Business travelers are creatures of habit and develop certain preferences. I certainly do. When you’re a Senator running for President you have staff who enforce those preferences, and donors who will pay for them.
A new book reports on the ‘comfort memo’ Bernie Sanders’ staff put together outlining the Senator’s travel requirements when he was running for President.
- He likes suites that have bathtubs and his king bed must have “a down comforter or another blanket in the closet. He preferred that the extra blanket be dark blue, and made of cotton.”
- His room had to be 60 degrees which requires overriding the thermostat. Greta Thunberg would never!
- His room had to be stocked “with green tea with honey, Gatorade and assorted nuts.”
- Sanders grew fond of private jets, getting a “kick out of not worrying about being late for a flight that couldn’t take off without him.” Staff developed minimum standards for his private jet travel as well.
Here’s Bernie in first class. And by the way Bernie would keep you and many other people out of first class, because he’s proposed to end credit cards as we know them in a way that would eliminate rich rewards.
A nervous democratic socialist in first class. #FeelTheBern pic.twitter.com/XbONXNBZNn
— Hank Thomas (@HankThomasDC) February 13, 2020
When Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination in 2016 he charted a Boeing 767 to meet the Pope. Dinner included herb crusted lamb and fine cheeses along with lobster sliders midflight. While the democratic socialist does fly coach, even North Korea’s Air Koryo has a business class.
I don’t get it, isn’t this what Trumpets want? Private jets, gold toilets, prostitues. All signs of a godly man.
Coming from the same guy who owns three homes and steals his neighbors copy of the Washington Post. Then screams how “muh socialism” is better.
Green tea and comfortable bedding don’t seem excessive requirements relative to strippers/porn stars paid off via donated funds, and a multitude of other outrages.
Oh, yeesh. In a giant shock to the system, a politician in a job that requires massively frequent travel (and that’s not even counting the campaigning) has some habits he likes indulged. What are those horrible horrible habits:
1. Green tea!
2. An extra blanket!
3. Gatorade!
4. Nuts!
5. A king-size bed!
OH NOES, HOW HORRIBLE IS SANDERS!?
Even the private jet thing is a bit precious. He’s 79 years old, and, according to the story, trying to get back and forth from (eg) Iowa between breaks in the Trump impeachment trial. Oh, eek, a private jet.
When will people on the left realize that the rules never apply to their own, precious liberal elite politicians. Obama and Gore and many others own or have owned beachfront property, nothing minimalist either and yet they preach that in 10 years the climate will change and sea levels will swallow up their investment. If they really believes this, they’d own a “little house” well inland for sure! When you observe these requirements and what these liberal elites stand for publicly, you can only conclude that those supporting them are elite wannabes themselves….this has occurred throughout history where ordinary folks sidle up to elites to get special treatment as a statist government enacts onerous limitations on the liberty of everyone else. I can’t decide which is worse; the elites themselves or those who sidle up to them …clearly they are both repugnant.
At least he doesn’t demand to pee in a golden toilet.
Hack job, Mr. Leff. You’re better than this.
LOL you people get triggered so easily.
I’ve seen Gary post “negative” articles about politicians on both the left and the right. In truth I’ve wondered many times whether his voting card is bleeding red or dripping blue when he submits it.
I’ve looked into the depths of what is driving Gary’s posts that highlight various politicians and have found one deeply disturbing commonality – they’re all travel-related! It’s almost like he indiscriminately writes articles about anything travel-related, regardless of whether it will trigger someone on the left or the right. The horrors.
Wait, did he also post on Flyertalk and get banned from the Marriott forum last year? This is all starting to make sense now…
Most presidential candidates fly private when they’re running for president because they’re flying to places that aren’t serviced by commercial airlines. Can you imagine if you needed to catch a flight from Burlington, Vermont to Mason City, Iowa? First, that flight doesn’t exist commercially, and second, if it did, it would only fly a couple of times a week and have some pretty intense layovers and whatnot.
Also, if you are a member of Congress you automatically have two homes as a baseline, because you spend Monday through Thursday in DC, and Thursday through Monday in your home state. The only way you can avoid this is by sleeping in your office, which is also frowned upon by the public.
Really embarrassing propaganda post here. You took a nonstory and decided to share it with the worse possible slant.
I know you likely don’t give a ****, but I won’t be using any of your referral links from now on. I’ll go out of my way not to use them.
Wow, is there someone who actually still believes the “Golden Showers” hack job called the dossier…. back in the day when all the powerful elites got together to try and dupe everyone and take down leaders they didn’t like….people otherwise known as enemies of freedom. The point of the post which is well taken is that the elites often contradict with their lives the things they say with their mouth. I can tell you the comparison between Trump’s US Coast Guard graduation speech and how he shook everyone’s hands individually and Biden’s speech as well as other past Presidents of both parties that only shook selected hands….this should be illustrative but it seems to be missed by many.
