Here is a ten-point rack of antlers, some political reading-between-the lines of what we have learned in the press so far, regarding Poacher-gate.
1) Notice, so far, that Lance Lovell, the Republican hack who got a few headlines out of the Schweitzer-ethics charge back in 2008 (but never any blood) is saying things like Vogel "is innocent of these charges" and is "presumed innocent." He is couching the words carefully as Pogie points out. He's not saying that Vogel wasn't involved in no-good, because
2) Vogel could, by several means, be proven definitively to have been involved.
3) At a minimum, Vogel is on record as mistreating an impeccably credentialed FWP officer who has called Vogel's behavior "demeaning and uncooperative."
4) Sooner or later, there will be a statement from the landowner who confronted Vogel and called the warden, though you can bet that this landowner is no Democrat or he'd already be talking, loudly and proudly.
5) Vogel's gun may or may not surface, but it is highly suspect that Randy, a former cop, sold it immediately after the incident, not to a pawn shop or dealer but at a gun show, where there is no record kept of the sale or buyer. And, that this gun he sold just happened to be a .270, like the bullet they found in the male elk. This fails the laugh test.
6) A little-noticed facet of this story: Rehberg's spokesman says he "doesn't know" whether another staffer was involved in the incident. Um, so let's see: when Rehberg, humiliated by a major story, confronted his top aide in Great Falls, and asked, "Mike, were you a part of this?", we are supposed to believe that Mike Waite said "Boss, I don't really know."?
7) When you try to blame the opposing political party for something like this, it is usually the last desperate measure. Blame the Democrats for mudlsinging. That type of attack is known to be very weak in electoral politics. It rarely affects poll numbers. The central story--the scandal--is remembered. Blaming "negative politics" when a story breaks is usually a fruitless effort, an inside game that might influence a news cycle, but is forgotten when election season comes around. The smelly carcass, the disposed-of gun, the breathlyzer results, or the drunk brawl or the drunken pass-out at the bar, or the drunken falling off the horse--those are the things voters remember.
8) I do believe that this incident, in a cumulative effect, will drag Rehberg down in a signficant way, coming on the heels of the Dustin Frost/Flathead boatwreck story. It's a big enough story that it will continue to roll out and embarass the Congressman. And Vogel, as we now see, is going to try to protect his own ass, not Rehberg's.
9) Nevertheless, watch for Rehberg's statewide spin machine to get into motion. You will see op-eds, letters to the editor, blog posts, comments on web articles, all decrying the mudslinging and the outrageous witch hunt by a Democrat-filled FWP, etc.
10) I doubt the warden who tracked Vogel down is a Democrat, nor are most of the career law enforcement folks at FWP. In the aftermath of the Boating Wreck, the Rehberg spin machine was pretty effective, proving again that Republicans seem to be generally better at that stuff than Dems. But again, as time passes the facts of the accident, not the post-accident spin, is what will be indelible. Let's see what happens with poacher-gate.
As the saying goes, you know the true nature of a man by the company he keeps.
Randy Vogel, hired by Rehberg last month as Rehberg's top staffer (replacing former state director Dustin Frost who suffered severe head injuries following the boating accident involving Rehberg, a GOP legislator, and lots of alcohol and is leaving to "become a private consultant"), must appear in court next Tuesday where he will face allegations of poaching and obstructing a police officer, among other charges.
This is the third Republican busted for poaching in recent memory, others include Republican legislator Scott Boggio and Legislative Fiscal "analyst" Terry Johnson.
It is not yet known what effect this most recent poaching scandal will have on Rehberg's and other Republican's electoral chances this fall, but it can't be good.
It's also interesting that Rehberg didn't fire this individual, but instead allowed him to "place himself on voluntary leave."
UPDATE: Pogie at Intelligent Discontent has a great analysis of Vogel's pathetic "defense" here.
A week ago last Saturday Dennis made one of his stops through Lewistown, this one to keynote a Republican dinner in town. Denny exhorted my fellow Fergus County residents in his best Jimmy Swaggart imitation to "Start sending money!" and "Money sends a message!"
