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HIDEAs one of the central issues of his 2016 presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders has referred to climate change as the “single greatest threat facing our planet.” It’s surprising, then, that the man so ostensibly concerned about burning fossil fuels spent nearly $300,000 on private air travel in just one month.
According to multiple reports, Sanders traveled to nine battleground states in October ahead of the midterm elections.
Sanders’ 2018 campaign committee issued an Oct. 10 payment of $297,685 to New York-based Apollo Jets, a charter jet company used by retired sports stars Derek Jeter and Shaquille O’Neal, according to federal campaign reports obtained by VTDigger.org, a watchdog news site in Vermont.
“This expense was for transportation for the senator’s nine-day, nine-state tour to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot ahead of Election Day,” said Arianna Jones, senior communications adviser for Friends of Bernie Sanders.
“This cost covered the entirety of the tour from Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, California, and back to Vermont,” Jones continued. “The senator participated in 25 events.”
Jones said the charter jets were necessary so Sanders could campaign for candidates and get back to Vermont to join the state Democratic Party’s campaign efforts. (FoxNews.com)
“Climate change is a planetary crisis. Our task is clear. We must take on the fossil fuel industry that’s largely responsible for global emissions and accelerate our transition toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy sources,” Sanders tweeted the same day the payment to Apollo Jets was made.
Jones told The Daily Caller that carbon offsets were purchased from NativeEnergy in response “to support renewable energy projects and invest in carbon reduction projects to balance out the emissions produced on the trip.”
If Christmas travel chaos does your head in, best not look at this timelapse map of the flights set to take to the skies this festive season.
Nearly 70 million people around the world will catch nearly half a million flights between December 21 and 25, according to the map, created by the UK’s Buyagift using data from air travel intelligence company OAG Aviation.
December 23 (Christmas Eve eve) is set to be the busiest day for air travel, with more than 15 million people catching nearly 100,000 flights.
Christmas Eve will be almost as hectic with 13.8 million travellers, while 13.3 million are set to fly out on December 21. More than 12.5 million will take off on Christmas Day itself.
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The US is set to be the busiest country for air travel over the period with 118,071 departures and 118,844 arrivals.
China sits in second place with 53,704 departures and 52,037 arrivals.
They are followed by India, Indonesia, Canada, Japan and Brazil. If you hate travelling when it’s busy, don’t worry: New Zealand doesn’t make the top 10.
The busiest cities will be New York, Chicago, London, Atlanta, Dallas and Shanghai, followed by Moscow, Paris, Bangkok and Los Angeles.
Chicago O’Hare International is set to be the busiest airport, followed by Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, Los Angeles International and Dallas, Denver, Beijing, Jakarta, Charlotte, Houston, Delhi and New York’s JFK airports.
Disappointingly, flights to and from New Zealand are not shown on the map.
Seems PM Jacinda Ardern and Rhys Darby still have work to do on their #getnewzealandonthemap campaign.
Former NBA player Eric Murdock’s July flight has yielded a $10 million lawsuit against United Airlines.
According to Sports Illustrated, Murdock was aboard a July 23 flight from Las Vegas to New Jersey when he asked a white flight attendant to switch to a seat in the emergency exit row. He was hoping to sit near his son with whom he’d been traveling. The attendant informed Murdock that the emergency row hosted premium-priced seats – without specifying the price – and would not allow him to switch. When another passenger began to take the seat, they offered to change with Murdock instead. After agreeing, the flight attendant instructed the former Heat player back to his seat and claimed the emergency row needed to remain empty altogether for an undisclosed reason.
About half an hour later, the attendant allowed a white woman to take the same seat Murdock requested. Another passenger who witnessed the ordeal, Brenda Williams, who is now a co-plaintiff on the lawsuit, openly questioned the attendant’s motives. Williams was allegedly met with screams by the attendant, who told Williams to mind her business and attempted to take her phone after she tried to film the ordeal.
Later, when the attendant approached Murdock with drinks, USA Today reports that she asked Murdock if he was “going to boycott” receiving a beverage.
Upon landing, Murdock and Williams were both escorted off the plane by airport security, questioned by TSA guards and eventually released without charges against them.
While United Airlines has told USA Today it is unable to comment on the specifics of what took place, representatives ensure that the allegations are being considered.
“At United, we proudly hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism and have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind,” the airline told the publication.
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A former NBA player filed a lawsuit against United Airlines for $10 million, accusing a flight attendant of “race-baiting.”
According to the lawsuit filed in New York Eastern District Court, the incident unfolded on July 13 on United Airlines Flight 1537 from Las Vegas to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
Murdock, who is black, asked a flight attendant whether he could move to an empty emergency exit row seat behind him to sit alongside his son, who was seated in a different row.
