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What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors Roberto Loiederman, a merchant seaman from 1966 to 1974, is a writer in California. He co-authored “The Eagle Mutiny,” an account of the 1970 mutiny on a U.S. vessel. What happened in Cartagena, Colombia, with the Secret Service seems unsavory to me, but not for the reasons you might think. I make no judgments about men spending a night with escorts. As far as I’m concerned, those who take a holier-than-thou attitude about this are like Inspector Renault in “Casablanca” when he says he’s “shocked, shocked” to discover there is gambling...

Her taste for restrained elegance once earned her the title of First Lady of Fashion. But yesterday she showed off her wild side to help teach kids about how to keep fit while having fun. Michelle Obama was in New Hampshire's capital as part of her ‘Let’s Move’ campaign against childhood obesity to find out what's on the menu at a visit to a neighborhood nonprofit group. She stopped by the Penacook Community Center in Concord, which encourages before and after school exercise and teaches children about healthy eating through use of a vegetable garden. During a quick visit...

This is the first I’ve heard of this, but if true, it’s troubling because it’s one more reason that experience in business really doesn’t translate to governance. Right Across the Atlantic is reporting that Romney went on a trip while governing Massachusetts, paid by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, that ultimately looked like a sort of crony capitalism deal, but Romney side-stepped it by going on vacation so that his Lt. Governor would sign the bill, relieving him of any ethics investigation worries. In fact, the whole manner of the episode is troubling, and you should check out the article in...

Obama snaps up crocodile insurance Down Under... (and Michelle gets £30,000 if he's eaten) By Emily Allen U.S. President Barack Obama snapped up an unusual gift on a visit to Australia this week - £30,000 worth of crocodile insurance. The official gift, worth about A$10 or just over £6, was given to mark his stopover in Australia's tropical north, home to some of the world's biggest and deadliest crocodiles. If he had been attacked and eaten during the visit his wife Michelle would have received a £30,000 pay-out. Mr Obama told about 2,000 U.S. Marines and Australian troops at the...

A picture perfect day in Hawaii saw the cameras focus on the First Lady once more - as she welcomed the spouses of Pacific leaders to a luncheon this past weekend. Under crystal clear blue skies, Michelle Obama showed just how tough her job is - by meeting with the wives, and one boyfriend, of the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations for a gourmet sit-down meal of local produce Sunday afternoon. Wearing a yellow, floral patterned dress, she spoke about how Hawaii, where husband Barack was born, has become a 'special' place to her over the years....

How much does it cost taxpayers to fly First Lady Michelle Obama, her two daughters and her mother, a niece and a nephew, a hairstylist and makeup artists to South Africa and Botswana to give a few speeches, meet Nelson Mandela, and enjoy a safari on a private game preserve? Nearly half a million dollars, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) concerning Obama's June 21-27 journey. Judicial Watch said the U.S. Air Force provided a C-32 - a Boeing 757 modified by the military for the purpose of flying big-wigs around the...

Senate Democrats are charging taxpayers for a trip to Hawaii, The Daily Caller has learned. The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is in Maui, even though a field hearing there won’t happen until next Wednesday. The committee’s oversight field hearing, scheduled for August 17 at 9:00 a.m. at the Maui Beach Hotel, will focus on “Strengthening Self-Sufficiency: Overcoming Barriers to Economic Development in Native Communities.” Rick Manning from Americans for Limited Government, which first discovered the hearing, told TheDC it’s unbelievable that Hill staffers talking about fiscal responsibility would waste money on a trip to Maui....

Shocked! Shocked at the very idea! What do you mean, there are no chocolate-covered strawberries? What are you saying? I Must Have Chocolate-Covered-Strawberries whenever I Travel At Taxpayer's Expense! You Better Speak to that Five Star General of yours before a whole lot of weapons' systems are suddenly out of funds.The Very Idea! Activist group Judicial Watch is appealing a decision by the Air Force to withhold documents related to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of military airplanes. Documents released by the Air Force show Pelosi was provided chocolate-covered strawberries on one flight to celebrate the California Democrat’s birthday,...

Good ahead. Have a field day.