And then he proceeded regale them with stories of his father's run for Congress against John Melcher. (Isn't it great that we have our political dynastys in Montana, just like they do in Texas and Louisiana?).
He proceeded to tell the audience about his dad running against John Melcher for Congress in 1969 in a special election, and losing by 1 vote. Now I can't find a trace of an election that close involving Dennis's Daddy in 1969. But, he did lose to John Melcher in 1970 by 34,330 votes. John beat him by 29.2 percentage points in that election.
Just another one of Dennis's fantasies that he like to propogate--like the one that he actually has done anything for Montana in his decade in office.
Update: (from Jay) Got a mail from a Rehberg staffer clarifying Rehberg's story:
The race where his dad lost by one vote wasn't the 1970 race against Melcher. It was the 1969 GOP Convention at the Yugo Inn where the GOP picked its candidate for the special election to run against the Democratic nominee, Melcher. Denny's father lost the convention primary vote by a single vote to Bill Mather who then went on to lose the special election to Melcher.
The next year, his dad lost the general election to Melcher as indicated in the post. I suspect the nuance was lost in translation between the telling and re-telling of the story - an error in reporting, not in the facts of the story. There's certainly no dishonesty in the story, and accusations of lying are pretty serious. I hope you'll consider adding an editor's disclaimer to that post.
While there has been much speculation about the reasons for the resignation of Sarah Palin's top advisor, the departure of another of Montana's top Republican executives has gone relatively unremarked upon.
Yet another executive director of the increasingly unsuccessful Republican party has quietly bolted, leaving GOP legislators and Denny Rehberg without much-needed leadership or assistance as they navigate the 2010 election cycle.
Montana Republicans have had four different directors walk out in a period of a little over a year. Between Oct 2008 and February of this year Jake Eaton, Larry Grinde, Max Hunsaker, and now Gary Carlson have all fled the post.
GOP Chair Will Deschamps declined to discuss problems facing the party and would only say:
"He chose to pursue other interests," Deschamps said, declining to elaborate. Carlson, who ran for the U.S. House in 1984 in Montana, moved here from California to take over the executive director's job Jan. 11. His last day of work was Feb. 1.
We're about to be able to field a full baseball team. Mark French, a rancher and clinical laboratory scientist from Paradise, filed as a Republican and hit Rehberg pretty hard for supporting too much government spending and other forms of big government like the PATRIOT Act. It looks like we may have a real libertarian-style challenger here.
Rehberg's office hilariously emphasized Rehberg's fiscal discipline in response.
So far, French is saying he won't actively raise money. A.J. Ottjen is also having a tough time getting traction, but it is increasingly clear that this is a difficult environment for incumbents.
Someone -- I can't be sure whom -- has unsubscribed me 6 times in the past week from Congressman Rehberg's official constituent email list. I contacted his office and got a (fairly jokey) email in response indicating that they were not responsible for this. It started happening after I wrote a piece critical of the Congressman's constituent emails on reducing the deficit by cutting taxes and increasing spending (I think I had a fair point).
Like I said, I'm not sure who's doing this and I can't really point the finger at the Congressman's office. It would take an amount of work I'm not interested in undertaking to get to the bottom of this, especially since it is easy enough to maintain a subscription through other means.
Regardless, this sort of crap -- the inclination to stop debate by cutting off critical voices -- bothers me in most forums (which is one reason why I've allowed comments here to become so absurd at times), but it is especially reprehensible in communication media paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Number one suggestion..stop spending money on failed stimulus. Tax relief!!
A full third of the ARRA was tax relief. That's why payroll withholding dropped last year. It is why there's a $400 or $800 Make Work Pay tax credit on people's returns this year.
Beyond that, the spending in the stimulus didn't fail, unless our Congressman is advocating for cutting short COBRA subsidies or unemployment insurance. Hilariously, Congressman Rehberg tweeted this yesterday, around the same time he was touring the stimulus-funded Northern Hotel renovations:
When the two reached Nelson's basement office, Rehberg's work began. The congressman inquired about what the government could do for the Northern, promising to have a staffer look for grant options and Department of Energy assistance.
