At least these clowns kept their clothes on!

The trip was much like any of the hundreds hosted in recent years by a nonprofit offshoot of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful Washington lobby, and the purpose was much the same: to solidify the support of American lawmakers for Israel…

With hundreds of Washington lawmakers having gone to Israel courtesy of the program, the trips have a reputation as being the standard-bearer for foreign Congressional travel. “We call it the Jewish Disneyland trip,” said one pro-Israel advocate in Washington.

…The attention surrounding last summer’s trip — thanks to reports of a skinny-dipping Kansas lawmaker who was part of the delegation — has cast an unwanted spotlight once again on the practice of private groups paying for foreign travel, a source of frequent criticism in the past.

One of the most famous travel boondoggles — a golf trip to Scotland for members of Congress and staff members, hosted by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff — led Congress in 2007 to tighten restrictions on who could sponsor trips and for how long. But despite the new restrictions, the number of Congressional trips paid for by outside groups has actually increased since 2007, to more than 1,600 from about 1,300, according to Legistorm, a research group that tracks Congressional data. To comply with the new restrictions, many political and lobbying groups have turned to nonprofit groups they set up and finance to host the Congressional trips.

Since 2000, the American Israel Education Foundation has been more prolific than any other in sponsoring overseas trips for members of Congress and their staffs, organizing 733 trips for both Republicans and Democrats at a cost of more than $7 million. Last year, it spent $2 million to sponsor 146 trips…

Among the donors who have helped to finance the trips is Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who is a strong Israel supporter and has pledged to spend as much as $100 million to defeat President Obama. A charitable trust operated by Mr. Adelson and his wife gave $1.2 million in 2006 to the American Israel Education Foundation, records show.

“What this says is that these kinds of trips are still happening, because these groups want to influence those members of Congress, to make them sympathetic to the host’s interests,” said Bill Allison, editorial director for the Sunlight Foundation…

The same crap always used as rationales for Congressional junkets designed to curry favor, influence political hacks and guarantee policies that haven’t much to do with legislation appropriate to the needs of American voters.



  1. NewformatSux says:

    >legislation appropriate to the needs of American voters.

    For Eideard and others on the left, that would be for America to get rid of all its nukes by dropping them on Israel, preferably with American Jews having traveled there just prior.

    • Nathan says:

      The left is just as beholden to Zionist powers as those on the right.

    • Joan Dvorak says:

      That would save Israel the trouble of having to steal them one at a time by having insiders fake the loss of American nuclear weapons.

      Centrifuges? They don’t need no steenkin centrifuges.

  2. NobodySpecial says:

    Interesting that they are going on golfing trips paid for by a people that they wouldn’t allow into their own golf club !

    • Nathan says:

      Even more interesting is that the Zionists constantly denigrate the faith of the majority persons who support them, whether that’s Christians or the pagan hedonists at any point of the national spectrum…oh wait that’s everybody who isn’t a Zionist.

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        Who doesn’t denigrate born again evangelical protestants?

        Where ya been? Its fun making fun of inbred snake dancers.

        If the Jews didn’t ridicule these idiots, I wouldn’t support them.

      • Shubee says:

        That’s only fair because I see justice in denigrating the faith of the Zionists.

        http://everythingimportant.org/

        • Nathan says:

          @Shubee, that link was a great read. It would be nice to see an update to address the great apostasy that is the Mormon church.

  3. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

    Whats the gravamen here?

    USA supports Israel because Israel reminds us of what it is to be young, vibrant, and fighting for a cause beyond making wealth transfers from the poor to the Rich.

    NewFormat—-wtf are you babbling about? Be specific.

    It would be a simple rule: yea or nay re accepting sponsored trip from xyz types of entities. I say its much less subject to harm to be pimped by foreign governments than by domestic corporations. Who is closer to a voting block?

    Pick any subject. Then say liberals are for it and hate America. Watch the idiots line up.

    Silly Hoomans.

    • Joan Dvorak says:

      The USA supports israel because israel has spent the last 60 years infiltrating American politics and now essentially owns the republican party.

      Jews support the democrats, Israel supports republicans. It’s talking out of both sides of your mouth but as Israel frequently reminds us, when their very existence is at stake, they feel morally free to do whatever the hell they want to.

    • NobodySpecial says:

      And the US supports Saudi Arabia to remind it that it was once ruled by an obscenely rich absolute monarchy with an official state religion ?

  4. msbpodcast says:

    We could make it a rule that if politicians accept travel junkets, they have to stay there.

    We’d undoubtedly be better off if they stayed there, anywhere but here (where they prove they no knowledge of biology or much of anything else.)

  5. AdmFubar says:

    lets tax them and the lobbyists for these trips, say at about 500% of their value… that should eat into the politicos pockets… and would be a nice chunk of change for the people..

    • Nathan says:

      And who writes the tax laws that would do that? The people that don’t want to pay taxes on the junket they just received.

  6. Israeli says:

    Since when is a trip to Israel a junket? Most of the hotels haven’t been updated in over a decade and there isn’t a lot of action over here. When I think junket I think of Las Vegas, Caribbean Islands, or some other exotic locale. The majority of the tourism industry caters to religious pilgrims. Also there is only one golf course in the entire country and it is a crappy 9 hole course.

    • Joan Dvorak says:

      Why did Willy Sutton rob banks?

      Because that’s where the money is.

      Anyway, they are more comfortable getting the pols over there before they show them the pictures the mossad got of them lip whipping the pool boy’s trouser snake.

    • NobodySpecial says:

      Added to which it’s hot and dusty, the beer is crap and you can’t get a bacon double cheeseburger anywhere.
      If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone walked around in strange outfits you would think you WERE in Vegas!

  7. Sheila says:

    what do you expect, they are politicians

    survivingsurvivalism.com

  8. Animal Mother says:

    All Republicans are asshat scum.

    • Supreme Ultrahuman (I see the comment system is still designed for retards.) says:

      I could agree with you on liberal Republicans since all liberals are evil asshats.

  9. Supreme Ultrahuman (I see the comment system is still designed for retards.) says:

    Does this issue help Americans have more than everyone else on the planet? If not – who the fuck cares? It’s irrelevant.

    Focus people – God created America to have the most stuff.

    • deowll says:

      Then creation is rapidly coming to an end.

      • Supreme Ultrahuman (I see the comment system is still designed for retards.) says:

        Through observation, unfortunately, I would tend to agree with you.

  10. NewformatSux says:

    If they wanted to influence policy, they would take them on a trip to Muslim countries. Very quickly people would realize that Israel is closer to America than her enemies. Israel is closer to civilization than her enemies. If a Palestinian state is ever formed in Jerusalem, most of the Muslims there will look to move into Israel.

  11. Kent says:

    These guys pretty much run US foreign policy.

  12. blatherer says:

    STOP throwing our tax dollars at Israel, cut them off and let them sink or swim. I don’t care which. STOP wasting our money!

  13. NewformatSux says:

    The BBC commissioned a report evaluating its coverage of Israel, and whether it is being fair. That report has never been made public, and the BBC leadership have spent over a million dollars to keep it from being made public, resisting FOI requests. One of their resistors is set to become head of the New York Times Company.


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