If I hadn't heard this from a source I respect, Rachel Maddow, I'd be fully inclined to say, that can't be true. How could that possibly be true? It has to be hyperbolic to gain clicks, right?
To be fair, I'd heard some of the information connected to this about a week ago, but this last piece of it? Early in the morning, today, 3/13/25 on YouTube, which is where I catch Maddow's show because I canceled MSNBC after all the nonsense of getting rid of women and men of color and/or ethnicity.
Earlier there was reporting on how Trump was having ICE and Homeland Security use military transport planes to fly illegal immigrants around at a cost far higher than that which the US would be charged if regular air transport were used. And often the huge planes they were using were almost empty, so a ton of money to put these big "babies" in the air.
But then the story got even worse: Maddow reported last night that guess what, the Trump administration is closing down Guantanamo. Because? Um, it's pretty darned hard to justify keeping approximately 1000 military contractors and military themselves there to guard 41 deportees, presumably those classified as "the worst of the worst" by Trump. The flights, the empty tents yearning to be filled with the projected 30,000 illegal immigrants, the man/woman power?
Hold onto your chair: the price tag has so far reached 16 million bucks. For 41 men. So then, I did some quick math. Sixteen million divided by 41 comes to roughly $390,000 per deportee. Please pick your chin up off of the floor.
And then there is the amount of money so far that "dear leader" is costing us as he flies back and forth to Mar-a-Lago every darned weekend, and we also have to put up the Secret Service at his exorbitant room prices every time. And we paid for his stunts at Daytona and the Super Bowl. The most recent estimate I saw on this was again, approximately $16 million.
So then, $32 million in less than eight weeks. What a deal. What a bargain. And these are the yahoos who are going to cut the fat and waste from government and save us money? Right. I wouldn't trust sending them down the block to buy a quart of ice cream, never mind handing them the keys to our money, our government, and our safety. Would you?
