The Hill: Republicans will select their nominee for the late Rep. John Murtha's (D-Pa.) seat on March 11. The meeting will be held in Latrobe, Pa., with the winner needing to get a majority of votes from party conferees from nine counties. The GOP field remains stagnant for now, with 2008 nominee William Russell and businessman Tim Burns running.
The special election is set for May 18, and Democrats are still sorting out how they will nominate their candidate. Democrats say their state executive committee will make the final choice on their nominee, likely by March 9, but the counties in the 12th district will get to weigh in before that. The Democrats running include former Murtha aide Mark Critz, state Treasurer Barbara Hafer, former Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, Cambria County Controller Ed Cernic Jr., Westmoreland County Commissioner Tom Ceraso and Navy veteran Ryan Bucchianeri.
Fellow veterans, the county GOP chairmen in the 12th Congressional District of PA will be selecting delegates to elect the Republican candidate for the remaining term. Please voice your support for Lt.Col. Bill Russell to one or more of the following:
Counties within Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District
Allegheny County GOP Chairperson – Jim Roddey
412-458-0068
info@rcac.net
Armstrong County GOP Chairperson – Mike Baker
armstronggop@gmail.com
Cambria County/Pennsylvania GOP Chairperson – Rob Gleason
717-234-4901
info@pagop.org
Fayette County GOP Chairperson – Odilia A. “Dee” John
724-437-4006
http://www.gopfayette.org/contact.htm
Greene County GOP Chairperson – Richard Yeager
No contact information found
Indiana County GOP Chairperson – John Bonya
No contact information found
Somerset County GOP Chairperson – Bruce Hottle
814-445-5037
Washington County GOP Chairperson – Tom Uram
724-223-1001
wcgop@gmail.com
Westmoreland County GOP Chairperson – George Dunbar
724-433-9703
chairman@westmorelandgop.org
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
RUSSELL OPPOSES SHANKSVILLE TERROR TRIALS
(JOHNSTOWN, PA) – Recent news reports have indicated that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is looking for a location less populated than New York City to conduct the civilian trial for 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. One of the locations reportedly under consideration is Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. William Russell, Republican candidate for the nomination for Representative in the 12th PA Congressional district announced today that he is adamantly opposed to holding a civilian trial for KSM in the 12th district including Shanksville.
“As a survivor of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001, I have personally seen the death and destruction brought on American soil by these evil members of Al Qaeda,” said Russell. “On that fateful day, my wife and young son were also at the Pentagon. I know what it is like to wonder if your family has survived an attack and I do not want any family in America to have to experience that, ever! As a former member of the military, and now as a resident running to be a member of Congress, it is my duty to protect and defend the citizens of this country and especially the 12th district of Pennsylvania.”
Russell also believes that the trial for KSM should not be held in a civilian court, but in a court of military justice. “Every man and woman serving in every branch of the service receives justice in the form of a military tribunal or Court of Military Justice,” said Russell. “Why would our President and Attorney General say it’s good enough for members of the American military but not good enough for terrorists? It’s an insult to brave American who has worn the uniform.”
Russell concluded, “I will do everything in my power to keep the residents of this area from the possibility of living with a target on their backs and to insist that Washington move the trial back to the Courts of Military Justice where it properly belongs.”
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. William Russell, Republican candidate for the nomination for Representative in the 12th PA Congressional district announced today that he is adamantly opposed to holding a civilian trial for KSM in the 12th district including Shanksville.
“As a survivor of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001, I have personally seen the death and destruction brought on American soil by these evil members of Al Qaeda,” said Russell. “On that fateful day, my wife and young son were also at the Pentagon. I know what it is like to wonder if your family has survived an attack and I do not want any family in America to have to experience that, ever! As a former member of the military, and now as a resident running to be a member of Congress, it is my duty to protect and defend the citizens of this country and especially the 12th district of Pennsylvania.”
Russell also believes that the trial for KSM should not be held in a civilian court, but in a court of military justice. “Every man and woman serving in every branch of the service receives justice in the form of a military tribunal or Court of Military Justice,” said Russell. “Why would our President and Attorney General say it’s good enough for members of the American military but not good enough for terrorists? It’s an insult to brave American who has worn the uniform.”
Russell concluded, “I will do everything in my power to keep the residents of this area from the possibility of living with a target on their backs and to insist that Washington move the trial back to the Courts of Military Justice where it properly belongs.”
