A Bluestem Prairie

MN-01 Daily Boehnerama: Flying on Sallie Mae execs' dime edition

House Majority Leader John Boehner is coming to Minnesota State University at Mankato on Thursday, October 12 to campaign on behalf of Gil Gutknecht.

The Washington Post reviews questions remaining about Boehner's role in "Conflicting Accounts Leave Plot Holes in Foley Saga; House Ethics Committee and FBI Will Try to Sort Out Who Knew What -- and When."

Everybody's curious.

Before he landed in the thick of the Mark Foley scandal, Boehner played a starring role in the Center for Public Integrity's report on Power Trips. 

Thus it was relatively easy for the CPI to sum up Boehner's resemblance to Tom Delay in "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss? Boehner's travel and PAC spending aren't a huge change from DeLay's ways":

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2006 — When Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, was elected House majority leader on Feb. 2, he presented himself as a new kind of leader — someone who would rise above doing business as usual, a departure from the aggressive tactics and ethical tight-rope walking of his predecessor, Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.  

But the Center for Public Integrity's examination of Boehner's political financial activities during his 15 years on Capitol Hill indicates that the way he does business might not be so different from DeLay.

Fund-raising Groups at a Glance

While Boehner may not be a hammer, he has been a highflyer.

Federal Election Commission records and House travel disclosure forms reviewed by the Center indicate that Boehner used his leadership PAC "Freedom Project" to build a network of political and business relationships not unlike DeLay's own.

Click for Boehner's travels

The Center analysis found that Boehner: 

• has taken dozens of trips on private jets owned by corporations that have legislative interests before Congress
• has accepted scores of privately sponsored trips (often categorized as having fact-finding or educational purposes) to some of the world's premier golf spots and foreign locales
• has hosted many high-end fund-raisers to wine and dine potential donors and Republican colleagues
• has donated millions of dollars to election campaigns of fellow Republicans.

All of these activities are legal — candidates can raise money independent of campaigns, direct funds to colleagues and bankroll certain political activities through their leadership PACs. But they also can be a means to help congressional leaders elevate their careers and enjoy trappings of success that a government salary normally doesn't provide.

While Boehner has benefited from Freedom Project, his staffers say that his rise to majority leader was aided more by his ability to be a team player than his PAC spending.

"Members appreciate the fact that they have a leader who listens to their concerns and works within the framework of the team to achieve success," Boehner press secretary Kevin Madden told the Center.

Students at Mankato should be excited to learn about Boehner's trips on their lenders' dime.

MN-01 Sunday papers and netroots

MANKATO FREE PRESS
Reader Henry Sadler of Madison Lake doesn't name names while describing the problem faced by veterans seeking legislative relief, but he is explicit about the solution in his letter: "We need congressmen who truly care about veterans":

I am a past department commander for Disabled American Veterans.

It seems that our elected members of Congress fail to recognize that the price of war is not just bullets and planes but also the 60-plus years that our government will be responsible for caring for these veterans who have suffered the physical and mental consequences of war after the last bullet is fired. The war for these veterans never ends.

Some members of the Minnesota delegation in the U.S. Congress have miserable records in introducing or co-sponsoring veterans legislation. I was told by one Minnesota member of the House, after showing him 10 veterans’ bills that are endorsed by major veterans’ organizations, that “these are all bills from the other party, and I will not sign on or support any bill that comes from that party.”

Shame on him.

They will tell you they always support veterans’ bills when they come to the floor for a full vote, but without substantial number of coauthors on a bill, they know the bill will never reach the floor for a vote.

Before you go to the polling booth, take a close look at who you will be voting for this November. Remember, their records on support of veterans’ bills in the past are a matter of public record.

The time has come to replace those who refuse to view veterans issues as a bipartisan issue. Let’s put someone in Washington who truly cares for our veterans.

Gil Gutknecht's DAV rating for 2005 was 20%.

The Free Press's Mark Fischenich has an extended piece about Bush supporters (one former) debating the Iraq War. The former Bush supporter is retired General Merril "Tony" McPeak, once a member of the joint chiefs of staff, who told Fischenich:

McPeak, who led the Air Force during the Gulf War in 1991, continues to be stinging in his critique of Bush and his advisers, saying they not only took America into a dishonest war — they’ve been incompetent in conducting it.
But McPeak doesn’t let Congress escape the criticism.

“I regard the performance of Congress in the period leading up to the war as absolutely without stomach,” he said.

A longtime Republican who was a big admirer of the first President Bush, McPeak is now a registered Independent in his retirement home of Oregon. He unabashedly suggests that voters need to hold the GOP majority in Congress accountable for the failure to provide proper oversight of the Iraq war.

“The Congress supposedly has the power to declare war. They have the power to control money,” he said. “In this case they didn’t do it because they’re a bunch of chickens.”

The firm Bush supporter? Former Senator Rudy Boschwitz.

WINONA DAILY NEWS: "GET RID OF RULING CLASS OF POLITICIANS"
Since Gil Gutknecht's staff member tried to erase any mention of the congressman's term limit pledge from Gutknecht's Wikipedia entry, we suspect that it's a sore spot for the six-term representative. Letter writer Jim Gurley of Winona may also make him squirm, even though he doesn't name names in "Get rid of ruling class of politicians":

When the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 1994 with their “Contract With America,” one of the most popular points was their endorsing term limits for congress.

However, once they gained power, they promptly forgot term limits.[read more]

Or tried to make voters forget about them.

The Winona Daily News uses the occasion of a pro-DM & E press event to review the history of the issue in Winona.

NETROOTS
Democracy for Minnesota notes that Max Cleland Returns to Support Tim Walz (MN-01).