“Murphy’s Green Energy Not So Clean”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gamesa Corporation Tainted by Environmental Infractions and Labor Lawsuit
(Sept.18, 2008) – Doylestown, PA. (Manion for Congress)
Congressman Murphy’s newest campaign advertisement features the Gamesa Corporation, located in Fairless Hills, PA. A manufacturer of wind turbines, the corporation has brought jobs to our area…unfortunately; they have also brought environmental emissions infractions and allegations of unfair labor practices.
In August, Gamesa was fined $639,161 for exceeding emissions levels and inadequate record keeping by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Just this week, three former Gamesa employees filed a lawsuit against the company for wrongful termination. The former employees allege that younger workers, brought in from out of the country, replaced them.
“I’m all for alternative energy and I think harnessing the wind is one of the keys to moving America off its dependence on foreign oil,” Manion said. “However, the hope for the future is that these other sources of power will be better for our environment. Touting a company that’s harming our environment in the process and is under suspicion for unfair labor practices isn’t something I’d be proud of.”
Green isn’t always clean, Congressman Murphy.
Sources:
Associated Press
PA Department of Environmental Protection
Tom and Patrick: Side By Side
| Issue | Tom Manion | Patrick Murphy |
| Energy | Tom favors all options to decrease our dependence on foreign oil and lower gas prices, including environmentally friendly drilling | Patrick voted against drilling seven times, voted to raise taxes on gas, and watched the price of gas rise $1.54 during his 2 year term |
| Character | Tom is a 30 year Marine who comes to Washington as a citizen legislator; is not a career politician and was called to serve out of duty to his son, lost in the Iraq war | Patrick supports the actions of two of the most corrupt members of Congress, votes with party leadership 93% of the time; accepted a $100,000 book deal weeks before taking his seat in the House |
| Economy/Job growth | Tom will work to keep taxes low, eliminate wasteful spending, reduce the deficit and obtain tax credits for companies who keep jobs in the US | Patrick voted for a $7 billion tax increase; voted to remove union employees right to a secret ballot; voted for a measure that will slow down the passage of all future trade agreements |
| Spending | Tom will use his skills from the business world to find efficiencies in spending | Patrick voted to cut spending… 33% of the time. Voted for a omnibus bill with 9,000 earmarks |
| Taxes | Tom pledged not to raise taxes | Patrick raised taxes on gas and heating oil, voted against making the marriage and child tax breaks permanent, and voted for a tax on private health care plans |
| Immigration | Tom supports the border fence and is opposed to amnesty. He supports the SAVE Act, which allows businesses to verify citizenship of new hires | Patrick co-sponsored the SAVE Act but refused to vote to bring the bill to the floor; voted for taxpayer funded healthcare for illegal immigrants |
| Trade | Tom understands from his business experience that trade agreements open other markets to our goods and spurs the economy | Patrick voted for a measure that will slow down the passage of all future trade agreements |
| Medicare | Tom will work to reform the fraud and abuse in the Medicare system so that it best functions for those that need assistance. | Patrick voted to cut Medicare spending to 39,000 seniors in district 8. |
| Healthcare | Tom supports universal access to quality care that returns control to the patient and the doctor. | Patrick voted for a tax on private health care insurance. Voted to cut Medicare spending to 39,000 seniors in district 8. Voted against a measure to limit medical malpractice suits. |
| National Defense | Tom supports our troops and troop funding; is opposed to a timed withdrawal from Iraq, instead plans to follow advice of military leaders on the ground | Patrick voted five times against funding the troops, even though he has testified that the troops are undersupplied. |
| Education | Tom will work to reform the testing issues of No Child Left Behind and to assist schools to produce the best employees for our workforce; supports tax credits for higher education | Patrick passed three of 12 education bills; voted against allowing schools to use energy efficiency funding for maintenance costs in emergency situations. |
“If” - Tom Manion TV Commercial
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Editorial: Gun Control
Murphy ducked
If U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D., Pa.) had not served as an Army captain in Iraq, the Bucks County congressman might be suspected of running scared as he faces a spirited challenge for reelection.
It sure looked that way yesterday, when Murphy voted with the National Rifle Association - and against the best interests of cities in his own backyard trying to stem gun violence, including Philadelphia.
Murphy was among 85 House Democrats who joined 181 Republicans in approving a bill that would roll back gun-safety measures enacted by the District of Columbia, after the Supreme Court struck down the city’s 32-year-old handgun ban in June.
The legislation would undo gun- registration and trigger-lock requirements, as well as a ban on semiautomatic weapons. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said the measure would “endanger public safety in a city that is already a target for terrorists,” permit “dangerous people to stockpile dangerous weapons,” and hamstring local officials in combating gun violence.
Take that approach nationwide, and it would become easier to buy and own firearms in already dangerous urban areas. That makes no sense, and it’s certainly an odd place for Murphy to be.
As CeaseFirePA President Phil Goldsmith noted in an open letter, Murphy is viewed as “a supporter of reasonable, common-sense handgun safety reforms.” What’s more, his district - even with its slice of Northeast Philadelphia - trends progressive. Hardly NRA country.
Aides insist the congressman hasn’t changed his stripes. He still favors a ban on assault weapons and supports “reasonable gun laws.” The District of Columbia vote was about “striking the proper balance between constitutional rights and reasonable restrictions.”
But it’s hard to see the gun vote as anything but political gamesmanship. With a Republican challenger who’s trying to score points about Murphy’s commonsense view that the United States needs to extract itself from Iraq, Murphy’s vote on the gun bill deprives his GOP opponent - retired Marine Col. Tom Manion - of another issue.
Is there a political price to be paid in his Bucks County district for pandering to the NRA? Murphy will get the answer from voters on Nov. 4.
