Murphy Cashes A Corrupt Check
The Bully Pulpit
The Bulletin
09/19/2008
Murphy Cashes A Corrupt Check
Freshman incumbent Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8th) accepted donations totaling $19,000 from embattled Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) who is being investigated for failing to pay his taxes. Murphy has asked the American people not to rush to judgment on Mr. Rangel’s finances or his ethics. However, constituents of the 8th Congressional District will be judging Mr. Murphy on Nov. 4. The Murphy campaign Web site proclaims that the Congressman has Democratic values and bipartisan solutions.
His actions tell another story. Since the 110th Congress reconvened Mr. Murphy has voted with the National Rifle Association while still speaking against them, voted against the energy bill that he co-sponsored and not surprisingly he has been silent about Barack Obama’s refusal to return $112,000 in donations from collapsed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Doors And Dollars
Tom Manion, the GOP candidate for the 8th Congressional District had a fundraiser at Ventresca’s in Doylestown. Sal Paolantonio, ESPN Analyst and Philadelphia news legend, hosted the event at the famous Doylestown haberdashery. Momentum is building in Manion’s quest to unseat freshman incumbent Patrick Murphy.
Both campaigns have been out knocking on doors getting their respective messages out to the people. Those not at home can catch the candidates’ television commercials during the local news broadcast to get the message.
“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.
“Pelosi’s No, No, No, Energy Bill”
Murphy votes with Pelosi on energy, abandoning the more comprehensive bill he co-sponsored on July 31st.
(Sept.17, 2008) – Doylestown, PA. (Manion for Congress)
“This is the no, no, no new energy bill,” said Tom Manion after the passage of a new offshore energy bill Tuesday evening. “The American people deserve better from their leaders than rushed legislation that fails to include input from both parties. Our own Congressman co-sponsored a comprehensive energy bill just before his vacation, but abandoned it last night in favor of this hoax of a bill.”
This new bill appears to open up limited areas to offshore drilling, but it does so without allowing states to share in the revenue. This provision significantly reduces the chance that states will exercise the option to drill.
“… This bill most certainly won’t see the light of day in the Senate,” [1] said Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state familiar with oil revenue sharing. The more comprehensive Peterson-Abercrombie energy bill, named for the two Congressmen who drafted it, allows for revenue sharing and several other energy options. Congressman Murphy co-sponsored this bill on July 31st. A look at the two bills is below.
“Why would Murphy abandon the better solution that he co-sponsored just a few weeks ago? Why would Murphy say this is ‘the energy package he has been calling for all along?” asked Manion. “I’m sure the voters of district 8 will see this vote for what it is – a pathetic attempt to cover up that this Congress hasn’t been able to find energy solutions and get the job done.”
- The Peterson-Abercrombie bill repeals the offshore ban and allows drilling beyond 25 miles, with states having complete authority from 25 to 50 miles off their coastline.
- The Pelosi bill permanently bans drilling within 50 miles, where nearly 90% of known oil reserves exist.
- The Peterson-Abercrombie bill strikes the ban on gas and oil production in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
- The Pelosi bill maintains the ban on drilling in the oil-rich Eastern Gulf.
- The Peterson-Abercrombie bill includes revenue sharing for the producing states and for investments into renewable sources of energy and the low-income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP)
- The Pelosi bill denies revenue sharing to the states.
- The Peterson-Abercrombie bill permits the development of oil shale in the Western states.
- The Pelosi bill permanently prohibits oil shale leasing unless a state enacts a law to authorize it.
- The Peterson-Abercrombie bill repeals the ban on federal agencies purchasing alternative or synthetic fuels such as oil shale, tar sands, and clean coal-to-liquid technology.
- The Pelosi bill maintains this federal prohibition.
- The Peterson-Abercrombie bill includes tax extensions and tax deductions for the production of renewable energy and energy conservation.
Sal Pal to raise money for Tom Manion
Political football, or one of Tom Manion’s Top Plays?
ESPN correspondent and football analyst Sal Paolantonio will headline a fund-raiser for Bucks County Republican Party congressional hopeful Tom Manion Sept. 16 at Ventresca’s, a high-end Doylestown clothing store that counts pro athletes among its high profile customers.
Manion is hoping to unseat incumbent first-term Democrat Patrick Murphy in the 8th Congressional District, centered in Bucks County.
He may need more than a little help from the man known by some Philly sports fans as “Sal Pal” on the fund-raising front. According to the Federal Election Commission, Murphy had 2.2 million on hand, compared to about $500,000 for Manion at the end of June.
Murphy is no stranger to “gridiron” politics. A die-hard Eagles fan, he cast the lone vote in February against a Congressional resolution honoring the New York Giants for their Super Bowl victory, earning him a few chits among the Eagles Green faithful.
Da da da, Da-da-da. That’s the Sportscenter theme, if you couldn’t tell.
Article from The Morning Call
Op Ed – Alarm Bells
There is so much talk in this election process, and much of the talk surrounds our future. Our energy future, our economic future, the future of healthcare and Social Security. With all this talk, one might think that at some point the discussion would come around to focus on the actual future; our children, and the education of these children. Is anyone else alarmed at how little focus there is on education during this election?
It may seem to be a stale phrase to say that our children are our future. It will not be today’s work force, however, that will work in the green buildings, with the alternative energy sources, in the increasingly global economy. It will be tomorrow’s work force.
Nationally, 30% of our students are not even graduating high school. What are we doing to ensure that today’s students are ready for tomorrow’s work force? The mandated standardized testing required by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, while a start, is not the answer. From my discussions with local educators, I’ve come to understand that a standardized test is not even the best measure of academic progress. From my experience in the business world, I know that American workers are prized the world over for their creativity and ingenuity. Continued success in the global economy depends on our educational system’s continued ability to produce the world’s most valued workers. Specifically, our schools should produce workers who are adept at twenty-first century skills.
In the twenty-first century, we find ourselves with vast amounts of information at our fingertips. Rather than simply regurgitating information, today’s students need to become masters at analyzing and understanding information. In addition to that, business leaders want employees who can collaborate, work with technology, problem-solve and communicate. How can we improve our educational system to supply our workforce with employees that have these twenty-first century skills?
Many American businesses struggle with the dilemma of outsourcing jobs to other countries to reduce costs. Even with tax credits to keep jobs in the U.S., some jobs may leave the U.S. to follow the cheapest labor path. What can we do to retain the best jobs? We can reform our educational system to ensure it is producing the type of employees the workforce needs. With the right skills, employees can adapt to changes in the workplace, rather than falling prey to a changing economy. Our goal should be no employee left behind.
It has been many years since I took a standardized multiple-choice test, or asked it of one of my employees. Yet, every day in my workplace we collaborate, work with technology, problem-solve and communicate. Some schools here in Bucks County are already providing the relevant instruction that results in these twenty-first century skills. Student progress is already being measured with authentic, real world assessments. Schools should be accountable for their results, and we should build on the examples of our best schools. Instead of penalizing the struggling schools, let’s assist the schools to invest in staff development and training with proven, successful models. Most importantly, educators on the front line in classrooms should be an integral part of the educational reform process.
The new school year has begun, and I think it is time to ring the bell. The alarm bell. Why isn’t anyone talking about supporting or changing our educational system? Was it not a shortsighted energy policy that led us to the current energy crisis? Let’s not allow the same narrow vision to restrain the thinking and reform in our educational system. Such a vision will stifle the potential of our children, who are simply the most precious natural resource, and the foundation of tomorrow’s energy.
Tom Manion
Candidate for the US House of Representatives, PA District 8
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