Obama delivers only hot air By Donald Kirk SEOUL – Theodore Roosevelt, a great American president with a clearly imperialist agenda, uttered one of the most famous lines in US history in 1901 when he advised a crowd, "Speak softly and carry a big stick". These days, US President Barack Obama seems to have gotten that aphorism reversed. He speaks a lot but doesn't seem to be carrying a big stick. That was the impression he gave after winding up his 11-day Asian odyssey in Japan at a tepid weekend gathering of Pacific rim leaders banded together in the Asia...

Go to the Link HERE.Stream the one minute report--by hitting the white triangle in center of page, showing Obama meandering throughout Asia country by country, but ending on the tone that "his Asian trip basically accomplished little", and saying that President Obama now heads into a weakened situation back home with the emboldened and multiplied Republicans waiting for him in D.C.Most computers can stream this short JNN video, voice over is in Japanese but good visuals of Obama "in action"; it will be up for a day or two.

The most conceited White House in memory thinks it is making history in Asia. Instead, President Obama is completing his longest foreign trip with no real accomplishments to show for himself—and a reinforced image as a weak leader in over his head...

Where is the substance in the just-concluded Obama jamboree, asks Rajeev Srinivasan. A casual observer, the proverbial Martian, would have concluded from the breathless media coverage during the Barack Obama love-fest that this was a visit of the King-Emperor of India's colonial master. The pageantry and pomp and circumstance hid the sad fact that the emperor had no clothes, that is to say, there was precious little of substance in evidence. Lots of style, though: An Obama trademark. But then Indians love a good party, and this was like a Big Fat Punjabi Wedding: Plenty of dancing, much drinking, and...

MUMBAI: Implicitly acknowledging the decline of American dominance, Barack Obama on Sunday said the US was no longer in a position to "meet the rest of the world economically on our terms".Speaking at a town hall meeting in Mumbai, he said, "I do think that one of the challenges that we are going face in the US, at a time when we are still recovering from the financial crisis is, how do we respond to some of the challenges of globalisation? The fact of the matter is that for most of my lifetime and I'll turn 50 next year -...

Diplomacy: Yes, a traveling president deserves security. But the 3,000-person entourage accompanying Barack Obama to Mumbai, India, this week reeks of pashalike decadence. With an electoral repudiation still ringing in his ears, we can't blame President Obama for wanting to get away from Washington as a new Congress prepares to roll in. He's hardly the first chief executive to do it. But there are problems with this "strategic" visit, with a stated interest in celebrating Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, that suggest this won't be time well spent. In a time of trillion-dollar stimulus packages and $600 billion Fed...

This will no doubt help immensely in their fundraising efforts - especially after the late night pole dancers and other expenditures by this crew under Michael Steele. According to Hotline on Call:The RNC spent more than $340K at a semi-annual meeting in Honolulu in Jan., Hotline On Call's Reid Wilson reports. This is the latest example of the party spending lavishly on itself while GOP officials worry they won't have enough money to take advantage of a promising national landscape this fall.According to FEC reports filed late Tuesday, the RNC spent $167K on facilities for the 3-day meeting, which took...

President Barack Obama will leave the country for a four-nation tour of Asia starting Wednesday despite a host of domestic concerns, including the massacre at Fort Hood, a sharply rising jobless rate, his health care legislation stalled in the Senate and his Afghanistan troop decision still pending. He planned his Nov. 11-19 trip around the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Singapore, but added stops in Japan, China and South Korea. The itinerary reflects the growing importance of East Asia — especially China — to everything from financing U.S. debt and powering the global economic recovery to climate change, disease...

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale won't reveal who paid for his recent trip to Kosovo, but when asked about the junket on Monday, he said the company doesn't do business with the county. Before and after a meeting of the Halls Republican Club at the Mandarin House on Maynardville Highway, the mayor briefly addressed a reporter's questions about the trip. He also faced a couple of tough questions from audience members during the meeting itself...... The eight-day trip to several cities in Kosovo was part of sister-city program, according to the mayor's office, paid for by an unnamed business. Ragsdale...

Washington, DC—U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) will embark Sunday on a two-week, five-nation tour of Asia to explore opportunities to advance U.S. interests in Burma and the region. Webb was named chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February. Senator Webb will be the first United States Member of Congress to visit the nation of Burma in more than ten years. He will also hold meetings with government representatives and industry leaders in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Diving and snorkeling at Australia's Great Barrier Reef, watching New Year's fireworks in New Zealand and sleeping in a luxury Hawaiian hotel is the vacation of a lifetime – unless you're a member of Congress. Then it's a fact-finding mission to study climate change. Ten lawmakers – six Democrats and four Republicans – spent 11 days on an international junket in some of the most breathtaking spots on Earth, and then stuck taxpayers with the $500,000-plus bill. According to the Wall Street Journal, six spouses also made the journey at the end of 2007, and their expenses for lodging and...

