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MER WASHINGTON SCENE:
JUNKETS TO ISRAEL TO CONTINUE AS BEFORE
"U.S. lawmakers took 163 privately funded trips to
Israel;
more than one in five current members of Congress have
traveled there.
That compares with 139 to Mexico, the next most
popular foreign destination, 97
to Italy and 87 to Germany... Israel
has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II."
MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 25 February:
The Abramoff/Lobbying Scandal in Washington has exposed to some degree
the deeply corrupting and oh-so-incestuous relationship in this capital
between big-money promoters of various kinds and elected government
officials. Of
course it's all tied as well to the miserably out of control campaign
finance system as well as the 'revolving doors' that push elected
officials into the waiting arms of corporate and government-connected
entities that pay big bucks down the road for services rendered and
contacts amassed when in
office. The system is in actuality one of legalized payoffs and
unconscionable
self-serving deals that rarely see the light of day for it is
oh-so-hard to get the confirmable facts and to even try to keep up with
the ususally quite secret under-the-table arrangements and deals. Even
with the Abramoff scandal still unfolding the lobbyists and their
benefactors are working overtime to keep the system in place even while
pretending to reform it. And when it comes to Israel, the country
that benefits the most from the lobby groups and Institutes that pay
for members of Congress and the Administration to visit the Jewish
State -- the big guns are out now making sure the system will continue
one way or another and the unprecedented flow of money, arms, and help
will continue to flow from Washington to Israel. At the top of the
list of who funds these things are the Aspen Institute, run by Walter
Isaacson, a well-connected American Jew, and the American Israel
Education Fund an offshoot of the America Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) which together pay for more than half of the foreign
trips, the majority to the single small country of Israel.
Pro-Israel Groups Fight Efforts to Ban U.S. Lawmakers' Travel
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jewish groups have made Israel the top foreign
destination for U.S. lawmakers on privately funded trips. Now, they're fighting
to make sure the fallout from the Jack Abramoff scandal doesn't ground those
flights.
Organizations including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are
lobbying against a proposed congressional ban on trips financed by private
groups. The Washington-based committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the
U.S., joined more than 30 other religious and educational groups in writing to
House Speaker Dennis Hastert last month arguing ``there is no substitute for
travel'' in helping lawmakers grasp policy issues.
While many lawmakers say they favor private travel for ``educational
purposes,'' the lavish trips arranged by Abramoff - - which are at the heart of
a federal investigation of the Republican lobbyist -- also were ostensibly aimed
at educating lawmakers.
``There's no easy way to distinguish the legitimate from the
non-legitimate,'' said Stan Brand, a former U.S. House counsel who specializes
in representing public officials accused of wrongdoing. ``What makes sense to me
is if it's officially related, that it be paid for by the government. If it's
that meaningful, there's no reason Uncle Sam can't pay.''
The momentum for a travel ban may be flagging after Hastert, an Illinois
Republican, first proposed it on Jan. 17, Brand said. House Majority Leader John
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, is opposed to a ban, saying he favors more
disclosure of trips. ``It looks like the train has been slowed down because for
now the furor has subsided,'' Brand said. ``The next series of indictments or
charges will rev it up again.''
Scotland Focus
Abramoff, 46, last month pleaded guilty to defrauding clients and conspiring
to corrupt public officials. He's cooperating with investigators, who are
looking at golf trips to Scotland that he arranged and billed as educational
opportunities through a foundation.
Between 2000 and 2005, U.S. lawmakers took 163 privately funded trips to
Israel; more than one in five current members of Congress have traveled there.
That compares with 139 to Mexico, the next most popular foreign destination, 97
to Italy and 87 to Germany, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a Washington-based
company that tracks money in politics.
Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II.
Educational Value
Representatives of Jewish groups say the educational value of the travel to
the lawmakers is clear.
``We are not bringing them to play golf,'' said William Daroff, vice
president for public policy at United Jewish Communities, a New York umbrella
group that's lobbying against a total travel ban. ``Certainly there have been
excesses; certainly there are bad actors. To throw out the baby with the
bathwater is not a reasoned or mature approach to dealing with the problem.''
Daroff said his group and others that back Israel are talking to the
leadership of both parties in the House and Senate as well as the committees
that oversee lobbying. Their argument about the value of the trips resonates
with many lawmakers.
``If your constituents want to take you to Israel or take you to the West
Bank and they've formed a group to do that, I think there's logic to that,''
said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a Republican who's
sponsoring lobbying- overhaul legislation. ``I haven't gone on an Aipac trip,
but I would like to think that would be available to me.''
