Matthew Berry. Not the ESPN guy: the former Clarence Thomas clerk/DoJ/FCC guy. He’s running on a fiscal conservatism/national security/ethics platform; and opposing the infamous Jim Moran, believer in Israeli conspiracies.  His statement about Moran’s blathering* on the NYC show trials works for me:

“It is wrong for Congressman Moran to question the patriotism of the millions of Americans who believe that terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried by military commissions rather than in civilian courtrooms. Furthermore, Congressman Moran’s comment reflects a basic ignorance of American history. Military commissions were used to try war crimes during the Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War II. The use of a military commission to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would have been entirely in keeping with American history and tradition.”

For those wondering: VA-08 is a D+16 district that includes Arlington, Virginia, which makes Matthew’s oppositional stance on the hot-button topics of the stimulus, cap and trade, and the health care rationing bill all the more notable.  He’s also supportive of the Tea Party’s objectives of more citizen involvement in government, particularly from a fiscal point of view.  Lastly; Matthew happens to be gay, and is making no attempt to hide his sexual orientation.  Which, given the way that minority conservatives routinely get viciously targeted by the Other Side, deserves particular mention.

The race itself is in its early days; Matthew appears to be the first candidate to declare for the primary (the VA GOP**, while not involving itself in primaries, did note that “it would be of great benefit to the Commonwealth of Virginia if Jim Moran were to lose his seat;” they look forward to supporting the eventual candidate).  All in all, a fiscon and natsec hawk sounds like a definite trade-up to the guy that we have in there now - especially since he reads RedState.  Note to candidates: that is a very, very smart thing to do…

Moe Lane

*Apparently, objecting to show trials in NYC is now somehow un-American.  I’d note the irony, except that I’m more bemused at the irony that a ’show trial’ has become the best possible outcome for this administration.

**Who did a nice job with the last election, by the way.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Arlington/Alexandria Democrat Jim Moran is always a reliable source of lunacy and foolishness; examples include blaming the Iraq War on Jews (Moran has an exhaustive rap sheet of anti-Semitism) and pushing to get Guantanamo detainees tried in his district over the objections of local Democrats.

Monday, at a Creigh Deeds rally, Moran was on hand to prove that there is no cause so lost that he won’t contribute some crazy to it:

U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) likened the Republican ticket in Virginia this year to Afghanistan’s radical Taliban movement in comments broadcast Sunday by WAMU radio.

At a get-out-the-vote rally in Fairfax County, Moran said: “I mean, if the Republicans were running in Afghanistan, they’d be running on the Taliban ticket as far as I can see.”

Of course, when it comes to fighting the actual Taliban, Moran’s position is a lot more, er, nuanced; it turns out that his view of the US military’s presence in Afghanistan is closer to the Taliban’s than to the GOP’s:

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[UPDATE]: I’ve had a copy of the image sent to me that includes the URL.  The Google cache for the site is here; as you can see, not only did the image originate from the site, but the author him/herself was present at the Reston Town Hall, writing posts about it.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I think that we’ve established that the flier found below represents a deliberate attempt by the Left to incite racially-motivated hate against the Right.

I apologize in advance for the ugly and graphic nature of the image that will be available for viewing after the fold: I would prefer not to show it, but unfortunately somebody decided that it was suitable for distribution after the Reston, VA Town Hall - and I can’t actually talk about it without showing it.

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You know, this admission may have justified the entire town hall thing, right there:

Here’s the quote:

“This is the answer from a doctor and a politician. Here’s why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put in it, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on. And that is the plain and simple truth.”

Not that Dean’s being completely truthful: the various health care rationing bills share a distressing lack of taking anybody on. And he neglected to mention that the problem wasn’t so much ‘taking on’ the trial lawyers as it was ‘losing the money‘ from them. But this is still more truth than we’ve grown accustomed to from a Democratic politician: no doubt one reason that they packed Dean off to American Samoa right after the election.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

No surprise here:

The House ethics committee indicated Thursday that it was reviewing the links between a number of lawmakers and the now-defunct lobbying firm The PMA Group.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the panel is called, issued a statement responding to a resolution (H Res 500) the House adopted June 3. The resolution directed the ethics committee to notify the chamber if it was examining the PMA matter.

