Text 1057, 69 rader
Skriven 2006-06-11 21:27:00 av BOB KLAHN (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JOHN MASSEY
Ärende: $50 million in travel
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 LL>> Would you kindly post the source for the original article you
 LL>> presented so that I and others can review it?  Thanks.


 JM> THE BEST CONGRESS MONEY CAN BUY
 JM> The nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity released a
 JM> study yesterday and it showed that over a 5+ year period
 JM> between 2000 and 2005, members of Congress (both
 JM> Republicans and Democrats) accepted $50 million in travel
 JM> from corporations and special interest groups.  This makes
 JM> Jack Abramoff look like a pauper.  Among the findings:
 ...
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 http://mediamatters.org/

 Wash. Post, other outlets ignored relevant statistics to frame
 problem of congressional travel as wholly bipartisan

 ...

 In a June 6 article
 based on information from the Center for Public Integrity's
 (CPI) recent analysis of privately funded congressional travel,
 Washington Post staff writer Jeffrey Birnbaum largely depicted
 the issue of members accepting privately funded trips as a
 bipartisan one. But Birnbaum omitted several pertinent findings
 that show greater participation by Republican lawmakers and
 staff than by Democrats. Specifically, Birnbaum reported that
 the 10 congressional offices that took the most privately
 sponsored trips were all in the House of Representatives but did
 not note that all 10 offices were Republican. He also reported
 the CPI finding that General Atomics, the largest corporate
 sponsor of congressional travel, had arranged 86 trips for
 lawmakers and their staff, but he did not report that 70 of
 those trips -- more than 80 percent -- were taken by Republican
 lawmakers and staff members. Overall, in four out of the five
 metrics CPI used to analyze the volume of privately funded
 congressional travel -- including the two mentioned above --
 Republicans outnumbered Democrats -- a fact not presented by
 Birnbaum. Reports on the CPI study by The New York Times, Knight
 Ridder, and CBS also glossed over several of these findings.

 CPI conducted the study, titled "Power Trips in conjunction with
 American Public Media and the Medill School of Journalism at
 Northwestern University. The groups compiled and analyzed data
 on all privately funded travel accepted by members of Congress
 and their staffs between Jan.1, 2000, and June 30, 2005. They
 released their key findings on June 5, which included their five
 indicies of frequency and cost of congressional travel:

 ...

    And if you thought Congress was reforming these types of meetings,
    they are not. They have repeatedly rejected bans on private travel,
    and nothing in any current proposals would change that. Russ.


 Posted to the web on Wednesday June 7, 2006 at 11:06 AM EST

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BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Jesus was born in a manger because Joseph belonged to an HMO.
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