Idiots Abound

I was watching the news and they just had a Senator complaining about the amount of money being spent on the Presidents Inauguration. He then goes on to say that the money could be better spent on things like Life Insurance Policies for troops in Iraq.

Oh My! Am I the only one that can see just how stupid that comment is? Can you see the shit hit the fan if the President started buying Life Insurance policies for the troops? Not to mention the legalities of something like that.

Wow, I am just glad that guys doesn't represent my state.... Sheesh.

We never heard about Klinton's costs for his inaugurations because the media didn't care to give that out. He was their boy and was doing the people's business.... :roll:

Joe R.

i thot he was doing monickas business??lol

Found this in the Washington Post (who interestingly shelled out $100,000 for tickets this year)

 In 1997, the inaugural committee for Clinton limited donations to $100 but waited until mid-April to disclose the names of those who bought tickets or made donations. Clinton's inauguration cost $29.6 million and took in $23.7 million. Money left over from his first inauguration was used to make up the difference.

The reliance on private contributors to help pay inaugural costs is fairly standard. Clinton's inaugural planners scaled back the practice in 1997 after some of those who gave to his first inauguration figured in Democratic fundraising controversies.

If I remember correctly, at the point of Clinton's second inauguration, the economy was in high gear and money was being made by everyone so there weren't same financial concerns. What concerns me most isn't the spending of $40 mil on an inauguration party, it's that the of the nearly $28mil raised so far, almost $22 million is coming from individuals/corporations that have donated $100,000. What will they expect in return?

 Among the $100,000 donors, many of which will have regulatory and other issues in the new administration: Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Microsoft, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Citicorp, Merrill Lynch, Anheuser-Busch, Lockheed Martin, auto manufacturing firms and airlines. The National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, gave $25,900.

Marriott International Inc. and its subsidiaries gave $750,000, making the Bethesda-based company the committee's biggest contributor. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave $100,000, and the National Association of Broadcasters gave $50,000.

The Washington Post Co. gave $100,000. Patrick Butler, vice president of the company, said the donation was an efficient way of getting tickets to inaugural balls for Post and Newsweek advertisers. The company, which owns Newsweek, \"traded back\" to the committee all the tickets for dinners, receptions and ceremonial events to get 100 inaugural ball tickets.

I'm sure I don't know the whole story, but the blatent purchasing of influence these days (not just a republican thing) makes me kind of sick to my stomache.

RAWHIDE wrote:i thot he was doing monickas business??lol

meant to put this in my first post, but LOL!


Back to Atomms original post:

Haven't our troops always had some sort of Life Insurance policy? I thought that if you were killed while on duty, your family received some sort of payout. Probably not the equivalent of a million dollar policy, but something to offset the loss. Maybe I'm wrong on that though....

My biggest complaint is the lack of equipment that they have to fight this war although again, I don't have enough direct knowledge to know whether this is real or a perceived supply issue. Tough to know who to trust as a reliable source in the media these days.

reliable source in the media

There isn't one.... unless yoru a liberal

Ahh...the mythical "liberal media" theory rears it's ugly head. I would count myself as generally a liberal, but don't really trust the media to provide me with an accurate story, especially television and radio. They just try to squeeze the "gist" of the story into a 30 second blurb which tends to distort or ignore important information. Printed media at least sometimes feel like they need to give you some details....

I would say that the media in general tends to lean one way (newspapers and movie stars) or the other (television and radio), neither of which is appropriate given that they are supposed to be reporting facts not speculation or half-truths.

Sarge wrote:

RAWHIDE wrote:i thot he was doing monickas business??lol

Haven't our troops always had some sort of Life Insurance policy? I thought that if you were killed while on duty, your family received some sort of payout. Probably not the equivalent of a million dollar policy, but something to offset the loss. Maybe I'm wrong on that though....

I can't speak to current day initives in regards to insurance, but I can tell you for a fact that WWII they had an insuracy program. My grandfather died of his WWII wounds a few years after active duty. Because of that fact my father recieved a small trust fund (enough for him to buy a brand new GTO and crash it before insuring it, lost that money in a matter of 2 hours), I thin k the fund was about $3k. My grandmother also received some benefits too, but I don't know how much. As a side incentive, my father was excempt from active duty in vietnam. He could be drafted but not put on the front line unless he asked to be. I don't know what they do now adays.