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Interview of William Russell by the American Thinker♠
by Alan Fraser, American Thinker: Lt. Col. Bill Russell is running for the the congressional seat of the 12th District of Pennsylvania, left open by the sudden death of Jack Murtha. In an interview with AT Military Editor Alan Fraser, Col. Russell discusses the U.S. military in American culture and how, in the GWOT, the enemy is using our own cultural institutions as weapons in an attempt to defeat us, with the Haditha fraud as a prime example.
Col. Russell has nearly 29 years of Regular Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve service, and he served six tours in hostile fire zones, including Operation Desert Storm, the Balkans, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He and his wife Kasia were both in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Their son Stasiu was born three months later, making him the youngest known Pentagon 9/11 survivor. Bill was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in December 2004 while serving in Iraq and retired from the Army in 2008. His military awards include the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star. Welcome aboard, Col. Russell.
AT: Col. Russell, I'd like to ask you about the mechanics of this special election to be held on May 18, 2010 and then the general election in November of 2010. Can you describe how all of this will work?
Col. Russell: On May 18, there will be a primary election to select the party nominees for the general election in November 2010 to fill the seat for the 2010-2012 Congress. This will follow the normal election schedule.
There will also be a special election to fill the remainder of Mr. Murtha's current term. The Republican nominee for the special election will be selected by 134 Conferees who will be selected from each of the nine counties in the 12th Congressional district based on the counties' population in the 12th District and the number of votes John McCain received in the last election. While I am very confident that I am the best candidate for both elections and will win the popular election in the primary, how the party will select conferees and the nominee for the special election is true "insider baseball." It is my hope that they will not ignore the will of the people.
AT: Increasingly, we live in a society where 99% of the population has little idea of what their military does. And often any mental picture they do have tends to be very inaccurate. The institutions that shape public opinion -- e.g., the major networks, newspapers and Hollywood -- it seems like they have a blackout on good news about our military but beat each other up trying to report or fabricate or exaggerate bad news. And what's frustrating for people who think and vote the way I do is that this is in stark contrast to what these very same institutions were doing over sixty years ago during WWII. At American Thinker, we think that beyond being unfair, this cultural phenomenon actually threatens national security.
What can you as a U.S. Congressman do about this cultural problem, namely the growing detachment and ignorance on the part of those who don't serve?
Col. Russell: I think the biggest thing is simply to educate and try to get the message out there as how much the men and women in uniform today are doing to protect this nation, and not just in terms of doing the very hard jobs that they're doing, but also letting people know how smart these folks are. Today we've got some of the nation's best-educated people in the military -- these people are multilingual, well-traveled, have multiple college degrees ranging from engineering to the liberal arts. They are people who truly have a great worldview, tempered by real-world experience, who really understand and appreciate many of the things that go on. Talk about being politically savvy, culturally savvy -- many times, they are financially and market-savvy. They're very smart people who are doing very good things.
But unfortunately, all you hear about are the guys who happen to "step on it" and do something silly. Unfortunately, a lot of times it goes back to the old adage "if it bleeds, it leads" when it comes to reporting.
AT: Yes.
U.S. Army LTG William Caldwell gave a terrific speech in Nov. '07. The topic of the speech was "The Changing Face of Warfare in the 21st Century." And he spoke about how in the GWOT, the enemy knows that they cannot defeat us militarily.
Col. Russell: Yes.
AT: He talked about how the enemy is consumed by or obsessed with the "information battlefield" and how they use the "weapon of information" against us in waging what he described, I think quite accurately, as a "strategy of exhaustion."
Col. Russell: Yes.
AT: What can you tell us about that?
Col. Russell: It is a very real issue. I mean, if you want to go back and look at it from an historical standpoint, and it really came to the forefront during the Vietnam War...the ways in which the enemy would capitalize on and watch American public opinion and the antiwar movement.
