Jack Murtha Helps Unite A Nation [AndrewsDad]

"Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington", CREW has listed Congressman “Abscam” Jack Murtha (D) in their Third Annual Most Corrupt Members of Congress Report. And in other news, a dog bites a man. But wait, CREW is hardly an unbiased source.

Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of CREW, founded the organization in 2003. Sloan is a former U.S. Attorney and has served as an aide to Representative John Conyers and Senator Charles Schumer, both Democrats. She currently serves on the legal team of Valerie Plame,[2] helping her sue Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick Armitage, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.[3][4]

According to The Washington Post, CREW is funded in part through the efforts of "Democracy Alliance," a loose group of approximately one hundred progressive-oriented political donors who saw CREW as a possible counterweight to the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch.[5]

Leave it to the liberals to find a way to unite us, not divide us.

More on CREW and its evolving sense of what is unethical after the jump

CREW maintains a web page Beyond Delay, a reference to all that is unethical, Tom Delay. Note the irony of a group that is suppose to be shinning the bright light on ethical issues, when in fact they themselves are not being honest about who they are and what they are really trying to accomplish.

Some examples of what it takes to get on the list if you are a Democrat and what it takes to get on the list if you are a Republican.

Jack Murtha (D)

Paul Magliocchetti worked with Rep. Murtha as a senior staffer on the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense for 10 years. After leaving the committee, Mr. Magliocchetti founded the PMA Group, which has become one of the most prominent Washington, D.C. defense lobbying firms.
…
In the 2006 Defense appropriations bill, PMA clients received at least 60 earmarks, totaling $95.1 million. In the 2008 election cycle, the PMA group and its clients have contributed $106,000 to Rep. Murtha’s campaign committee and PAC

William J. Jefferson (D)

On June 4, 2007, Rep. Jefferson was indicted on 16 criminal counts, including two counts of conspiracy to solicit bribes, two counts of solicitation of bribes by a public official, six counts of honest services fraud by wire, one count of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, three counts of money laundering, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of racketeering. The indictment stems from multiple instances in which Rep. Jefferson agreed to perform official acts for 11 different companies in return for bribes payable to him and his family members.

Alan Mollohan (D)

Over the past 10 years, Rep. Mollohan has earmarked $369 million in federal grants to his district for 254 separate programs. Between 1997 and 2006, $250 million of that total was directed to five nonprofit organizations that were created by Rep. Mollohan, staffed by his friends, and received the largest earmarks from Rep. Mollohan. During the same period, top-paid employees, board members and contractors of these organizations gave at least $397,122 to Rep. Mollohan’s campaign and political action committees.

David Scott (D)

In 2003, Rep. Scott and his wife, Ms. Alfredia Scott, began missing federal income tax payments that now total nearly $154,000 and have failed to pay $23,200 in taxes on their Georgia home. In addition, their company Dayn-Mark Advertising, failed to pay over $4,600 in local and state taxes since 1998. At the same time the Scotts were failing to pay their taxes, they increased their stock holdings from $5,000 to about $67,000 and bought a $702,000 rowhouse in Washington D.C. More than 40 tax liens have been placed against Rep. Scott’s home and business.

Since Rep. Scott’s first congressional bid in 2002, Rep. Scott’s wife, two daughters, his son-in-law and employees of Dayn-Mark have received disbursements from his campaign committee. From 2002 through the July 2007 FEC reporting period, Rep. Scott’s campaign committee paid a total of $124,795.98 to his wife, two daughters and son-in-law, and $491,382.00 to Dayn-Mark Advertising and its employees. Rep. Scott has reimbursed himself $98,952.75 for travel, billboards, and fund-raising expenses. In total, since 2002, Rep. Scott’s committee has disbursed $715,330.17 to his family, business, and himself. The payments to his family and company became larger and more frequent in 2003, around the same time Rep. Scott was falling behind on his taxes.

Doc Hastings (R)

Former U.S. Attorney John McKay testified before the United States Senate that, in 2004, during a series of vote recounts in which a Democrat was narrowly elected governor of Washington, Rep. Hasting’s then-Chief of Staff Ed Cassidy called, informing him that “the purpose of the call was to inquire on behalf of Congressman Hastings” about the status of any ongoing investigation into voter fraud.

Heather Wilson (R) and Pete Domenici (R)

The former U.S. Attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico, David Iglesias, stated that, in mid-October 2006, two members of Congress from New Mexico pressured him about an ongoing corruption probe of state Democrats. Apparently, Rep. Wilson first called Mr. Iglesias and Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) called a week later.

Click here for the back story of how I found out about this which includes how one of the more respected Seattle “news and talk” radio stations with a subtle change to the game “guess which party".

posted by xgenghisx at 02:48 PM

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