A year ago, by cooperating with the city of Billings, the Northern was able to sell $20 million in tax-free "stimulus bonds" to pay for the hotel's remodeling. Investors like the government-backed, tax-free bonds, which were made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Rehberg is looking into government grant options and DoE assistance for private projects? Sounds like government spending to me.
Even worse, our Congressman is apparently aware that he's full of it:
In an interview with The Billings Gazette editorial board Tuesday, Rehberg, who opposed the ARRA and is advocating a shift toward tax cuts, said the construction projects funded by the ARRA had merit....
If Denny Rehberg thinks COBRA benefits, food stamps, unemployment, and local business projects like Northern renovation are failures, he should say so explicitly. He's trying, as always, to have it both ways.
And keep in mind when Rehberg rails about government spending that his office repeatedly calls for higher spending on numerous programs. This guy is absolutely all over the map.
Fresh in the inbox, a Congressional newsletter from Montana's junior Congressman Dennis Rehberg:
Congressman Denny Rehberg
HAS A SOLUTION TO OUR DEBT PROBLEM:
STOP SPENDING AND BALANCE THE BUDGET!
Already, Cappy McShout, let's see your solution:
Congress can decrease the deficit and decrease the debt by:
* Freezing non-defense discretionary spending
* Reforming "entitlement" spending
* Increasing tax incentives for small businesses
* Lowering taxes for hard-working Americans
Low-hanging fruit first: Items 3 and 4 will increase the deficit, not reduce it. Cutting taxes means slashing revenue. Budget deficits by definition amount to expenditures minus revenues. If revenues get smaller, deficits go up.
Obviously, some practitioners of voodoo economics will argue that resulting improvements in economic growth will make up for any loss of revenue, but the math here is quite fuzzy and, at the tax rates currently levied in the United States, almost certainly inaccurate. There are policy arguments for cutting taxes and accepting the deficits, but we're almost certainly on the wrong stretch of the Laffer curve to have tax cuts actually increase revenue.
But let's look at the other two proposals, starting with the discretionary non-defense spending freeze. First, this is an Obama proposal. Second, in terms of the budget, it's virtually meaningless. Check out this interactive budget graphic from The New York Times. Look at the overall budget, then click on the "Hide Mandatory Spending" button. Now, pretend that the National Security and Veterans Benefits (I'm presuming Rehberg isn't advocating freezing spending on Veterans). Look at what a small share of the budget is left. Now remember that we're not slashing this, we're freezing its growth.
So, not really a big deal.
What's the last proposal? Entitlement reform.
Where to begin with this one? Entitlement reform is GOPese for "cutting Medicare and Social Security," often through privatization. Depending on the particular privatization scheme with Social Security, there's a good chance that Rehberg's proposal would actually increase costs.
But let's just keep in mind that any savings on the Social Security front are likely to be minimal. The real driver of costs within the long-term budget is Medicare (which is one of the big reasons I favor health care reform). Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Republicans' point person on the budget, solves this problem by voucherizing Medicare and freezing its spending, a proposal that has the virtue of balancing the budget solely through spending cuts. Of course, Rehberg has also played politics by pretending to oppose any reduction in Medicare services. Instead, he'll just destroy the program in wholesale fashion.
One last point, despite Paul Ryan's ability to balance the budget solely with spending cuts, it is worth knowing that he had to instruct the CBO to assume no revenue reductions, which means no tax cuts.
In short, Montana's Congressman is pushing fiscal snakeoil. No surprise there. As Tyler Gernant put it a few weeks ago:
While Rehberg claims that fiscal responsibility is at the core of his being, Gernant said he voted for "a massive tax cut for the wealthy that completely eliminates our budget surplus and returns us to deficits."
Gernant said Rehberg voted to put two wars on the country's credit cards and voted for a pharmaceutical drug plan that lets the big drug companies charge the U.S. government whatever they want.