There are some great articles on the subject that people can read. One was a Wall Street Journal article by Col. Bo, who was a North Vietnamese brigade commander who took the fall of Saigon. Colonel Bo, as well as General Giap, both mentioned how they would listen to the international news on the radio every day, and listen to how the American antiwar movement was undercutting America's political will to stay in the fight. And that gave them the inspiration that, in spite of the great military losses that they suffered -- for example, the Tet Offensive that essentially led to the annihilation of the Viet Cong as a fighting force...and after the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Viet Cong were essentially a non-player on the battlefield in Vietnam -- they continued to fight. And after Tet, it was the North Vietnamese Army, the regulars, that had to do the fighting. Later, there was the 1972 Offensive, in which the United States military soundly defeated the North Vietnamese Army. But in spite of those massive battlefield losses they suffered, they knew that if they could just keep killing enough American soldiers to keep it in the news, that eventually the antiwar movement, with the press it was receiving -- the popular culture movement led by people like Jane Fonda and the political movement lead by people like John Kerry -- all of these internal movements would eventually cause America to turn tail and leave...and that is exactly how they won. They won by undermining us politically and by watching American popular culture and American news reporting.
Now, the enemy we face today reads from those same pages of the North Vietnamese Communist playbook.
AT: Can you give us some examples?
Col. Russell: There are great examples out there. First and foremost, and the most notorious, is the Haditha Marine incident. This is an incident in which the accused Marines involved have by now been exonerated. They were engaged in a firefight in November of '05 in Haditha, and the enemy used...literally put innocent civilians between themselves and the Marines. But what the enemy then did was move and rearrange the bodies; they came in and took selective pictures, then they spread the story through an Islamic "human rights" organization that accused the Americans of committing war crimes, they paraded the bodies of the civilians in, and then put out their report stating that the Americans murdered civilians in cold blood.
That then got picked up by Time magazine and was reported, and then we had various members of Congress jumping up and down, calling the Marines cold-blooded murderers. It became a very big propaganda play for the enemy. And of course, when it hit the Arab street, in the Arab news -- especially after the American political figures said that our Marines had murdered civilians in cold blood -- that became gospel truth on the Arab street. So it had two effects: It undermined the American war effort at home by undercutting our political will to stay and fight, but it also became a massive propaganda weapon for the Islamists for them to use in their recruiting efforts. Because it was, by then, a message endorsed by our own institutions that Americans were cold-blooded murderers, when in fact it was the exact opposite. And all the investigations of the Haditha Marines have shown that they conducted themselves at the highest level of Marines in combat. Unfortunately, when you have an enemy that is going to place innocent civilians in a crossfire and intentionally use them as shields, to try to create these propaganda incidents, unfortunately there are civilians that are going to get killed in spite of best efforts to protect them.
AT: What about the American media's role in this? Let's take the Haditha story as an example. What role...how can I put this...?
Col. Russell: They didn't investigate it...they didn't do an investigation.
AT: They didn't seem to be very curious about it, did they? They just took the enemy's word about what happened at face value.
Col. Russell: Yes. And they didn't bother to look at the evidence. There were glaring inconsistencies. I remember when the story first broke, my first thought was "OK, the bad guys are trying to create a new My Lai incident" for America.
AT: Didn't Chris Matthews use that phraseology in describing it? He was interviewing somebody, it may have even been Congressman Murtha, where Matthews asked whether this was the My Lai Massacre of the Iraq War...or something to that effect.
Col. Russell: Yeah, I don't recall what Chris Matthews said, but as I mentioned before, had the press at least done their homework and done some due diligence to investigate this group... because it did not take long for someone to find out that the Islamic human rights organization that put out this story was, in fact, an al-Qaeda propaganda front. In terms of the way the incident was reported, where the story was broadcast and sensationalized without any due diligence on this, speaks to the lack of professionalism on the part of some of those in the journalistic world.
Col. Russell has nearly 29 years of Regular Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve service, and he served six tours in hostile fire zones, including Operation Desert Storm, the Balkans, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He and his wife Kasia were both in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Their son Stasiu was born three months later, making him the youngest known Pentagon 9/11 survivor. Bill was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in December 2004 while serving in Iraq and retired from the Army in 2008. His military awards include the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star. Welcome aboard, Col. Russell.
AT: Col. Russell, I'd like to ask you about the mechanics of this special election to be held on May 18, 2010 and then the general election in November of 2010. Can you describe how all of this will work?
Col. Russell: On May 18, there will be a primary election to select the party nominees for the general election in November 2010 to fill the seat for the 2010-2012 Congress. This will follow the normal election schedule.
There will also be a special election to fill the remainder of Mr. Murtha's current term. The Republican nominee for the special election will be selected by 134 Conferees who will be selected from each of the nine counties in the 12th Congressional district based on the counties' population in the 12th District and the number of votes John McCain received in the last election. While I am very confident that I am the best candidate for both elections and will win the popular election in the primary, how the party will select conferees and the nominee for the special election is true "insider baseball." It is my hope that they will not ignore the will of the people.
