Posted on 07/05/2005 10:10:41 AM PDT by Jimbaugh
The question remains: what, if anything, did Duke do that was unethical or illegal? I don;t see anyone asserting that the boat and slip were sold significantly above market price. Duke was not required to disclose the mortgage on it. Can anyone go beyond innuendo and tell me what transgression happened here?
That was to cloud the story. Make Cunningham look like the 'bad guy'.---------------this is what it is about----------
Wade is the founder of MZM Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based company which has received $163 million in defense contracts since 2002. Cunningham, a member of the influential House defense appropriations subcommittee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has said that he supported funding requests benefiting MZM. Cunningham also has lived aboard Wade's 42-foot yacht, the Duke-Stir, since April 2004 in the same slip once occupied by the Kelly C.
Federal agents executed search warrants Friday at Cunningham's Rancho Santa Fe home, MZM's headquarters and Wade's yacht.
This may be no more than the 'Haliburton stories' or it may be something. But I want to stick with our guys until the truth is known.
At least that is the way I see it.
It is amazing how the cesspool that is Congress captures nearly everyone that enters, Republican or Democrat.
No kidding! Term limits (for every state, every office) would help and no golden parachute pension that grows with every year they are in office! Most of these guys retire richer than they were when they went to DC in the first place!!
"Cunningham was a decorated pilot in Vietnam. "
This is starting to look like another hero gone bad.
John Glenn: Fighter pilot/Ted Williams wing man, Several air speed records, first American in space,
CAUGHT TAKING BRIBES FROM CHARLES KEATING
John McCain: Son and Grandson of Admirals, Fighter pilot, Valiant POW,
CAUGHT TAKING BRIBES FROM CHARLES KEATING
Now Duke Cunningham: Fighter pilot, ACE,
?????????????????????????????????
I'm not sure, but I think Republicans are still allowed to sell items they purchased at a profit some years later.
Resign? How about prosecution.
State Senator Bill Morrow would be in the best position.
Fame -- and 5 MiG's -- can obscure flaws of character for many years.
If the "Dukester" ends up sharing a cell with "Beam Me UP" Traficant, who would be the husband and who would be the wife?
Cunningham bought the 65-foot flat-bottom riverboat Kelly C from then-Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., for $200,000 in 1997. Five years later, he sold the boat for $600,000 to Thomas Kontogiannis, the Long Island businessman said yesterday.
The ace Cunningham supposedly shot down was Colonel Toon, who had 13 kills and was the leading enemy ace. He is also identified as Toom or Tomb.
First, let me say he is almost certainly fictional, (but not made up by Cunningham) because the Vietnamese recognized as their top ace another guy who had 9 kills, and they would never miss a chance to promote Toon if he really existed. Looking about on the internet I've found two kinds of sources: Ones that say Cunningham killed Toon and ones that say it was a misidentification, but not one site mentions how it was known Toon was/wasn't the guy Cunningham killed. There's an anti-Cunningham site (not one of the new opportunists, this guy has hated Cunningham from way back) which quotes some book authors (Vietnam vets) that went to Vietnam and could find no record of Toon. However, I take that person's account and quotation of those books with a grain of salt, because he casts aspersions on Cunningham's war record, saying he isn't a hero because his kill doesn't matter after occurring so late in the war and other reasons that have nothing to do with whether someone was really heroic or not.
Funny how the libs think the Navy's medal system is ironclad when John Kerry gets a Purple Heart for band-aid wounds but is a corrupt swamp if it gives Duke Cunningham a Navy Cross for killing three MiGs in one mission and saving his squadron XO's life.
So...it beats the heck out of me how this happened, or who Cunningham shot down on 10 May 1972.
In orbit, actually. Alan Sheppard was the first in space.
What this article proves is that "Duke" has done the same kind of deal that he did with his house with his boat.
No more " I have never done this before". This is a prior bad act.
I wonder how long it will take the Kool-Aid Republicans to jump off the boat.
I have another Robert Taylor print that shows Duke and Driscoll in their famous duel in their F-4. I beleive they shot down two or three Migs in one encounter.
Kempo, I know what you mean. I will give Duke the benefit of the doubt. I'm just saying, if he's sitting in his office ad he knows he did something bad, he should get out NOW. If not, fight like the devil.
Duke, if you're reading this and you did something naughty, then reach back and pull those striped handles above your seat cushion...
Lucky you! And you're correct, they got three MiGs in one mission.
There's a painting (I'm not sure if it's Taylor) called "Advantage Cunningham" that shows them engaged with the third MiG of the day...the F-4 looms in the foreground, turning left and down toward a distant MiG-17. The composition is very nicely done and there's a sense of the MiG fleeing desperately...the F-4 could outrun the MiG 17 with no problem.
I don't see the problem. If the guy Duke sold the boat to thinks he's getting "a steal" because of a valuation that told him the boat was worth twice as much, then whose business is it what Duke does with the boat?
He kept it 5 years.
If Duke could have gotten double the $$ he got, he may be stupid, not dishonest.
That's the one I got! I bought it when I was visiting the Wright-Patterson museum several years ago. The print I have has a banner at the bottm commemorating some event they had at W-P in the 1980's.
The cumulative number of tea bags is looking pretty bad. Of course it's still early in the process. The FBI just raided Cunningham's home and office, and the Grand Jury looking into his affairs hasn't yet issued indictments. But it's perfectly reasonable for onlookers to say that a lot of suspicious smoke is in the air, with the strong possibility of fire underneath it all.
Remember, corrupt officials generally try to cover their tracks. Cunningham and his attorneys will argue that none of these financial deals involved a quid pro quo, and that it was all reasonable and explainable. Whereas a more objective observer will look at the same constellation of activities and smell the strong whiff of bribery and influence peddling.
Maybe Cunningham really is clean. Maybe there will be no indictments. Maybe he'll stay in office and win re-election.
Maybe. But don't put a lot of money on it.
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