Rehberg doesn't give a shit about the deficit. He's either an idiot or a liar on this stuff. What he really wants is to destroy government, except when he can have a press conference to take credit for it.
Sadly, politicians rarely explain the federal budget to constituents. Neither, really, does anyone else. That means we're left with misleading crap like this being peddled instead.
Our Congressman has opined about what he considers productivity in Washington, D.C.:
"Unless you do something to solve the problem of people standing in the way of managing our forests the way we want them to be managed, you haven't done anything."
And apparently he would know about not doing anything...this is what his top aide said two years ago about what he's been doing in Washington:
"Time and again," Rehberg has backed legislation that matters to Montanans, Iverson says. He's sponsored bills to recognize Billings' 125th anniversary ... and congratulate Carroll College's football team for its 2007 league win.
This clown has been in Washington for a decade, a professional politician for a quarter-century and he has no record of accomplishment. He certainly has done NOTHING for our forest management. And now he wants to throw a wrench into important work being done at the grassroots - disapointing, but so typical.
Nightline, one of the largest, most influential national news programs in America, is famous for it's investigative journalism and standard of reporting. Recently, Nightline featured this story called "The Art of the Shakedown" featuring the Bozeman, Montana prostitution ring. The Montana story starts at -03:45.
But listen to what they say at -03:02
"but in the midst of an FBI investigation into political figures and a potential prostitution ring the boyfriend broke off the affair."
An FBI investigation into prostitution involving prostitution among politicians in Motnana and there isn't even a single mention in the Montana press? If that's the editorial policy of these papers, shouldn't we be concerned about what other major stories aren't being written (or rather printed)?
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like under Montana open record laws the entire court transcript from this case would be available to anyone who asked--and I'm sure there are reporters out there who wanted to look into this. In a free society, the press should air on the side of getting the story out rather than worrying about offending politicians as long as they are sticking to the facts.
I first wrote about this a few months back after a former prosecutor I know told me that it was extraordinary to have the FBI look at a federal prostitution ring. It's also extraordinary to have the newspaper owners and editors suppress the story.
Look who voted against the healthcare reform bill in the House, and why!
Rep. Denny Rehberg, who joined all but one of his fellow Republicans in voting "no" Saturday on the major health-reform bill that passed the U.S. House, said the measure is an ill-advised "trillion-dollar government takeover of health care."
I wish!
Wait, there's more!
"I'm standing with Montanans in favor of sensible reforms that don't simply replace insurance bureaucracies with more expensive government bureaucracies," he said.
Rehberg said he supports a Republican alternative proposal rolled out last week that would allow Americans to buy health insurance across state lines, encourage small-business health insurance pools, increase the use of individual health savings accounts and reform medical liability to reduce the cost of medical-malpractice lawsuits.
Okay...two outright falsehoods in those statements. The House bill is definitely anything but a government takeover of healthcare; and insurance bureaucracies are not more expensive than government bureaucracies. In fact, the opposite is, of course, true.
We're in Beck-ian territory here.
As for the Republican proposal, well, I've written about this stuff before, but buying insurance across state lines will only make insurance less reliable, cover fewer conditions, and cause you more out-of-pocket medical costs; small business insurance pools and individual health accounts don't solve the problem of the uninsured; and tort reform doesn't work, doesn't lower healthcare costs, and gives medical professionals a disincentive to give good care.
In these few words, Rehberg illustrates the difficulties facing progressives and reformers who, like me, are not entirely pleased with a healthcare reform bill that preserves the broken-down insurance status quo and essentially bribes the industry to cover the uninsured. On one hand, we need to pressure Democrats into adopting real and effective policies. On the other hand, Republicans -- and Rehberg now, too, apparently -- are entering crazy land. We can't entrust governance to these people. Things were bad enough under the recent Republican hegemony -- widespread corruption, a broken economy, stagnant wages, wars, the politicization of government, illegal domestic spying, torture -- how much worse would things be under lunatic rule?