According to court documents, the flight attendant, who was white, told Murdock the seat he was looking to move to came with a premium price, although she did not specify how much.
A passenger who was about to claim the seat offered to swap with Murdock, who had played with seven different teams across his nine seasons in the NBA, before takeoff. The former first-round pick of the 1991 draft accepted the offer, but the flight attendant did not and instructed him to return to his seat and keep the row empty.
About a half-hour later, a white woman was allowed to sit in the row Murdock was told had to remain empty. As reported by USA Today, court filings show Brenda Williams, a black woman, had asked the flight attendant to explain her behavior toward Murdock.
Williams did not know Murdock at the time but is now a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, which alleged the flight attendant shouted at her and tried to take her phone away while Williams was attempting to record the incident.
The lawsuit described the flight attendant as “rude and dismissive.”
Murdock eventually returned to his assigned seat, but another controversy arose when the cabin crew began to serve drinks. According to the court filing, the flight attendant reportedly asked Murdock whether he was “going to boycott” drinks when she approached him.
The 50-year-old “did not respond to the obvious race baiting,” according to the lawsuit.
Once the flight landed in New Jersey, both Williams and the former Providence point guard were escorted off the plane by security and were subsequently questioned by Transportation Security Administration officials.
Both were allowed to leave without charges but Murdock and Williams claim the “unjustifiable” removal from the aircraft was humiliating, particularly as it happened in front of some of Murdock’s current colleagues.
A spokesman for United Airlines said the company had a strict zero tolerance policy on discrimination and was already looking into the allegations.
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HOUSTON – United Airlines paid tribute to former President George H.W. Bush on the day of his funeral.
To honor the 41st president, the airline suspended operation at gate 41 Wednesday at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. The gate was closed on what President Donald Trump has declared a national day of mourning.
A photo at the airport shows a portrait of George H.W. Bush hoisted at the gate, accompanied by an American flag and a funeral wreath.
In a separate part of the airport, flowers were placed around statue of the late president.
HELENA – The air-travel cost for President Trump’s four campaign visits to Montana this year was nearly $3 million – and that doesn’t include other costs like the Secret Service and support personnel, a news website reported this week.
The website Quartz, which examined Department of Defense figures for the use of Air Force One, said the president’s air travel to more than 40 campaign rallies in support of Republican candidates this year cost about $17 million.
Air travel for his four trips to Montana totaled $2.9 million – including $1.2 million for his July 5 trip to Great Falls, the second-most expensive of his campaign flights, Quartz reported.
He also visited Billings, Missoula and Bozeman, primarily to campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Matt Rosendale, who lost to Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester.
It’s unclear how much of those costs are picked up by the taxpayer. So far, the president’s re-election campaign has not reported paying for any specific expenses in Montana.
A spokesman for the Federal Election Commission said if the president’s campaign incurs those costs, they should be reported.
Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign set up the rallies in Montana and elsewhere, to support Republican candidates.
The president’s re-election campaign’s latest report, which covers activity from July through September, listed zero expenses for Montana, out of the $7.7 million spent by the campaign. Trump visited Great Falls in July and Billings in September.
The Trump re-election campaign didn’t respond to questions about whether or how it is reporting the rally expenses.
Trump flew to the Montana rallies aboard Air Force One, the president’s official airplane.
Quartz said the Trump campaign reported $113,000 in “travel expenses: air” in March and April.
The report said the air-travel expense of the other Montana trips was $952,000 for flying to Missoula, $575,000 for the Billings trip, and $122,000 for the Bozeman trip, which was one of two stops for the president that day.
— Story by Mike Dennison – MTN News
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a George Washington University in an undated photo.
(Associated Press)
Bernie Sanders is so concerned about climate change that he spent nearly $300,000 on private air travel in October so he could speak to audiences in nine battleground states prior to November’s midterm elections.
The independent U.S. senator from Vermont also used the opportunity to test the waters for a potential 2020 presidential run, according to reports.
Sanders’ 2018 campaign committee issued an Oct. 10 payment of $297,685 to New York-based Apollo Jets, a charter jet company used by retired sports stars Derek Jeter and Shaquille O’Neal, according to federal campaign reports obtained by VTDigger.org, a watchdog news site in Vermont.
“This expense was for transportation for the senator’s nine-day, nine-state tour to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot ahead of Election Day,” said Arianna Jones, senior communications adviser for Friends of Bernie Sanders.
“This cost covered the entirety of the tour from Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, California, and back to Vermont,” Jones continued. “The senator participated in 25 events.”
