This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: John Murtha

  • Kos throws Murtha under the bus

    I guess since it’s not Bush’s War anymore they don’t need John Murtha’s portly shadow cast over them;

    Here’s the link if you want it, but you’ve got to paste it into your browser (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/12/122212/162/186/707656) The really amazing part is that nearly all of the commenters agree. Of course, I recognize it as hypocrisy because they were scrambling to save Murtha a scant few months ago when it looked like he might lose his seat. So now that they control the Congress and the White House, they want to shed themselves of a potential embarassment. Personally, I don’t care – just so long as he’s gone.

    On a tip from 1stCavRVN11B

  • Wonder why Murtha keeps getting re-elected?

    Frankly Opinionated sent me this newsletter portly John Murtha sent out to his constituents. It lists some of the pork he’s bringing home to them in that spending bill that the President didn’t want to sign but did anyway;
    (more…)

  • Gitmo on Conemaugh

    Well it’s a done deal, Obama has ordered Guantanamo closed in a year. Yeah, well, you know, he’s going to take this record to the polls with him in four years – that is if the polls are still standing. Obama moved swiftly to silence his nutroots and moonbats;

    The new executive orders came a day after Obama began moving swiftly — on his first full day in office — to roll back eight years of his predecessor’s policies, ordering tough new ethics rules, meeting with top generals about speeding the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and gathering his senior economic advisers in a push for a massive spending bill to create jobs.

    The orders include an immediate case-by-case review of the 245 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, as well as the application of new rules governing the treatment and interrogation of prisoners, including compliance with international treaties that the Bush administration deemed inapplicable to suspects in terrorism cases.

    So what are they going to do with those Guantanamo detainees? John Murtha said he’ll take ’em;

    Murtha only has a minimum security prison in his district. But he says he’d have no reservations about holding detainees there in a maximum security prison.

    “Sure, I’d take ’em,” said Murtha, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. “They’re no more dangerous in my district than in Guantanamo.”

    Besides, Murtha never goes to his district, he’s in DC. I hear his district is full of dumbass racist rednecks, anyway – they’ll never notice a few extra Ay-rabs wandering the streets. Especially if Obama will build him a brand spankin’ new prison. Murtha might visit occasionally to partake of a naked pyramid or two.

  • Told ya so

    A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the Democrats pushing for a 25% spending cut in defense. Today TSO sent me an article (without a link) about our favorite Congressman, John Murtha, who thinks a good place to start cutting expenses in the Defense Department is military bonuses;

    “What I’m saying is, there’s going to be less defense spending,” House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., said in a speech at the Center for American Progress on defense priorities. “I’m not going to predict how much of a change we’ll see in the coming years, but I do know that defense spending is going to be under severe pressure.”

    […]

    Murtha said the Army and Marine Corps spent about $2 billion on enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses since 2007 — incentives lawmakers and service officials deemed necessary to help meet recruiting and retention goals.

    But Murtha said bonuses were one area that could produce savings as forces are drawn down in Iraq. “If we draw down, we ought to be able to get rid of the bonuses,” he said.

    I wrote before the election that when Democrats talk about cutting defense spending, it’s code for cutting personnel costs. They passed a great big GI Bill this year that encouraged people to leave the military, and now they’re talking about cutting the incentives to stay.If I didn’t know better, I’d think Murtha is planning to reduce the effectiveness of the military. But that can’t be it, can it?

    You’d think they’d cut back on useless weapons programs, wouldn’t you? But not when Murtha controls the purse strings and needs to send that money to his district;

    But he said the military could find savings by reforming its healthcare system, addressing military compensation, and reducing operations and maintenance costs.

    All personnel cuts. It’s always the troops who pay for the social programs the Democrats need to buy votes. Murtha has proven time and again that the military doesn’t affect his success in his district. He can call them murderers and criminals, heck, he can even call his constituents a bunch of redneck racists and they’ll still vote for him as long as he can keep dragging Federal dollars to his district. So why shouldn’t he cut bonuses, healthcare and eventually the troops pay – there’s no incentive for him to stop.

    Remember back during the Winter Soldier hearings when Maxine Waters told Kristopher Goldsmith that he was braver than the troops who are fighting in the wars right now, and that she is going to get the same benefits as someone who served their full tour without misbehaving? Where do you think she’s going to get the money to pay for Goldsmith’s college education?

