The Washington Post reports that Tara O’Toole is poking around at the Department of Homeland Security, and apparently anticipating the Senate will confirm her nomination soon: The Department of Homeland Security directorate of science and technology is moving office furniture around these days, apparently to fit more folks into available space. Buzz has it that the musical chairs is even going on in the suites | Read More »
John Murtha is a backer of universal, single-payer, government-run health care. He serves as one of Nancy Pelosi’s chief lieutenants in the House of Representatives, and she endorsed his bid to serve as House Majority Leader – effectively her right hand man. Yet despite Murtha’s power in Congress, and the importance of the debate over health care, he is ignoring calls in his district to | Read More »
A quick survey of today’s news brings some encouraging signs for those who support choice in health care. First, CNN reports that Nancy Pelosi’s most trusted ally has moved dramatically off message: Speaking in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, Murtha said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted a health-care bill passed before the current August recess. “She said we’re going to have it before we left,” Murtha said. “We | Read More »
Wow. I wonder if Chairman Murtha – the one who delivered all the earmarks – knew that his brother was apparently somehow implicated in this fraud. I also wonder who else on the House Appropriations Committee knew. After all, the entire committee is responsible for vetting earmark requests and at least making a minimal attempt to determine that they are spent in compliance with the | Read More »
No surprise here: The House ethics committee indicated Thursday that it was reviewing the links between a number of lawmakers and the now-defunct lobbying firm The PMA Group. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the panel is called, issued a statement responding to a resolution (H Res 500) the House adopted June 3. The resolution directed the ethics committee to notify the chamber | Read More »
John Murtha just never gets old. Just when you think there’s nothing more that he could possibly do to earn an ethics investigation, he goes and surprises you. Today Roll Call reports that Murtha redirected an earmark away from a company that had dropped his brother as its lobbyist, and to a current client of his brother – a firm that pocketed the money instead | Read More »
Update: Since I posted on this earlier, Roll Call reports that Visclosky’s Chief of Staff has resigned his post. Does he know something about the pave and possible outcome of the DoJ investigation? Chuck Brimmer, chief of staff to Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), has resigned, leaving the lawmaker without a longtime senior aide as he confronts a federal investigation into his ties to the now-defunct | Read More »
John Murtha has disgraced his office in a host of ways since he was first elected to Congress: from his willingness to entertain bribes during the Abscam investigation, to his delivery of millions in taxpayer dollars into the hands of friends and associates, to his slandering of former Marines. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that he’s also willing to forego | Read More »
Looking back at recent political history, one of the common features of wave elections is a nationally-known, toxic incumbent who becomes the face of the unpopular incumbent party. In 2006, Tom DeLay and Mark Foley were the unpopular faces of the Republican party whom Americans were forced to look at and hear about on the news each night. In 1994, it was people like Dan | Read More »
The craptacular porkulus bill passed Congress with almost no Republican votes. That prevents them from running around the country and taking credit for things like this: The blank expression on the face of the manager of Murtha Airport – just after 1:40 – is priceless. And even this manager – whose job clearly depends on Murtha’s willingness to rob from the taxpayers – can’t help | Read More »
Some of Jack Murtha’s staunchest supporters — at least since a former staffer of his joined the company — have been raided by the FBI: Federal agents raided the Kuchera Companies in Windber, which include Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems. The entrance of the building was blocked by state and federal authorities. One by one, Kuchera employees drove off the property. People who were | Read More »
John Murtha warns that defense cuts are coming: Faced with immense pressure to trim its budget, the Pentagon should cut enlistment bonuses to military personnel, end its reliance on emergency supplemental spending and get serious about reforming its acquisition processes, a top congressional appropriator said Wednesday. “What I’m saying is, there’s going to be less defense spending,” House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., | Read More »
Hot off the presses: Democratic Rep. John Murtha leads retired Army Lt. Col. William Russell by a little more than 4 percentage points, within the Susquehanna Poll’s 4.9-point margin of error. The poll of 400 likely voters was conducted for the Tribune-Review on Tuesday, amid uproar over Murtha’s statement that some of his constituents are racist… About 54 percent of voters among those polled say | Read More »
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