Free Republic

San Diego tourism leaders and hoteliers fear they could lose a sizable chunk of business this summer from valued “Zonies” who are so angered by elected leaders’ recent censure of Arizona for its illegal-immigration law that they’re mounting an informal boycott of their own. The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and several hotels report receiving e-mails and letters from Arizona visitors saying they intend to change their plans to travel here in light of local outcry over their home state’s anti-illegal-immigration stance.

President Obama has the star power to raise millions of dollars for the candidates and organizations he graces with his stump speech. But when the president hit the road Tuesday for a two-day fundraising tour to pack the party coffers, he also was racking up a $265,000 partisan bill for just one leg of the trip, according to a watchdog group -- part of which taxpayers, regardless of party affiliation, will have to pay.

President Obama left Tuesday for a two-day fundraising tour in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The Democratic National Committee is expected to pick up part of the cost, but if history is any gauge, taxpayers will pick up most of the tab.

SACRAMENTO — Eager to accommodate Sacramento's political leaders, interest groups picked up the tab for elected officials' meals, overseas trips, concerts and sporting events last year, perpetuating what critics decry as the influence game at the Capitol. Statements of economic interests filed last week by elected officials with the state's watchdog agency, the Fair Political Practices Commission, provide a glimpse into the gift-giving culture woven into the age-old system of political favors traded among politicians and their well-financed courtiers. Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, for instance, accepted tickets to a Neil Diamond concert from AT&T; four tickets — valued at $155,...

Congress is currently debating an economic stimulus package that would spend nearly a trillion dollars on measures of doubtful timeliness and efficacy. Here are three ideas on how to really hit the target much quicker, harder and for a lot less. 1. To resolve the credit crisis, make all down payments on house purchases tax-deductible. The credit crisis has been caused by a collapse of the housing market, which has made trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities held by major financial institutions worthless. This can be rapidly remedied by reboosting the housing market, which a tax deduction on all (not...

Sacramento -- Legislators aren't the only ones around the Capitol whose travel to distant countries is financed, in part, by companies that have interests before the state. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's foreign trade missions are paid for by the California State Protocol Foundation. Though neither the governor's office nor the foundation will disclose the group's funding sources, tax records filed by other nonprofits doing business with the foundation show that it received $75,000 from agribusiness interests and banking. The foundation is led by two of the state's most influential business groups -- the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Roundtable....

Sacramento -- Some of the same corporate interests that dominate the Capitol through high-priced lobbyists and campaign donations also bankroll nonprofit organizations that in turn spend tens of thousands of dollars a year entertaining state lawmakers and administration officials far from home -- gifts that otherwise would exceed state limits. Since 2002, the largesse has included a weekend at a fashionable beachfront golf resort south of Rio de Janeiro for 14 state officials, including Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy. There was also a luncheon cruise on New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf for...

February 21, 2007 (SAN FRANCISCO) - A Haight-Ashbury man returning home from an extended vacation tripped and fell on a corpse in his bedroom after finding his apartment had been ransacked, police said. Authorities have not released the name of the resident or the victim, identified only as a white male, but are treating the death as suspicious, said Sgt. Neville Gittens. The resident had just come back from a two-week visit in Humboldt County when he made the grisly discovery Monday, Gittens said. "That is really sad, just terrible," said Kiersten Frey, who has lived on the block for...

Congressional travelers took all-expenses-paid trips worth almost $50 million over a 5½-year period, with corporations and other private sponsors picking up the tab, according to a report released yesterday. The report raises fresh questions about influence-peddling that began last year when lobbying and corruption scandals erupted on Capitol Hill. “This is really a form of unregulated lobbying that is done completely out of public view,” said Jim Morris of The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit group in Washington D.C. Morris led the center's nine-month study of congressional travel disclosure forms, which was joined by Northwestern University's Medill News Service...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the U.S. Congress and their aides took free trips worth nearly $50 million paid for by corporations, trade associations and other private groups between January 2000 and June 2005, according to a study released on Monday. Some of the 23,000 trips featured $500-a-night hotel rooms, $25,000 corporate jet rides and visits to popular spots such as Paris, Hawaii and Colorado ski resorts, said the study, by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Northwestern University's Medill News Service. "In many instances, trip sponsors appeared to be buying access to elected officials or their...