The Democratic lawmakers with links to PMA include John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee; Peter J. Visclosky of Indiana, a senior member of Murtha’s panel who was recently subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in regard to his ties to PMA; and James P. Moran of Virginia, another senior member of the subcommittee. Dozens of other lawmakers have sponsored earmarks for PMA clients.

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I understand that the PMA thing requires a distraction; but this?

In each case, Alexandria demonstrated the kind of courage and patriotism that can be traced to the city’s roots as the home town of George Washington and Robert E. Lee.

“Courage” I will grant for General Lee, readily enough. I even think that he did what he thought was the right thing. However, speaking as someone whose home states contributed the 69th New York Infantry, the 1st New Jersey Brigade, and the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry to the Army of the Potomac… I feel that we should reserve the designation of “patriotism” for those individuals who, generally speaking, do not enter into armed rebellion against the duly constituted government of the United States of America.

Although I must admit: it almost obscures the fact that the man has just volunteered his Congressional District to hold a bunch of vicious terrorists indefinitely. As I said before, that’s one heck of a distraction.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

In a stunning coincidence*, there seems to be a certain correlation between the contributions of the Virginian Moran Boys:

Moran Campaign Contributors Have Business Before Brother

More than a dozen defense contractors with business before U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the powerful House Appropriations defense subcommittee, have donated thousands of dollars to Moran’s younger brother Brian, a candidate for governor of Virginia.

Brian Moran filed a campaign finance report this week that shows he collected $80,000 during the first three months of 2009 from 18 contractors that have been longtime backers of the congressman. Seven of the firms are awaiting approval of Moran-backed earmarks totaling $14.5 million.

The claim, of course, is that there’s all sorts of separation between Rep. Jim Moran and Brian Moran - the fact that one is a powerful defense pork appropriator has no connection whatsoever to the generous contributions made to the other. And the fact that the one is finding his campaign contributions drying up in the wake of the PMA raid and closure should not in any way, shape, or form be seen as an indication that any sort of money flow is attempting to find another channel. It’d be silly to think otherwise.

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Politico has a report today on Democrats’ effort to transfer the violent terrorists currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay to facilities within the U.S.

“It sets us back in the war on terrorism to be maintaining Guantanamo,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who’s heading an investigation of the facility for the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

“It will enhance our reputation to close it down and to apply our system of justice to all of these detainees,” he added. …

Northern Virginia is pretty much the classic example of an upscale suburban area that has gone much bluer in the past 4 years, and exactly the sort of place where it has been fashionable to be horrified by the detention without trial of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay…without giving a second thought to what you would do with those detainees if you closed the place. As long as George W. Bush was president, it was safe and easy to complain about Gitmo without facing those realities.

That was then; Bush is gone now, and with his successor actually entertaining the daft notion of bringing detainees stateside for trials in our criminal justice system, an idea long championed by Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia’s 8th District (which includes Arlington and Alexandria, “the heart of Northern Virginia”) suddenly the residents of Alexandria are awakening to the problem:

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[UPDATE] Oh, this just got better.  Via Hot Air:

Lobbyist Inquiry Appears to Be Widening

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are looking into the possibility that a prominent lobbyist may have funneled bogus campaign contributions to his mentor, Representative John P. Murtha, as well as other lawmakers, two people familiar with the investigator’s questions said Tuesday.

(H/T: Instapundit) But by the time we’re done, the word will be “dwarves*”:

Dems’ ethical troubles reminiscent of GOPers’ headaches as majority

Despite President Obama’s repeated pledge to usher in a new, more ethical climate in Washington, House Democrats’ ethical troubles have begun to resemble those the GOP had when it occupied the majority just three years ago.

In many ways, the developments are more difficult for Democrats because they rose to power, at least in part, by vowing to right the ethical wrongs of the past.

And now Democratic leaders are facing new ethics questions as a senior Democrat is under fire for his ties to two firms under FBI investigation.

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