The chairman of a House ethics probe into a Caribbean conference attended by members of the Congressional Black Caucus is himself a CBC member who attended the same event in 2005. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), the former judge chosen to chair the ethics probe, has vowed to lead a fair investigation into trips taken by CBC members to St. Maarten in 2008 and Antigua and Barbuda in 2007. But the ethics watchdogs that have called for an investigation into whether corporations paid for the trips, which would violate House ethics rules, question whether a CBC member should be leading the...

The East Wing has not announced it, but First Lady Michelle Obama will head to Paris next week, after accompanying President Obama to Normandy to mark the 65th anniversary of the June 6, 1944 landing of Allied troops on French shores. Mrs. Obama's press office only disclosed that the First Lady would be in Normandy on Saturday. "She'll have no public events beyond Normandy," I was told on Tuesday afternoon. But it turned out there was a high-level leaker in the White House -- President Obama -- who dropped the news in an interview with a French television outlet that...

As Gov. Bill Ritter was looking to slash the budget because of the economic downturn, he and nine other state employees spent more than $78,000 for a trip to Asia late last year... During the trip, Ritter and two other top state officials flew business class on state money, paying $6,500 per ticket ... "It would appear that this is above and beyond what was necessary for a trade delegation of this type," said state Sen. Ted Harvey... Ritter...said business class was necessary because the state employees had to be rested to do business on the trip.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A fired-up Barack Obama ditched his TelePrompter to rally House Democrats and rip Republican opponents of his recovery package Thursday night – at one point openly mocking the GOP for failing to follow through on promises of bipartisanship. In what was the most pointedly partisan speech of his young presidency, Obama rejected Republican arguments that massive spending in the $819 billion stimulus bill that passed the House should be replaced by a new round of massive tax cuts. “I welcome this debate, but we are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies...

Per copyright, link attached.

Wells Fargo & Co., which received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, is planning a series of corporate junkets to Las Vegas casinos this month. Wells Fargo, once among the nation's top writers of subprime mortgages, has booked 12 nights at the Wynn Las Vegas and its sister hotel, the Encore Las Vegas beginning Friday, said Wynn spokeswoman Michelle Loosbrock. The hotels will host the annual conference for company's top mortgage officers. The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous years have included all-expense-paid helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in...

Bailed-out Wells Fargo plans Vegas casino junkets By DANIEL WAGNER and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers Wells Fargo & Co., which received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, is planning a series of corporate junkets to Las Vegas casinos this month. Wells Fargo, once among the nation's top writers of subprime mortgages, has booked 12 nights at the Wynn Las Vegas and its sister hotel, the Encore Las Vegas beginning Friday, said Wynn spokeswoman Michelle Loosbrock. The hotels will host the annual conference for company's top mortgage officers. The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous years have included all-expense-paid...

Six Democratic members of Congress enjoyed a Caribbean junket sponsored by Citigroup after Congress had approved the $700 billion bailout of financial services firms in October. The National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group, has asked Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for a formal review of the Citigroup’s sponsorship of the trip by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and five others. The NLPC says the trip violated House rules. The purported purpose of the Nov. 6-9 junket was to attend the Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference on the island of...

Sacramento - -- More than a dozen state lawmakers have missed much of the special legislative session called to tackle the state's fiscal mess, instead traveling to India, China and Hawaii to learn about education, high-speed rail and dams. The legislators include Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-San Diego, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, and several Assembly Budget Committee members who missed a hearing on the crisis on Friday. At least two of the lawmakers are not expected to return by Sunday's planned floor sessions of the Senate and the Assembly, their staff members said. "Obviously, they're not taking the...

It's becoming a running joke except it's not that funny. For the seventh time, mechanical failures are holding up former President Clinton's tour of Africa. At first we were reluctant to write about it, after all it was only the press corps suffering. For more than 48 hours -- from Monday at 4pm until Thursday at 1:02am -- the small group of press who had signed up to cover Mr. Clinton's annual trip to the continent to visit the work of his Clinton Foundation was stranded in Newark, New Jersey. The former president was already safely overseas, having flown on...