Montana Rep. Dennis Rehberg met with Republican recruiters about a 2012 Senate run against Democrat Jon Tester on Thursday.
Rehberg, who was seen exiting the National Republican Senatorial Committee's Capitol Hill headquarters Thursday morning, is the state's lone representative in the House.
There's mutual interest between Rehberg and NRSC officials, according to a source familiar with both sides.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Thursday night that Tester's represented his constituents well and will be formidable when he seeks re-election in three years.
"I don't think it would be wise" to challenge him, Baucus said.
Let's say you want to run Montana's lone Congressional seat as a Democrat. (Recommendation: You might want to seek counseling.) Then, you have to ask yourself: Do I really want to win?
At first blush, the answer is 'yes,' of course. You then recite the litany of reasons. Rehberg evil. Me good. You (and, your spouse if you have one), family and friends and supporters decide to go for it.
Then, the reality of the undertaking sets in.
Consider this:
A primary is inevitable. And, you need money. A lot of it.
To make the math easy, let's say you need to raise at least $1.5 million to be credible candidate and you intend to raise it over an 18-month period. Your campaign would need to raise approximately $77,000 a month, or $19,200 a week, or $2,700 every day.
For 18 months.
Of course, things will be slow starting out, so the averages listed above go up, depending on how slowly you make it out of the gate.
You won't have much of a staff. You can't afford one. Volunteers are OK, but you need to spend hours and hours on the phone groveling for dough and then bird-dogging those who agree to contribute to make sure they do.
Pogie is on a tear today, noting the media's love for Dennis ReTweet, the first time a prominent politician in Montana has gotten such kind treatment for so clearly mimicking his party's line through a new technology.
But the bigger problem here isn't that Rehberg is simply using the right-wing playbook out there to kill health reform. We've known that for months.
We've all struggled to try to figure out what exactly Congressman Rehberg has actually DONE with his time as our lone Representative for nearly a decade.
[I]t seems like the five-term congressman could be coming up with better ideas than trying to increase the number of snowmobiles and snowcoaches allowed in Yellowstone, stopping the Montana Department of Transportation from producing "self-congratulatory" signs noting that construction projects are paid for by stimulus funds, and permitting transportation of legal firearms on Amtrak trains. Which, and more important, how many people do his proposals really benefit?
Editor Cathy Siegner also notes how odd it is that Rehberg has been so supportive of Barkus throughout this ordeal. Check out her take.
I just got this email from Congressman Rehberg's office forwarded to me outlining his concerns about a public option:
He has concerns about a new "public option" because he's worried that employers will stop offering health benefits, which would force too many people into a public system, which the government will not be able to pay for, so instead of making the system better for those who it isn't working for, we've made it worse for everyone.
Reality check: employers already are increasingly dropping health benefits as costs skyrocket. That's all the more reason to fix the individual market -- and also to have a meaningful employer mandate that reduces the number of individuals dropped from current coverage.
But there isn't a single proposal for a public option where people would be forced into it. Once again, for the folks at home, the public option would be one of many options housed inside a health insurance exchange. The exchange would be the likely stopping place for individuals buying insurance on the individual or small group market. By imposing guaranteed issue, community rating, and a reinsurance to reweight the risk pools, the idea is to create a pretty competitive marketplace and reduce administrative overhead of offering individual plans.
Within that exchange, one of those plans would be publicly administered and publicly accountable. Under the (likely) House plan, it would also leverage Medicare's network to be established and pay rates slightly higher than Medicare. Under the (likely) Senate plan, it would simply be a government run health plan, may be national (good) or a set of state-based (not as good), may be an option everywhere (best), everywhere that hasn't opted out (OK), or everywhere that has opted in (bad), or it might be triggered by the lack of affordable insurance (bad). Or it might not exist at all (booooooooooooooo).
But there simply isn't a proposal out there that would do what Rehberg's office is claiming.
