GOP CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS BREAKS THRU THE TWO DOZEN MARK AS FLORIDA'S REACTIONARY DAVE WELDON ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT

Florida wingnut, Dave Weldon, plays bass on "Another one Bites the Dust"

A few days ago as the GOP hit the 2 dozen mark with congressional retirements and resignations after an announcement from New York's James Walsh, we were speculating who the next Republican would be to cut and run. This morning we got the answer: Florida rubber stamp kook, Dave Weldon is blasting off into the sunset. Weldon, from Amityville moved to Florida after college. Like myself he went to SUNY, Stony Brook. He was elected from the 15th CD (Cape Canaveral south through Melbourne and Cocoa Beach) in 1994 and has been a dependable rubber stamp back bencher ever since. He has a typically repulsive reactionary voting record, supporting, for example, every single Bush-Cheney initiative in Iraq. He voted on Iraq legislation 62 times and all 62 votes were the Cheney position. He announced his retirement immediately after his daughter was arrested in a local bar brawl. He said he needs to spend more time with his family. Republicans usually say that when they get caught stealing or in public toilets making that special kind of GOP-love, but in Weldon's case, it appears to be true.

No 8th term for Weldon in this Republican-leaning district that has had a solid influx of non-Republican voters from Puerto Rico of late. His departure will open up another seat on the Appropriations Committee for Republican crooks to fight over. There is a terrific and progressive Democrat in the race already, Steve Blythe and, with Weldon's announcement, the more conservative, corporate-friendly Insider Democrats are sure to rush some shill into the race and get their media allies to call him or her the front-runner.

Rumors are circulating in upstate New York that Randy Kuhl has about had it, senses defeat at the hands of Eric Massa, and is probably going to retire as well. He nearly did in 2006 and came very close to being beaten. After voting against the extremely popular S-CHIP legislation again, he was put into a corner and agreed to debate Massa on that topic. He doesn't want to and may well announce his retirement before the debate takes place. When questioned by the press, he refused to say whether he would run or not. This is certainly shaping up to be a good year for Democrats. Here's the full list of the Republicans who will no longer be troubling the House of Representatives with their reactionary politics and obstructionist tactics (the ones in bold are facing, or are likely to be facing, criminal charges in the future):

(CA-52) Duncan Hunter      
(IL-18) Ray LaHood            
(MS-03) Chip Pickering                 
(OH-15) Deborah Pryce                 
(IL-14) Dennis Hastert                   
(AZ-01) Rick Renzi                         
(MN-03) Jim Ramstad                   
(IL-11) Jerry Weller                         
(AL-02) Terry Everett                     
(NM-01) Heather Wilson                  
(OH-16) Ralph Regula                   
(OH-07) David Hobson                   
(NM-02) Steve Pearce                   
(LA-01) Bobby Jindal                   
(CO-06) Tom Tancredo                  
(NJ-03) Jim Saxton                        
(WY-AL) Barbara Cubin                 
(NJ-07) Michael Ferguson              
(LA-04) Jim McCrery                     
(MS-01) Roger Wicker                 
(PA-05) John Peterson                  
(CA-04) John Doolittle                     
(LA-06) Richard Baker
(NY-25) Jim Walsh                       
(FL-15) Dave Weldon                    

Steve Blythe, the progressive candidate running for Congress in what was Weldon's district, talking about his common sense and inspiring vision for America:

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.