U.S. Rep. Mark S. Critz has spent much of his two-plus years in Congress fighting to keep the seat he won in a special election after his former boss, Democratic powerhouse John P. Murtha, died in office in 2010. Now he's fighting to keep the seat in a redrawn western Pennsylvania district.
As Boeing lobbied against a rival aerospace company to win a $35 billion government contract, its activities included a curious donation: $10,000 to the Johnstown, Pa., Symphony Orchestra.
As President Obama took to the airwaves Tuesday evening to announce the end of the combat mission in Iraq, he paid tribute to the men and women who served there, were killed or wounded there, and to their families for the sacrifices they made. But there was one glaring omission: It is believed there are more young
The trial process is under way on 13 counts of alleged wrongdoing by former House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel. This is the action I have demanded night after night on the floor of the House since 2008, when the New York Democrat first publicly admitted wrongdoing. It is action that should have begun within a reasonable time frame - during 2009 at the latest. It is action that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly predicted would be concluded by the end of 2008.
Last year, congressional Democrats bemoaned the GOP's "culture of corruption." Rightly so, after 12 years holding the reins, Republican leaders had been corrupted by power. They encouraged their membership to burn through billions of taxpayers' dollars by passing "earmarks" to fund local pet projects with federal dollars. They neutered the ethics committee and got way too cozy with now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. By November, two members — Bob Ney of Ohio and Duke Cunningham of California — had pleaded guilty, and American voters revolted by handing the leadership to Democrats.
Tomorrow, the House is expected to take up the defense appropriations bill, and despite the good news coming out of Iraq in recent days, the Democratic leadership is prepared to do everything it can to tack on amendments aimed at discrediting the war on terror. The chairman of House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Jack Murtha, says he will offer an amendment to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where approximately 360 jihadists captured abroad are being held. For years political opponents of the Bush administration led by organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights, the hard-left outfit founded by attorney William Kunstler, have held that the overwhelming majority of Gitmo detainees are either innocents who were snatched up by unscrupulous bounty hunters for money and turned over to the U.S. military or low-level members of hostile groups who posed no real threat to U.S. military forces.
Tomorrow, the House is expected to take up the defense appropriations bill, and despite the good news coming out of Iraq in recent days, the Democratic leadership is prepared to do everything it can to tack on amendments aimed at discrediting the war on terror. The chairman of House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Jack Murtha, says he will offer an amendment to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where approximately 360 jihadists captured abroad are being held. For years political opponents of the Bush administration led by organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights, the hard-left outfit founded by attorney William Kunstler, have held that the overwhelming majority of Gitmo detainees are either innocents who were snatched up by unscrupulous bounty hunters for money and turned over to the U.S. military or low-level members of hostile groups who posed no real threat to U.S. military forces.
With Congress's August recess less than one week away, it should hardly come as a surprise that Rep. John Murtha, the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, is readying more legislative mischief. Mr. Murtha, a close political ally of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has made it clear that plans to use the $459.6 billion defense appropriations bill, which comes to the floor this week, to short-circuit the current military campaign against jihadists in Iraq and shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo).
With Congress's August recess less than one week away, it should hardly come as a surprise that Rep. John Murtha, the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, is readying more legislative mischief. Mr. Murtha, a close political ally of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has made it clear that plans to use the $459.6 billion defense appropriations bill, which comes to the floor this week, to short-circuit the current military campaign against jihadists in Iraq and shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo).
