RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IS MORE ATTRACTIVE TO DUNCAN HUNTER THAN JOINING HIS PAL DUKE CUNNINGHAM IN PRISON (WHERE HE BELONGS)

Today Duncan Hunter, an extreme right wing congressman from the suburbs and desert east of San Diego, made it official: he's running for president (of the United States... of America). One of the triumvirate-- along with Jerry Lewis and Randy "Duke" Cunningham-- of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee that was a major pillar of Tom DeLay's Republican Culture of Corruption, Hunter is under investigation (as is Lewis; Cunningham already having been convicted and sentenced to prison) for a wide array of corruption charges.

When Fox "News" and the Washington Post first announced he was setting up an exploratory committee, neither could avoid mentioning Hunter's close relationship with Cunningham, nor the fact that "Hunter has accepted $46,000 in campaign donations from the same contractors at the center of the Cunningham scandal, Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade." That's the tip of the iceberg and it is suspected that Hunter, like Cunningham, accepted millions of dollars in bribes from Republican defense contractors over the years. In fact, most knowledgeable sources looking into the case, agree that both Jerry Lewis and Duncan Hunter dwarfed Cunningham in terms of bribes taken in. After all, each was infinitely more powerful and more able to make good on the desires of the vast array of bribers who were always so generous with them.

Yesterday the New York Times did a pre-announcement introduction of Hunter to its readers, the vast majority of whom are assumed to have never heard of Hunter (unlike DWT readers who should be well aware of Hunter's nefarious dealings, there being 72 mentions of Hunter (none laudatory) on the internal search engine and 804 if you search "duncan hunter," "downwithtyranny" on Google. The Times led with a regurgitation of the crap in the press release-- "Hunter will make his announcement at the Marriott Renaissance Park hotel in the South Carolina city of Spartanburg... The breakfast event is titled 'America: The Strength of Freedom,' which also is Hunter’s campaign slogan." Then it goes on to talk about what a hawk he is, how he hates immigration and women's right to choice and how he won't have an easy time fundraising because no one knows who the hell he is. And... and nothing. Not a word from the paper of record about corruption, bribes, Brent Wilkes, Tony Snesko, Mitchell Wade, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Carol Lam or anything else that might give Americans a clue that the man asking for their support may well wind up in prison before the first primary votes are cast.

Today the press is tip-toeing around connecting Hunter with the Culture of Corruption. USA Today was far more blunt in 2005:

Brent Wilkes, the founder of defense contractor ADCS Inc., gave more than $840,000 in contributions to 32 House members or candidates, campaign-finance records show. He flew Republican lawmakers on his private jet and hired lobbyists with close ties to those lawmakers.

Wilkes' charitable foundation, which aids sick children and military families, honored congressmen at black-tie banquets and donated to their favorite causes. Wilkes was also a "Pioneer" for President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, meaning he raised at least $100,000.

With help from two committee chairmen, ADCS got more than $90 million in government contracts since its founding in 1995, helping propel Wilkes from an obscure businessman to a millionaire prominent in Republican circles.

Since 1994, Wilkes and ADCS gave $40,700 in campaign contributions to Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego Republican who now chairs the House Armed Services Committee. Hunter has acknowledged that he joined with Cunningham in 1999 to contact Pentagon officials who reversed a decision and gave ADCS one of its first big contracts, for nearly $10 million. Hunter's spokesman, Joe Kasper, said the congressman was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Another California Republican, Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, led panels that ordered the Pentagon to continue programs that aided ADCS when Pentagon officials wanted to cut them. Lewis got $71,253 from Wilkes and his employees in donations since 1993. Wilkes gave Lewis donations and met him at various events, Lewis spokesman Jim Specht said, but "he never talked with him about a defense project."

Before becoming the Appropriations chairman this year, Lewis led the subcommittee that oversees defense spending. In the late 1990s, that panel directed the Pentagon to continue converting paper documents to computer records, the work that ADCS does. Pentagon officials had tried to end the program's funding.

Wilkes' ties to Hunter and Cunningham go beyond campaign contributions. In 2003, the businessman's foundation hosted a "Salute to Heroes" gala to give Hunter an award, just as it did for Cunningham a year earlier. The Wilkes Foundation gave $1,000 in 2003 to a charity run by two of Hunter's staffers, records show.

