Republicans and Democrats Enjoying Free Travel on Taxpayer Dime

Many Americans hit hard by the recession have been trading their annual family getaways for summer "stay-cations." But the economy apparently has done little to ground members of Congress.

Iraq and Afghanistan may be frequent destinations for lawmakers, but they pale in comparison to the more exotic places they've traveled, like Ireland, Switzerland and China.

Lawmakers defend their travel, saying missions like these are important to share valuable intelligence and build relations.

But Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) says some members of Congress take a spendthrift attitude about travel -- because it's not on their dime.

"I think the let-them-eat-cake mentality that many of us, many members have adopted in both the House and Senate is just not acceptable to the American people," Johnson said.

But that isn't reflected in the numbers. Congressional spending on overseas travel tripled in the last eight years, and has jumped 50 percent since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

According to congressional travel records, House and Senate members spent 6,910 days overseas in the first three quarters of fiscal year 2009, spending a total of $9.4 million.

Representatives traveled to some 127 countries this year, including hotspots in Europe, the Greek Islands, Hong Kong and Dubai. The Senate did its own share, traveling to 100 different countries -- including places like Scotland, Morocco, Denmark, Sweden and Italy.

Add in the cost of military transport, and estimates show that totals for congressional travel this year will reach over $15 million -- $2 million more than last year.

What's worse, there is virtually no limit on what they spend, where they go, what they do, or how many times they travel.

Records show that lawmakers often file expense reports with minimal information. - FOX News Story

House Overwhelming Approves Measure to Cut All Funding to ACORN

The House has just voted to 345-75, to cut off all federal funding to ACORN -- using a procedural trick to force a vote on an amendment.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats voted with all Republicans to ram through the measure, which follows the Senate's passage of an amendment barring HUD from funding the community group, which specializes in social services, housing preservation and foreclosure mitigation.

The "Defund ACORN Act," introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) would bar the federal government from doing business with the group, citing several voter registration fraud investigations. But it would also go much farther, prohibiting "any organization that shares directors, employees, or independent contractors" with ACORN from receiving federal cash. - Politico

Democrats Join GOP in Questioning Czars

In the war on the czars, Glenn Beck and the GOP are picking up reinforcements from an unlikely source: the Democratic Party.

The Fox News host and leading Republican lawmakers have been hammering President Barack Obama for weeks over a proliferation of policy “czars” — presidential appointees who don’t have to be confirmed by the Senate and aren’t easily held to account by Senate oversight committees.

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin joined the anti-czar chorus Wednesday, asking Obama to detail the roles and responsibilities of all of the czars in his administration and to explain why he believes the use of czars is consistent with the Senate’s constitutional power to offer advice and consent on top-level executive branch officials.

“To the extent that this undercuts that role and people are put in the place of Cabinet people and really are the key authorities and you can’t question them, that’s something worth talking about,” Feingold said. “I think it’s a fair point.”

Feingold says he doesn’t know if there are any constitutional violations, but he suggested that he may hold an oversight hearing on the matter.

Although the czar charge has come mostly from the right, Feingold isn’t the only Democrat to voice concerns about the issue.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in an interview Wednesday that there needs to be better Senate oversight, although she was quick to add that some czar critics have incorrectly labeled a number of Senate-confirmed administration officials as White House czars. - Politico Story

Senate Bill Would Block Gitmo Closing

A bill that could go to the Senate floor as early as next week would make it impossible for President Barack Obama to move any Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S. for any reason, effectively blocking his plan to close the facility by January.

The bar on all such transfers was written into the Senate version of the Defense appropriations bill passed by the Appropriations Committee last week and is stricter than current law, which allows prisoners to be brought to the United States for trial as long as Congress is notified 45 days in advance of any potential risks.

The language, proposed by Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), underscores the impatience many senators from both parties feel over the White House’s failure to settle on a site or a legal framework to detain prisoners who would have to leave Guantanamo in order to meet Obama’s January deadline.

The Senate panel also omitted any money to close Guanatanamo or build a new facility.

“We have not provided funding for the closure of Guantanamo, because the administration has yet to produce a credible plan,” Inouye said. - Politico Story

Obama's After Speech Jumps has Fallen Off in Polls

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 32% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8 (see trends). Thirty-five percent (35%) believe the U.S. is generally heading in the right direction and investor confidence today reached the highest level of 2009.