AT: Increasingly, we live in a society where 99% of the population has little idea of what their military does. And often any mental picture they do have tends to be very inaccurate. The institutions that shape public opinion -- e.g., the major networks, newspapers and Hollywood -- it seems like they have a blackout on good news about our military but beat each other up trying to report or fabricate or exaggerate bad news. And what's frustrating for people who think and vote the way I do is that this is in stark contrast to what these very same institutions were doing over sixty years ago during WWII. At American Thinker, we think that beyond being unfair, this cultural phenomenon actually threatens national security.
What can you as a U.S. Congressman do about this cultural problem, namely the growing detachment and ignorance on the part of those who don't serve?
Col. Russell: I think the biggest thing is simply to educate and try to get the message out there as how much the men and women in uniform today are doing to protect this nation, and not just in terms of doing the very hard jobs that they're doing, but also letting people know how smart these folks are. Today we've got some of the nation's best-educated people in the military -- these people are multilingual, well-traveled, have multiple college degrees ranging from engineering to the liberal arts. They are people who truly have a great worldview, tempered by real-world experience, who really understand and appreciate many of the things that go on. Talk about being politically savvy, culturally savvy -- many times, they are financially and market-savvy. They're very smart people who are doing very good things.
But unfortunately, all you hear about are the guys who happen to "step on it" and do something silly. Unfortunately, a lot of times it goes back to the old adage "if it bleeds, it leads" when it comes to reporting.
AT: Yes.
U.S. Army LTG William Caldwell gave a terrific speech in Nov. '07. The topic of the speech was "The Changing Face of Warfare in the 21st Century." And he spoke about how in the GWOT, the enemy knows that they cannot defeat us militarily.
Col. Russell: Yes.
AT: He talked about how the enemy is consumed by or obsessed with the "information battlefield" and how they use the "weapon of information" against us in waging what he described, I think quite accurately, as a "strategy of exhaustion."
Col. Russell: Yes.
AT: What can you tell us about that?
Col. Russell: It is a very real issue. I mean, if you want to go back and look at it from an historical standpoint, and it really came to the forefront during the Vietnam War...the ways in which the enemy would capitalize on and watch American public opinion and the antiwar movement.
There are some great articles on the subject that people can read. One was a Wall Street Journal article by Col. Bo, who was a North Vietnamese brigade commander who took the fall of Saigon. Colonel Bo, as well as General Giap, both mentioned how they would listen to the international news on the radio every day, and listen to how the American antiwar movement was undercutting America's political will to stay in the fight. And that gave them the inspiration that, in spite of the great military losses that they suffered -- for example, the Tet Offensive that essentially led to the annihilation of the Viet Cong as a fighting force...and after the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Viet Cong were essentially a non-player on the battlefield in Vietnam -- they continued to fight. And after Tet, it was the North Vietnamese Army, the regulars, that had to do the fighting. Later, there was the 1972 Offensive, in which the United States military soundly defeated the North Vietnamese Army. But in spite of those massive battlefield losses they suffered, they knew that if they could just keep killing enough American soldiers to keep it in the news, that eventually the antiwar movement, with the press it was receiving -- the popular culture movement led by people like Jane Fonda and the political movement lead by people like John Kerry -- all of these internal movements would eventually cause America to turn tail and leave...and that is exactly how they won. They won by undermining us politically and by watching American popular culture and American news reporting.
Now, the enemy we face today reads from those same pages of the North Vietnamese Communist playbook.
AT: Can you give us some examples?
Col. Russell: There are great examples out there. First and foremost, and the most notorious, is the Haditha Marine incident. This is an incident in which the accused Marines involved have by now been exonerated. They were engaged in a firefight in November of '05 in Haditha, and the enemy used...literally put innocent civilians between themselves and the Marines. But what the enemy then did was move and rearrange the bodies; they came in and took selective pictures, then they spread the story through an Islamic "human rights" organization that accused the Americans of committing war crimes, they paraded the bodies of the civilians in, and then put out their report stating that the Americans murdered civilians in cold blood.
