quote:Originally posted by katharina: Lisa, your post would be much more convincing without the ad hominem attacks on Nato.
I still am not convinced because you are obviously so angry at him that it seems entirely likely that you are as willing to lie as you say he is.
Does anyone have a link?
quote:Washington Post Democratic leaders circulated their proposed rules changes yesterday ahead of a conference call with House Democrats. They include a ban on gifts and travel from lobbyists, preapproval from the ethics committee on all lawmakers' travel funded by outside groups, a ban on the use of corporate jets, and mandatory ethics training.
quote:Jewish Forward Jewish leaders argue that they need the ability to take members of Congress to Israel to help foster strong support for the Jewish state. They say it is also important to allow lawmakers to travel to other international locales, like Sudan, and to communities around the United States, in order to meet with Jewish audiences and to see how federal funds are spent. ... “If NGOs are barred from funding educational travel by members and staff, such travel will be feasible only with taxpayer funds or at personal expense,” said the letter, sent to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican.
“If members must travel only at their own expense, the toll of the traveling cost will inevitably lead to minimal travel.”
quote:USA Today It found that $8.8 million of the travel expenses were paid for by tax-exempt and other groups whose funding sources aren't public. DeLay is under fire in part because one such group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, paid for a trip to Britain in 2000 that may have been at least partly paid for by a lobbyist, which is against House rules. ... While ethics rules require lawmakers to try to find out and disclose who is paying for their trips, they often fail to do so, said Larry Noble of the Center for Responsive Politics, an ethics watchdog group. "It has become a 'don't ask, don't tell' system," Noble said. ... An additional $4.4 million in travel was paid for by trade associations and $2 million by corporations. Interest groups frequently take lawmakers to conferences, plant sites or other places to educate them on issues. Among other findings:
* The leading travel sponsor was the educational Aspen Institute, which spent nearly $2.9 million on seminars for lawmakers. Institute spokesman Jim Spiegelman said the money comes from foundations, and the trips educate lawmakers without pushing a point of view. Other top spenders: the Ripon Society, an organization of Republican moderates, and the American Israel Education Foundation, an arm of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.
Bottom line, there are two problems they're trying to fix with this ethics thing. One is that people aren't disclosing who is paying for the travel. That's not relevant in the case of AIPAC. We know that it's supporters of Israel who are paying for it. And the other is that a lot of the travel is basically a gift for politicians. A cash gift, more or less, letting them go and give speeches without having to pay their way, or junkets so that they can have meetings in irrelevantly idyllic locations.
But if you go and do a Google search on aipac travel exempt, what you'll mostly find is a whole slew of the usual suspects spewing their anti-semitism. Never mind that the same compromise also exempts CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations).
quote:The Liberty Forum Hmmm...sounds as if Jews are preventing everyone but themselves from sending their controlled officials to anywhere but Israel. ... How practical for the purposes of extending knesset control of the Congress.
Now, dance! Dance! ... I find no mention of this legislative exemption for AIPAC in America's news. - Proof: They keep the sheeples befuddled and docile.
quote:Another Day in the Empire Once again, we are served up an object lesson on who runs things in Washington. ... I have referred to these “trips” as “walking tours” that produce stepfordized pro-Israelites, returning to America and Congress in prime shape to vote for whatever outrage the political establishment in Israel have in mind, from pushing for an attack against Iran to continued brutality against the Palestinians.
quote:Never mind that the same compromise also exempts CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations).
This is why I want to see the actual language of the exemption. Every site I read about this on was decidedly anti-Israel; a few were openly anti-semetic.
Which, in and of itself, doesn't mean their description of the exemption is inaccurate. It simply means I won't believe it until I see some actual evidence - namely, the language of the exemption.
Either it 1) exempts Aspen and AIPAC by name, 2) exempts them by a contorted set of definitions that apply to only Aspen and AIPAC, 3) exempts groups by class, Aspen and AIPAC belong to that class and no other groups do, or 4) exempts groups by class and other groups belong to that class.
If 1) or 2) is true, then I'm against the exemption on general principles of equal treatment and good statutory drafting. If 3) is true, then it seems that those opposing AIPAC could start their own group and the blogs on this have been misleading at the very least. If 4) is true, well, the sites are being dishonest, either by ommission or outright lies.
A link to the language would support 1) if true and would be very damning of AIPAC, which leads me to strongly suspect it would have been linked were 1) true. Same goes to 2) to a slightly lesser extent - a convoluted 2-page definition would make the special treatment point quite nicely.
So if I had to guess, I guess 3) or 4).
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posted
I only read one article about this exemption, and I think I may have misparaphrased it earlier. I don't even really know if the ethics bill has gotten out of committee yet, but I'm not good enough at looking things up on THOMAS to find it right now.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Major_loophole_in_Democrats_ethics_bill_0109.html This is the news story, from a place I've seen is usually a pretty unbiased source. It only talks about a quote from the chair of the Rules committee (Louise Slaughter (D-NY)), who singled out Aspen and AIPAC. I couldn't tell from the article, upon reading it again, whether these are the only groups who do this, or just the largest.
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