Tourists queue for disaster trips in the ruins of New Orleans By Alec Russell (Filed: 07/01/2006) Every morning Isabelle Cossart sets off in her white minibus to pick up tourists from their hotels to take them on a tour of the Big Easy and its swampy surroundings. She has followed the same routine for 27 years. But in recent weeks her guests have headed into more controversial territory as they bump around an area that is not mentioned on any of the city's tourist maps: the Lower 9th Ward, the mainly black and poor neighbourhood that was all but levelled...

WASHINGTON - Senators traveled to exotic foreign capitals and fabulous resort towns with beaches and golf courses in 2004 — all in the name of business of course and rarely on their own dime. One such trip was taken by Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who went to Cape Town, South Africa, for an international affairs conference, according to the Senate's financial disclosure forms. That trip was paid for by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the South African Institute of International Affairs. Sen. Mike Enzi, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was reimbursed...

More than 200 lawmakers have rushed to correct travel-disclosure statements in recent months as reporters on Capitol Hill discover more discrepancies in the wake of questions about travel by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "You're dealing with hundreds," said Kent Cooper, co-founder of PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web site that compiles the forms after they're filed with the clerk's office and makes it available at www.fecinfo.com. "There's a ton more for staffers." Mr. Cooper said his figure covered parts of April and May, a period during which the scrutiny of gift travel — which is funded by corporations and outside interest groups...

Scores of lawmakers disclose travel files One representative missed the reporting deadline by years. The Associated Press Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found. At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government. The AP review of thousands of pages of records covered pre-2005...

AP: Lawmakers Belatedly Disclose Trips By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 4 minutes ago Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found. At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government. The AP review of thousands of pages of records covered pre-2005 travel...

Here is the Top 100 trip makers by our respresentatives since 2000. Go to the website and see more revealing data! Top 100 Trip Takers John Breaux - Democratic Party - $158,311.92 Robert Wexler - Democratic Party - $155,137.21 Gene Green - Democratic Party - $153,873.02 Maurice Hinchey - Democratic Party - $152,169.25 Cal Dooley - Democratic Party - $148,562.50 Evan Bayh - Democratic Party - $142,884.94 Maxine Waters - Democratic Party - $132,219.23 James Clyburn - Democratic Party - $129,540.79 Philip English - Republican Party - $129,231.54 Jim McDermott - Democratic Party - $128,725.91 Harold Rogers - Republican Party...

A new study shows that members of Congress have taken more than $16 million in privately financed trips over the past five years, with many of the trips sponsored by non-profit groups that are not obligated to disclose who paid the bills. The results of the study by PoliticalMoneyLine, an Internet site that compiles campaign finance information, were first reported by USA Today. The problems of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, have placed a spotlight on congressional travel. DeLay has been accused of a spate of alleged ethical lapses, including travel that may have been paid for by a...

Pelosi Trip To Puerto Rico Comes Into Question As Minority Leader Continues Partisan Attacks Against Republicans Reports Indicate Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Took Trip With Democrat Ethics Committee Member Who Listed Lobbyist As Paying For Travel: "House Republicans ... Called On Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi To Provide Documentation To Prove That A Washington Lobbyist Firm Did Not Pay For A Trip She And Other Democrats Took To Puerto Rico In 2001." (Charles Hurt, "Pelosi Pressed For Trip Records," The Washington Times, 4/22/05) "The Washington Times Reported Earlier This Week That Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Ohio Democrat And Member Of...

It’s business as usual in Washington DC, the land where the only thing more confusing than the word “is” is the word “ethics.” Yet another political standoff is playing out, this time in the House Ethics Committee. Democrats refuse to convene a hearing citing their “outrage” over rules changes that could protect Republican Congressman Tom DeLay from investigation. But a few facts suggest they could be refusing to meet in order to protect two of their own while allowing their pet 527s to politically damage DeLay as much as possible. Like the evil flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz,...

You don't own any cattle, so the court-clouded Canadian beef import rule doesn't affect you, right? Likewise, you don't make fructose, raise sugar beets or grow cotton so all that mumbo-jumbo about NAFTA, CAFTA, TRIPS and the WTO is better left to those smart trade-talkers in Washington, Brussels and Geneva. They know where they're going, right? Well, no. They don't know where they're going. A map of this around-the-world free trade ideal doesn't exist. Those smart trade talkers are making it up as they go. And where they're going right now is through U.S. farm and agricultural export policy. Later,...