What has 24 years of Kanjorski done for us?

Pennsylvania 11th Congressional District Congressman Paul Kanjorski has been in office for 24 years.
Think for a moment how long that is.
If you had a child when Kanjorski first took office, that child could have completed a college education by now.

Or to put it another way, Ronald Reagan was President when Kanjorski first entered the halls of Congress!

So, ask yourself, are you substantially better off then you were back then?

Is your income keeping pace with inflation?
Have you seen our young people leaving the area in search of better employment prospects?
Is YOUR job secure?
How's the crime rate in your town? Are the streets safer than they were two decades ago?
Stick with me, we'll get to all of that, and more.

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I USED to think I was middle class

In his television ad, Paul Kanjorski talks about still living in the same house, still keeping the same middle-class vaules, blah blah blah.

With a net worth over 1.8 MILLION dollars (and that's the low end, depending on fluctuating real estate values), if that is what it take to be considered middle class, I guess I'm about 67 rungs below the poverty level.

Don't just take my word for it, click on the link below, and when you get to the site, be sure to click on assets to see what Kanjorski owns.

Big Paul's net worth



Kudos to my friends at www.louforcongress.com for making me aware of this.

Will he or won't he? My guess is he won't

Recently, Lou Barletta challenged Paul Kanjorski to a series of 6
debates.
Barletta offered to debate Kanjorski on WILK radio throughout the summer, having a 30-45 minute debate on a specific issue each time.

No answer from the Kanjorski camp as of this writing, but my guess is Big Paul will avoid this like the plague.

Because sometimes during a debate, someone may ask a question that you don't want to answer.

We Lied So We Could Win...And I Don't Care!

The video below was taken at a town hall meeting in Ashley, here Kanjorski admits to "stretching the truth" to win the 2006 Congressional elections:




Now, you've seen and heard exactly what he said. No "spin", nothing taken out of context, those are his own words!
Now watch what he says when he is asked about it:



Now, you tell me.
Do you really want this man representing you in Congress?

FOX NEWS AGREES WITH ME!!

On Saturday May 31st Fox News ran a "Special Report" called "Porked".


And Paul Kanjorski was center stage.
I applaud the courage of Joe Yudichak for helping to expose the truth.
We need to continue to shine the spotlight on Mr. Kanjorski and his unethical dealings.
For more detailed information on Cornerstone, read the posting below.

God bless you Joe, this country needs more people like you.

A Family Affair aka Nepotism At It's Finest

I’ll say one thing for Paul Kanjorski, he’s not going to have anyone in HIS family collecting unemployment checks.

His campaign committee paid his nephew, Paul Eric Kanjorski, $22,515 to work as a campaign manager.
Paul Eric was also reimbursed $19,766 in “expenses.”

Citizens For Action paid Peter $30,000 in consulting fees.
Citizens For Action is the congressman’s Political Action Committee.

Pennsylvanians for Kanjorski paid K&K Real Estate $36,000 to rent a campaign office.
Mr. Kanjorski and his brother Peter own K&K Real Estate.

But that's just small change. Remember Cornerstone Technologies?
Cornerstone Technologies was going to provide hundreds of high-tech, high paying jobs to the citizens of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
For those of you who are new to this saga, the company was run by Kanjorski's daughter and four of his nephews.
Mr. Kanjorski secured a 9.2 million dollar earmark for Cornerstone to attempt to find practical application for water-jet technology.
How did the day to day operations of the company measure up?
A former head of Penn State’s Energy Institute summed it up as “It was like the three stooges meet anthracite.”
A while back the company filed for bankruptcy, having produced nothing of value, except hefty salaries for the Kanjorski family.

Take a look at this story, which appeared in the April 7th Times Leader:


