Right Voices

Really Nancy? Do you mean that? Really?

Let’s start with Norman Hsu shall we? I am sure that Flip would agree that this issue is anything but settled. I have
covered this issue, and it is far from being settled.

Just yesterday, I posted about the Democrats not returning illegal contibutions because their by-laws don’t allow them to.

Really Nancy? You drained the swamp? Did you forget about Murtha, or were you hoping we would?

The latest instance hits particularly close to home. This Washington Times editorial notes that her point man on defeatism in Iraq, Rep. John Murtha, appears to be part of the culture Pelosi purports to condemn.

The Times collects a number of tidbits. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that Murtha’s brother, Robert, runs a lobbying firm that represents 10 companies that received more than $20 million from last year’s defense spending bill. Another official of the lobbying firm is a former Murtha congressional aide. Murtha is the ranking member of the House subcommittee that appropriates this money.

Murtha’s role in the culture of corruption also implicates Pelosi herself. Roll Call reported last year that Murtha “reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco.” Pelosi’s nephew, Laurence Pelosi, was an executive of the company that owned the rights to the land. Roll Call also reported that Murtha has been behind millions of dollars worth of earmarks in defense appropriations bills that went to companies owned by the children of his fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, Rep. Paul Kanjorski. And the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan campaign finance watchdog group, lists Murtha as the top recipient of defense industry dollars in the current 2006 election cycle.

Nor is Murtha a newcomer to the culture of corruption. The Times recalls that after the 1980 Abscam scandal, the FBI named him an “unindicted co-conspirator.”

A twisted tale of congressional earmarking comes to mind when I think of Murtha. The leopard can’t change his spots and according to Roll Call:

Every private entity that Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) favored with an earmark in this year’s defense bill recently has given political money to the lawmaker, according to an analysis of House Appropriations and federal elections records by Roll Call and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
PACs and employees of those 26 groups together have contributed $413,250 to Murtha since the beginning of 2005. He collected nearly a quarter of the sum ” $100,750 ” in the two weeks leading up to March 16, the original deadline for lawmakers to file their earmark requests.

Murtha is a constant reminder that the “culture of corruption” is alive and well in Washington.

Let’s be fair and bring the gals into this, shall we? There’s Dianne Feinstein. DiFi+$225,000 Democratic Donating Lawyers= Culture Of Corruption. Or what about Barbara Boxer? It’s nice when mommy has her own political action committee isn’t it?

You drained the swamp? Really Nancy? It looks as if you mistook a dirty hottub for a swamp. Turning the jets on doesn’t clean it. Shut it down and clean it up.

Most ethical and honest Congress ever, my ass!

Michelle covers Nancy’s displeasure of having anti war activists stalking her. Pirate’s Cove has another take

More coverage at memeorandum, including Don Surber

Well, if you mean by draining the swamp declaring it a wetland and moving on, sure.
Not only does Jack Murtha’s Earmarks Inc. continue, but it welcomed a new franchisee: House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, whose brother set up a PAC in March that quickly collected money from the clients of the Murtha-connected PMA lobbying group.

Last time I looked, Congressman Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., still headed a committee even though he steered $10 million to a company headed by his nephews and daughter.

RedState