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Well the right wing propoganda machine: Fox and friends is at it again. This time over the President's trip to India:
From Media Matters:
Freak Out! Right Wingers Howl Over Obama's India Trip
By: Evan McMorris-Santoro

As you may have heard, President Obama will travel to India on Saturday, part of an overseas diplomatic mission that will put the president face-to-face with the leaders of a key strategic and trade partner, not to mention a regional nuclear power. For Obama, the India visit is a chance to get all presidential after his recent "shellacking." For India, it's a change to further a relationship mutually beneficial to both nations. For the right wing, it's a one-way ticket to Freakoutville.

Here's the right-wing India trip meme: Obama is spending more money -- $200 million per day -- than the nation spends daily on the war in Afghanistan, in order to fly something like one million planes full of his closest friends to a multi-day bacchanal on the steps of the Taj Mahal, all paid for by you, the taxypayer. Or something.

As Eric Lach reported earlier today, the meme is just about 100% garbage, according to the White House. "No basis in reality" was the way Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest described it.

But that hasn't stopped the engines of right-wing panic from spooling up to 11 over what is, basically, a totally normal -- though inarguably incredibly expensive -- part of being President.

Here's a look at some of the folks who are losing their minds over the President's upcoming journey to India:

Glenn Beck: On his radio show today, Beck lamented that it will cost "$2 billion for ten days so [Obama] can go see the festival of lights."

Beck's co-host was also appalled. "I mean, you could bring almost all of India to Washington for less than $2 billion," he said.

As Lach and USA Today note, the trip will likely cost "millions" per day, but Beck's $2 billion figure is "not even close."

Sean Hannity: Where Beck goes, Hannity is sure to follow. But in this case, it was Hannity who led the way, claiming on this show last night that Obama will bring "3,000 people" with him on the road, a trip that will include (as Hannity pointed out, helpfully) a visit to "one of the biggest mosques in Indonesia."

Again: simmer down now, folks. As CBS' venerable Mark Knoller tweeted today, every trip any president takes includes "hundreds of personnel from [White House] communications" who "keep [the president] in touch no matter where in the world he is." But 3,000 sounds excessive. Very excessive. A GAO report on President Clinton's 1998 trip to Africa -- a huge undertaking -- found "1300 individuals," traveled to the continent on the taxpayer's dime. The total cost of that trip? "Over $42.8 million," Knoller tweets.

Michele Bachmann: As Lach wrote earlier, Bachmann helpfully suggested "maybe we should use video conferencing for these meetings" after ripping the "870 rooms" in the Taj Mahal Hotel she claims Obama is renting in Mumbai.

The only problem with the hotel room claim is the hotel only has "560 rooms including 44 suites," according to its website.

Doug Powers: Fanning the flames of freakout in a post on Michelle Malkin's blog, Powers slammed the "carbon footprint" of the trip, writing that Obama will take "40 jets" to India ("no doubt" one will "be exclusively for Bo and Reggie Love," Powers wrote on his own blog).

"Hey, if there's not man-made climate change yet, Obama's trip will make **** sure there is by the time he gets back," Powers wrote.

Just let the idea of someone ripping someone else over a carbon footprint on Michelle Malkin's blog sink in for a second. Tuesday, I guess, truly was a change election.

Rush Limbaugh: Wait, maybe it wasn't a change election. Rush is attacking Obama as some kind of dictatorial socialist using dubious facts of some kind. Presses unstopped. On his website Tuesday, Rush (or Team Rush) wrote, "five hundred seven rooms at the Taj Mahal, 40 airplanes, $200 million a day this nation will spend on Obama's trip to India." (Rush/Team did not not mean it in a good way.)

We already know the money thing is probably not true. We suspect the logistical freakouttery is also less than accurate. Along with the number of planes that Rush mentioned Tuesday is the right-wing meme that "34 warships" will be dispatched to protect Obama. Here's how the military's paper, Stars and Stripes, reacted to that one:

"There are not 34 ships - and there isn't an aircraft carrier - supporting the president's trip, said a defense official, who declined to provide any information on security measures for presidential trips."

"Besides, a carrier strike group typically has 10-12 ships at most," reported Fox News.

Fox News: Fox isn't off the hook entirely, however. Besides giving Hannity the platform for his "largest mosque in Indonesia" dog whistle, the network's website seems perfectly happy to feed the meme that whatever Obama is taking to India with him, it's unprecedented and ginormous.

