From Roll Call:

Heads up, defense contractors. It’s time to dust off those checkbooks. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) is holding his annual cattle call to raise campaign funds. The event, staged as has become tradition in recent years in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City, is set for Feb. 27. Those hoping to get an earmark from the defense-spending poobah will note that’s about two weeks before appropriators hand in their own project requests…
…[L]ast year provided some stark guidance for contractors lobbying Murtha’s office: Every private entity that received a special project from the Pennsylvania Democrat in last year’s defense spending bill had given him political money at some point since 2005.