Here is a good use legislators have found for taxpayer money: more congressional travel, millions and millions of dollars of it! It’s not like we weren’t just hearing about how maybe some of those disaster victims in Missouri needed it, or anything. Free vacations for members of Congress and their families are the one thing we have left to offer our national royalty, because we are so poor now. The nice people of America will give up their FEMA funds and their Medicaid and their Pell Grants so our lawmakers can make those crucial goodwill-building trips to Costa Rican beaches. Pelosi actually told legislators to knock this off in 2010, but whoops, she’s not in charge anymore. The orange man is. Quick, to Brazil, before this debt ceiling thing hits!
From the Daily Beast:
On the House side, lawmakers are on track to go on 35 percent more trips this year than they did last year. Senators spent roughly $1.2 million during the first quarter of 2011, ahead of last year’s annualized pace of $4.3 million.
And being a short-timer doesn’t have to crimp anyone’s style. Take former Sen. Chris Dodd, the Democrat from Connecticut. After announcing in January 2010 that he wouldn’t seek reelection, Dodd traveled to Brazil, Argentina, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom on the taxpayers’ dime. As chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, he signed off on close to $27,000 worth of foreign travel for himself, including a $2,000 trip to Cuba just before leaving office.
That is the spirit, Chris Dodd, don’t let that recession belt-tightening get you down. [The Daily Beast]
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I say that they can all just go to hell for free.
Could I propose extending this privilege to certain wanna-be legislators, or would that be considered unconstitutional?
I think Vegas is hotter.
Please send them somewhere else, Barb. The whole nation is going to Hell, and room in the handbasket is already tight.
Holy cow, a WIN on the very first post to a thread.
COTD! Actually, comment of the year…
They better get their free vacations in before the teabaggers take over and do away with all of that.
Just leave the blackberrys home.
The more they're out of Washington, the less damage they can do.
At least they don't have a $125 web site. That would be SHOCKING!
Well, natch. It costs a lot of money to travel around the country and see what a gigantic fucking mess you've made of it. With the Teabagger Republicans putting the "ream" in the American Dream, we can expect more of this sort of fun and games. Good times!
Though W proved you can survey the damage you've wrought without actually landing the plane.
"he signed off on close to $27,000 worth of foreign travel for himself, including a $2,000 trip to Cuba just before leaving office."
Dodd needed to stock up on Havanas for his retirement.
Only spent $2K on his trip to Cuba? He must not have had a very good time.
You'd think he'd have stocked up on cheap meds while he was there.
Yes but we're shutting down the 5 or so environmental websites in existence. That should be enough to right the ship of state.
How much for a helicopter ride to a baseball game?
Priceless! (Is Mastercard still running those ads?)
Watch Piers Morgan tonight. (Isn't that a boat dock in DC?) The Christie will tell us all he did only because he is a good father who wanted to make his son's baseball game and he doesn't regret it and will do it again.
The Christie, noun, A large amorphous object of undetermined, gelatinous substance able to project itself into spaces where it is unwanted and subsequently violates. Like the Blob getting into the movie theater.
Jaba the Christie…
Hey, extravagances by the states are just fine. That's what the 10th amendment is all about.
Depends on whether they charge by passenger or by pounds…
Hey, it's only an ethics question when it includes penis pics, or a democrat.
Where did Anthony's Weiner travel and who paid? I suppose the vacation photos will be showing up on Twitter soon.
Pakistan to see the in-laws?
I expect that Congressman Weiner's throbbing tumescent member has been photographed in many exotic locations throughout the world. It's sort of like that annoying Expedia gnome who pops up everywhere. Only the pictures are probably more disturbing.
Mecca, of course. He had to do it Richard Francis Burton style, though in this case because he was secretly Muslim, and not because he wasn't.
Weiner is in a dark place these days.
Kirsten: You haven't been doing this for long, or you would realize that the Republican Leadership already has a plan to take care of this: Tax Cuts.
Don't forget killing Medicare!
Suddenly, Weiner's tweet seems pretty
cheapaffordable…Weiner 2016: By tweeting his junk, he saved us a bundle.
Well the Rethugs kinda look at it as stimulus spending. Agent Orange and his cronies are trying their darnedest to help private golf clubs dealing with the recession bogey to get out of the financial rough. Fore!
A lot of people in Connecticut would be happy about that.
Argentine Firecracker pics or GTFO
You are old school!
Would Wilbur have tweeted his junk?
No, he would have hired a secretary for that. Except it would turn out she couldn't tweet.
I'm still waiting on my copy, too. The way Sanford wrote about her, I think I'm in love with her too!
Different Argentine, young 'un. Though I understand that Mark Sanford's soulmate was plenty explosive too.
Folks, you're being too hard on them. It's a question of self preservation: the more time they spend on trains, planes and taxt cabs, the less time they spend lounging around the house in their underwear bored to tears with a cell phone in one hand and a hungry twitter feed that needs to be fed.
Apparently when congress was told to tighten their belts they only thought of seat belts.
Can we just outsource Congress to China? It would certainly be cheaper. (They have all our money anyway.)
He would need a Hummer-Round.
(And not one like Newt would want)
Isn't going to Cuba against the law? Don't we have a travel embargo?
I think travel is OK… we just can't help their poors out with any cashish flow… kinda like here.
Isn't it finally time now for that third party? Or am I tilting at windmills?
Yes!
and yes.
Windmill Party 2012!
Don't ask me, ask Nader.
One word for you, JesseVentura.
