Free Republic

A California longshoreman, who works at California’s San Pedro Bay Port Complex, reportedly said the labor unions are exascerbating the supply chain crisis. Identified as Alfred to Yahoo News, the longshoreman blamed Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) for “cutting the work” at the port, which is increasing the jam of containers stuck at sea and on the docks. “They’re [PMA] the ones who are not training: skilled positions. [That] means crane operators, top handler drivers, trans drivers,” said Alfred. “They’re the ones who are keeping the ships out there at sea anchored.” Despite the delays and mounting shipping costs American families...

Positive Attitude Month is an annual designation observed in October. OBSERVE Think positively. Expect great things. Use #PositiveAttitudeMonth to post on social media.

The West Coast port slowdowns are hurting workers as well as retailers this holiday season.The NBC affiliate in Seattle reported that many of those who work for the ports can’t afford utilities or Christmas gifts for their families because the slowdowns have delayed their paychecks. The work slowdowns are the result of a seven-month labor dispute between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Each side of the dispute blames the other.Vicki Raiter, the mother of one of the Port of Tacoma workers, told the local NBC affiliate, “If the shipments aren’t coming, then...

The U.S. Navy's Name GamePosted by Mark Thompson Sunday January 9, 2011 at 8:30 pm Prospective parents battling over the names of their unborn kids have nothing on the U.S. Navy, which is in the middle of a spat over the wisdom of naming a new ship for the late Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha. In fact, it has kicked off a bigger battle over just who, or what, should be honored with their names on the great gray hulls of the nation's warships. "It comes down to two points," says military historian James Caiella. "Who and what we are as...

Once powerful lobbyist Paul Magliochetti was sentenced Friday to 27 months in prison for making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations and lying to the Federal Election Commission. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III also sentenced Magliochetti to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a $75,000 fine. Magliochetti, a former staffer on the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee who had close ties to the late Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), in September pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to one count each of making false statements, illegal conduit political contributions and...

Violated U.S. campaign funding laws, recruited family members The Justice Department is seeking a maximum prison sentence of 57 months for superlobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, accusing him of "devising one of the largest criminal schemes in U.S. history to violate federal campaign finance laws," according to a sentencing memo filed last week in federal court.Magliocchetti, who pleaded guilty in September to making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations through "straw donors" to favored members of Congress, is seeking home confinement, probation and a $10,000 fine, saying he is physically and medically ill and a more lenient sentence would...

The founder and president of the PMA Group pled guilty Friday to making illegal campaign contributions and making false statements to a federal agency. Paul Magliocchetti offered the plea in federal court in Arlington, Va. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 17. The former lobbyist pleaded guilty to one count each of making false statements, making illegal conduit contributions and making illegal corporate contributions. The now-defunct PMA Group came under scrutiny in early 2009 from both federal authorities and House ethics committee investigators over campaign contributions made to a number of veteran defense appropriations, including the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.),...

  Former Murtha crony Paul Magliocchetti was indicted yesterday on 11 counts. The indictment was not unexpected and relates primarily to Magliocchetti’s rather hamhanded manuevers to evade campaign contribution limits by having family members, employees and friends make contributions for which they were paid back.The indictment certainly relates the PMA “pay to play” scheme, but it does not address the underlying possible crimes by members of Congress who secured earmarks for PMA clients in return for campaign contributions and other benefits. It is not known to what extent, if any, the Justice Department has sought a plea bargain with...

The founder of a once lucrative defense lobby shop was arrested on Thursday after being indicted on eight counts of making illegal campaign contributions to lawmakers. Government prosecutors allege that Paul Magliocchetti, who founded the now defunct PMA Group, orchestrated a scheme to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions in an effort to enrich himself and his firm by increasing its influence and prestige in Washington. Magliocchetti has been indicted on 11 counts: four counts of making illegal campaign contributions in the name of someone else; four counts of making illegal campaign contributions from a corporation;...

Defense contractors who openly discussed a suspected pay-to-play scheme in e-mails released by congressional ethics investigators had ties to a powerful lobbying firm and won millions of dollars in federal earmarks after contributing to the campaign of an Indiana congressman. Democratic Rep. Peter J. Visclosky requested a $2.5 million federal earmark for Nevada-based defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) five days after a March 2007 fundraiser for which the company's owners and its political action committee contributed $18,800 to the congressman's campaign. Similarly, Mr. Visclosky requested $2.5 million for defense firm 21st Century Systems — five days after its employees...

The Office of Congressional Ethics voted unanimously last week to ask the U.S. Justice Department to review documents in the PMA Group pay-to-play scheme.The OCE, a bipartisan board created by congress and composed of private citizens, released a statement of May 27 saying that it would send the Justice Department "evidence [that] pertains to a factual finding by the OCE Board that certain persons and companies saw their campaign donations as affecting decisions about earmarks."The office has conducted seven investigations of the PMA Group, which is the lobbying firm at the center of an alleged scheme in which lawmakers...

