:30 pm
Jimmy says:
I don’t know the person, I can only comment on his policies. He might be a great person but as far as a college professor leading the country with a plan to spend and grow the government has been in the past failures. Historically, Russian, France, Germany and England has done this, socialist medicine, take over of Cooperate entities. Japen has done the stimulus game and has a decade of no growth. Lets assume anyone had ideas to deal with this mess, has the MaoBama shown any indication that he has capacity to consider it. Lets forget nickpicking then and get to the meat of it, in the Chrysler and GM deals, he has picked winners and step on the bond holders and the “Rule of Law” he touts so often was violated as bond holders were secured not the UAW, by using Tarp money that was legally written to be used to bail out only Banks. As far as banks, banks that didn’t need Tarp money were compelled to take Tarp funds although they didn’t need it and resistance by the Obama Adminstration when trying to pay back. Explain where under Constitutional authority does he have the right to fire CEOs and control Executive Compensation. Defend the actions of picking winners and claiming too big to fail. Defend the Stimulus bill that is suppose to save/create jobs when its a Crap Sandwich waste money bill no Congress person read and forced to sign because economic armagedon is around the corner. He promised bi-partisan cooperation and bring the country together, yet I have not seen it. When Congressmen challenges his ideas for consideration of others, he response is “you lost and I won” If he is doing such a great job then demonstrate to me any of his acomplishments foreign or domestic.
June 11, 2009 — 8:38 pm
Jan Dembowski says:
Jimmy, I don’t know you but you are a friend of Johnny’s so I’m editing this and being polite.
But if you want to have a conversation, you need to keep to keep to the facts and stop with “MaoBama” name calling. Provide facts with dates and events or I’m calling you on BS.
Which CEO did President Obama fire? What was his name? What was the name of the bill that lets the President dictate that the compensation of CEOs? When did that actually happen? Geithner made statements and so did President Obama about CEOs and acting with responsibility. But that’s not a law and you know it. The administration and anyone can and does voice their opinion.
Tarp money: President Obama did that? Right, when he was the President in 2008 and Henry Paulson was his Sec’y of Treasury. This is really his second term. I guess that the economists that the administration (this one and the last) didn’t have any idea what they were talking about.
When Bank of America was pressured to buy/bail out Merrill Lynch, was President Obama in office or was it President Bush?
You dislike the GM and Chrysler deals, okay. As I asked above, do you or any of his opponents have an actual plan? And if Chrysler and GM folded and all of their workers lost their jobs and we all felt that, how much exactly would you hate President Obama?
Do you actually have any facts to talk about or are you just full of rhetoric? So far I don’t see any facts. What I do see is someone who is just blaming the current President for cleaning up the mess. I do not doubt for one minute that if Senator McCain had been elected, we would still be having this talk. Only the names would be different.
You say you don’t know President Obama but you sure hate him already. That just plain ignorant and I am sure you know better. If you want to rant about President Obama, feel free to do so on your own blog.
If you want to reply, do so. But if you just want to continue to rant please just post a link to your blog and let readers pick it up there.
One last thing: Re-read everything I’ve written on this page. You will notice that I am not a President Obama groupy or rabid fan. I have not praised him, I just refuse to let ignorance drive me to make inflammatory statements without any facts.
June 11, 2009 — 9:12 pm
Jimmy says:
Obama fired GM CEO Rick Wagner on Mar 29. (goggle is your friend) Obama did not use a bill but instead on Jun 10. Ken Feinberg, the new special master better known as the “pay czar” was choosen. He will dicate compensation pay for companies that receieved Fed funds. As a reminder, he has designed 20 Czars that report only to Obama.
Yes Tarp was done under Bush but it was in Obama adminstration that the remainder of Tarp funds was used for Chysler and GM restructing.
By not letting market forces handle failures such as bankruptcy and allowing stronger companies prevail, saving losers just creates a new class of welfare.
I am not a fan of McCain for he was the wrote of the McCain-Feingold alien amnesty bill so to make an assumption of what might be discussed is presumption on your part based not on facts. As to being polite, I would hope that you would be polite to whomever you deal with and not because they are Johnny’s friend when they disagree with you.
June 11, 2009 — 11:11 pm
Jan Dembowski says:
Jimmy,
That’s a much better reply than your other comments.
It comes down to this: I believe that the current president is doing his best and that his detractors are simply complaining not because of what he does but because of who he is.
You and others believe that he’s doing it wrong.
You don’t like the deal with GM and Chrysler, and I did forget about Rick Wagoner. But aside from “let the market work itself out” I don’t see any plans or solutions being offered.
I do see philosophical/market theory being tossed about but where is the actual plan? I’ve asked already: if GM and Chrysler closed shop May 1st of this year, and let all those suppliers and employees shuttered their doors, how much would you blame President Obama? What do you think the impact to the economy would be if that happened?
Those companies may fail yet but is that something we want to happen or should we try to see if it can be delayed or avoided?
Let’s leave this conversation where it is. I’m not going to change my mind and you’re not going to either.
June 12, 2009 — 5:44 am