Forty-four percent (44%) now favor the President’s health care plan. That’s unchanged from before the speech…and from July. Public opinion on the issue appears to be hardening. A Rasmussen video report notes that 53% of those with insurance believe they would be forced to change coverage if the proposed health care reform is approved. - Rasmussen Reports Poll

Wilson was Right - Obama Lied - Just different part of speech

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn't known about.

"They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it," the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Raddatz's policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

Obama aides say the president got the essence of the story correct. Raddatz was dropped from his insurance plan weeks before a scheduled stem-cell transplant.

In a letter, Babs Waldman, medical director of the Illinois attorney general's office, excoriated the insurer, Fortis Health, which is now Assurant Health. Raddatz "suddenly faces not only life-threatening illness but now the inability to afford the only treatment that may help him," Dr. Waldman wrote to the insurer May 3, 2005.

Peter Duckler, a spokesman for Assurant Health, said the company "can never comment on an insured's coverage due to confidentiality issues."

The patient's sister, Peggy M. Raddatz, testified before the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee June 16 that her brother ultimately received treatment that "extended his life approximately three years." Nowhere in the hearing did she say her brother died because of the delay. Ms. Raddatz didn't return calls seeking comment. - FOX News Story

Carter Claims Racism in Opposition to Obama

Former President Jimmy Carter drew widespread criticism Wednesday for saying in an interview that Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst last week was "based on racism" and that an "overwhelming portion" of similar demonstrations against President Obama are rooted in bigotry.

Obama's supporters have attributed racist motives to some opponents of his health care plan for weeks, but Carter is the highest-profile person so far to push that claim.

While some anti-Obama demonstrators have been seen carrying over-the-top or racially offensive signs, administration critics say Carter is flat wrong to claim that those fringe protesters make up the bulk of Obama's detractors.

"I don't see race as an issue. It's all about the policies that are coming out of the current administration," said Deneen Borelli, a black conservative who spoke at the protest rally held in Washington Saturday. Much of the condemnation of Obama's critics has come as a response to that protest, where tens of thousands demonstrated against big government and over-spending.

"I just see this as the race card being used once again to distract the American people from the core issues," Borelli said.

Adam Brandon, spokesman for protest organizer FreedomWorks, said Carter's comments were "absurd." He noted that the protest featured about a dozen black speakers.

"To say this crowd was racist is absolutely absurd when black speakers were probably the most popular speakers," he said.

"I think it's very destructive for America to suggest that we can't criticize a president without it being a racial act," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told FOX News. - FOX News Story

Well that didn't take long. Remember the Jeremiah Wright issue? What about the Harvard issue? Seems to me like the President and his people are all about the race issue. This is dangerous ground for these high profile positions to be taking. In an already deeply divided and polarized America to start pitting race against race is a dangerous slope.

ABC Top Personality Didn't Know about ACORN Scandal?

Is the ACORN scandal worthy of national broadcast news coverage? ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson said he didn't even know what the scandal was about.

The story has escalated in the past week as hidden-camera videos have been released showing workers at separate offices of ACORN — a nation community outreach group that receives millions in federal funding — appearing to advise a couple dressed as a pimp and prostitute how to skirt the law and set up a brothel.

But Gibson told a radio show Tuesday morning that he wasn't familiar with the story — and it might be "just one you leave to the cables."

ABC reporter Jake Tapper has filed some reports on the scandal, and Gibson was asked on WLS Radio's "Don & Roma Show" what he thought of the story.

"I don't even know about it," Gibson said, laughing. "So you've got me at a loss. ... But my goodness, if it's got everything, including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it in the morning."

When one of the radio show's hosts described it as a "huge issue," Gibson said ABC had "done some stories about ACORN before, but this one I don't know about." - FOX News Story

Give me a break. What he meant to say was that we are the All Barack Channel (ABC) and this doesn't work in our plans.

Warnings of Raioned Health Care for Special Needs Kids

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Surrounded by a group of parents clutching pictures of their special needs children, two Republican members of Congress stood in front of the Capitol on Tuesday and warned that President Obama's proposed health care system will lead to a rationing of care for children with disabilities.

GOP Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona and Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington said at a news conference that government-run health care systems, wherever they exist in the world, inevitably force health providers to refuse care to people with chonically-ill family members in order to reduce costs. Both members of Congress said the issue hits close to home: McMorris-Rogers has a son with Down Syndrome, and Franks was born with a cleft palate.

"Whenever there is pressure on government to cut costs, and that is ostensibly the purpose here, the reality is a lot of times the doctors take their hands off the situation," Franks said. He also predicted that the president's health care legislation will lead to "the largest expansion of abortion since Roe vs. Wade."