A congressional ethics office asked the Justice Department on Thursday to review evidence it found suggesting that companies are providing campaign cash to lawmakers for no-bid contracts, and consider a criminal probe. The Office of Congressional Ethics investigation focused on companies that were clients of the once powerful lobby firm the PMA Group and sought earmarked contracts from lawmakers who sat on the House Appropriations committee. The referral was an end-run around the House ethics committee, which earlier this year declined to investigate the matter as the OCE recommended and said it found no substantiation that lawmakers were engaged...

Many of the defense contractors that benefited from the late Rep. John Murtha's power to dole out Pentagon contracts are lining up to help elect his top aide to the seat. Defense contractors, local business officers and lobbyists that relied on earmarked federal contracts from Murtha (D-Pa.) recently chipped in $142,400 to elect Mark Critz, an analysis by The Washington Post shows. Those donations made up more than 52 percent of the individual contributions that Critz raised in the first-quarter of 2010 as he seeks to replace his late boss, new campaign records reveal. Critz is a friendly face to...

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) wants to force the ethics committee to reveal information on its investigation into the PMA Group. Flake on Thursday filed a privileged resolution giving the ethics committee seven days to come clean on the amount of investigative work it conducted in its review of lawmakers with ties to PMA Group, a lobbying firm know for showering members with campaign cash in return for receiving multimillion-dollar earmarks for its clients. Flake, as well as outside watchdog groups, has voiced deep frustration over the brevity of the ethics panel’s report exonerating seven lawmakers with ties to PMA Group....

Just as the cherry blossoms arrive each spring around the capital's Tidal Basin, cases of Congressional ethics appear to be blooming everywhere in Washington. Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means Chairmanship floated away this week. New York Congressman Eric Mass dropped his House seat via retirement ahead of sexual harassment allegations. But the most striking—and relevant—of all ethics cases is passing without notice. It's worth a close look. It involves earmarks, which everyone in America knows Congress has promised to clean up. Read the tale below, and discover how Congress assumes that the once-spectacular issue of earmark abuse can...

Superlobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, the focus of a federal criminal investigation, held an ownership interest in three small, privately held companies that his lobbying firm had helped obtain millions of federal tax dollars in congressional earmarks. In effect, he was trying to profit twice from his firm's success in getting members of Congress to set aside, or earmark, tax money for his clients in annual appropriations bills by collecting hefty lobbying fees from the companies and, at the same time, hoping to make money by investing in their stock. ~snip~ While the OMB did not identify which member of Congress obtained...

More than 30 US politicians, among them seven members of a defence procurement committee, are being investigated in congressional ethics inquiries into influence-peddling, according to a document leaked accidentally on to the internet. The disclosure sheds light on a process by which billions of dollars a year are spent on defence projects that the Pentagon does not want and which limits funds available for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. House Representatives named in the document include John Murtha, the chairman of the House Defence Appropriations Sub-committee, who added so-called “earmarks” worth more than $100 million (£61 million) to...

When software firm MobilVox wanted to break into the lucrative world of defense contracting, it pursued an unmistakable strategy: It expanded operations from its Northern Virginia base in Rep. James P. Moran's congressional district to the southwestern Pennsylvania district of Rep. John P. Murtha. Working with two of the most powerful members of a House subcommittee that controls Pentagon spending, the company also hired lobbying firms that employed former top aides of both the Democratic lawmakers and Mr. Murtha's brother. Company executives and their lobbyists donated thousands of dollars to the two congressmen. Soon, money flowed the other way. Between...

WASHINGTON — With the current chairman under fire for his connections to a lobbying firm under FBI investigation, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., could be in line to take over the chairmanship of the House panel that oversees Pentagon funding. But even as that possibility looms, Dicks himself faces increased scrutiny for his relationship to the lobbying firm at the heart of the investigation. So far, Dicks hasn't been sucked into the latest earmark-campaign contribution scandal on Capitol Hill, though he and a handful of other lawmakers have skated around the edges. Dicks adamantly denies any wrongdoing and said he hasn't...

Congressman John Murtha, the King of Congressional Pork acts may be losing his Teflon coating and his friends are getting a bit nervous. A few months ago, the FBI raided the offices of the PMA group. What they found suggested that Murtha and his buddies at the PMA Group operated their own little Earmark Factory. A later report suggested that the FBI may be zeroing in on the relationship between Murtha and PMA. No worries for Mr. Murtha, despite the FBI putting the heat on his PMA relationship, the Porkmeister is is still accepting money from PMA clients and still...