Jones said the charter jets were necessary so Sanders could campaign for candidates and get back to Vermont to join the state Democratic Party’s campaign efforts.
The Sanders campaign purchased nearly $5,000 in carbon offsets to balance out the emissions produced from the travel. A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions to compensate for emissions elsewhere.
Sanders has been vocal about the need to curb the effects of climate change, calling it the “single greatest threat facing our planet.”
The same day his campaign paid Apollo Jets, Sanders called climate change a “planetary crisis” in a tweet.
“Climate change is a planetary crisis. Our task is clear. We must take on the fossil fuel industry that’s largely responsible for global emissions and accelerate our transition toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy sources,” Sanders wrote.
“He wanted to go where he thinks he can be helpful in energizing the base and bringing in young people and independent voters and working-class voters who supported him,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager and longtime political adviser.
The campaign also paid $13,500 to Virginia-based travel agency Metropolitan Travel at the end of September.
In July 2017, the Sanders campaign paid $37,567 to Apollo Jets, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
During the 2016 presidential election, Sanders spent $5.2 million on private jet services in a six-month period from the end of 2015 to mid-2016.
Earlier this year, NASA awarded $250,000 to Lockheed Martin to create an aircraft capable of silently breaking the sound barrier (“Low-Boom flight program”).
On Nov. 16, the company
LMT, -3.39%
started production of the experimental QueSST (Quiet SuperSonic Transport) aircraft. This elegant vehicle can cruise at Mach 1.42 (1,510 km/h or 940 mph) and is capable of reaching 55,000 feet (16,800 meters), creating a low 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB) thump. This means that when the airplane breaks the sound barrier, it creates noise equivalent to the sound of slamming the car door.
In contrast, conventional supersonic jets generate booms powerful enough to startle or awaken people, or cause minor damage to some structures. Although passengers can’t hear the sound, those on land can, as it is generated behind the jet. This led to the prohibition of routine supersonic flights over land.
Furthermore, these jets had to fly at higher altitudes, which caused further problems, such as increased radiation exposure, and even increased risk of cabin depressurization to both passengers and the crew compared to subsonic airliners.
The last Concorde flew in November 2003. Business had been hit by the slump in air travel following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. as well as rising maintenance costs. Furthermore, the aircraft was built for speed and not for comfort; its narrow fuselage wasn’t wide enough to allow for reclining seats or anything more than minimal moving space.
Now, 15 years later, QueSST could usher in a new era of commercial supersonic aircraft. Its shape is as slender and sleek as its predecessor’s, but unlike the Concorde, its low-boom features could allow it to fly over land. Test flights over U.S. cities will be conducted in 2021, at which time NASA will reach out to regulators, hoping they will lift the ban — at least for this aircraft. If it succeeds, this could revolutionize commercial cargo and passenger markets.
How so? Well, subsonic jets take around eight hours to fly from New York to Paris, while QueSST would make that trip in a little less than 4 hours.
The question remains, though, whether NASA’s experimental jet overcome Concorde’s other shortcomings. We have yet to see any footage showing the airplane’s interior, but some conclusions can already be drawn from the shape of the plane. With fewer passengers and more expensive tickets, this type of flight service could find its way into the market, while keeping a sufficient level of comfort and luxury to justify the purchase.
Jurica Dujmovic is a business publisher, consultant,
designer and gamer.
What do you think about the commercial viability of supersonic commercial flights?
A racist and ranting white customer threatened to call federal immigration officials on workers at a Midtown restaurant — because they spoke in Spanish.
A viral video of the Tuesday lunchtime explosion captured the condescending patron declaring the employees were in “my country” before ripping into the manager of the Fresh Kitchen on Madison Ave.
“Your staff is speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English,” the man announces. “Every person I listened to — he spoke it, he spoke it, she’s speaking it.
“This is America. Your staff should be speaking English, OK?”
The fuming man then informed the manager that he planned to follow up by contacting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a possible raid on the restaurant.
“My guess is they’re not documented,” he announces loudly. “So my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country. If they have the b—s to come here and live off my money?
“I pay for their welfare, I pay for their ability to be here. The least they can do is speak English.”
The manager told the Daily News that the unidentified customer, clutching a cell phone in one hand, completely misread the situation.
A lunchtime regular was speaking Spanish with a Hispanic employee as they did most days when the man began his diatribe.
“They were speaking Spanish because they are friends,” the manager said. “He got mad, waiting in line for his food. He stormed out.”
The manager said he was infuriated by the customer’s remarks but refused to respond in a similar fashion.
“He’s a customer, so I had to stay professional and ask him to leave,” the manager said. “That’s what I did.”
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