These are basic yuman rights!
@Total – the requests in themselves are reasonable – but they are counter to the policies and beliefs he chooses to promote.
60 degree hotel room is an extraordinary use of air conditioning for a climate activist. Same for using a private jet vs shared transport.
I don’t think he is doing much harm to others by choosing them and glad he has some taste. But not when he’s blaming people for making the same choices.
“When will people on the left realize that the rules never apply to their own”
I don’t recall Sanders ever suggesting that he didn’t believe in private property, hotels, first class, or air conditioning.
Rather, like any empathetic human being, he just suggested that health care and fair wages and state college tuition should be universal.
One can have cake and eat it without denying it to anyone else.
I demand hotel rooms with accessible showers, extra towels, and earl grey tea.
Gary, you are such a partisan hack.
@amazinglarry
Of course there are no hypocrites on the right. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Certainly not that Scum Ball Lying Piece of Shit Chump and his minions.
Larry you remain the Chump Fool!!!!
Typical of politicians in general, but more so when you’re entire platform is “equality for all” through socialism. I think the Russians and Chinese perfected this…….
OMG, the hypocrisy of this man and every liberal who has ever existed in the history of the world!!!
https://twitter.com/775ac/status/1398007506165657600?s=21
@ Ted – Sanders has never suggested “equality for all”. Just healthcare and secondary education and fair wages for all.
I guess there is no other perv news to write about, so write something meaningless and useless as writer himself.
Most of this stuff—even the private jet—I can understand. First class not as much if it’s on the tax payers’ dime. And expressing a color preference for the blanket is a little over the top.
@ Mark Rascio. Very well stated Sir. However distasteful, name calling is quickly pointed out by the liberal folks. They are then quick to use name calling and profanity in an attempt to shame people that don’t agree with their free speech.
But the liberals are consistent, they’ve been worshipping Saul Alinsky for as long as I can remember.
Modest requirements for an old guy on the go, surely?
This has degenerated into a forum for Republicans to spew their utter hypocrisy and their unremitting and delusional hatred for Democrats. Your true colors are showing Gary. I subscribed to this because I thought it would give me useful information about travel opportunities. However, you have turned it into just another forum for Republicans to vent their constant partisan vitriol. I will be unsubscribing and reading only The Points Guy from now on.
Hit a nerve I guess I am assuming that the mention of the points guy did it
Climate change is a problem for the masses, not the Bern
Even if he is a back to back loser
Socialism for others. Not for Bernie. Just like AOC with her designer clothes. These people are hypocrites.
So what is my takeaway from this, considering I’m just a serf? That people in power are full of shit? Noted yet again and not surprised at all. But other than that, what’s the point of this article? Seems to be clickbait from the “thought leader” that I fell for yet again, so shame on me I guess. The vitriol from the other serfs did give me a chuckle though. So many triggered heads exploding…
Whoops, bullet two is not correct! https://twitter.com/775ac/status/1398007506165657600?s=21
Bernie totally bought three houses from his fraudulent corporations that over-stated the value of assets then understated their value at tax time, and also paid off illicit activities from operations too.
Oh wait, that’s the chump who 75% of this blog’s commenters worship in totality and will blindly follow off a cliff.
“@Total – the requests in themselves are reasonable – but they are counter to the policies and beliefs he chooses to promote.”
@Greg. OH NOES!!!!!! You mean he doesn’t quite live up to things he espouses all the time? The horror, the horror! Next up, you’ll be complaining that he sneaks ice cream from the fridge in the middle of the night.
It is an interesting observation that most of the comments fall into three categories: yup there is hypocrisy and that’s a good example of some, yeah maybe it’s hypocrisy maybe it’s not but moving on nothing new here or lastly this is infuriating….not that there might be some truth to the claim of hypocrisy but anger at the fact that the post burst a bubble….so we get anger at the poster, anger at the commenters, anger directed at everyone that sees things from a different political perspective. I’d like to suggest that many who are ready to stop sharing or reading these posts are just angry because this one burst their bubble that there is one side of the political debate today that is entirely righteous while the other is evil. I wonder where this perspective came from? Could it be that it is this perspective that has resulted in our inability as travelers to tolerate our differences for a several hour flight thus resulting in the craziness that was posted about recently? It wasn’t long ago that these same people preached tolerance and understanding. It would be an interesting experiment to run to put up some negative post about someone right of center and see which bucket each commenter ends up in.