The Most Corrupt Members Of Congress, Report Smear

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Please don't give this dingbat clicks unlest you are going to roast her in the comments. She only has 16 so far, so could really use some more of our wrath. Her e-mail address is at the bottom of the article too.

hxxp://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09/12/ron-paul-one-of-the-most-corrupt-members-of-congress-report-finds

Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul has been named one of the most corrupt members of Congress in a new report from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

The report says Paul "double-billed" his travel expenses a number of times over the last decade, meaning he may have been reimbursed for the same flights both under his official allowance as congressman, and by either non-profit groups under his control or his campaign committee.

The revelation would be ironic in part because Paul made fiscal responsibility a central tenet of his 2012 presidential campaign. The congressman celebrated a major victory in July when his bill to audit the Federal Reserve for greater transparency passed the House.

Paul's possible double-billing has been in the public eye since Roll Call first reported it in February, but CREW says there is no evidence Paul has repaid the money since.

A request for comment from Paul's office was not immediately returned.

One of the most troubling cases of the congressman's possible double-billing revolves around reimbursements he received for flights from both his official allowance and the libertarian group the Liberty Committee. At that time, the Liberty Committee's finances were overseen by a relative of the Paul family.

"It's extremely disappointing," Liberty Committee President David James told Whispers of the double-billing.

James says he first noticed a red flag in 2004, after the committee asked Paul for copies of his travel tickets, and the congressman did not provide them. Paul stopped billing the committee shortly after they asked for the tickets, according to James. By 2005, James says he was aware of possible double-billing. But it wasn't until the Roll Call story that he saw how far the problem extended.

The committee conducted its own audit of Paul's finances shortly after the story, and found that 60 percent of the travel Paul had billed to the committee had been doubled-billed.

"We have contacted Congressman Paul to look at the records and repay the amount," James told Whispers. "But our last communication was not even responded to."

James said the committee parted ways with the congressman in 2006 for "a number of reasons."

The committee has not, however, stopped vocally supporting Paul.

James called his policies "just what this country needs." "The message is great," said James. "It's the messenger that is the problem."

Elizabeth Flock is a staff writer for U.S. News & World Report. You can contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

https://twitter.com/#!/lizflock
http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.flock

-t
 
Most Corrupt Members Of Congress, Report Finds

Must be opposites day again?

h xxp://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09/12/ron-paul-one-of-the-most-corrupt-members-of-congress-report-finds

Found this part interesting:

One of the most troubling cases of the congressman's possible double-billing revolves around reimbursements he received for flights from both his official allowance and the libertarian group the Liberty Committee. At that time, the Liberty Committee's finances were overseen by a relative of the Paul family.
 
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ohh, didn't see you posted this 4 minutes ago.

Check this out:

One of the most troubling cases of the congressman's possible double-billing revolves around reimbursements he received for flights from both his official allowance and the libertarian group the Liberty Committee. At that time, the Liberty Committee's finances were overseen by a relative of the Paul family.
 
Some poeple are posting on the facebook comments that this story is old and has been debunked. But this article is from today
 
That is insane and they should sue. There was an explanation given when that showed up but the campaign was on and our guys were never given the actual data in question to double check. They suggested someone else might have traveled with him, for example if they really mean Campaign for Liberty, (an example of their accuracy), Ron going to dc or Texas might be covered, but the reason the other person needed to go was funded by C4L. The documents were never turned over for any ability to rebut them more specifically as I understand it. What I hate is them trying to taint his legacy, because this sort of 'most corrupt' language shows up in google searches.
 
some comments:

Elizabeth Flock Read slightly further than the actual report title - the table of contents will do - or better yet, read the actual section on Ron Paul. He is (1) NOT included in The Crew's list of most corrupt politicians, (2) but rather included in a list of politicians who are "dishonorably mentioned" due to the fact that even they know their (3) evidence that is shaky, unconfirmed and in many cases (4) has since been proven to be inaccurate.

So, the report did NOT find Ron Paul to be one of the most corrupt members of congress. If it did, I am certain they would have included him in their list of "Most Corrupt Members in Congress" wouldn't they?
Reply · 1 · · 12 minutes ago

Zachariah Wiedeman · Top Commenter · Creative Consultant at B to Z Creative
If you can trace the sources back far enough, you can see that this blog post is yet another example of a media echo chamber taking poorly sourced and weakly implied stories and then turning them into a big deal "fact" by re-reporting and exagerating every time. The Roll Call struck first. Then The Crew took it to the next level. Finally, Elizabeth Flock ratchets it up a notch herself. But the ORIGINAL sources come no where close to supporting to the conclusion that is stated in this headline and are themselves very sketchy and not reliable enough to be reported as dead to rights fact.

WEAK journalism, Elizabeth. Very weak.
Ron should demand retraction. Few have a reputation like his and we want to keep it as clean as it is. Others, obviously, want to make him less looked to.
 
Sounds reasonable to have a person accompany him on a flight.

