The Paducah Sun/Editorial: DUCHESS.
The Paducah Sun/Editorial
DUCHESS
House speaker expects royal treatment from USAF
“It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable. ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are.”
Kay King
Aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The Duchess of the Golden Gate may have to lop off some heads.
House Speaker Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi holds two distinctions: she is the first woman to occupy the speaker’s chair, and also the first member of the royalty. Of course, the royalty part is self-assumed.
Pelosi apparently thinks the United States Air Force is her personal airline, and she does not take kindly to the military neglecting her personal needs for less important matters, like national security and fighting wars and whatnot.
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that expose the speaker as a tyrant whose office rails at Air Force personnel for failing to accommodate her transportation needs in a manner befitting royalty.
Last Memorial Day, for example, a Pelosi aide charged with arranging flights home for the speaker and her family complained that the speaker would have to fly on ordinary jets — still reserved just for her, mind you, nothing so undignified as a commercial flight — rather than the luxurious Gulfstream V.
In an e-mail obtained through the FOIA, aide Kay King wrote: “It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable. ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are.”
Upon learning that unacceptable aircraft would be used to fly the speaker and her entourage on another occasion, King upbraided the Air Force: “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker.”
Judicial Watch found that not only did Duchess Pelosi demand high-end aircraft for herself, her family and her close colleagues, she frequently scheduled flights only to cancel them at the last minute. Taxpayers still have to foot the bill for those canceled flights — flight crews and ground crews still have to be paid, meals are prepared, preflight preparations made. A Defense Department official complained that Pelosi’s office scheduled the planes every weekend “just in case,” while frequently not using the flights.
Pelosi has publicly expressed a willingness to fly commercial — you know, just like her subjects. She knows that can’t happen; since 9/11, the Air Force has, for national security purposes, transported the House speaker even for personal, unofficial trips, just as it does the president and vice president. The magnanimous pretense was exposed by her staff’s e-mails.
Pelosi also issued a statement that she often uses the same smaller aircraft that her predecessor, Republican Rep. Dennis Hastert, used on his trips to his home district. Talk about sacrifice.
But two years ago Pelosi created a stir when she requested regular use of a C-32, the same plane as the 300-passenger Boeing 757, retrofitted with 42 business class seats, a wood-paneled state room, a bar and a full-size bed. According to Richard Minitar of the Hudson Institute, the taxpayer cost of a round-trip flight from Washington to San Francisco aboard the C-32 is $300,000, the cost of 1,000 flights on a commercial airline. The C-32 also releases 50 tons of CO2 on a trip home for the speaker, a self-styled environmental champion.
Last October, another story revealed the self-serving character of the duchess. The speaker’s political action committee, PAC to the Future, paid her husband’s real estate and investment firm $99,000 for rent, utilities and accounting fees from 2000 to 2005, and was on pace to pay $48,000 in 2008 to Paul Pelosi himself for his services to the committee. He’s treasurer of the PAC she chairs, padding their personal bank accounts.
Ironically, in 2007, Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from paying spouses for work on campaigns and PACs. The bill passed in the House. Fortunately for the Pelosis, the bill never got out of committee in the Senate; otherwise they might be $147,000 poorer.
A sacrifice like that would be “totally unacceptable” for the duchess.
DUCHESS
House speaker expects royal treatment from USAF
“It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable. ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are.”
Kay King
Aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The Duchess of the Golden Gate may have to lop off some heads.
House Speaker Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi holds two distinctions: she is the first woman to occupy the speaker’s chair, and also the first member of the royalty. Of course, the royalty part is self-assumed.
Pelosi apparently thinks the United States Air Force is her personal airline, and she does not take kindly to the military neglecting her personal needs for less important matters, like national security and fighting wars and whatnot.
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that expose the speaker as a tyrant whose office rails at Air Force personnel for failing to accommodate her transportation needs in a manner befitting royalty.
Last Memorial Day, for example, a Pelosi aide charged with arranging flights home for the speaker and her family complained that the speaker would have to fly on ordinary jets — still reserved just for her, mind you, nothing so undignified as a commercial flight — rather than the luxurious Gulfstream V.
In an e-mail obtained through the FOIA, aide Kay King wrote: “It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable. ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are.”
Upon learning that unacceptable aircraft would be used to fly the speaker and her entourage on another occasion, King upbraided the Air Force: “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker.”
Judicial Watch found that not only did Duchess Pelosi demand high-end aircraft for herself, her family and her close colleagues, she frequently scheduled flights only to cancel them at the last minute. Taxpayers still have to foot the bill for those canceled flights — flight crews and ground crews still have to be paid, meals are prepared, preflight preparations made. A Defense Department official complained that Pelosi’s office scheduled the planes every weekend “just in case,” while frequently not using the flights.
Pelosi has publicly expressed a willingness to fly commercial — you know, just like her subjects. She knows that can’t happen; since 9/11, the Air Force has, for national security purposes, transported the House speaker even for personal, unofficial trips, just as it does the president and vice president. The magnanimous pretense was exposed by her staff’s e-mails.
Pelosi also issued a statement that she often uses the same smaller aircraft that her predecessor, Republican Rep. Dennis Hastert, used on his trips to his home district. Talk about sacrifice.
But two years ago Pelosi created a stir when she requested regular use of a C-32, the same plane as the 300-passenger Boeing 757, retrofitted with 42 business class seats, a wood-paneled state room, a bar and a full-size bed. According to Richard Minitar of the Hudson Institute, the taxpayer cost of a round-trip flight from Washington to San Francisco aboard the C-32 is $300,000, the cost of 1,000 flights on a commercial airline. The C-32 also releases 50 tons of CO2 on a trip home for the speaker, a self-styled environmental champion.
Last October, another story revealed the self-serving character of the duchess. The speaker’s political action committee, PAC to the Future, paid her husband’s real estate and investment firm $99,000 for rent, utilities and accounting fees from 2000 to 2005, and was on pace to pay $48,000 in 2008 to Paul Pelosi himself for his services to the committee. He’s treasurer of the PAC she chairs, padding their personal bank accounts.
Ironically, in 2007, Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from paying spouses for work on campaigns and PACs. The bill passed in the House. Fortunately for the Pelosis, the bill never got out of committee in the Senate; otherwise they might be $147,000 poorer.
A sacrifice like that would be “totally unacceptable” for the duchess.
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