TO HIGHLIGHT China's repressive policies, protesters are attacking the Olympic torch as it wends its way to Beijing and the summer games. It's embarrassing for the moment, but China knows the real score. In the long run, the drive for human profit always beats the drive for human rights. Massachusetts offers a tiny but telling glimpse into that broad economic reality. On April 1, University of Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson announced an agreement with Chinese officials to offer government-sanctioned online classes in the communist nation of 1.3 billion. The deal, UMass officials said, could generate up to $5 million...

If we can't accuse them of being unpatriotic, can we at least accuse some Democrats of being monumentally dense? Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution. Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at...

You'll recall Hillary Clinton's recent speech in which she attempted to play up her foreign policy experience by recounting her "harrowing" 1996 trip to Bosnia. "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." Well, mainstream media has discounted that account, and such luminaries as comedian Sinbad have chimed in as well. It appears, however, that Clinton caved in too soon when she admitted overstating the dangers, as Barely Political...

Congress is keeping Andrews Air Force base plenty busy this year ferrying lawmakers all over the globe at taxpayers’ expense. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi took his wife, nine Democrats and two Republicans - Reps. Dan Lungren of California and Mike Rogers of Alabama - on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean last week. After stops in Honduras and Mexico, they stopped in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the delegation stayed at the five-star Caneel Bay resort. In a separate trip to the Caribbean last week, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York squired his wife and four Democratic members to...

Axis Of Evil: Speaker Nancy Pelosi leads another delegation of Democratic supplicants to talk to Syrian Baathist thug Bashar Assad. If she needs reasons why talking to tyrants doesn't work, we can give her 15. In December, when Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., took the recommendations of James Baker's Iraq Study Group seriously and was granted an audience with the Syrian dictator, we predicted he'd be "the first of many appeasers to come."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi toured Jerusalem holy sites Saturday alongside a congressional delegation that included the first Muslim elected to Congress. The tour was part of the congressional delegation's first full day in Jerusalem, the first stop on their fact-finding trip to the Middle East. The group arrived here Friday. Flanked by security guards, Pelosi, D-Calif., and the delegation toured the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe Jesus' body was buried, in Jerusalem's Old City. They also visited the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, where Jews have gathered for centuries to pray. Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison...

Leadership: Harry Reid has blown off President Ford's funeral because it would be "hard to cancel" his meetings with South America's leaders or put off his junket to Inca ruins. How's that for class? Reid's visit to a tourist site in Peru, instead of presenting himself as the next Senate Majority Leader at a rare state funeral, shows how little respect he has for Gerald Ford, a good man whose presidency was marked by his willingness to put duty to country first in an effort to heal a wounded nation. Not so Reid, who put his own agenda above the...

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Mexico on a high-profile trade mission, his chief of staff and a bipartisan delegation of state lawmakers quietly embarked Friday on a 12-day trip to South America to study alternative-energy technologies. Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, and high-ranking members of both the Senate and Assembly were accompanied by representatives of energy companies and others with lobbying interests in Sacramento. The trip will take the delegation to Argentina, Brazil and Chile. That includes a three-day break next weekend at a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires during which no work is...

Sen. Barack Obama leaves today for a 17-day, six-country African visit, returning to his deceased father's Kenyan home, scrambling to retool the trip at the last minute because of the reluctance of Sudan to grant him a visa. Though members of Congress routinely visit nations on the troubled African continent with no media fanfare, Obama departs for Cape Town at the tip of South Africa followed by a local, national and international press corps that could swell to 25 by the time he hugs his Kenyan grandmother, Mama Sarah Obama, with his wife, Michelle, and two daughters. In the works...

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

Critics of embattled Rep. Alan Mollohan are scrutinizing a five-day trip he took to Spain in June 2004 that was financed by government contractors and West Virginia nonprofit groups. Roll Call, a Capitol Hill-based newspaper, reported this week that "West Virginia (WV)-01 Trade Delegation" footed the $7,874 bill for Mollohan, his wife and two top aides to go to Spain for a business trip. Mollohan, D-W.Va., described the trip sponsor as an ad hoc group comprised of 19 government contractors and the nonprofit organizations he helped establish. The West Virginia High Technology Consortium, a nonprofit that received more than $30...