That then got picked up by Time magazine and was reported, and then we had various members of Congress jumping up and down, calling the Marines cold-blooded murderers. It became a very big propaganda play for the enemy. And of course, when it hit the Arab street, in the Arab news -- especially after the American political figures said that our Marines had murdered civilians in cold blood -- that became gospel truth on the Arab street. So it had two effects: It undermined the American war effort at home by undercutting our political will to stay and fight, but it also became a massive propaganda weapon for the Islamists for them to use in their recruiting efforts. Because it was, by then, a message endorsed by our own institutions that Americans were cold-blooded murderers, when in fact it was the exact opposite. And all the investigations of the Haditha Marines have shown that they conducted themselves at the highest level of Marines in combat. Unfortunately, when you have an enemy that is going to place innocent civilians in a crossfire and intentionally use them as shields, to try to create these propaganda incidents, unfortunately there are civilians that are going to get killed in spite of best efforts to protect them.
AT: What about the American media's role in this? Let's take the Haditha story as an example. What role...how can I put this...?
Col. Russell: They didn't investigate it...they didn't do an investigation.
AT: They didn't seem to be very curious about it, did they? They just took the enemy's word about what happened at face value.
Col. Russell: Yes. And they didn't bother to look at the evidence. There were glaring inconsistencies. I remember when the story first broke, my first thought was "OK, the bad guys are trying to create a new My Lai incident" for America.
AT: Didn't Chris Matthews use that phraseology in describing it? He was interviewing somebody, it may have even been Congressman Murtha, where Matthews asked whether this was the My Lai Massacre of the Iraq War...or something to that effect.
Col. Russell: Yeah, I don't recall what Chris Matthews said, but as I mentioned before, had the press at least done their homework and done some due diligence to investigate this group... because it did not take long for someone to find out that the Islamic human rights organization that put out this story was, in fact, an al-Qaeda propaganda front. In terms of the way the incident was reported, where the story was broadcast and sensationalized without any due diligence on this, speaks to the lack of professionalism on the part of some of those in the journalistic world.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Russell will Seek Seat in Special Election
(JOHNSTOWN, PA) – Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. William Russell, Republican candidate for the nomination for Representative in the 12th PA Congressional district has announced that he is also a candidate in the Special Election to fill the vacancy left by the untimely death of Rep. John Murtha.
“Since the Governor has announced that the Special Election will be held on Primary day, May 18th,” said Russell, “it makes perfect sense to also be a candidate in the special election. It’s a move that makes sense for the voters and will simplify the process for the thousands of my supporters.”
Russell responded immediately upon hearing of the death of Rep. Murtha by suspending all campaign activity and urging all citizens, Republicans, Democrats and Independents to come together and pray for Murtha family. “Regardless of your political position, you always knew Jack had an immense love and loyalty to his family and the residents of the 12th Congressional District,” Russell said in an earlier release.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Special Election Pending for PA12
The Washington Post: According to state law, the governor has ten days once the vacancy is officially declared to decide on the date for the special election, which can come no sooner than 60 days following that proclamation.
That likely means the special election will be held on May 18, which is the date already set for federal primaries around the state. (Special elections costs the state huge sums of money and it's likely that Gov. Ed Rendell will choose to go with an already established election day to save some cash.) . . . . Without Murtha in the 12th district, however, the special election will be seriously contested. . . .
Prior to Murtha's passing, there were two Republicans in the race: 2008 nominee Bill Russell and businessman Tim Burns. It remains to be seen whether either or both men run in the special election although, regardless, it is a certainty the field will grow as ambitious Republicans (and Democrats) see the chance to get to Congress in an abbreviated campaign. . . .
Murtha's death also makes Pennsylvania perhaps the most competitive state in the country when it comes to the battle for the House. Republicans will target the 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th districts while Democrats see opportunity in the 6th and 15th.
That likely means the special election will be held on May 18, which is the date already set for federal primaries around the state. (Special elections costs the state huge sums of money and it's likely that Gov. Ed Rendell will choose to go with an already established election day to save some cash.) . . . . Without Murtha in the 12th district, however, the special election will be seriously contested. . . .
Prior to Murtha's passing, there were two Republicans in the race: 2008 nominee Bill Russell and businessman Tim Burns. It remains to be seen whether either or both men run in the special election although, regardless, it is a certainty the field will grow as ambitious Republicans (and Democrats) see the chance to get to Congress in an abbreviated campaign. . . .
