Magical Mystery Tour

[vman]

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends……we now have Barry’s bus tour. It is a campaign trip. The administration is doing little to hide it and a passive press corps is even describing it as a bus tour while minimizing the fact that American taxpayers are footing the bill in its entirety.

Barry thinks we should pay for this reelection campaign bus tour because, in the now infamous words of Press Secretary Carney:

“He’s the President of the United States”.

When George W. Bush took his own bus tour, he did so with campaign funds. Barry is expecting you, me, and everyone else to fund his re-election campaign. At a time when nearly 20% of the country is either unemployed or underemployed, it is appalling that the President would use our money to fund his re-election and that re-election message would be that we need to give him even more of our money. Taxpayers didn’t pay for Perry’s or Bachmann’s campaign bus?

Sell the dang buses and refund the money, Barry. It is a campaign trip pure and simple and your campaign should fund it. It is outrageous that you would buy million dollar buses from Canada in order to drive around the countryside demagoguing private jet owners.

Even more appalling than that is his Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, declaring the expansion of the food stamp program to be a stimulus I don’t know about you, but I think if I were dependent on food stamps, I would not exactly feel stimulated.

He has the temerity to say that for every food stamp dollar spent, $1.87 is turned by into the economy. He, of course, ignores all the additional money consumed by the bureaucracy and administration costs of the program and the waste, fraud, and abuse the President goes on and on about.

Not only that though, but Vilsack actually brags that the Obama administration has expanded the food stamp program and . . . wait for it . . . has consequently expanded the stimulus.

And on top of it all, with 20% of Americans either unemployed or underemployed, Barry has the nerve to tell us on his taxpayer funded campaign trip that sometime after he gets back from vacation in September he will have a jobs program. Finally, nearly 1,000 days into his administration, Barry, Nancy, Barney et al will show up with a jobs plan.

Well, I’m sure you all feel better now. We are being managed like we’re a third world banana republic.

Where the heck is the outrage?

The GOP should spend August focused like a laser on these buses and Vilsack’s comments.

[vman]

Barry has been touring all over the Midwest these past few weeks giving speeches to crowds of fans, anxious to hear what’s next on his agenda. One could be forgiven for believing that these are less about pushing the president’s current agenda and more about launching the reelection campaign, however this is a charge that the administration adamantly denies; laughably.

But there is a very simple reason that this is viewed as more of a campaign effort. Boasting bulletproof windows, five inch thick doors, and it’s own oxygen supply, the President has made the rounds for these speeches in a multi-million dollar bus! There’s been no shortage of opinions from people and pundits on this bus and how having the President tour around the Midwest in a caravan of cars and seated on a tour bus sends the message that he is on the campaign trail and using taxpayer dollars to do it.

It appears however, that this might not be the case. According to some sources he hasn’t really been riding these buses much at all. They say he’s been flying them.

Apparently Barry only rode the buses for a couple of miles at a time, spending the rest of the time flying from community to community in Air Force One. What’s more, the buses were flown from stop to stop as well..... loaded up on cargo planes and flown from destination to destination.

But why wouldn’t the presidential limousine have sufficed? Or one of the other armored vehicles that routinely travel with the President? Apparently because the President wanted the imagery of a bus. And buses are what he got.

So good news America! While Barry creates jobs in the next few weeks (WhereTF have you been for the last 3 yrs.?? Bar) not only do you get the pleasure of having a $1.1 million dollar bus carting the President around to “enlist” voters to fight for his reelection, but you get to marvel at the hypocrisy of an administration hell bent on destroying industries with carbon footprints too large for comfort, while they themselves are flying entire caravans of SUVs and buses in giant 747s flanked by fighter jets.

All so the president can travel a couple of miles per stop with the image that he’s on the ground with the people when in reality, he couldn’t be more detached from them, their problems, or this continually declining economy. You couldn’t ask for a better metaphor.

[Edward]

The film begins as Ringo and his aunt Jessie Robbins walk hurriedly to catch the Magical Mystery Tour bus for an afternoon trip to the English countryside, double meaning on the word "trip", as a major punning tool for the late 60s, when everybody was dropping out, turning on, and tuning in. As an unidentified voice over narrates, this trip to the country has alternate layers of meaning and understanding and this is evident in the overbearing presence of Jolly Jimmy Johnson (Derek Royle), the tour guide. As the tour progresses other characters pop up to meet John and George and Paul. There is The Lovely Starlet (Maggie Wright) whom everyone wants to meet, and there is the strange Buster Bloodvessel (Ivor Cutler) who has fun saying his name, and there is The Accordionist (Shirley Evans) who leads everyone in a sing-a-long, and there is Miss Wendy Winters the Hostess (Mandy Weet) who keeps thing in perspective. As the tour continues there is a road rally with the bus and several other followers in cars such as a Bentley and a Mini Cooper. The scene shifts to 5 magicians (John, Paul, George and Ringo, and Mal Evans) in a remote castle as the voice over explains overseeing the position of the bus, and in some ways controlling its movement. As the bus stops for a tour of a military post an Army Sergeant (Victor Spinetti) barks directions and instructions in an indiscernible voice as the tour group follows him through the camp. Along the way the narrative of the bus tour is interrupted by musical interludes which introduce ideas and imaginations of Paul, George and John who are taking the tour. The bus later stops at a strip club and all the men disembark to watch a band The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band play a rendition of "Death Cab for Cutie" as The Stripper (Jan Carson) performs. Then at the end of the day the tour turns home.