The two Republicans then heard from nearly a dozen parents who claimed that their disabled children would be discriminated against under the Democratic plan. Several pointed out that the President's health care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel — brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and a frequent target of the presidential plan's critics — has written articles in the past in support of rationing care. Emanuel has since said his thinking has changed on the matter. - CNN

House Partisanship Again with Wilson Vote

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The House of Representatives on Tuesday formally admonished Republican Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting "you lie" during President Barack Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last week.

The House passed a resolution of disapproval on a 240-179 vote that was mostly along party lines, reflecting the Democratic majority in the chamber.

Five representatives voted "present."

According to the Office of the House Historian, it was the first time in its 220-year history that the House has disciplined a member for speaking out during a presidential speech in the chamber to a joint session of Congress.

During debate on the resolution, Wilson called the measure a waste of time and failed to offer an apology to the chamber as demanded by House Democrats. - CNN

For crying out loud. The man expressed his anger and then apologized. Hell I give him credit for saying right to the man's face. Most of the idiots up there will say it in interviews or behind the other persons back.

ACORN, ACORN, ACORN - Scandal after Scandal

(CBS) ACORN calls itself the nation's largest grassroots community organization, with more than 400,000 members.

It helps low-income Americans find affordable housing and it receives tens of millions in government funding. But, as CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports, that may be coming to an end, thanks to undercover videos that have sparked a huge scandal.

The videos reportedly recorded late July and early August appear to show ACORN employees in several big cities including Baltimore, Washington and New York, advising a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute.

The employees are heard telling the couple how to avoid paying taxes and how to qualify for a mortgage on a home the couple plan to use as a brothel.

"And if anyone asks you your business is a performing artist, which you are, okay, so you are not lying," says one of the ACORN workers caught on the tape. "Performing artist. So stop saying prostitution. Got it."

ACORN says the workers caught on tape were fired but contends the videos were illegally obtained, doctored and deceptive and is threatening legal action against the undercover filmmakers posing as the couple.

"We are experiencing the modern-day version of McCarthyism - 'Are you now or have you ever been associated with ACORN?'" said Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO.

But long-term damage to the reputation of the poverty rights organization may already be done. Monday night the Democratic-controlled Senate voted 83-7 to deny ACORN access to millions of dollars in federal housing funds. - CBS News Story

ACORN - The Story the Networks aren't Covering

Employees at no fewer than four ACORN offices have been caught on videotape advising a man and a woman on how to skirt federal law to obtain housing and operate a brothel — but you'd hardly know it if all you watch and read are the mainstream media, conservative media critics say.

"A major national scandal and none of the broadcast networks is covering it," said Dan Gainor, vice president for business and culture at the Media Research Center. "This is the news media in the era of Van Jones and President Obama. The major outlets cover what they want and create the themes they want."

A search of transcripts through Monday at NBC, CBS and MSNBC revealed no national TV coverage of the growing ACORN scandal. CNN and ABC, meanwhile, have run some segments on the matter, including a quick mention during Saturday's "Good Morning America."

At ABCNews.com, White House correspondent Jake Tapper filed an original story late Friday when the U.S. Census Bureau announced it would be severing ties with the community organization, but the Web site relied on Associated Press reporting for four related stories.

Evening news anchor Charlie Gibson wasn't even familiar enough with the story to discuss it on a radio show Tuesday morning. - FOX News Story

It is worth noting that after a week, just today they have started covering it. Though I am not sure it has hit the airwaves you can find it on their websites.

Senate Votes to Cut Off ACORN Funding

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.

The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The action came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman's income. Two other videos, aired on the FOX News Channel, depict similar situations in ACORN offices in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C.

The Senate's move would mean that ACORN would not be able to win HUD grants for programs such as counseling low-income people on how to get mortgages and for fair housing education and outreach. - FOX News Story

The Obama Myth - Bipartisanship

President Barack Obama is on the warpath over myths and distortions about health care reform, but he’s spreading one of his own: that there’s any chance of genuinely bipartisan health care legislation reaching his desk this fall.

In truth, Democratic offers to reach across the aisle — and Republican demands that they do so — are largely a charade, performed for the benefit of a huge bloc of practical-minded voters who hunger for the two parties to work together and are mystified that it never seems to happen.

The answer is hardly a mystery to Obama or his adversaries. They know that the political incentives driving them toward conflict are vastly stronger than any impulses they may personally harbor for conciliation and compromise.