SACRAMENTO — Assemblywoman Nicole Parra and her father traveled to Cuba in early December on what has reportedly become an annual event organized by one of California’s most powerful lobbyists and political fundraisers. Parra, D-Hanford, and other participants said the trip was arranged by Darius Anderson, founder of one of Sacramento’s premiere lobbying firms and a top fundraiser for former Gov. Gray Davis. Since travel to communist Cuba is generally prohibited except under a license from the U.S. government, Anderson’s repeated trips there with lawmakers, business people and others raise a number of questions. Why is a lobbyist arranging religious...

PORTLAND, Maine -- U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and two of her Senate colleagues are headed to Antarctica to meet with leading researchers studying climate change. Collins left Washington Tuesday for what will be an eight-day visit to McMurdo Station. She's joined by fellow Republicans John McCain of Arizona and John Sununu of New Hampshire. <snip>

November 3, 2005 Martin leaves political troubles at home for walk on world stage By SUE BAILEY (CP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin escaped political heat in Ottawa on Thursday, arriving in an Argentine seaside resort town for the Summit of the Americas. He will help host the fourth meeting of its kind Friday and Saturday in Mar Del Plata - "sea of silver" - about 400 kilometres south of Buenos Aires. It's a respite from relentless grilling in the Commons over the sponsorship scandal and tainted water on First Nations. But Martin could be caught in a different kind...

ITHACA--New York State Congressman Maurice Hinchey, recently under fire for “racking up a stunning $161,393 [in free travel] footed by special-interest groups,” is excusing his actions by blaming “Republican spin.” But a non-partisan group tells a different story. Writing in the Ithaca Journal, Hinchey, claims that his trips, to such places as Rome, Shanghai and Morocco, are ethical because he does not consider the groups that footed the bills to be lobbyists: "[A]ll of my privately funded trips abroad have been sponsored by well-known and highly regarded non-partisan, non-profit organizations that are dedicated to informing public policy.” Therefore, Hinchey...

Senator Bill Nelson, who accompanied Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Lincoln Chaffee on an ill-timed junket to meet Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, is in political trouble. As Richard Baehr predicted here in "Shilling for the new Castro" two weeks ago, his trip is already an issue with Florida's Latin America-savvy voters. In a panicky letter to a small local Vero Beach newspaper (a sure sign he's hearing from voters), Nelson defends his political tour in Caracas, repeatedly trying to assure Vero Beach readers that he was 'tough' on Chavez while there, and bringing up as much as he can the...

() McCarthy WASHINGTON — Embattled Kansas City Congresswoman Karen McCarthy asserted Friday that a campaign-financed trip to the Grammy Awards was proper and legal.The five-term Democrat said she used campaign funds to attend the February ceremony in New York because she works with music-industry issues and many of her constituents are recording artists.“I am perfectly within the law,” she said.Former McCarthy staff members continue to call the Grammy trip a personal excursion, which would not be allowable under campaign funding rules. The itinerary included meals with famous music industry figures, including U2 lead singer Bono and Clive Davis, as...

You can't make this stuff up. Two articles from NH showing how bureaucrats in the teaching profession are wasting our money. There is absolutely no reason why NH have to go to HI to learn how to teach grade school kids how to read. "The conference was ideal because it focused on reading and writing, Louis said, adding, 'The teachers are learning to teach kids how to read finally . . .'"

Dems take trip on corporate dime; Junket follows attacks on biz excesses By Andrew Miga / Boston Herald Sunday, July 14, 2002 WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats, after railing last week against the rising tide of corporate abuses, Friday hopped aboard a fleet of company jets for a secret Nantucket weekend retreat with top party donors. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a leading Senate health-care reformer who this week will launch a major fight on prescription drug coverage, flew aboard health insurance giant AFLAC's company jet, an aide confirmed. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Bay State colleague Sen. John F. Kerry are among the...

The University at Buffalo will develop new drugs in a high-tech partnership with Ireland's Dublin City University and New York's Columbia University, officials will announce this morning in Dublin. The three universities will create a center in Dublin focusing on biopharmaceutics, and the project is expected to complement UB's $200 million center of excellence. The joint partnership is one of several initiatives Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and business leaders announced during the senator's two-day visit to Ireland. The visit is meant to foster closer business ties between New York - especially upstate - and Ireland, whose economy has grown...