inauguration

WoW!!

I am not sure if it really matters or not, but it is a bit of money.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl204

That's a hell of a lot of money!

Total waste of my hard earned money that the gov't stole from me. I want my money back!@!!

maybe this is how they help fund it.

Getting a Parking Ticket



The other day I went downtown to run a few errands. I went into the
local coffee shop for a snack.
I was only there for about 5 minutes, and when I came out, there was
this cop writing out a parking ticket.

I said to him, 'Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break'?

He ignored me and continued writing the ticket.
His insensitivity annoyed me, so I called him a 'Nazi.'

He glared at me and then wrote out another ticket for having worn tires.

So I proceeded to call him a 'doughnut eating Gestapo.'

He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first.

Then he wrote a third ticket when I called him a moron in blue.

This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I talked back to him the
more tickets he wrote.


Personally, I didn't really care. I came downtown on the bus, and the
car that he was putting the tickets on had one of those
bumper stickers that said, 'Obama in '08.'

I try to have a little fun each day now that I'm retired.

The doctor tells me that it's important to my health.

I felt much better on the bus ride home.


Art

I would say Wow as well... to some very sloppy reporting.

The key items:
- The article actually links to a Media Matters story about the fact that the $150M number is completely unsubstantiated.
- The cost quoted for Bush ($42M) didn't include security costs, etc, that are included here. The actual budget of the Presidential Inaugural Committee is $45M.
- That money comes from private donors.

The facts don't usually get in the way of the right wing nutosphere's hissy fits, though. The tizzy over the cost of the Inauguration is a lot like the tizzy over the 'fairness doctrine' -- something for the right wind pundits to fill air time with. (You end up scraping the bottom of the barrel when you have to talk about SOMETHING for hours on end, I guess.)

Rush, Hannity and company are becoming the boys who cried wolf -- which is why they are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

My issue is that the money paid by HBO to film the concert should have gone to the National Park Service....not the Inaugural Committee. Why was a concert held on the grounds of a national monument broadcast under a private license? I couldn't see it.

Eric

Backpasture is right, $150 Million is unsubstantiated, its more like $170 Million.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inaug...6665946&page=1

But this is just from those right wing nuts at ABC News. :rolleyes:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IowaBayDog

Backpasture is right, $150 Million is unsubstantiated, its more like $170 Million.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inaug...6665946&page=1

But this is just from those right wing nuts at ABC News. :rolleyes:

---

Yep. It quotes all the same 'sources' as the others. In other words, it doesn't. The number (whatever one they opt to pull out of their *sses), is 1) made up, and 2) not paid for by taxpayers.

Just silly stuff. It's like complaining about how much the Super Bowl costs. Gotta fill air time, though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by backpasture

Yep. It quotes all the same 'sources' as the others. In other words, it doesn't. The number (whatever one they opt to pull out of their *sses), is 1) made up, and 2) not paid for by taxpayers.

---

In your last post you said that Obama's inauguration costs are substantially higher than Bush's because Obama's numbers include the costs for security. Is security not footed by taxpayers? Let me guess, only Bush's inaugural cost taxpayer money?

For the record, I don't care much what the costs are for Obama's inaugural are (and didn't care what Bush's were). They seem like a reasonable expense for celebrating and affirming the American political process every four years and are a drop in the bucket compared to the money that's pissed down a tube every other day. What's galling is the hypocrisy of those who kvetched about the pricetag for Bush's festivities are conveniently silent now.

I would be interested in anything substantiating the media "quotes" showing bias that began this thread. I haven't found anything beyond the AP story I noted before (which did not evidence the bias claimed) and the MSNBC Tamron Hill assertions that Obama's inauguration is costing $100 million more than Bush's (a factual error). Unfortunately, most of these little conservative email flames are much heavier on claimed "facts" than they are on references. Without references, this one seems to join the throng of lies and distortions that are thrown in the hope that mud will stick.