An ABC news crew tried to corner Jim Bunning on his decision to block a bill which included extending unemployment benefits;
Bunning later explained;
“I support extending unemployment benefits, cobra benefits, flood insurance, highway bill fix, doc fix, small business loans, distant network television for satellite viewers. If we can’t find $10 billion to pay for something that we all support, we will never pay for anything on the floor of this U.S. Senate,” he said.
I don’t remember an ABC crew cornering John Murtha on his many corruption inquiries, or i don’t see ABC crews cornering Charlie Rangel about his ethics violations. No ABC crew camped outside Harry Reid’s office waiting for answers on his land deals, or Nancy Pelosi’s payoffs to the tuna special interests.
But Bunning merely wants the Senate to pay for the stuff it wants – that warrants a news crew treating him like a criminal doing a perp walk to the prison bus.
And McClatchy predicts the fall of civilization because of Bunning. Highway projects stopped – really? Anyone in DC or Virginia see any construction projects last week? In the dead of winter, under a foot of snow? Who do these bozos think they’re kidding?
Some of you may remember when Uncle Jimbo led an excursion into Murtha country during the last election in an attempt to boot Murtha. You may also remember Shawn Bryan who was brutalized in the press for calling John Murtha “a fat bastard” on the stage of a rally for Murtha’s opponent Bill Russell. Shawn explained later;
Well, when The Washington Times called Jimbo and asked him if he knew anyone who was willing to write an op-ed about the late Congressman (still a fat bastard by all accounts) Jimbo immediately thought of Shawn. So here’s Murtha’s legacy;
John Murtha has been lionized in the press for all of his service to the country instead of all his service to himself and his business associates. I know that I and many Mar -ines and their families will remember him for never apologizing to the innocent warriors whose lives he destroyed by serving as judge and jury. He passed away before being held accountable for hijacking the mili- tary procurement system and denying our troops in the field the best equipment they could get. Unfortunately, much of our leadership in Washington will pick up where he left off, forsaking anything for a vote and ignoring the warriors who give them the freedom to do so.
Yes, John Murtha is finally gone, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for putting a conservative in his seat. Currently, I live in the viewing area of one Johnstown, PA television station. They ran a loooonnnngggg bio of Murtha last night, and it failed to mention even once, the investigations into his suspect dealings, ABSCAM, his disresectof the troops, or his ties to the antiwar movement. They just went on and on about all of the jobs he brought to his district.
I predict that the Johnstown denizens will saddle us with another patronage-purchasing, tax and spend crook.
In other Murtha news, his gall bladder surgery was botched at Bethesda NAVAL Hospital. I had my gall bladder removed a few years back by military doctors at Walter Reed and I’m still walking around.
Gruff, jowly John Murtha wouldn’t seem to be a Code Pink kinda guy, what with his appetite for pork and his pro-gun, antiabortion Marine hero bona fides.
But there the congressman was, in a Rayburn House Office Building hallway, gallantly protecting some war protesters from the group who had been tossed out of a hearing room and threatened with arrest.
“He said ‘I know these people,’ he gave me his hand and said we wouldn’t be arrested,” said Medea Benjamin, a San Francisco human rights activist who was doing her earnest best Tuesday to end the war when her lobbying methods provoked the displeasure of the U.S. Capitol Police. Code Pink ladies on one side; uniforms on the other. In the middle, the impressive bulk of 74-year-old Murtha. He called the sergeant at arms and didn’t leave until he was assured the women would be released, Benjamin said.
Code Pink’s co-founder, Gael Murphy, and its coordinator for the Washington, D.C., area, Allison Yorra, met with Murtha earlier this month “to thank him for his courageous stand on Iraq.
“We presented him with our pink badge of courage and pink flowers sent by CODEPINK members nationwide,” a statement on the group’s website indicates. “Rep Murtha was very appreciative of these gestures as he has been receiving many responses to his public denouncement of the war.”
Photographs on the Code Pink website show Murtha holding the pink flowers and standing arm-in-arm with Murphy and Yorra. There is no mention of the meeting with Code Pink or the award presented to Murtha on his congressional website.
John Murtha press conference;
Now, two days after I made my statement, on November 19th, we had an incident in Haditha in Anbar province, where a Marine was killed with an IED. Time magazine reported it, and it’s kind of a puzzling report, because they’re investigating it right now. Let me tell you what the consequences of this have been.
It’s much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that’s what the report is going to tell.
John Murtha in an interview with Chris Matthews;
MATTHEWS: Mr. Murtha, let me ask you about this accusation that you have come out with today, that U.S. service people fighting in Iraq killed civilians in cold blood. What evidence do you have on that now?
