It’s interesting to see this kind of thing. A winger in today’s WaPo chat started in with:
Cincinnati: Lois, I’ve seen nothing at all about Nancy Pelosi’s extravagant use of military aircraft as a private jet fleet for her family. Is this a story? I read about it on a right-wing blog (Instapundit), but there’s nothing in the real media. If she did it, it seems like a serious ethical breach (not that ethics are ever treated seriously in Washington!). Will she have to repay the money?
Then there was this:
Detroit: I don’t think you answered the Nancy Pelosi question. We’re talking about her kids — and their kids — using military jets to fly around the world. By themselves. And they only have to pay $200 for a private jet from DC to San Francisco? What the hell is that? This smells like a scandal. Why did you brush it off so quickly? Do you know something about it that makes you think it’s a non-issue?
Then this:
re: Pelosi: “What we dont know is what kinds of threats she and her family get.” So is someone from the Post investigating these reports? How often her family flew? Where they flew? What it cost? Have you asked the Secret Service and the FBI if there have been realistic threats made? Or are you just going on supposition and the Speaker’s word in an attempt to protect her from criticism?
No links (aside from a generic link to Instapundit), no details, no nothing. All the more reason their ombudsman thinks they need more reporters working on tracking down right-wing rumors: the lack of evidence for them means it takes that much more manpower to research them.
different church-lady
I’ve heard Pelosi uses a government issued chair at her desk! And that sometimes she eats her private lunch while sitting in it! Will she be forced to reimburse taxpayers?
Comrade Dread
That could explain why newspapers are tanking.
I imagine the payroll for the Bigfoot, Batboy, and anal probing Aliens Divisions is quite expensive.
Napoleon
So did this stuff get slapped down (I refuse to go to the WaPo except for Ezra, Dionne and Robinson)?
El Cid
So why is nobody investigating Nancy Pelosi traveling to Pakistan to meet with bin Laden to get money for ACORN? Huh?
And it’s been an entire paragraph, and still no one has answered the question I just proposed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Kaplan Daily has some “ex-White House official” whose name and title escape me–and shockingly, shockingly!! they say nothing about which administration he worked for– with a blog post about Nancy Pelosi spending $100,000 of “our hard-earned tax dollars on cocktails!” It turns out, they serve booze on the planes that take Congressional delegations to places.
We went through the whole “Nancy Pelosi uses a gov’t plane” thing in 2007. Give it up for the ‘Baggers: They’re recycling.
DonkeyKong
The Rightwing Cocoon, where proving a negative is the first commandment.
DougJ
@Napoleon:
She told them she had no idea what they were talking about beyond that Nancy Pelosi is transported in government planes the same way that other Speakers have been.
Notorious P.A.T.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
SpotWeld
Because talking about policy and long term financial planning is *boring* … checking out the kerning in photoshop.. now’s that’s something anyone can do to be important
Martin
Chris Gerrib
The brouhaha we had in 2007 about Pelosi using the “Speaker’s Shuttle” (which is what the Air Force calls the plane they provide for her) is coming around for a second helping in right-wing circles. All the links go back to the same Judicial Watch stuff from that era.
Rob in Denver
And the reason Speaker Pelosi has access to military aircraft is because President Bush wanted the Speaker of the House — regardless of his or her party — to have it because of line of succession security considerations in the age of global terrorism.
What dipshits.
El Cid
And still nobody has used the LOGAN ACT to investigate NANCY PELOSI FOR GOING TO SYRIA!!!
And Rachel Ray for wearing Palestinian terrorist scarves!
S. cerevisiae
But she’s a Democrat, so therefore she must fly the cheapest economy flight and sit in the back between two fat people with screaming babies or else she is a hypocrite.
Just like Al Gore must live in a cave, gather his own food, and only travel by bicycle.
ChrisB
Can I still say that those wingers are fucking retarded? Can I get away with r*tarded?
No offense. Just trying to be funny. I know, it’s no laughing matter.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Didn’t the run-up to the Iraq war teach us that?
Oh, wait…
Sue
A rehash of old rumors?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp
Karoli
Got a copy of the email that’s going viral this morning, accusing Nancy Pelosi of spending ‘millions in taxpayer money’ to upgrade her private jet to one that flies nonstop to California. It’s not news. It’s just more winger nonsense.