  • Bellyaching Jack Murtha hides behind Constitution

    If this doesn’t get your blood boiling nothing will; fatassed cow John Murtha claims that he can’t be sued by the Marines who he slandered by calling them murderers because to do otherwise would violate his freedom of speech as a legislator. In other words, the same crowd who claims they can arrest and impeach the President of the United States for supposed lies are saying that to hold them accountable for their lies violates their privileges. From The Hill, by way of Defend Our Marines, by way of Michelle Malkin;

    A government lawyer representing Murtha argued that the congressman does not have to agree to testify under oath and is immune from the lawsuit because he was acting in an official capacity as a member of Congress when he made the comments to the media.

    Last year a federal judge ordered Murtha, a decorated former Marine and Vietnam veteran and close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to testify in the case. His lawyers are appealing that decision.

    Apparently this isn’t the first ridiculous defense the slimy, scum-sucking lawyers defending slimy scum-sucking Murtha have tried;

    Murtha cited a Time magazine report when asked how he knew the killings were conducted in cold blood and why he thought there was a cover-up. Murtha’s lawyers later claimed that Defense Department officials briefed him and “deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information,” according to a court filing.

    Yeah, it wasn’t his fault that Murtha lied – the evil Pentagon fed him false information. Maybe if Murtha  wasn’t in the habit of shooting off his heavily-jowled face, he wouldn’t have been a target of this imagined misinformation campaign.

    What Murtha said on May 17, 2006;

    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.

    So Murtha thinks his right to shoot off his stupid mouth supercedes the rights of those Marines to be considered innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law. It seems to me that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was written to protect the Marines from the Murtha’s pompous and arrogant wielding of power.

  • Heh. VFF member calls Murtha as he sees him (UPDATED)

    I’ve been looking for reports from the VFF/Blackfive mission into Murtha Country this weekend and I’ve only found one so far. It highlights the speech of Shawn Bryan, Marine Sergeant.

    During the rally, Shawn Bryan, a former sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps., said Murtha visited his unit in Iraq in 2005. At the time, Murtha told the soldiers “what a great job we did,” Bryan said, only to see him tell his district back home he no longer supported the effort.

    Bryan said he didn’t put his life on the line for his country “just so some fat little bastard can come back and run his mouth.“

    It was the second time during his speech that Bryan, who flew in from Albuquerque, New Mexico, had called Murtha a “fat little bastard” during his speech.

    Heh, again. The PolitickerPA.com story went on to point out;

    His remarks were not publicly repudiated at the rally.

    What’s to repudiate?Is Murtha not fat? Is Murtha not a bastard?

    Bill Russell, former Army LTC running against Murtha, defended Bryan’s remarks;

    In an interview after the rally, Russell told PolitickerPA.com Bryan’s comments didn’t reflect his own feelings, but he did the defend the fellow veteran.

    The remarks are reflective of the anger many marines, who have lost dozens of fellow soldiers during combat, feel toward Murtha, he said.

    “Am I going to throw him under the bus for it?” Russell asked. “No. I understand — he’s going to say what he believes.”

    Murtha had better stay off of this forum if he takes offense at being called a fat little bastard. My readers and I have some more descriptive adjectives to describe him.

    Michelle Malkin writes that Murtha is worried and brought the big guns to rescue him from what looks like certain defeat.

    PolitickerPA also writes this morning that Murtha got a hot meat injection from MoveOn.org this weekend to the tune of $187,000;

    Since issuing a last-minute appeal to MoveOn.org’s fundraising list on Wednesday, the organization has infused Murtha’s campaign with over $187,000 in cash, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    Murtha’s ramped-up fundraising efforts comes just days after receiving heated criticism for saying in a media interview that residents in his Southeastern Pennsylvania district are “racist” and “rednecks.”

    Murtha’s re-election, once seemingly assured, is now in doubt.

    So if Murtha wins, he’s going to owe a big debt to the vacuous trolls of MoveOn – if he loses, he’s going to jail. In another interview, Russell seems sure of his chances to pull one out tomorrow;

    “He is running scared,” Russell said of his opponent today. “He’s engaged in negative attacks that aren’t based on principal or policy.”

    TSO sends this video from Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive;

  • The battle over Murtha’s seat

    I mentioned earlier today that Uncle Jimbo is leading a contingent of Blackfivers and VFFers into Pennsylvania to knock on doors for William Russell in Murth’a District this weekend. Well the National Republican Committee is making an $84,000 ad buy in that district, too;

    The National Republican Congressional Committee will spend $84,000 on an ad that quotes Murtha’s recent remarks calling his district racist – as well as past statements about U.S. military personnel killing innocent civilians in Iraq – and ends with the word, “Enough.”

    The GOP spot, which is to begin airing later this week, is on behalf of Murtha’s Republican opponent William Russell, a retired Army lieutenant colonel.