It' time for the GTFO party, platform would be:
1.Create jerbs
2.End foreign adventures
3.Fair and just taxation or GTFO US
4.Representative of the people
5.End all discrimination
Official Monster Raving Loony Party (US) for me!
This is all President Obama's fault — with the new 10% surcharge on tanning booths, it's just too damn expensive not to go to the beach — and Boehner's always hogging the one at the Congressional gym.
These are the good times for God's chosen few. The rest of you should have prayed harder.
Too bad Rep. Giffords didn't take advantage of this little perk a few months ago.
I don't have time to run for office, I'm buying my own ticket out of this crumbling shithole.
I'm quite all right if this bunch takes an all-expense paid flying leap to somewhere. Unfortunately, the bastards keep returning.
Haven't the Republicans in Congress been criticizing Obama and his family for allegedly taking too many vacations? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you to see such blatant hypocrisy for the 2,500th time.
Hypocrisy as a concept is dead. Grover Norquist drowned it in a bathtub so that he could hector Democrats about government inefficiency while still arguing that removing certain agricultural subsidies is equivalent to a tax hike.
Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman.
Heckuva job, Connecticut!
~
Where did you find that picture of Megs sunbathing?
And why is she with Marilyn Monroe and Madonna?
Give the legislators a break. It's not like they're living the highlife on the five-digit salaries and partly paid health insurance like the fat cat school teachers and public employees. That's the real financial scandal.
Plus, they're helping to sustain jobs in the resort, airline, and travel-services (rentboy) sectors.
And who said trickle down economics was bullshit?
In the case of the rentboy sector, wouldn't it be more like ooze-down?
Sean Duffy, is that you?
Why do you communists want to punish Congress for their success?
Cambodia is a popular destination among Republicans. Wonder why…
…and yet so few Catholic priests travel there. Weird.
deit: Either that, or because they're Christian, they feel they need to perform missionary service.
"Cambodia is a popular destination among Republicans."
The Capital city of Phnom Penh got it's first ATM machine just recently.
Makes it easier for the Republican sex tourists to get cash money…
Nixon & Kissinger nostalgia tour? After all, the GOP fucked one generation of Cambodians, why not another.
It's a holiday in …?
Everybody's dressed in black?
Everyone in the Thai and Phillipine cathouses recognize them; "Oooh, Senatah Goodtime, you want fresh ladyboy, we gots plenty!" Cambodia is relatively new turf for them, so things aren't as awkward on the recognition side of things. In Thailand they probably have whole wings of brothels named for them. The Senator Christian T. Goodtime Ladyboy Pleasure Palace probably has a little bronze bust of them next to the banner across the converted quonset hut/cum whorehouse
"That monkey my friend. We do blow all nite, & he jacking me off, in Chardonnay Room, while Stu make fuck with lady-boy".
How fucking miserable do you have to be to think that somewhere, anywhere else is better than staying home and doing the job you just HAD to have?
Well, to be fair… wouldn't we all like to get away from these fucking morons too?
They're retiring the space shuttles pretty soon – what about loading all 600+/- of these folks and sending them to Neptune?
Spirit Airlines $9 Weiner sale sure was popular…
No wonder Congress has 3 day work weeks, anything longer would cut into vacation time!
Just think how much worse things would be if our congressmen stopped traveling altogether. Just as example, David Vitter's tour of that Brazilian diaper factory was directly responsible for the US having a shot at the 2022 World Cup.
"One Senator, Two Pampers".
At first I thought this isn't so bad, spending money in the US generates a revenue stream, right?
Oh, they aren't travelling to any of those states they feel so sorry for. Never mind.
I hope they have a good set of boots for all that time on the "Appalachian Trail".
And you know who else took inappropriate vacations to get away from the tedious task of governing a failing country?
Emperor Palpatine took a little trip to Endor.
I hear it didn't go so well.
G.W. Bush went to his so-called ranch a lot, for photo ops in the summer battling weeds.
(Actual working people, as opposed to New England preppies pretending to be cowboys, cut those weeds down in the in the winter.)
~
George W Bush?
According to FactCheck.org, GW spent 69 days at his ranch his first year in office.
Hosni Mubarak?
/snark off…
You know what? Fuck all of these guys on both sides. Mr. Upfist has a great job, I have a decent one (pretty awesome considering I'm Wonketting from my death-cube) and we're scrounging to find a fucking 3rd couple to go in on a condo so we can afford to take a trip to the fucking New Jersey shore with our kid? Life – we're doing it wrong.
Weiner saved tons of taxpayer money by sending pix of himself instead of traveling. Fiscal responsibility!
Gloryholes of the world ain't gonna plug themselves.
it never occurred to me that i needed michael vartan's dog care tips.
There's a reason Dodd didn't run for reelection. BTW, do you think Dodd's pubic hair is white, too? Just wondering.
Don't know. Shaved.
Don't ask me how I know.
Those ladies are tickling that guy.
I can't be the only demoralized Wonketteer.
Biden, was redeemed from "clean and articulate" when he said "a noun, a verb, and 9/11." Today, he's an unforgivable idiot.
Now this.
Kill. Me. Now.
Not even Michael "dog guardian" Vartan can cheer me up.
Politician type assholes dearly love their tax free cigarettes and booze, obviously.
Wasn't that in a Woody Allen movie in the 70s?
I think it might be the baggers driving up the expenditures. After all, with Capt. Orange in charge they have to be fiscally conservative – or at least pretend to be. Fucking fucks.
I thought the Rapture was free?
It's not just a job
it's an adventure
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