However…at the bottom of the email there’s a little ps, which is really the message. It says, “ps – Now she wants to tax our IRAs and 401ks”
This is the beginning of the message wars on financial reform. Never mind that it’s not true, of course, only that it’s repeated.
Chyron HR
@S. cerevisiae:
LEAVE SARAH AND TROG ALONE!
El Cid
I heard that Nancy Pelosi gets flown everywhere she wants on the Space Shuttle and her own personal F-22 Raptor, and after each flight she has them burned on a pile of money while she laughs at how much money she stole from the taxpayer!
Brick Oven Bill
When Nancy got all teary when she was comparing her fear of Teabaggers with the physical violence conducted by her fellow San Francisco Democrats in the 1970s, she was behaving like a retard.
Here is my proof. This Special Olympian makes more sense than Nancy, and he is literally classified as ‘retarded’ in accordance with Nancy’s health-care bill.
Therefore Nancy is a retard.
Karoli
Also…this has been floating around since 2007…here’s the snopes.com bit on it. http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp
Mayken
In all fairness she answered the last troll with this:
So she is not wholly fail.
Cheers!
different church-lady
@Brick Oven Bill: Your shtick is getting better!
different church-lady
@Comrade Dread: If I were going to go merely by WaPo chats and the typical set of on-line comments, I’d say the reason newspapers are tanking is because the readership has somehow become even dumber than cable news watchers.
pj
Denny Hastert never had food or drink on the plane when he was Speaker. That’s how he kept so fit and trim.
Zifnab
This is like the HCR argument on tort reform writ itty-bitty. You suggest there is a billion dollar (or in Pelosi’s case, million dollar) problem, and throw a screaming fit over it.
Meanwhile, the hundred billion dollar problems (Medicare Plan C & D, the military budget in general) go unresolved while you sort through the “scandals”.
Comrade javafascist
Limp-bag was flogging this on his radio show yesterday. The marching orders have been sent and like good little
brownshirtssoldiers they march on. He had a source. American Thinker perhaps? Too lazy and uninterested in the specifics to consult da google.Jay S
Currently all google “pelosi family jet” roads lead to this piece But supposedly there was a news service (AP?) piece hyped by Drudge that disappeared.
So this is a bit more than recycling the old stuff, but the story seems to have stalled before the hissy fit could get into full swing. They may have to go full Acorn again to get it moving.
MobiusKlein
@Brick Oven Bill: Fuck you, BoB. The ’70s saw some crazy radicals aiming guns & bombs at any politician. Not leftists, just wack jobs. In the SF Bay Area, we had Mayors killed, School Superintendents killed, Presidents shot at, City Supervisors gunned down in their own office.
Looking back at the ’60s where seemingly every liberal hero was killed, the whole era is a shit-storm that we don’t want to repeat. I don’t take it lightly that you blame it on leftists, let alone that you think it’s silly for Nancy Pelosi to take precautions to stay alive.
I know you can only find enjoyment by riling us up, but take another look at your soul, and see if there is something you can do to improve it.
Brick Oven Bill
JFK was killed by a communist MobiusKlein.
Robert by Sirhan Sirhan, the man to whom Bill Ayres dedicated a book.
Compare Jim Jones’ message to Barack’s.
The Teabagger rallies were without incident.
Brick Oven Bill
WIth the exception of one missing digit.
Comrade Kevin
@Chyron HR:
Who are you, Rush Limbaugh?
EFroh
On the plus side, they describe Instapundit as a right-wing blog. So many people think it’s moderate, it just drives me up the wall.
CalD
I thought that claim was all debunked… The Pelosi/military aircraft thing, I mean.
MobiusKlein
@Brick Oven Bill: BoB, you completely missed my SF references like the SLA and their murderous rampage. The fact that you group together folks like the SLA, the Jonestown crew with center-left politicians like Obama and Pelosi shows how little you care about truth. And then forgetting Dan Twinkie defense White.
Do you know the difference between left wing politics and a psychotic break?
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
He doesn’t know the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, of course not.
Bubblegum Tate
@CalD:
It was debunked, but that was a couple years ago, which means it’s time for a good rebunking.
Brick Oven Bill
Harvey Milk (Democrat hero who has a movie out about him) said of Jim Jones:
“Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.”