Meanwhile, Murphy might spend some time talking to Mayor Nutter and other mayors from around this region who this week vowed to enact their own local gun laws in defiance of likely NRA legal challenges. The congressman would learn that these local elected officials - just like city officials in Washington - don’t have the luxury of giving lip service to gun control.
That won’t stop the killing.
Congressmen for Freedom
Candidates in it for the fight.
By Mark Hemingway
In 2006, Democrats ran a slew of veterans for office under the moniker “Fighting Dems.” It wasn’t a terribly successful effort — out of almost 60 candidates for office just five were elected, Virginia Senator Jim Webb and four more in the House.
Perhaps the Fighting Dems’ lack of success is in some way attributable to the fact that their opposition to the Iraq war was, well, militant.
Appearing across the street from the U.S. Capitol at a Vets for Freedom press conference, the organization’s chairman, Pete Hegseth, wants to make sure the voice of pro-war veterans is heard in Congress. According to Hegseth, winning in Iraq is a position that’s much more representative of the views of veterans.
The Audacity of Honor
Backing the mission in the worst of times has brought better political times to the candidates of Veterans for Freedom.
When John McCain first started saying he’d “rather lose an election than see the country lose a war,” it was a serious aside in a self-deprecating assessment of his own uncertain political future.
He’d chuckle and deliver his reworking of Chairman Mao’s line, “It’s always darkest before it’s totally black.” He was speaking of himself, but he could just as easily have meant Iraq, to which his future had become so inextricably linked.
In the darkest days for the Iraq mission, in 2006, a handful of Iraq and Afghanistan vets formed an organization designed to defend progress and urge patience to those in Washington who wanted the U.S. to abandon the field.
Since, then, instead of total blackness, the non-partisan Vets for Freedom and McCain have met an astonishing political dawn that has put them both in an unexpected position: on the offensive.
Vets for Freedom is endorsing 23 candidates for Congress this year, 17 of which are veterans of the current conflict, up from just three candidates endorsed in 2006.
Fifteen of those men were on Capitol Hill today, urging senators to sign onto Senate Resolution 636, “Recognizing the strategic success of the troop surge in Iraq and expressing gratitude to the members of the United States Armed Forces who made that success possible,” including Gen. David Petraeus.
The Hill visits came after the morning release of an ad hitting Barack Obama for his longtime refusal to acknowledge the surge’s success.
Obama told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly in a September interview that the surge “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” but the Democratic presidential candidate has not signed on to the resolution.
David Bellavia, co-founder of Vets for Freedom and a Medal of Honor nominee for his feats in Fallujah, visited Obama’s Senate office and was told the candidate may sign on to a Democrat-crafted alternative with reportedly weaker language (right after he was told VFF’s ads about Obama are “hateful”).
“It’s missing some important parts,” Bellavia said of the competing resolution, which hasn’t been finalized. “Petraeus’s name and the surge working—the whole essence of what we were going for.”
These days, McCain’s oft-repeated line about losing elections sounds more like a rallying cry than a resignation, and with good reason. Many of the Vets for Freedom congressional candidates’ fortunes have risen along with those of the country where they fought.
But the electoral forecast isn’t exactly sunny. Of the 15 Vets for Freedom on hand today, only two are running in “toss-up” districts, as designated by the Cook Political Report. Duncan Hunter is running in the solidly Republican 52nd District of California. The rest are facing some pretty blue territory.
Steve Stivers, who is racing for the retiring Rep. Deborah Pryce’s seat in the toss-up 15th District of Ohio, said the Republican Party is trailing in registration, but the gap won’t necessarily translate into victory on Election Day.
“I don’t think the voters’ behavior has changed,” he said, blaming Democratic gains on the relatively dull Republican primary, which was decided before Ohio voters went to the polls.
Others facing more difficult fights said they’re benefiting from the Palin effect on Republican enthusiasm and the absence of Hillary Clinton from the Democratic ticket.
Col. Thomas Manion, a career Marine who decided to run soon after his son was killed by sniper fire in Fallujah last year, is facing the only anti-war veteran of the current conflict who won a congressional race in 2006—Rep. Patrick Murphy.
“We didn’t have the kind of leadership we needed in Washington,” he said of his district. “My only regret is my son isn’t here to see that on the streets he fought and gave his life on, the Iraqi children play now.”
Manion said his polling shows he’s gained 10 points on his opponent since May. In a district that went 63-37 percent for Hillary in the Democratic primary, Murphy was an early and vocal Obama backer.
“They just don’t like the top of the ticket,” he said of voters.
Lee Zeldin, running in the heavily Democratic 1st District of New York, is counting on veteran turnout and Palin power to put him over the top in his bid to unseat six-year incumbent Tim Bishop.
“There’s no scientific way to measure it,” but women are especially energized by Palin, he said. “They’re all an inch taller when you mention her.”
For some of them, the politics of the war is personal in a way it isn’t for many candidates.
Will Breazeale is accompanied on the trail in North Carolina by his Iraqi interpreter, Benny Aldosakee.
Craig Williams, running in Pennsylvania’s 7th District, called out his opponent Joe Sestak, a veteran himself, for “offering up a bill of surrender when we were in our darkest hour.”
Manion’s faith in the surge comes not solely from a security briefing, but from a front-line report that began with the words, “Hey, Dad.”
And, that’s part of the VFF mission, said the group’s executive director Pete Hegseth—to get people who truly understand the battle we’re facing and the cost of losing it into the halls of Congress.
They may not sweep their seats, but they’re much better positioned than anyone would have imagined two years ago, when a handful of anti-war candidates were the only veterans making headlines.
“That may have been the wave in 2006, but it’s not the case now,” Hegseth said.
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