Here's the reddit link where I found this for anyone who has an account to go over and correct the misleading post. It's made it to the main page:
h xxp://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/zrzlj/ron_paul_one_of_the_most_corrupt_members_of/
 
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It is already in media spin. The article is from today but it is picking up something that came up during the campaign where they couldn't even show the charges, and the campaign said without being able to look them up it couldn't say, but possibly Dr Paul was traveling with someone whose travel was not coverable under Congressional pay (or which Ron wouldn't charge to taxpayers) and it was covered by C4L (or whichever entity that was, Ron's PAC or whatever)

Also, the headline is what I call 'headline libel' since the story doesn't even support it. Ron is NOT on that 'most corrupt' list, he is on an 'also of note' kind of list for this.

They don't want people to look up to him when he leaves congress. I hope he demands a retraction.
 
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Must be opposites day again?

h xxp://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09/12/ron-paul-one-of-the-most-corrupt-members-of-congress-report-finds

Found this part interesting:

One of the most troubling cases of the congressman's possible double-billing revolves around reimbursements he received for flights from both his official allowance and the libertarian group the Liberty Committee. At that time, the Liberty Committee's finances were overseen by a relative of the Paul family.


A Huffington Post article in January they try to do the same thing:

Ron Paul Defends First Class Flights

h xxp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/ron-paul-defends-first-cl_n_1208495.html
 
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I just went online to google Ron and it is spreading. It reminds me of the campaign smears, including this one. I was momentarily baffled, then the thought occurred to me that, Mitt's team blames Ron's not endorsing, rather than their own corruption, for people not falling in line behind Romney, so they are trying to make Ron look like just another politician. And they are smearing him as if he were still campaigning against Romney.

I could be wrong, but it is a lie, even just the title to the actual evidence cited, and what other reason would they have, with Ron leaving congress in a few months?
 
I just went online to google Ron and it is spreading. It reminds me of the campaign smears, including this one. I was momentarily baffled, then the thought occurred to me that, Mitt's team blames Ron's not endorsing, rather than their own corruption, for people not falling in line behind Romney, so they are trying to make Ron look like just another politician. And they are smearing him as if he were still campaigning against Romney.

I could be wrong, but it is a lie, even just the title to the actual evidence cited, and what other reason would they have, with Ron leaving congress in a few months?
Yeah, seems they decided to drop their "A-bomb" after all. I hope it costs them dearly.
 
Yeah, seems they decided to drop their "A-bomb" after all. I hope it costs them dearly.

but with the end of the campaign the fundraising machine isn't up to counter it. I hope our guys will do their/our best. The comments I saw on the one article were pretty good, and informative.

As a group I think WE have a big stake in Ron's good name, because it keeps people looking into his principles.
 
I can't really see this as a Romney strategy, I mean I understand the logic, but I don't see how it would be worth while to pursue in terms of effectiveness. Only way would be if Romney campaign is so desperate that they will try anything cause they see Obama as a losing fight with dissension in the base and have run out of ideas, but I'd think the more level headed advisors would rule against it since it could cause more backlash to the party, if Romney's finger prints are ever on it.
 
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I can't really see this as a Romney strategy, I mean I understand the logic, but I don't see how it would be worth while to pursue in terms of effectiveness. Only way would be if Romney campaign is so desperate that they will try anything cause they see Obama as a losing fight with dissension in the base and have run out of ideas, but I'd think the more level headed advisors would rule against it since it could cause more backlash to the party, if Romney's finger prints are ever on it.
They know they can't win this election without the Paul supporters. They incorrectly believe they can get the Paul supporters to defect if they present them with a crock of shit made to look like Ron Paul is a bad guy.
 
I can't really see this as a Romney strategy, I mean I understand the logic, but I don't see how it would be worth while to pursue in terms of effectiveness. Only way would be if Romney campaign is so desperate that they will try anything cause they see Obama as a losing fight with dissension in the base and have run out of ideas, but I'd think the more level headed advisors would rule against it since it could cause more backlash to the party, if Romney's finger prints are ever on it.

the advisors will never admit they completely blew how they handled the RNC and conventions leading to that.
 
I just went online to google Ron and it is spreading. It reminds me of the campaign smears, including this one. I was momentarily baffled, then the thought occurred to me that, Mitt's team blames Ron's not endorsing, rather than their own corruption, for people not falling in line behind Romney, so they are trying to make Ron look like just another politician. And they are smearing him as if he were still campaigning against Romney.

I could be wrong, but it is a lie, even just the title to the actual evidence cited, and what other reason would they have, with Ron leaving congress in a few months?

Interesting hypothesis. Who knows, wouldn't put it past the Romney machine.

There are two different organizations involved here. One is the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a left-wing group. The other is US News and the author, Elizabeth Flocks. Why did the later decide to do this piece right now? Maybe related to Romney. CREW has probably had Ron in it's sights for a long time.

More on CREW:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, created and backed by associates of Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and George Soros. This so-called watchdog group certainly has an agenda.

Two of the founders:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Eisen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Sloan

---

"U. S. Senator Hillary Clinton and her associates played a role in the early stages of CREW's history. A key staffer to Clinton, Jodi Sakol, attended brainstorming sessions that established CREW. Sakol made Clinton aware of CREW's need for "Democratic progressive money." Mark Penn, Clinton's pollster and chief strategist, became a director and vice president at CREW."
 
CREW is usually pretty good. I honestly think Dr. Paul's office should respond to this. If they've nothing to hide then come out and talk about it.
 
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