MURTHA: Well, “Time Magazine” …
MATTHEWS: Was this melee? I mean, was this a case of — when you say cold blood, Congressman, a lot of people think you’re basically saying you have got some civilians sitting in a room or out in a field and they’re executed just on purpose…
MURTHA: That’s exactly what happened.
John Murtha in an interview with Wolf Blitzer;
BLITZER: There’s an investigation of what happened at Haditha. …you’ve suggested this week that there in effect was a massacre. …
MURTHA: Well there was. There’s no question about it…
BLITZER: The Marines say they’re still investigating. They don’t know what happened yet. The pentagon says the same thing. How do you know what happened?
MURTHA: Wolf, you read the “Time” magazine articles. There are pictures, there are photos. You don’t have to talk to the military about the proof.
Article from Washington Post referring to the arrest of four Marines;
Attention to the case increased earlier this year when Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) alleged after briefings from military officials that the Marines had killed civilians “in cold blood.”
Facing massive opposition on their healthcare plan, I suppose Congress doesn’t feel it can take too many more hits on their other irresponsible spending plans. According to Fox News, they’ve scrapped plans to force the Pentagon to buy four more jets to ferry them around in luxury;
“If the Department of Defense does not want these aircraft, they will be eliminated from the bill,” said Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the panel that approved the additional spending.
A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she supported the decision, which was expected to face resistance in the Senate.
So that’s one less aircraft that’ll land at the John Murtha International Airport to No-where, I suppose.
Murtha denies that the money was added to give lawmakers a nicer ride when traveling with the military, as lawmakers often do to visit troops overseas or for security reasons. In a statement released Monday, Murtha said that the planes are primarily used by executive branch officials.
Yuh-huh – that’s why the Pentagon was being forced to buy eight after they said they only needed four.
Washington Times‘ Ben Conery reports this morning that federal prosecutors have secured a conviction of another criminal with ties to John Murtha;
A federal investigation into defense contractors, including some with links to Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, appears to be gathering steam – and valuable help.
Mark O’Hair, a Defense Department program manager, pleaded guilty Monday to making a false statement on a federal disclosure form. He acknowledged lying about business ties he had to companies that received money from a military contract he oversaw.
The plea agreement, reached in federal court in Florida, does not specify a penalty for O’Hair. But the plea deal does require O’Hair to cooperate with federal agents.
Since the boneheads in Murtha’s district won’t fire his monkey-ass, maybe the Feds can do it for us.
1stCavRVN11b sends us this article about the John Murtha-Johnstown-Cambria County Airport from the Washington Post;
Inside the terminal on a recent weekday, four passengers lined up to board a flight, outnumbered by seven security staff members and supervisors, all suited up in gloves and uniforms to screen six pieces of luggage. For three hours that day, no commercial or private planes took off or landed. Three commercial flights leave the airport on weekdays, all bound for Dulles International Airport.
The key to the airport’s gleaming facilities — and, indeed, its continued existence — is $200 million in federal funds in the past decade and the powerful patron who steered most of that money here. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) is credited with securing at least $150 million for the airport. It was among the first in the country to win funding from this year’s stimulus package: $800,000 to repave a backup runway.
Sweet work if you can get it, I suppose.
Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey defended the public spending and said it is unfair to weigh the airport’s low volume of passengers against the federal dollars invested in the facility. He noted that several regional airports are confronting the same problem.
“Would we like to have additional commercial flights and business? Absolutely. But you don’t attract additional business without having the infrastructure in place to do so,” Mazonkey said.
Yeah, well, US taxpayers have been paying for the airport to no where for ten years. When can we expect to start seeing more passengers than employees? Well according to the WaPo article, not any time soon. In fact, Murtha just scored 800 grand to repave a back runway at the airport. I’m sure it needs a repaving with the voluminous traffic that uses it.
To go along with all of my other warnings of cuts in Defense spending (here, here, here and here), TSO sends the latest;
It happens every time the Democrats get control of Congress and the White House. They take money from defense and put it into social patronage programs. They win elections without the military vote, so what can it hurt them? Then when a Republican gets into office and tries to fix defense, they (and the media) scream to High Heaven about their spending. Reagan had to fix Carter’s neglect of the military, Bush had to repair the damage done by the Clinton years. Think there were shortages during the Bush years, you just watch – the difference now is that our troops are under fire (despite their best attempts to change the language so it doesn’t seem so). What happens when there’s no ammunition for training now? What happens when there are no more cruise missiles this time?
And you have to ask yourself why Levin isn’t being specific about the cuts. More than likely it’s because there’ll be some major cuts in personnel expenses. Things like pay, bonuses, recruiting, retention and training. That will place a drag on manpower needs. Lucky for Obama, Jimmy Carter brought back draft registration after Nixon ended it. Then watch the cuts to veterans’ benefits. BOFO.