Jim started hanging kids upside down in wells. Then Congressman Ryan went down to investigate the alleged human rights abuses. Then the People’s Temple shot him. Then Jim killed a few hundred kids.
We should also mention that a black conservative was beaten at a Tea Party and called the ‘N’ word by the SEIU while they were beating him, which is, I think, still worse than the ‘R’ word.
The People’s Temple and large segments of the modern Left have very similar agendas, if you look into it.
Chat Noir
@Rob in Denver:
Eggsactly. They forget that when Dennis Hastert was the Speaker of the House, he used military aircraft for travel.
Yup.
licensed to kill time
Circular reasoning = circular arguments = circular reasoning = who are these people in my head and why won’t they stop talking = winger logic = there is nothing new under the winger sun, everything old is new again = Morning in America !
MobiusKlein
@Brick Oven Bill: Jim Jones was a cult leader who fooled a lot of people for a long time, Milk included.
But I suppose proof for you is saying:
Hitler was a vegetarian
therefore vegetarians are like Hitler.
People Temple had agenda item X
Democrats have agenda item X also.
Therefore Democrats share all negative traits of the People’s Temple.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
Which N word is that, BOB?
El Cid
Obama is just like Jim Jones, because Jim Jones got people to follow him and form an authoritarian religious community in a 3rd world country, whereas Obama ran for elected office and is now serving. Exactly.
Brick Oven Bill
The ‘N’ word to which I referred was the one loudly proclaimed at the Tea Party, by the SEIU members who were beating the black conservative over political differences Bill Rutherford, Granter of Legacy Scholarships, which surely pay a portion of your compensation.
Here is Wikipedia, for whatever it is worth:
Unlike other figures considered as cult leaders, Jones enjoyed public support and contact with some of the highest level politicians in the United States. For example, Jones met with Vice Presidential Candidate Walter Mondale and Rosalynn Carter several times. Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and Assemblyman Willie Brown, among others, attended a large testimonial dinner in honor of Jones in September 1976.
PurpleGirl
Hastert didn’t get food or drink on the plane since his home was half-way across the country and a shorter trip compared to Pelosi having to go all the way to the west coast. After all on commercial flights if the flight is 2 hours or less, you don’t get fed any food and just get soda/coffee/tea and peanuts/pretzels. /semi-snark.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
Poor BOB’s never seen Risky Business.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
The thought of him furiously scouring the Internet trying to figure out how to rat me out to my bosses is hilarious, though.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
“The ‘N’ word to which I referred was the one loudly proclaimed at the Tea Party”
Wow, you actually stumbled on a factual statement, good for you!
licensed to kill time
Really, folks – engaging BOBaloo = pointless. He inhabits a zone so unique, dare I say so specially abled that nothing enters but BOBlogic.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter the BOBosphere.
El Cid
Well, hell, if we’re going to mention political figures’ embrace of murderous leaders:
Considering that Reagan wasn’t just toasting the genocidal maniac, but arming him and providing his regime with diplomatic protection, it’s a little creepier than meeting Jim Jones back before he was murdering people with flavored drinks.
KCinDC
@Brick Oven Bill, unlike *what* other figures considered cult leaders? Certainly not unlike Sun Myung Moon, for example, unless you mean unlike Moon in that Moon gets far, far more access to politicians (mostly on the right). The guy pays the Bushes millions to make speeches at his cult events, and held a coronation in a congressional building.
mcc
On a related note, one thing that’s perennially neat about Google News is getting to see different news organizations’ take on news items at a glance.
aimai
How did you guys miss this? The amount of money that Pelosi wastes on planes is nothing compared to the amount of money she wastes on bottled water and funerals for Republicans like Jack Kemp!
aimai
Makewi
Being a reporter is hard, what with the wingers hiding their proof out in the open and all. In this case you might have to actually click a few links to bring you to the site that has the FOI requested documents which reveal the speakers family did indeed get rides on military aircraft.
El Cid
@Makewi: From your own link:
Makewi
I searched for that phrase on my link El Cid, didn’t find it.
gwangung
Your google-fu is weak.
That’s why you’re an incompetent.
hamletta
I’m with MobiusKlein. Assassination is not funny, no matter the victim or the perpetrator.
Can we please get BoB banned again? He’s gone from tiresome to hateful.