Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Drunks and Screamers and Louts (oh, my)
If there are any stockings hung by the chimney with care in the Oval Office, they were surely blown askew last week by the circular temper-tantrums of the President, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. A life-like statue of harmless Vice-President Michael Pence was also present.
If junior high school students were to misbehave as badly as the leaders of the Republic they would be sent to the assistant principal’s office for a reprimand.
The statue of the vice-president, however, would be taken for the new mascot and draped with a toboggan cap and scarf in school colors.
The cranky old people who reign and rule over us can also nyah-nyah at each other while high in the sky:
The presidential aircraft fleet includes (but is not limited to) two BUFF modified Boeing 747s. There is also a number of helicopters crewed and served by some 800 – yes, 800 – Marines (https://www.airplanesofthepast.com/united-states-presidential-aircraft.htm).
The vice-president has access to two modified Boeing 757s so that the president can say that his is bigger.
The Speaker of the House enjoys, by presidential fiat after 9.11.2001, access to military jets for himself or herself, staff, and family. The once and future Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is well known for her sense of aviation privilege.
The Speaker of the House does not rate a government aircraft, only free rides on commercial aircraft. The current speaker once indulged in the house privilege of calling a flight attendance a b**** (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/plane-rude-sen-charles-schumer-refers-female-flight-attendant-b-word-article-1.436069) for asking him to turn his me-phone off as if he were one of (harrumph) The People.
Officials of the Justice Department and other functionaries also enjoy access to luxury aircraft at your expense (https://www.thoughtco.com/who-flies-on-the-taxpayers-dime-3321451).
Generals and admirals, too, can snap their fingers (or at least their office phones) and summon planes and helicopters for themselves, their families, and their special friends (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/06/25/generals-not-disciplined-in-misuse-of-aircraft.html), (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-generals-demotion-idUSBRE8AD06620121114), and (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/petraeus-wife-holly-furious-affair-article-1.1200586).
When commercial flying became popular in the 1950s and 1960s air travel long remained an occasion of decorum – men wore coats and ties, women wore dresses, gloves, and hats, and courtesy was a given.
Flying now is like being shoved into an old bus crowded with drunks and louts and screaming children. Given that Proletarian reality, government officials ought to give up the luxury aircraft and join us in cattle class – they’d fit right in with the other drunks and louts and screamers, and it would help the national budget.
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