No Upstaging Republicans
Shays said that while he wouldn't argue for a complete travel ban, he also
won't allow Democrats to upstage Republicans. ``If they come forward with an
amendment like that, I'm going to support it,'' he said.
Shays and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, singled
out the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit group that says its mission is to ``foster
enlightened leadership,'' as one that probably should be exempted from travel
restrictions.
Yet the Aspen Institute -- which shells out more money for congressional
travel than any other private group -- is the same class of nonprofit
organization that prosecutors say Abramoff used in an attempt to corrupt public
officials. So is the American Israel Education Foundation, an affiliate of
Aipac, which is a registered lobbying organization.
The Washington-based National Center for Public Policy Research, which
promotes free-market policies, sponsored a trip to Scotland for former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, in 2000. Abramoff, who was a
member of the center's board, billed some expenses for the trip to his own
credit card, the Washington Post reported last year.
Ney, Feeney
Republican Representatives Bob Ney of Ohio and Tom Feeney of Florida also
went on Abramoff trips to Scotland and reported that they were sponsored by the
center. The center denied paying for those trips. Its president, Amy Ridenour,
declined to comment, citing the investigation. At a Senate Indian Affairs
Committee hearing last year, Ridenour said Abramoff's actions surprised her
since she considered him a longtime friend.
Dick Clark, a former U.S. senator from Iowa who runs the Aspen Institute's
congressional travel program, proposed in January that Congress ban groups that
employ lobbyists from sponsoring travel and forbid lobbyists from participating.
Participants in Aspen Institute trips are required to attend all conference
events, which include at least six hours a day of seminars, meetings and meals
with scholars. Between 2000 and 2005, the institute spent almost $3.5 million on
congressional travel, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.
``Part of the reason for taking members out of the country is to get them
away from their workaday focus so that they can really dig down deep into a
subject,'' said Aspen spokesman James Spiegelman. ``Without the benefit of that,
it would be a loss not only for our own program but for the members
themselves.''
$1 Million for Travel
The American Israel Education Foundation spent just more than $1 million in
that time bringing lawmakers to Israel, according to PoliticalMoneyLine. House
Majority and Minority Whips Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, and Steny Hoyer, a
Maryland Democrat, each took two trips sponsored by the group. Representatives
Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, and Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat, went
on three.
Aipac spokesman Josh Block said the trips ``have long been considered among
the most substantive, educational and valuable trips available for members of
Congress.''
Blunt ``thinks it's really important for new members of Congress to see
first-hand the situation in the Middle East,'' spokeswoman Burson Taylor said.
Blunt would support a complete ban, though he's not actively pushing for one,
she said.
``There is some educational travel that does appear to be legitimate,'' said
Larry Noble, the former top lawyer for the Federal Election Commission who
directs Washington's Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. ``Maybe
they can find a way to carve out an exception, but they have to be careful that
it doesn't allow an Abramoff to do what he did through a different route.''
The following table lists the top 10 private groups that funded trips for
lawmakers between 2000 and 2005. The list is based on lawmakers' disclosures
compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine. |
Group Total Spent
Aspen Institute $3,478,992
American Israel Education Foundation $1,032,038
Ripon Society $762,592
International Management and Development Institute $535,276
Association of American Railroads $407,925
Harvard University $333,439
Nuclear Energy Institute $324,317
American Association of Airport Executives $297,803
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other chambers $260,458
Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation $247,037
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Kristin Jensen in Washington kjensen@bloomberg.net
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February 2006
World War III?
(February 28, 2006)
“The threat from the White House is to go in anyway... I see the possibility if we do that of really setting forth World War III.” - Walter Cronkite, 27 Oct 2002.
Huge Death Toll in Iraq In Week - Equivalent to Five 9/11s
(February 27, 2006)
As usual the information coming from the Pentagon and State Department, and from the many who work for them either overtly and covertly, is again unreliable and deceptive, off by an order of magnitude in fact. After independent investigations it appears the Americans, and their associated regime in Baghdad, tremendously downplayed the actual death and destruction toll in the last week in Iraq since the bombing of the Golden Dome. Indeed, adjusting for population size, it is as if in just the past week alone Iraq has suffered deaths amounting to five 9/11s!