    Here’s that video;

    Well, Jeff Emanuel writes this evening that my congressman Chris VanHollen’s DCCC is also making an $84,000 ad buy to save Murtha;

    The ad isn’t up on the DCCC’s YouTube channel yet, but here’s the text, courtesy of Roll Call:

    What do we really know about William Russell?

    William Russell supports George Bush’s failed economic policies. He supports George Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, cutting guaranteed benefits. He supports raising the Social Security retirement age, too. And William Russell supports more tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

    Congressman Jack Murtha served his country in Vietnam, and now he’s fighting for our jobs.

    Nice try, Nancy, Chris, and Rahm. The trouble is, Col. Russell served his country even more recently — and he isn’t calling the people he wants to represent “racist” or “redneck.” I think he wins this exchange.

    And, oh, yeah, there are real veterans riding to the sound of the guns. I guess VanHollen and Pelosi couldn’t find any real veterans to knock on doors for Murtha. There’s something to be said about not burning one’s bridges.

    At least one PA newspaper is warning of Murtha’s upset, while others remind Pennsylvanians to not bite the hand that feeds them;

    Murtha’s comments about Western Pennsylvania being racist and redneck has not set well with a lot of people. However, others said the money he’s brought in to places like Johnstown can’t be ignored.

    Johnstown sees a lot of money from defense contracts and businesses coming to the area. Murtha is responsible for helping companies such as CTC, KDH, JWF and Kuchera Defense Systems.

    Ya know what I think? I think Murtha is sweating bullets right about now. If he loses next week, he won’t have the anti-war crowd running a screen play for him anymore and there are some Federal prosecutors just itching to get him out from under that protection. It isn’t about politics any more it’s about saving his sweaty ass from a jail cell.
    Crossposted at Talon.

  • VFW’s odd scorecard

    First off; I’m a life member of the VFW and I have been since I retired, but this has me a bit confused.

    I’ve been asked a few times to write a bit about the VFW’s 2008 scorecard for voters interested in veterans’ issues. I’ve found it to be a bit odd. Of course, I’m not the only one. Pete Hegseth writes “Someone tell the VFW PAC what VFW stands for” when he discovers that the VFW PAC endorsed John Murtha, a phony veteran who supports only himself, his cronies and his family, over William Russell, a real veteran who supports veterans.

    Now, based on Murtha’s vote on the new GI Bill, that might provide cover for VFW PAC’s choice, since Russell couldn’t vote on that particular issue because he’s not in Congress. However, they support Kiernan Lalor, an Iraq veteran over incumbent John Hall in New York. Hall is a Democrat like Murtha and the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on disability assistance who voted like Murtha did on the GI Bill. It seems to be a similar race, with similar votes, but the VFW PAC made the opposite choice in that race – which is fine with me since Lalor is an actual veteran and a Republican, but it makes me wonder why the VFW PAC made either choice which seem to conflict.

    Our newest friend, Carole Shea-Porter from New Hampshire also got the VFW PAC’s endorsement over Jeb Bradley even though Shea-Porter, as Hegseth points out with Murtha, in direct violation of the VFW’s own Resolution 406, voted against funding the war in Iraq. Here’s the text of that VFW resolution;

    In April of this year, the Union Leader, Shea-Porter’s hometown newspaper, reported that Shea-Porter didn’t even wait for General Petraeus to finish his report before she was yapping about withdrawal from Iraq;

    Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter should have listened to Gen. David Petraeus when he testified before four congressional committees last week, including the House Armed Services Committee, on which Shea-Porter sits. Alas, they did not.

    […]

    Shea-Porter did not even bother issuing a press release. She did tell the Portsmouth Herald, “It sounded like the same tape running again. They try hard, but there’s nothing to report.”

    In light of the revelation that Shea-Porter refused to help a Gold Star mother who reached out to her, as we discovered this weekend, how can VFW PAC support her?

    I’ve got calls into the VFW PAC, but no answers yet. Apparently the scorecard only appears in the VFW Magazine (I can’t find my copy at the moment in my stack of stuff) but my mole in the VFF writes;

    Also, Vets for Freedom PAC is going to be mobilizing in Murtha’s PA-12 and Murphy’s PA-8 this coming weekend, even going door-to-door, to support Bill Russell and Tom Manion.  (And like I said, VFF PAC is already running radio ads for Manion.)

    Although it has nothing to do with VFW PAC’s quixotic decision, if you’ve got some time this weekend, go help the VFF out in Pennsylvania. I understand that Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive is leading a black-ops team into the heart of the Murtha insurgency. Apparently, as always with Jimbo, there will be alcohol involved afterwards.

    I’ll update this as I get more information.