PA-07: A TALE OF TWO DAUGHTERS AND WHY CURT WELDON SHOULD BE DRIVEN OUT OF CONGRESS ON A RAIL

If you read the DWT endorsement of Joe Sestak last week, you probably saw some of the reasons why I'm no fan of PA-07's whacked-out entrenched incumbent, the Moonie-lovin' Curt Weldon. At the time we decided on the endorsement, we also decided not to attack his 29 year old daughter Karen, even though we have read she is a corrupt Republican stooge/lobbyist and a bag-lady for her corrupt father. We just felt it wasn't kosher to attack Weldon's family and that his own misdeeds and abysmal record would help elect Admiral Sestak without dragging his pathetic family through the slime. So what changed?

In looking for a way to slow down the surging Sestak, Weldon made the political miscalculation of his entire miserable career. He snidely attacked Sestak and his family over the medical treatment they had chosen for their 5 year old daughter. Reaction in the district: revulsion at Weldon's crass, callus, partisan viciousness. If you want to know what kind of a degenerate Sestak is running against, please read the story in The Hill and remember back about why the whole nation was revolted by right-wing interference in the medical decisions DeLay, Bush, Frist, Santorum and other extremists tried making for Terri Schiavo.

So what about Weldon and his daughter the bribe-collecting bag-lady lobbyist? The L.A. Times had quite a bit to say about that today. Is it as bad as Republicrook John Doolittle using his moll to rake in the bribes and take a percentage for him? Absolutely; same Tom DeLay-inspired Republicrookery. It isn't just about questionable ethics. It's the kind of behavior that should land Weldon and his daughter in prison.

When Karen Weldon started getting some mighty high-flying foreign clients, she had exactly zero experience as a lobbyist. But she had a powerful, avaricious, glutonous and greed-obsessed daddy. (He wolfs down enough food for 3 or 4 normal people and is almost as fat as Dennis Hastert and Jim Sensenbrenner-- and don't think maintaining a figure like his costs pennies!) "Yet," says the L.A. Times, "her tiny firm was selected last year for a plum $240,000 contract to promote the good works of a wealthy Serbian family that had been linked to accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. "Despite a lack of professional credentials, she had one notable asset— her father, U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who is a leading voice in Washington on former Eastern Bloc affairs. She got the contract after he championed the efforts of two family members, Dragomir and Bogoljub Karic, to win U.S. visas from the State Department, which so far has refused them entry. Intelligence officials warned Weldon that the brothers were too close to Milosevic, who is accused of leading the "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslav federation."

That this is a criminal family-- criminal in terms of war crimes and in terms of Mafia tactics-- doesn't stop Weldon any more than a little bit of mud in the farm yard keeps a hog away from the feeding trough. He's salivating over the Karics vast empire of banking and telecommunications and he keeps hassling the State Department to let them into the U.S. And it hasn't stopped with the Serbs. Weldon has also been trying to get special consideration for two shady Russian clients of his daughter's-- clients who have put nearly a million dollars into the Weldon family budget this year.

"The Weldons," points out the L.A. Times, "are the latest example of special interests hiring relatives of important members of Congress as lobbyists and consultants. Over the last year, The Times has identified 11 other House members and 17 senators with relatives who lobby or consult, many of them for clients the members have helped through legislative or other action."

This fat slob of a congressman has rubber-stamped every slimy and catastrophic Bush/DeLay proposal while he feathered his own nest and increased his own girth. Plenty of time to criticize Admiral Sestak's medical choices for his 5 year old critically-ill daughter. But when it comes to making health care decisions for the citzens of Delaware County, Weldon is just another selfish, corporate greedball, selling out his constituents' interests again and again and again. The issue isn't about what hospital the Sestaks have chosen to save their daughter's life. It is why countless people in southeast Pennsylvania have no health care at all because of Curt Weldon's disgraceful rubber-stamp voting record.


MONDAY NIGHT UPDATE: A CHANCE TO ACT BLUE

DWT has just added an ACT BLUE Page for Joe Sestak. So if you'd like to see Curt Weldon and his lobbyist daughter waving bye-bye in November, keep in mind that even $10 or $20 is a tremendous help when enough people get together to combat the influence of the rich, powerful and corrupt.


THURSDAY UPDATE: THE CURT WELDON STORY GETS WORSE AND WORSE

Right in top of revelations that Weldon had his snout in Pete Sessions' Promia trough, HARPER'S has published an investigative piece called "The Curt Weldon Employment Agency," that clearly marks Weldon as someone calling out for federal investigators to stop him before he commits more crimes in his official capacity on the House Armed Services Committee.


MAY 9 UPDATE: HIDE EVERYTHING-- WELDON IS COMIN' THIS WAY AND HE'S HUNGRY

Billmon has also taken a look at a hungry, gluttonous soon to be ex-congressman. I think you'll like what he saw.