Palestine Articles - 26 Feb
(February 26, 2006)
Palestine Articles - 26 Feb
ISRAEL ARTICLES on 26 Feb
(February 26, 2006)
ISRAEL ARTICLES on 26 Feb
Who really bombed the Golden Dome is in much doubt
(February 26, 2006)
Just who really bombed the Golden Dome in Samarra a few days ago? Just who really benefits the most from this historic act that may have reshuffled the political geostrategic deck in Iraq and in the region? There's a long history now in the Middle East of covert operations blamed on others in order to justify actions the powers that be are determined to pursue.
From the "PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES"....to the Jewish Territories of Oscars Hollywood
(February 25, 2006)
PARADISE NOW: "The nomination probably won't be rescinded, but with 70 being the median academy voter age, and Judaism the predominant religion, it is something of a surprise, even to insiders, that the film has been nominated at all, let alone that it is a strong prospect to win."
Washington Scene: JUNKETS TO ISRAEL TO CONTINUE AS BEFORE
(February 25, 2006)
"U.S. lawmakers took 163 privately funded trips to Israel; more than one in five current members of Congress have traveled there. That compares with 139 to Mexico, the next most popular foreign destination, 97 to Italy and 87 to Germany... Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II."
Jewish Lobby Enters Arab World - Ariel Sharon's 'Dear Personal Friend' Seduces Qatar
(February 23, 2006)
This appears to be the first time such an Israeli-connected 'think tank' operation is formally setting up shop in an Arab country, however thinly masked as 'The Brookings Institution'. Much more background follows in the MER FlashBack article titled "ISRAELI Influence-Peddling - ON TOP OF ALL THE SPYING AND LOBBYING."
Today at 12pm noon sharp (Washington DC time) join in at MER CHAT - MiddleEast.org/chat
(February 22, 2006)
World Council of Churches Vents Angry
(February 20, 2006)
A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of "raining down terror" and apologizing to other nations for "the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown."
The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a "culture of consumption" and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming.
DIVESTMENT AHEAD as 'JEWS ONLY' APARTHEID EXPANDS
(February 19, 2006)
Though the church-based 'divestment campaign' still remains very hesitant, embryonic and unlikely to 'catch on' and be 'sustained' as would be required for it to have a serious chance of seriously impacting, the debate is at least underway in limited forums... Meanwhile Israel's barriers, walls, fences, prisons, confuscations, checkpoints, and settlements are all still expanding in a worse than Apartheid every was way.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY SEVERELY RESTRICTS MEDIA
(February 18, 2006)
The event was the 5th annual Palestine Solidarity Movement Conference -- no well-known speakers and certainly no one who is use to having any serious security. "I saved these two days to be at the conference" the reporter insisted before declaring in obvious frustration that she was going to have a weekend vaction instead and left in a huff.
CRISIS IRAN, CRISIS WORLD
(February 17, 2006)
The crisis with Iran is far more than a confrontation over production of a few nuclear weapons in the years ahead. The crisis with Iran, and indirectly with the growing forces of Arab nationalism and Muslim assertiveness, as well as with the growing counter-U.S. superpower reach of China and to a lesser extent Russia, is about nothing less than world domination.
Iran Articles - 16 Feb
(February 16, 2006)
Sharon The War Criminal - FlashBack to 2001 and BBC 'Accused'
(February 15, 2006)
"I think there is no doubt in my mind that he (Sharon) is indictable (as a war criminal) for the kind of knowledge that he either had, or should have had." - Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
ISRAEL Articles on 14 Feb
(February 14, 2006)
Articles with keyword PALESTINE
(February 14, 2006)
Articles with keyword PALESTINE
Valentine's Day Plot To Discredit, Destroy Hamas
(February 14, 2006)
Remember it for its day of publication as the Valentine's Day Plot to discredit and destroy Hamas. And if this is what makes it to the pages of the New York Times just imagine what the Americans, the Israelis, and their European allies are really doing (and have already done) behind-the-scenes with all the agents and money not to mention all the bugging, killing, and scheming they are so capable of bringing to bear. But it all comes at a historic cost, and so much the Americans and Israelis do comes back as unexpected forms of blowback even worse for them than what they tried to destroy before.
TARGET IRAN - Preparations By All
(February 13, 2006)
WAR these days is far more than military attack. With the Americans there is first of all a tremendous technological side involving high-tech spying, covert ops, assassinations, internal upheavals, economic punishments, and regime change attempts. In addition war preparations for the Americans in this modern-day interconnected world involve massive propaganda campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion; and this in turn includes everything from planting information and stories to twisting journalists and publications to 'report' in ways that suit the needs of the war planners.