"A foreign force this size probably hasn't been in India since the era of British colonization," the network reports. Like most of the right wing types ginning up the freakout over the India visit, Fox hangs its report on the Indian press -- or, rather, one Indian news source which first reported the outlandish claims about Obama's entourage based on the word of an unnamed local official in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

Fox does point out that the Indian report is "strongly disputed by U.S. officials," but doesn't let that pesky fact hold back this zinger:

"The details on the trip," the Fox site reports, "read like lyrics for a hawkish version of 'The 12 Days of Christmas.'"

Honestly, though, when you're spinning literary gold like that, how could you not print it?
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

New Delhi: The White
House will, of course, stay in Washington but the heart of the famous
building will move to India when President Barack Obama lands in Mumbai
on Saturday.

Communications set-up, nuclear button, a fleet of limousines and majority of the White House staff will be in India
accompanying the President on this three-day visit that will cover
Mumbai and Delhi.

He will also be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes
off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there beginning Saturday.
The measure has been taken as Mumbai attack in 2008 took place from the
sea.

Arrangements have been put in place for emergency evacuation, if needed.

Obama is expected to fly by a helicopter -- Marine One -- from the city airport to the Indian
Navy's helibase INS Shikra at Colaba in south Mumbai.

From there, he will drive down in Lincoln Continental -- the Presidential limousine -- to the nearby the Taj Hotel.

Two jets, armed with advanced communication and security systems, and a fleet of over 40 cars will be part of Obamas convoy.

Around 800 rooms have been booked for the President and his entourage in Taj Hotel and Hyatt.

The President will have a security ring of American elite Secret Service,
which are tasked to guard the President, along with National Security
Guards (NSG) and personnel from central paramilitary forces and local
police in Mumbai and Delhi.

Similar arrangements will be in place in Delhi, with the Air Force One to be kept in all readiness throughout
Obama's stay here from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning.

Maurya Hotel, where the President will stay, has already been swarmed by
American security personnel and protective measures have been put in
place.

Security drills are already been carried out at the hotel as well as Rajghat which he will visit.

Sources said 13 heavy-lift aircraft with high-tech equipment, three helicopters
and 500 US security personnel have arrived in India ahead of Obama's
visit.

The US security has also brought interception and obstruction device, sniffer dogs, rescue gadgets.

Apart from Obama's Air Force One, a few private luxury jets carrying top
American corporate leaders, who are part of Obama entourage, are also
expected to arrive in India in next 2-3 days.

All high-rise buildings in the vicinity of Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel and Delhi's Maurya
Sheraton hotel, where the US President will stay, are being sanitised
and security personnel will be positioned on rooftops to prevent any
air-borne attack.

The Ridge area - opposite Delhi's Maurya Sheraton hotel - has been illuminated by floodlights as part of the
heightened security drill.

The Home Ministry has already issued an alert for Mumbai and Delhi asking authorities to take extra
precautions during Obama's visit as well as on Diwali on Friday.
Last I heard the White House and the Obama Administration is not releasing cost estimates or cost figures. This leads to many questions among which are Why is this trip necessary? What will America gain from it? What benefit is there with the President putting himself in harms way? Just how much will it cost the US and how will it be worth it?


Click to read about 200 Million a Day


Click to read about special security procedures


So what would be said if this was Bush or a Republican doing this? Be honest folks.
Jennifer, I really am not here to try to embarrass you. India Inc is India's version of the National Chamber of Commerce. It is a GOOD thing that they are not expecting much, but they are lobbying.

Welcome Obama! India Inc. is here to help



By ERIKA KINETZ
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 4, 2010; 2:17 AM

MUMBAI, India -- India's outsourcing companies, often blamed for stealing Main Street jobs, want Americans to know: We're hiring in the U.S.

They along with President Barack Obama, who arrives in India's financial capital Mumbai on Saturday, are at pains to reassure the American public that India is here to help the U.S.

On paper, the relationship looks great: Two big markets, two democracies, growing trade. In practice, there's a creeping sense that it may not live up to the hype. India, emboldened by its growing economic importance, is not playing by U.S. rules. And the U.S., which has lashed out at India's key outsourcing industry even as it funnels billions to its ally in the war on terror - India's archrival Pakistan - looks like less of a friend than New Delhi might like.

Many believe business can lead bilateral ties. Obama, weakened by Republican gains in Congressional midterm elections, is bringing 250 U.S. executives including GE chief Jeffrey Immelt and Honeywell's David Cote, which the U.S. India Business Council says is the largest such delegation to ever accompany a president on a foreign visit. The presidents of six universities, including Georgetown and Duke, are also set to come.

Together, they are seeking more than $10 billion in deals.

Bilateral trade, on track to hit $50 billion this fiscal year ending March, has more than doubled since 2004. Last fiscal year, India's $11 billion worth of investments in the U.S. matched U.S. investments in India for the first time ever, according to the U.S. India Business Council.

