Congressional Cancer

I have expressed my thoughts about PA Congressman John Murtha in the past and as much as I would like to forever ignore this vile, disgusting man, it becomes at times necessary to go back and revisit those subjects that make us queasy. Murtha is one of those subjects.

As time goes by, what once was an obscure, pork addicted, corrupted career politician Murtha has become an unfortunately well known corrupted politician.
I don’t know if notoriety was one of Murtha’s goals when he came out publicly and condemned the Marines involved in the Haditha mess as cold blooded murderers before any investigation had been completed, but notoriety has found Murtha, or should I say infamy.
News of shady deals made by the Congressman with some of his lobbyists, DoJ investigations of fraud and corruption begun to show up on the national news, especially as Murtha is an influential member of the House Defense Appropriation Committee.
After the Liberal Democrats gained the majority in Congress in 2006, John Murtha’s vitriolic attacks against President Bush escalated to frenzy as the Pennsylvania representative could taste the blood of political adversaries and the tingle of power. Even after all but one of the Haditha Marines was exonerated via Court Martial and investigations, Murtha refused to apologize for the hasty, inconsiderate and slanderous comments he had made.

Lately, Murtha has appeared on the news again.
It appears that the good old Congressman has a nephew, Robert Murtha, who owns a company in Pennsylvania that has been awarded no-bid contracts from the Department of Defense and this has been going on for quite some time. Coincidentally, John Murtha is a highly influential member of Congress when it comes to defense appropriations. Some of the former employees of Robert Murtha’s company have also come forward stating that the Pennsylvania company had received payments from DoD even when contracts had been given to associated contractors, basically getting paid for performing no work.

In the elections of 2008, Murtha was challenged by Bill Russell, retired Army Officer, and in the last weeks prior to voting, Mr. Russell gave Murtha a good scare as the margin gap between the leading Murtha and his opponent was shrinking. An emergency infusion of cash from dubious sources, like MoveOn.org, ultimately gave the incumbent Murtha a 58% to 42% victory.

Nevertheless, just the fact that Russell had gotten so close, closer than any other opponent in many previous elections, has made the Porky Murtha nervous. In January, Murtha’s chief of staff John Hugya had told Russell’s former Army Reserve commanding officer Col. Gregory Rich that he was going to have the new secretary of the Army coming in with the Obama Administration recall Russell into the active duty so he could be court-martialed for campaigning while on active duty.
The incident was reported by Col. Rich to military lawyers and the occurrence reported by Russell that Hugya had threatened him again in mid-March, convinced Rich that Murtha’s thug was serious and crossing the line.
What it looks like is that Murtha is concerned about his upcoming 2010 bid to keep his congressional seat, as Bill Russell has vowed to challenge him again.

In a late development, Nancy Pelosi was successful on 12 May, 2009 to block again a Congressional investigation of connections between Congressional earmarks and a lobbying organization called PMA. Again coincidentally, one of the US Congressmen who received the largest amount of political donations from PMA is the PA Congressman John Murtha. With all the problems Nancy Pelosi is finding herself in these days because of her lies regarding her knowledge of the enhanced interrogations, she is in the ‘circling the wagons’ mode, as she can probably feel the wolves hot breath on her heels. She is being railroaded by her own Liberal colleagues as they see the possibility of destroying her.
I believe that she has made enough enemies even within her own crowd that the mere possibility of revenge is going to take her plastic face down. Payback, as it goes, is a bitch.
Hence the need to make and keep happy those who still have some level of loyalty, and that includes John Murtha, at least for the time being.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here is the Congress that was going to have the highest level of ethics, the one that was going to work for the equality of all people opportunities.
After decades of pillaging the American people and thrashing the country for personal gain, John Murtha is still in Congress. So much for ethics!


And these are my thoughts!
Frank “Semperpapa”