This ritual — publicly trumpeting the virtues of bipartisanship while privately navigating a Washington status quo with a bias for partisan combat — is playing out across virtually every major issue the White House and Congress confront. - Politico Story

Polls Show Media is Losing Credibility

(AP) The news media's credibility is sagging along with its revenue.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the news stories they read, hear and watch are frequently inaccurate, according to a poll released Sunday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. That marks the highest level of skepticism recorded since 1985, when this study of public perceptions of the media was first done.

The poll didn't distinguish between Internet bloggers and reporters employed by newspapers and broadcasters, leaving the definition of "news media" up to each individual who was questioned. The survey polled 1,506 adults on the phone in late July.

The survey found that 63 percent of the respondents thought the information they get from the media was often off base. In Pew Research's previous survey, in 2007, 53 percent of the people expressed that doubt about accuracy.

The findings indicate U.S. newspapers and broadcasters could be alienating the audiences they are struggling to keep as they try to survive financial turmoil. Pew Research didn't attempt to gauge how shrinking newspapers, reduced staffs and other cutbacks at news organizations are affecting people's perceptions, although the reductions probably haven't helped, said Michael Dimock, an associate director for the center. - CBS News Story

Really? I can't imagine why? With all the biased reporting. They don't report the news anymore, they always have an angle and are generally on one side of the issue or the other. They don't give us just the facts, they doctor up the facts for one side and don't give the other.

Big shocker isn't it?

ACORN Claims Videos Doctored

The independent filmmaker whose hidden-camera videos prompted the firing of four ACORN workers is demanding an apology from ACORN for calling his work a fabricated "scam" and daring the activist group to take legal action against him.

"Bring it on," filmmaker James O'Keefe said Sunday on FOX News.

That was after ACORN lashed out at O'Keefe, who with his friend Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute looking to evade the IRS and apply for an illegal housing loan for a brothel. The sting operation caught four ACORN workers in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., offices appearing to offer their help.

Those workers were subsequently fired, and the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with ACORN in the wake of the controversy. But ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis issued a written statement Saturday saying that while she cannot defend the actions of the workers who were terminated, O'Keefe may have committed a "felony" with his operation. She also threatened legal action against FOX News, which aired the videos but did not produce them.

"It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist 'filmmaker' O'Keefe and his partner in crime. And, in fact, a crime it was -- our lawyers believe a felony -- and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators," she said.

In an interview with FOX News senior correspondent Eric Shawn, O'Keefe said he wants an apology from those media outlets "covering for ACORN" as well as from ACORN itself. He said he doubts ACORN will file suit.

"They don't have any leg to stand on, so they're saying I dubbed in my voice which is completely absurd," he said. "When the truth comes out in the end, they're going to be apologizing to us."

O'Keefe said he was "just trying to hold these organizations accountable."

Lewis said in her statement that O'Keefe's "scam" was attempted in several other cities but had "failed for months."

O'Keefe declined to comment on the allegedly unsuccessful attempts, but said it's a "lie" to claim that any ACORN offices "kicked us out." - FOX News

ACORN Busted AGAIN!!!

Days after the release of hidden-camera videos led to the firing of four ACORN workers in Baltimore and Washington who assisted an independent filmmaker posing as a pimp to apply for an illegal housing loan for a brothel, a third video has surfaced showing ACORN workers offering the same kind of assistance at the organization's office in Brooklyn, N.Y.

As in their previous undercover stings, filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25, and partner Hannah Giles, 20, who posed as a prostitute, received advice from ACORN workers on how to launder their earnings and avoid detection from law enforcement officials while running a prostitution business.

"You have to find another name for it," an ACORN employee tells the pair seeking a mortgage in the Brooklyn office. "Honesty is not going to get you the house. You can't say what you do for a living."

In the video posted on BigGovernment.com, which was shot on Aug. 4, O'Keefe tells two ACORN workers that Giles — scantily dressed as a prostitute named "Eden" with partially-exposed undergarments — earns up to $10,000 a month "performing tricks" and tries to obtain housing in the purportedly 18-year-old woman's name.

"This is going to be her business, it's all cash," O'Keefe says. "She's gonna have this business in the house with a bunch of girls coming and doing these things, you know, performing tricks and she's gonna give me the money so I can pay the mortgage. That's how we want to work it potentially. But no one has to know where the money is coming from."

"No," an ACORN employee responds as another shakes her head in approval.

The ACORN employees suggest that the purpose of "Eden's" business remain a secret as they seek to obtain financing. - FOX News Story