Cornerstone assets to be abandoned
$1M in claims, property worth a few thousand
ANDREW M. SEDER aseder@timesleader.com
WILKES-BARRE – The federal Bankruptcy Court-appointed trustee overseeing the Cornerstone Technologies case filed paperwork Sunday notifying more than 35 creditors that the failed-company’s assets will be abandoned. The filing signals the case is nearing closure.
Among the creditors contacted by trustee Robert P. Sheils Jr. were the Office of Naval Research, Penn State University and the University of Missouri at Rolla.
There were more than $1 million in creditor claims when Cornerstone filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 2006. The property available for creditors to retrieve is worth a few thousand. Sheils classifies the property, which has been stored in the parking garage of a Nanticoke bowling alley, as having “no excess value to benefit the estate and no equity exists for creditors.”
Cornerstone Technologies, a research company that received more than $9 million in federal grants and contracts, halted operations in 2003. The company, which was operated by U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski’s daughter and four of his nephews, promised to create hundreds of jobs and to turn the Wyoming Valley into a technology hotspot. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, earmarked several million dollars in federal spending toward the company and is the reason, according to one of the company’s former employees and a listed creditor, the company failed.
“The moment we had a greedy congressman trying to stuff his pockets with money, we were through,” said Bruce Conrad, of Weatherly, in March. Conrad owned 20 percent of the company. An additional 20 percent was owned by Peter Kanjorski, a Nanticoke attorney and a nephew of the congressman. The remaining 60 percent was owned by KOR Holdings, a partnership owned by the congressman’s daughter Nancy and nephews Peter, Paul Eric, Mark and Russell.
Creditors have 15 days to file an objection to the abandonment notice. If nobody does so the property would be abandoned. Among the property are office equipment and furniture and barrels of graphite.
Attorney John H. Doran, who represents Cornerstone, said it’s likely that the property will be retained by Cornerstone once it’s abandoned. He said that’s the likely scenario with so many creditors and so little value.


Over 11 million dollars and all there is to show for it is some office equipment in a bowling alley garage? That's our Congressman, working hard for us.
Click on the lins below to read how people outside of NEPA feel about this boondoggle. You can click your browesers "back" or "return" button to come back to this page.

The Daily Mail article.

NY Times

And just because Cornerstone went belly-up thanks to his family's antics, old Paul isn't going to let them miss any meals.
Click ln the link below to read about AVA Solar, a Colorado company that just received a 3 million dollar federal earmark.
Look at the beginning of the 3rd paragraph to see who's running things.
Here we go again.


AVA SOLAR

Let's Play Rate The Congressman

Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisan taxpayer watchdog group, rates members of the House and Senate as to how they look out for the American taxpayer.
The rating system is as follows:

0%-19% Hostile
20%-39% Unfriendly
40%-59% Lukewarm
60%-79% Friendly
80%-99% Taxpayer Hero
100% Taxpayer Superhero

Mr. Kanjorski’s overall lifetime score? 20%

Can we afford to lose Kanjorski?

I have heard people ask how our area will be effected if we no longer have a Congressman with Mr. Kanjorski's seniority representing us.
Mr Kanjorski is a member of the following Congressional Committees:

Financial Services Committee
Capital Markets Subcommittee
House Committee on Science and Technology
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Let's look at them one by one.

The Financial Services Committee is primarily geared towards economic development.
He's doing a great job there, just look at all the high-tech/high paying jobs we have here in NEPA.

The Capital Markets Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the securities and exchanges markets.
That must be very reassuring to the folks in the Poconos who lost their homes due to shady lending practices.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
I was unable to find a single thing Mr. Kanjorski has done on this committee that made a major improvment in my life, or that of anyone I know.

House Committee on Science and Technology
This committee oversees environmental and U.S. energy policy issues.
Energy policy huh?
Then why am I paying almost 4.00 a gallon for gas?


Right about now Kanjorski's defenders will be jumping in saying "He saved Tobyhanna and the Wilkes-Barre VA Hospital"
No he didn't. He made a lot of noise about it though.
Trust me, if the Department of Defense ever decides to close these facilities, Paul Kanjorski can do handstands in the halls of Congress and they will still be closed.

And I'm not the only person to have doubts about how good of a job Mr. Kanjorski is doing.

According to an article appearing in the Citizens Voice newspaper:

"“Northeast Pennsylvania has gone through a difficult period of restructuring,” said Amy Liu, deputy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., research group. “It is trying hard to adapt to the new rules of the global economy.”

The study, which assesses the economic assets of Pennsylvania’s metropolitan areas, ranks the region last among the state’s six largest metro areas in gross domestic product per job, a key measure of productivity. The study also includes the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Lehigh Valley, Lancaster and Harrisburg areas."

Mark Muro, a senior policy analyst with the Brookings Institute, cautioned people in Northeast Pa. not to be fooled by current employment numbers.
"The jobs replacing manufacturing may not be as well paying", said Mr. Muro, who challenged economic developers, the state and community leaders to diversify the job base, foster existing manufacturers and attract higher-end jobs.
“You are shifting from a manufacturing economy and recovering smartly from the first half of the decade. You don’t want to be left with jobs at Wal-Mart, burger flipping and other low-end service work,” he said. “Working people have a reason to be anxious, because Pennsylvania has not diversified its employment. Other states are ahead of you.”



As far as "bringing home the bacon", keep in mind that the biggest single federal grant that Paul Kanjorski ever secured went to a (failed) company run by his family.

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