Posted on 10/20/2013 2:14:57 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
Members of Congress and their staffs are on red alert tonight for a CBS 60 Minutes investigation by veteran CBS reporter Steve Kroft and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer exposing how lawmakers convert campaign donations into lavish lifestyle upgrades for themselves and their family members.
Sources say top CBS executives thought the report was so explosive that they made it the show’s lead story and delayed airing it for another week in order to capture tonight’s much larger NFL-viewing audience. The report features selected revelations from Schweizer’s forthcoming book, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Just ask the makers of Audi...
Wow — this should be in Breaking News —
CBS 60 Minutes finds corruption in Washington DC —
and decides to expose it right after they have spent all that aire time during the shutdown mocking those who wanted to rein in the corruption.
I want to know about the President’s vacation budget and schedule. How many millions of dollars are actually spent and can someone give that accounting to the public?
Uh-oh. I hope the Grid doesn’t go down.
“I’m under a publisher embargo right now and can’t say much,” Schweizer told Breitbart News. “But suffice it to say, President Obama and some members of Washington’s Permanent Political Class are not going to like what we uncovered and the kinds of personal enrichment and self-dealing exposed in Extortion.”
I’ve said for some time, if you want to get rich forget hard work, starting a business, inventing something.
Get into politics. That’s where the big money is.
The world’s largest banana republic, good ol’ USA.
I’m sure they will mention politicians subverting our laws to get votes from illegal aliens.
Gee,one can only wonder on which party 60 Minutes will focus.
This PAC business is a slush fund, no matter who it is.
I am willing to elect or re-elect serious contenders, like Cruz & Lee, so the Senate Conservatives Fund works for me, and they inform me every week by email, of what they are doing and who they are supporting.
THEY are the ONLY ones in a position to scorch some earth. The rest are playing us, since PAC cash passes to their family.
Hummm
CBS trying to improve their rating??? maybe they fear they are following the CNN route and want to make a U turn...
Did anyone see it?
Was there any substance or illegality or news to it?
Overall, they fluffed it and IMHO, they could have been a lot more scathing in their criticisms. My husband's take was CBS was trying to obtain a modicum of credibility without actually tossing anybody under the bus.
Thanks—that’s more or less what I feared.
Then there was some republican guy who hired his two daughters to work on his campaign. They were paid around $75k each. "If you can't trust your daughters, who can you trust," he said.
They also mentioned some republican guy from Ohio(?) who died while in office and his staff used the rest of his PAC money to get together and eat pizza. They said they were grieving and having meetings to figure out where to get their next jobs.
Basically, the story highlighted that all these leadership PACs that these people set up are their own private slush funds, funded by lobbyists but also you and me who believe in the causes these elected officials claim to represent us on. The PACs aren't affected by the regular law against officials using campaign funds for personal expenses, etc. They also mentioned John Edwards paying his mistress $100K+ from his PAC. Other than Edwards, all the examples of corruption were lesser-known Congress people that the public's never heard of. They also mentioned David Vitter of La. who brought forth a motion to get a bill going to end the loophole that allows the abuse of these PACs. The bill has no co-sponsors.
Then the illustrative B-roll started over the voiceover and it showed the names of several PACs, all starting with the letter C, such as Conservative this, Conservative that :-) They also interviewed that liberal group CREW. It was a fairly even report and the main go-to guy was the Breitbard editor who wrote the book about the corruption.
I saw it too. All the Dems they highlighted were from hardcore blue districts where the politician would have to be caught murdering someone to ever be thrown out of office. They didn’t corner any from swing areas.
Thanks for the details.
They highlighted one Dem who personally loaned her campaign 100k at 18% interest and cornered her as she was leaving the Hispanic caucus. She felt she did nothing wrong and swears she lives modestly.
I had the good fortune to live one mile from her office. When I was out of work, I spent plenty of time there, throwing down my two cents.
When O-404-Care was passed, I stood outside her office the next day with DOTM flag. They came out and offered coffee and donuts. I said, no thanks.
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