Sorry for the echo, but Muckracker does a far better job than I would breaking it down:
It looks like one of MZM's Pentagon boondoggles will shut down soon, the Roanoke Times reports today. It's good to hear the DoD is pulling back from its MZM contracts, but it looks like bad news for the folks in the rural town that's home to the operation.The program -- the Virginia-based Foreign Supplier Assessment Center -- was created in 2003 by an earmark tucked into a classified appropriations bill by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), to be operated by MZM. He kept it alive with another earmark in 2005.
Before inserting the first earmark, Goode accepted many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from MZM. Before the second earmark, he enjoyed the same largesse. In all, Goode took about $90,000 in campaign contributions from MZM president Mitchell Wade and other employees. Goode has since given the money to charity; Wade has pleaded guilty to bribing convicted congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Cunningham, of course, has gone to jail.
But here's the curious, and sad, thing: Goode didn't just fleece a few million bucks from U.S. taxpayers to give the military a facility they didn't want. He also screwed his own constituents -- the less-than-prosperous residents of Martinsville, Virginia.
In addition to his federal earmarking for MZM, Goode pushed the Commonwealth of Virginia and the town of Martinsville to give MZM incredibly favorable terms, as one blogger notes.
To be exact: the state of Virginia gave MZM $500,000 to locate in Martinsville, if they met certain criteria (which have they never completely met). But if the center didn't perform well -- as it appears, now, it never will -- the city of Martinsville is forced to repay that money from its own coffers, not MZM.
That cruel twist, reports say, was Goode's idea. Not that it's affecting Goode: the latest polls show him with a double-digit lead over his Democratic opponent in the midterm election.
In his statement on the matter, Goode blamed "negative publicity" for the shutdown of the program.
So, for all the Goode apologists who defended all these scandal-ridden shenanigans because of the "good jobs" they brought to his district, what do you have to say now? Aside from being employed by a corrupt company run by criminals, the jobs went poof in three years.
And to top it all off, Martinsville gets screwed too.
So, looks like this whole deal was a bad deal for Goode's constitutents. Clearly, they don't know or care about the screw job, given the latest polling.
(Waldo has more here)
Virgil Goode = TERRIBLE CONGRESSMAN, RUBBER STAMP, LIAR, CHEATER
Al Weed = Someone who would be one of the best Congressmen in all of Washington DC. He would aptly represent his district, and would garner respect due to his background and intellect, and retain a high ethical and moral standard.
The voters of the 5th can vote for filet mingeon (Al Weed) or steamed feces (Virgil Goode). Would they really rather eat steamed feces by 24 points??? WAKE UP FOLKS!
It seems to me that it's way past time that this business came to a screeching halt. If I kill some person, and burn the body on an altar as an offering to some perceived sky-beast, I'm still going down for murder, and probably a whole bunch of infringements of the free exercise clause. If Goode took money from a known briber, to whom he delivered a related service, and did so in a consistent cycle, it's hard to believe that he's not a bribee.
There's a certain scientific elegance to it: action --> result, action --> result; reproducable pattern --> proof.
When Al Weed gets to Congress, I hope he'll consider sponsoring legislation to the effect that any campaign funds given to charity constitute probable cause for an indictment for bribery. There could be an exception for death in office or voluntary retirement - perhaps in either case, the loot goes to the party, or even to the successor, without regard to party. Make it interesting, but make it transparent. And make it quick.
I don't care who goes down in the process; it's time to get the cesspool cleaned up.