The White House today agreed to release this one picture from the infamous buzzing of lower Manhattan — causing panic among New Yorkers. In the meantime, Louis Caldera, the head of the White House Military Office has resigned.
Caldera approved the operation, which was classified for still unknown reasons and kept from the public and most officials. The operation, which was just a photo op, cost taxpayers $328,835.
Caldera is a former Army secretary, under Clinton.
For the full story, click here.
Hi, FFLEO, Bron, and all. Happy Weekend.
If you really, really want to know, my paraprofessional’s pay here in my north Texas hometown is actually a little less than 15k, about 3x less than a starting teacher’s salary. I’m still lacking the credentials to be “a teacher”, with but 83 college hours, and 9 years working in the ISD, including 2.5 substituting. I’m a teacher’s aide, tutoring special needs children, with bus, hall, cafeteria, secretarial, fundraising, cleaning, advisory, and hospitality duties thrown in. Some 700 children attend my school and I do the best I can to take care of those little sponges. I love my present job, but regrettably, its financial aspect is a disservice to my family. Lots of paras and other support staff hold two jobs to make ends meet, as I have done for several years.
My further education has been on hold to raise my child for the past 15 years. The last time I checked, lots of classes I successfully completed at the state university 30 years ago are useless now toward getting my diploma, so it’s going to take about two years to finish up and become “a real teacher”. When and if I do begin bringing home those extra $, I just know I can and will spend righteously, the fact that I dislike shopping notwithstanding. Can you believe a good loaf of bread is approaching $4? Do you realize how fast kids outgrow clothing?
Nearby Dallas wages are higher, I’m sure, but a daily commute would suck absolutely. Recent teacher lay-offs in Dallas number 600+/-, btw.
Relocation isn’t desirable either. We all are happy with our child’s school and friends, and my 90+ yr.old in-laws with Alzheimer’s and two of my siblings, one who’s had 4 cardiac infarctions, are minutes away. To be honest, though, it would be nice if my creepy, mooching brother-in-law couldn’t find us. That would certainly abate my husband’s devotion to bailing him out yet again.
In less than 3 years, it’ll be paid off, our 6 acres w/60 yr. old little home, where the wild violets smell so sweet, where a wild turkey once came and laid 17 eggs, where puff ball fungi almost the size of your head seem to magically appear, and where you can see predictable meteor showers on a clear night. I have covered wagon-driving ancestors who met and fell in love at a spring not 2 miles from here. The story goes, he shot a deer for the newcomers’ dinner and later entertained them with fiddle playing. The music inspired dancing, no doubt under a full moon and probably with occasional whipporwill lullabies.
Anyway, soon after the mortgage is paid, our kiddo will begin secondary education. Fifteen years ago, when I was pregnant and my husband made $20/hour at lithography (before computers ate his job), we invested in 80 acres in the Boston Mtns. of Arkansas, specifically intending later sale proceeds to pay for our kid’s schooling. I’m not for harvesting the white oak timber, preferring rather to sell the property itself when the time comes, but we could cut if we found ourselves in a dire way. In the meantime, it’s been a great place to camp in the cold weather season, from the first frost around late October until early April. Other times it’s infested with chiggers (the larvae of the red spider mite), seed ticks and poison ivy. (I’d probably make a lousy realtor.) Just off the property is a cool railroad trestle you can walk out on, even waving to passengers taking that scenic journey. There’s a primitive cabin, waterways, at least 2 springs, a civil war era stone wall, and 5-6 tumbled-down stone smokers/ovens? that I believe were built and used by troops en route to what became the Prairie Grove battlefield due north. It has cliffs and nifty rocks. I discovered one rock that looks like the head of Gumby.
I am soooo ready for summer, hoping for the materialization of a successful garage sale, timely chauffeuring of my child to and from band camp and library volunteering, and numerous calls to come fill in for absent summer school teachers. $62.50/day!
With our combined incomes, and a little inheritance left, we are getting by. The family estate still has a few acres for sale. Our health is generally well over all. We benefit with the release of toxins in our sweat when we turn up the thermostat, not to mention my hot flashes. Future summer meals include shovels of homemade salsa and spaghetti sauce. We gotcher homegrown tomatoes. (See Guy Clark lyrics.) Any good recipes involving tomatoes or squash are welcome if any of you cooks out there happen to be reading this.
If, by fat chance, any of y’all are in the market for some 70+ acres of Texas pasture land… could be used perhaps for a mule and a few goats…. well, heckfire, don’t you know we could use your vote and savvy down here?
Pardon Me:
you make 15,000/year? that doesn’t seem like enough to live on. Where do you teach school? The teachers in Fairfax, VA start at about $40,000 and I think the top after 20 years is around $75,000. Maybe you should relocate. Although the housing prices are pretty high, a simple 3 bedroom house will be between 400 and 500 k. and I do mean simple. Warrenton you get a decent home for around 250 to 300 k.
Let’s see $3,83.538, no, that’s $328,835 – 23, er, I mean times, or is that +, oh, I ‘no’ it is devide, carry a cipher, (cough) deduct a 1 Okay I got it:
Teechers is way over payed, pardon me?!
Disclaimer: as you can tell by my ‘rithmetick ‘n grammer, I was educated in a public school system with an underpaid school teacher with 82 kids in her class and she spent the large part of her supplemental welfare check just to buy us kids pencils and bring us food when we had none (okay that is a lie, but you know what I mean).
The first thing Republicans cut is education. George W. Bush is evidence of why cutting and skimping on education is a very, very bad idea.
years
23 of mine.
The picture resulting from this boondoggle even looks like it was photoshopped. How many teachers’ salaries would $328,835 have paid? Obama is going to have to get serious about government waste.
His medical excuse was about as plausible as “sorry, honey, I have a headache”.
The man is a West Point Grad, for Gosh’ s Sakes! I like that he was fired/resigned. This is all about accountibility in government. Most of the time incompetence and lies are simply overlooked. This is a good thing for a former civil servant like me to observe. Get rid of liars and incompetent govmit workers and you will lose 60% of the deadwood.
I am surprised that at least one of those panicked people in NY did not have a heart attack or sprain an ankle or claim emotional stress, get a Philadelphia lawyer and sue the government.
Caldera and his staff must be required to refund the Treasury for the $300,000+ then this or similar mistakes would not reoccur.
“In the meantime, Louis Caldera, the head of the White House Military Office has resigned.”
***********
“Well toot toot Tootsie goodbye
toot toot Tootsie don’t cry
That choo choo train that takes me
Away from you no one can tell how sad it makes me”
–Al Jolson
Well maybe it’ll be a plane.
AY
I heard the same report that CharlesC posted about. I believe it was on The Today Show Friday morning.
CharlesC,
Where did you get that information?
Air Force One photo op = $328,835. Photoshop = $64. Also, I think the most interesting part of this story is that supposedly Caldera, due to some medical problems that day, never gave the final OK on the fly over. It was reportedly a deputy that gave the go ahead. It makes you wonder who can order Air Force One to do what these days.
Well, the picture is pretty awesome 🙂
Well I think that he probably was given the correct option. I do not think that he would have been fired, however, he could have been given a multitude of other responsibilities and these options were probably not to his liking.
Humm, what could the options be???
I think someone on this post already that that he would resign over this.