TARGET IRAN!
(February 12, 2006)
As MER repeatedly predicted in past years, the international situation is proceeding to one of the most dangerous times ever. The mistakes, the lies, the hypocrisy, and all the killing and 'Shock and Awe' of the past is catching up with all of us now. It's not that Iran can seriously withstand a U.S./Israeli attack. Clearly the American Empire has the firepower to destroy and prevail in the short run. But the political, economic, and psychological forces that may be unleashed by what the combined forces of the Neocons, the Evangelicals, and the Zionists are more and more loudly threatening and planning has serious people in Washington and beyond quivering and fearing about the future big time now. This today from the Sunday Telegraph in London:
Princeton University Speech by Mark Bruzonsky
(February 11, 2006)
This speech was given by the publisher of MiddleEast.Org at a forum at Princeton University on 7 February 2006. The other persons on the forum were Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Professor Cornell West.
The Mother of all Hoaxes - And the Disastrous Aftermath
(February 6, 2006)
Yesterday was the third Colin Powell 'Anniversary' of what we have termed 'The Mother of all Hoaxes'. Three years ago he gave what is now one of modern history's most infamous speeches quite literally to the world. What happened that day was a great historic 'haox' perpetrated ' on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council', i.e., the entire world. Yesterday MER republished a FlashBack article calling for the resignation of both Colin Powell and George Tenet -- we did so two long years ago now when it was relevant, timely, necessary, and difficult to do. Remember though, the actual perpertrators responsible for this horrendous hoax and the disastrous consequences which have followed are the President and the Vice-President of the United States.
Colin Powell and The Mother of All Hoaxes
(February 5, 2006)
Last Friday evening Colin Powell's Chief of Staff in the State Department at the time Powell gave his historic speech at the U.N. Security Council came clean. It was that much-heralded speech of course that prepared the way for the launching of the disastrous Iraqi invasion/occupation. Now, Friday evening on the NOW! program on Public Broadcasting, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was right there helping prepare Powell's every move, damns it all as a 'historic hoax'.
HAMAS Taking Center Stage
(February 4, 2006)
Now it's not from Moscow with love...but it is at times at least from Moscow with more realism and insight... Meanwhile it is the same old game in Washington -- politically correct persons associated with the Israeli/Jewish lobby and kosherized persons of Arab background are the only persons given the floor at the numerous forums popping up to speak about the Hamas few of them actually know much about and all of them proclaim their disdain for.
Hamas Speaks
(February 3, 2006)
Tuesday this week, the day the American President gave his State of the Union speech in the evening, the resistance and liberation movement known as Hamas presented its view in the morning... Back in 1996, when MER had a weekly TV program, by special arrangement MER extensively interviewed Moussa Abu Marzook -- today the #2 official in Hamas -- in the federal detention center near Chinatown in New York about Hamas and the 'peace process'. We encourage news media organizations to get in touch with MER if interested in that lengthy multi-hour interview full of insights into how the Hamas victory was carefully orchestrated over the past decade. MER@MiddleEast.Org. 202 362-5266.
MER at Princeton University Next Tuesday 7 February
(February 2, 2006)
MER Publisher Mark Bruzonsky will be speaking on a Panel at Princeton Universty next Tuesday with the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School and Professor Cornell West on "Intellectuals and the Institution:
What's in the Service of the Nation?"
The 9/11 Imbroglio
(February 1, 2006)
According to the academic organizer of these scholars, Professor Jim Fetzer of the University of Minnesota in Duluth, it was because of a meeting in Washington with MER Publisher Mark Bruzonsky last week that a major revision was made in their public statement a few days ago. The new aim, as MER had advocated in a June 2005 editorial, is to call on major media organizations around the world to form a unique international coalition to fully investigate 9/11 and to report what really happened and what is in legitimate controversy and doubt.
Drop Principles Now or Drop Dead Soon!
(February 1, 2006)
Israel's notoriously powerfuly Lobby on Capitol Hill is wasting no time trying to lay down the law of money and power to Hamas. But this time it's probably too little, too late, with insufficient understand of or leverage on the now Hamas-led "Palestinian Authority"... And when the Israelis and Americans try to crush the new PA., as now seems all but inevitable sooner or later, probably after more attempts to foment a Palestinian Civil War which are likely to continue to fail, the political and geostrategic price may prove greater than the Americans will be willing to suffer upon themselves.
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