PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Another twisted tale of Congressional earmarking:

The U.S. Navy wants a business owned by the family of Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski to hand over a piece of high-tech equipment bought with some of the $9.25 million in taxpayer funds Kanjorski steered to the company.

Except no one seems to know where to find the equipment — a high-pressure pump.
The mystery of the missing pump, combined with newly unearthed evidence that federal investigators probed Kanjorski’s connections to the company, Cornerstone Technologies, has given new life to a story that seems unlikely to go away. . . .

Kanjorski encouraged the creation of Cornerstone in the late 1990s to develop — and one day commercialize — the technology. It was formed by his nephew, Peter Kanjorski, and a scientist, Bruce Conrad, who were joined in the company by four of the congressman’s other nephews and his daughter.

In 1998, with the help of Rep. John P. Murtha, a fellow Pennsylvanian and the top Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Kanjorski earmarked $3.5 million for the research through the Navy.

Sounds like a culture of corruption to me.

UPDATE: A nepotistic connection here: “So, the head of the company he secured earmarks for is on his payroll, but he’s doing a Sergeant Schultz and knowing nothing? I don’t think!”