Beyond that, Rehberg continues to say he wants insurance companies to be able to compete across state lines. Max's bill actually allows for that, just not in the willy nilly manner that credit card companies currently compete. It would just give states the authority to approve insurance companies based in another state to enter their market (Montana could say they think Washington State's regulations are sufficient for Washington insurance companies to sell their product here). The national public option proposal is based in large part on the advantage of pooling across state lines. Rehberg says he supports tax credits. That's a backbone of the major Democratic proposals. He calls for HSAs but then says he wants resources for prevention. HSAs really don't incentivize prevention. The Democratic bills actually make prevention a reality.
Beyond that, Rehberg is really worried about the cost. Fine, get out there and champion comparative effectiveness research and make it clear that the government will only subsidize proven cost-effective medicine and paying for the rest will be up to the individuals paying out-of-pocket for insurance or care. I'm all for being hard-minded in how we cover people.
The problem is that the entire Republican Party is either ignorant as dirt on these actual policy questions or more dishonest than Pinocchio. Either way, these answers are utter bullshit and Montanans deserve a hell of a lot better.
On Monday, October 12, a federal grand jury began deliberations on corruption charges involving Kevin Ring. Like everyone else involved with Abramoff's money machine for Republican members of Congress, Kevin dutifully professed his innocence. (You do remember Jack Abramoff, right?)
It seems to have worked out. Earlier today, a US District Court Judge said she will declare a mistrial after the jurors of a grand jury declared themselves deadlocked.
Unless you follow progressive blogs, you may not know who Kevin Ring is. Despite being indicted, his name barely made the mainstream news, sort of, about a year and one-half ago. Kevin was a minion of Jack Abramoff's. And, is a good friend of Dennis Rehberg.
Oh, and Kevin gave Denny $2,000.00 in campaign contributions between June 13, 2002 and March 2003.
That just might have been a pay-off for Rehberg's recommendation to a county commission in eastern Montana contract with Mr. Ring to secure money for a project that was never completed.
But, alas, the burden of proof was not met, again. In fact, the Forbes article referenced above makes an interesting point:
Ring is only the second person implicated in the Abramoff scandal to fight the criminal charges at trial rather than pleading guilty and cutting a deal to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for the possibility of a reduced sentence. The other was David Safavian, the George W. Bush administration's former chief procurement officer, whose convictions were overturned following a trial in 2006. Safavian was convicted again in a retrial and faces sentencing Friday.
This is pathetic. The single largest scandal of the 21st Century and one conviction.
Montana's lone Congressman has insinuated himself into the limelight today touting his support for a bill that would require veterans and troops to undergo mental-health screenings before deployment. Rehberg is quicker than Kanye to grab the mic to claim credit for someone else's hard work, but the truth is already out.
Montana's lone Congressman is no friend to veterans and troops and in fact has a long record of just saying no to helping our men and women in uniform when it matters most. Yep, the Congressman voted against aid for over 100,000 veterans in the VA Montana health care system.
On everything from veterans' health care to helping military families afford child care to veterans' housing assistance, Representative Rehberg has a long record of deserting America's veterans when it comes time to meaningful legislation that requires hard work to pass--but making sure to carve out time from his busy social schedule to show up for a few press conferences.
Read more about Representative Rehberg's long record of saying "NO" our troops and veterans:
Rehberg opposed providing 14,000 new housing vouchers to help homeless and disabled veterans. [Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (H R 1105)]
By saying no to the Congressional Budget for FY 2010 (S Con Res 13) Representative Rehberg opposed :
This is what I call an online two timing double talking phony.
Congressman Rehberg's hypocrisy reached his Facebook page yesterday when he posted his support for Breast Cancer Awareness month on Facebook. (Note: You must be a "fan" to see the post.") In reality, Rehberg voted to deprive Montana women of the mammography benefit that makes a patient aware of breast cancer.
If you are looking for someone who epitomizes hypocrisy, look no further than Representative Rehberg. Montana's lone Congressman voted for H.R. 525 to allow insurance companies not to honor Montana's legal requirement that mammograms be covered, and has recently reiterated his support for allowing insurance companies to purchase insurance across state lines (and therefore ignore Montana laws that assure our benefits).