Murtha's death also makes Pennsylvania perhaps the most competitive state in the country when it comes to the battle for the House. Republicans will target the 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th districts while Democrats see opportunity in the 6th and 15th.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Rep. John Murtha dead at 77
Congressman John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania's 12th district died at 1:18 p.m. at the Virginia Hospital Center, where he had been admitted last week after having his gall bladder removed at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
While this site has made no effort to hide its disdain for John Murtha's actions and practices and wished for him to be defeated in an election, we do recognize that Murtha served his district and Pennsylvania longer than any other Congressman. We do not rejoice over his death, and we now leave final judgment of his actions to both God and history. We extend our respects to family and friends of John Murtha.
That being said, we must clarify that we will NOT remove prior posts about Congressman Murtha. They are part of links to history and portray actions which should not be repeated by future elected officials. However, we have modified the blog description to take the focus off of Murtha and to re-focus on the other primary objectives of this blog: Veterans Supporting Bill Russell for Congress. We also realigned our left hand column to remove links to joining the Roll Call Against Murtha. However, the Roll Call remains as a historical record of those who took a stand. Other special images related to Murtha in the left column have been removed but remain throughout the blog posts as part of the original posts.
As a final point on the passing of John Murtha, we share the following comments by Leo Pusateri, a long time seeker of the the truth regarding John Murtha:
While this site has made no effort to hide its disdain for John Murtha's actions and practices and wished for him to be defeated in an election, we do recognize that Murtha served his district and Pennsylvania longer than any other Congressman. We do not rejoice over his death, and we now leave final judgment of his actions to both God and history. We extend our respects to family and friends of John Murtha.
That being said, we must clarify that we will NOT remove prior posts about Congressman Murtha. They are part of links to history and portray actions which should not be repeated by future elected officials. However, we have modified the blog description to take the focus off of Murtha and to re-focus on the other primary objectives of this blog: Veterans Supporting Bill Russell for Congress. We also realigned our left hand column to remove links to joining the Roll Call Against Murtha. However, the Roll Call remains as a historical record of those who took a stand. Other special images related to Murtha in the left column have been removed but remain throughout the blog posts as part of the original posts.
As a final point on the passing of John Murtha, we share the following comments by Leo Pusateri, a long time seeker of the the truth regarding John Murtha:
While we indeed do extend heartfelt condolences to the family of John Murtha, at the same time, we extend our condolences to the taxpayers whose money, in our opinion, John Murtha usurped and squandered in his efforts to seal his stranglehold on power, to build publicly-funded monuments to himself, and to line his own campaign war chest.
We extend our condolences to our troops, who will never receive an apology for John Murtha's decision to label their mission in Iraq a failure, as a means of cementing his own political fortune with the far-left power structure in congress and their benefactors; thus opening the door to years of badmouthing their mission and/or outright verbal sabotage by high ranking democrat officials.
But most of all, we extend our deepest condolences to the Haditha Marines and their loving families, who will now never receive a formal apology (at least in this lifetime) for their sacred honor being besmirched by Murtha when he told the bald-faced lie about the 'massacre' at Haditha that never happened.
There are people in this world who leave as their legacy an example of how to live their lives in service to others. Others, like Congressman John P. Murtha, leave as their legacy an example of how not to do it.
As twitter compatriot @wilsonpd stated, "... and may God forgive him for his treachery and perfidy here on earth. Amen!" And, Amen.
Friday, February 5, 2010
John Murtha Spends Special Day in Hospital
On Tuesday Murtha, 77, was admitted to Virginia Hospital Center's intensive care unit after having his gallbladder removed at Bethesda Naval Hospital last week. A spokesman for U.S. Rep. John Murtha said the Pennsylvania Democrat is in stable condition.
There were no new press releases today on his medical condition. However, today, Feb 5th, was the day John Murtha became the longest serving Congressman in Pennsylvania history. On February 5, 1974 he assumed his present position and on Feb. 20th, Murtha will begin his 37th year as representative in the 12th Congressional District.
While fully supporting all actions to see Murtha removed from office, we still wish him a speedy medical recovery.
There were no new press releases today on his medical condition. However, today, Feb 5th, was the day John Murtha became the longest serving Congressman in Pennsylvania history. On February 5, 1974 he assumed his present position and on Feb. 20th, Murtha will begin his 37th year as representative in the 12th Congressional District.
While fully supporting all actions to see Murtha removed from office, we still wish him a speedy medical recovery.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Murtha on Washingtons 10 "Most Wanted Corrupt" List
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list identified among the corrupt politicians:
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman's largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks -- tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA's offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, "Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills." When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to >. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, "cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file." The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha's nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: "Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military."
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