But sentiment has frayed since the two countries signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 2008. Then-President George W. Bush pushed through that deal, which allowed nuclear trade with India despite its weapons program and seemed to herald a new era of cross-continential commerce.

It hasn't been that simple.

The job creating power of India's big, fast-growing market is hampered by its restrictions on foreign access to key sectors like retail, finance, education and insurance. Multinationals are wary of the shape-shifting rules that seem to govern things like taxes and environmental permits in India. And the large defense contracts that headline the wish list of deals for Obama's visit come burdened with offsets and foreign investment caps.

The Americans who accepted outsourcing of IT and back office functions in boom times as a way to free up capital for job creation at home seem less certain of the strategy's benefits during a bust.

With U.S. unemployment at 9.6 percent, India's putative role as a driver of job insecurity has leaked into campaign rhetoric - Barbara Boxer's attacks on Carly Fiorina for sending Hewlett-Packard jobs to India and China helped her win the California Senate race - and popular culture alike. NBC's new sitcom, "Outsourced," tells the story of a Kansas City company that sends most of its jobs to India.

Indian companies keep insisting, quietly, that they're not really the problem: If you don't like jobs getting sent overseas, better to direct your anger at major U.S. corporations whose race for low cost competitiveness drives India's $50 billion software services sector
BTW Fox and Friends is the morning show, the only one I watch, and I didn't hear his trip mentioned by anyone besides Newt Gringrich. It would do no good to tell you he wasn't talking smack about it and no cost was mentioned. If they talked about it other than that few seconds I missed it. You don't watch Fox so you can be free to say things about their reporting that are not true. There have been many times I disagreed with their views and takes on stories. Just like the report on the "stomping" that wasn't a stomping. They felt it was out of line, I felt she got just what she ask for. What dumba** runs up to a candidate wearing a wig? Think how that looked to people. If it had been obummer she ran up on she would have been shot or beaten to death by the black panthers. I've posted links before to CNN, MSNBC, and other sites that reported the same story the same way Fox did, but you lefties don't want to hear that.
Jennifer, I actually agree with you about the necessity or future success of this trip. But I really don't see it as the huge waste of time, money and talent as opinioned and expressed by Fox (BTW when I reference Fox and Friends I quit calling the cable station a news organization a long time ago so this is how I refer to the entire broadcasting empire) There have been many presidential trips taken by presidents of both partys that were equally questioned but rarely BEFORE the junket is completed as to whether necessary or not. The original post showed the ravenous appetite of Fox to create tension where there is none with what I will politely refer to as misinformation.
Mark, I actually think both cable channels should go off the air. One thing I should note is during the campaigning for the mid terms, candidates and especially tea party candidates would ONLY be interviewed on Fox News. What did Sarah Palin advice?? To paraphrase: Go on Fox News to get your message out.
quote:
Originally posted by gbrk:
This leads to many questions among which are Why is this trip necessary?


Necessary? Not necessarily. He's doing it because he can. It's another mini-vacation for obummer at the expense of the working class tax payers. I guess those die-hard fans of his don't mind that they give a chunk of their check to Uncle Barry each payday, then turn around and give him more when they spend what little they actually get to take home with them. They obviously don't mind the continued spending. Personally, I would like to see it paying off our debt and putting a little back for a rainy day. JMO.
There is something wrong with anyone that would honestly believe (from an anonymous low ranking Indian official no less) that the president is spending more than the war in Afghanistan every day over 10 days, or that 10% of the navy is going with him, or that he has booked 300 more rooms than the Taj Mahal hotel actually has. In any case, it is actually SOP for traveling presidents to book an entire hotel (or two) for safety reasons.

And might I add that this isn't a willy nilly trip, it's a G20 meeting, not a random trip to India. Seriously use some common sense. Just think about how astronomical 200 million dollars is as compared to the precedent of Bush's and Clinton's trips. Seriously it only takes a little common sense.
http://factcheck.org/2010/11/a...heck-trip-to-mumbai/
http://www.politifact.com/trut...mas-trip-india-will/
quote:
Originally posted by tinabeth:
quote:
Originally posted by gbrk:
This leads to many questions among which are Why is this trip necessary?


Necessary? Not necessarily. He's doing it because he can. It's another mini-vacation for obummer at the expense of the working class tax payers. I guess those die-hard fans of his don't mind that they give a chunk of their check to Uncle Barry each payday, then turn around and give him more when they spend what little they actually get to take home with them. They obviously don't mind the continued spending. Personally, I would like to see it paying off our debt and putting a little back for a rainy day. JMO.

I mean it's not like it's for an G20 meeting or anything like that.

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