"Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash"
"The numbers tell the story — in votes and dollars. On Wednesday, the house voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 “no” voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 “yes” voters.
That’s the upshot of a new analysis by MapLight, a Berkeley-based non-profit that performed the inquiry at WIRED’s request. The investigation shows that defense cash was a better predictor of a member’s vote on the Amash amendment than party affiliation. House members who voted to continue the massive phone-call-metadata spy program, on average, raked in 122 percent more money from defense contractors than those who voted Wednesday to dismantle it."...
Looking at the list, there are more votes at the bottom, or those receiving less cash than others. What gives? Where else is the influence coming from?
We'll hold this line until Hell freezes over --Then we'll hold it on ice skates.-Anonymous picket sign
Couldn’t, wouldn’t, mustn’t, shouldn’t – these are the laments of the spineless. –Bette Davis
Feminist. We Just Call Out Bulls**t Where We See It.
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During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry was widely ridiculed when, in discussing Iraq and Afghanistan war funding, he declared, “I actually did vote for [it] before I voted against it.”
Well, now 50 House Republicans can say the same thing about their votes on the National Security Agency’s (NSA) terrorist surveillance program."
