NBC New York<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWell, Chuck, you would have a ginormous point…if the plane were to be gifted to Mr. Trump. However, it is being gifted to the GOVERNMENT and then repurposed afterwards to be gifted to the Trump Presidential Library. It’s a minor distinction, perhaps, but it means it is not a gift to the President, hence probably does not run afoul of the Emoluments Clause. Geez, Chuckie, if you want to go after your former constituent for that clause, you should look into his memecoin transactions – that one is a lot closer to fitting. Besides, while Trump is giddy at having a soi-disant $100,000,000 ‘flying palace’, maybe he should look at it it through a different lens. Namely, it’s damn near a crime. Ever hear of a white elephant?<\/p>\n
In the old days, when governments gave hideously expensive gifts to other governments, the worst of all gifts was a rare albino elephant. Why? You couldn’t insult the donor by turning it into elephant steaks, a few umbrella holders, and a set of billiards balls – you had to keep it alive, feed it hundreds of pounds of expensive feed every day – damn thing was like a 4 bore elephant gun, costly at BOTH ends.<\/p>\n
Yes, this 747 is ultra luxurious – Qatar bought two of them at the same time with all that oil money we American consumers insist on throwing at them. Fit for a king…and they value them so much they already gave one to Turkey (who doesn’t apparently have<\/em> an Emoluments Clause) and are seeking to give this one, (supposedly barely broken in with only a thousand or so hours on it) to us. And what will we do with it?<\/p>\nWe’re gonna throw money at it. Lots and lots of money.<\/p>\n
Owned by a foreign government – first the lads are going to have to do a security sweep, which given the sophistication of today’s electronic devices, may require almost a component-level teardown.\u00a0 Ah, what lovely paneling…now rip it out and check for bugs. Imagine that on a 747 scale. Nice seat leather ya got there? Corinthian? Or Intel? Every piece of the plane big enough to hide a bug is going to have to be examined. And that is for openers.<\/p>\n
EMP – Air Force One is supposedly EMP hardened. Think Boeing did that for Qatar? I am guessing ‘no’. Communications – for the Bribejet (kinda like that term)<\/del> plane to be used as Air Force One it needs the full communications suite the President is required to take with. Long, expensive install. Heck, one of the reasons the actual Air Force Ones are taking so long is because they require all these things – and it’s always easier to build them in than to refit. Anyone who has ever upgraded even a car can swear to that. And how long would this take? How long will parts be available? Boeing took 747s out of production a couple of years ago, and it’s not exactly as easy to get parts for planes as it is for your classic Chevelle.<\/p>\nAnd of course there is the money…we are already buying a couple of Air Force Ones (which Boeing is seriously behind on). Gonna be hard to justify an expensive refit, a military parade. and two National Command Authority Air Force Ones to the public – and ultimately to the Congress which has to vote for all the funding. In a world of DOGE and widespread job cuts, funding all of this will be characterized as rank hypocrisy – and I would bet plenty of Congresscritters would hear from angry constituents about it.<\/p>\n
Let’s see – hideously expensive, guaranteed to upset a bunch of the country, possibly monitorable… heck, this plane is damn near an act of war!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hopefully life won’t overtake this – I am traveling this weekend so writing is taking place … The dumbassery of a 747<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,187,478,188,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-air-force","category-none","category-reality-check","category-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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