Bloggers have also been on Hunter's trail for a long time and the consensus is that he's every bit as much of a crook as Cunningham. Taylor Marsh has done a great job on her own blog and at Firedoglake, especially when it came to shining a light on Hunter's shady connections with Republican swiftboat operations, at least one of which was surreptitiously run out of his office. And the Pogo Blog has kept track of Hunter's wheelings and dealings with other criminal elements like war profiteers and bribers Titan.

In recent years, Titan has also continued to enjoy a generous flow of Pentagon money--in part thanks to Duncan Hunter and the "queen of earmarks" Letitia White. Between 2003 and 2005, Titan retained White to look after its interests as the FY 04, 05, and 06 armed services and intelligence authorization and appropriations bills were crafted. (Titan has also been a top contributor to White's former boss Rep. Jerry Lewis.)

Included in some bills, for example, are earmarks beyond what the Pentagon requested for two Navy projects, the experimental Sea Fighter LCS(X) craft and the Affordable Weapons System (AWS). Both projects have been championed by Hunter, and are contracted by Titan.

Both projects, however, have not been met with universal acclaim within the Navy. Though the AWS--touted as a cheap, off-the-shelf alternative to the Tactical Tomahawk--has consistently been praised in House Armed Services Committee reports, a Navy report recently submitted to Congress was less sanguine about the project that Hunter has earmarked $27 million for in the latest House Defense Authorization bill. An excerpt from the Navy communique as reported in a May 29, 2006, Inside the Navy story:

Originally the [Affordable Weapon System] provided much promise, however, it has experienced many technical difficulties resulting in zero successful test flights. Numerous non-Navy initiated engineering changes have significantly increased the cost of the missile. While AWS continues to receive Congressional funding, there are a number of other missile concepts that may provide similar solutions...at a reduced cost.

In case of the Sea Fighter LCS(X) craft, $25.7 million was earmarked in the latest defense authorization bill. Yet the LCS(X), according to the National Journal's Megan Scully, who also took a look at Hunter's Titan ties today:

...does not have a place in the Navy's ambitious 313-ship plan, which [Congressional Budget Office] already views as potentially unaffordable. And the vessel has spent two of the last four months dry-docked for major repairs to its propulsion and other systems.

"For a ship that's brand new, it has a lot of problems," said one Navy official.

Titan was acquired last year by L3 Communications, which is currently the second top corporate donor to both Hunter and Lewis.

Raw Story has also done extensive investigative reporting on Hunter's nefarious activities.

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has come under fire from constituents for accepting nearly a quarter million dollars in campaign contributions from missile defense contractors over the past five years. Hunter has also drawn criticism for accepting $46,000 from un-indicted co-conspirators implicated in bribing Hunter’s friend and San Diego colleague, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned from Congress after pleading guilty.

But Hunter’s ties to the defense industry go even deeper.

The Republican Congressman shares ownership in a Virginia cabin with Pete Geren-- who served as Acting Secretary of the U.S. Air Force from August through early November, RAW STORY has learned. Hunter’s disclosure forms filed with the FEC indicate he built the cabin in 1996 along with Geren and a third partner, Al Tierney....

Hunter, who has held office for 25 years, has come under fire for other questionable defense deals. A Dec. 8 editorial titled "Legal Looting" in the conservative San Diego Union-Tribune criticized Hunter for helping defense contractors ADCS and AUDRE obtain $190 million in Pentagon contracts for "automated data conversion" projects. A 1994 General Accounting Office report noted that the Pentagon didn't want this "help," as it already had the tools for such work, the editorial noted.

But the Union-Tribune observed, "Cunningham, Hunter and their House allies didn’t care. AUDRE and ADCS were generous with contributions-- and ADCS executive Brent Wilkes was allegedly bribing Cunningham. No matter who griped, lawmakers could always add 'earmarks' for pet projects to bills and get their way. This led to such absurdities as a $9.7 million contract for ADCS to digitize historical documents from the Panama Canal Zone that the Pentagon considered insignificant."

It never ceases to amaze me how the mainstream media neglects to mention "little" things like this when they can dwell on completely fabricated nonsense about Obama going to a madrassah or about Hillary being "deserted" by Hollywood.