 |
 |
U.S. Rep. Dan Boren did the correct thing in convincing the House to hold off cutting Cherokee Nation funds until freedmen lawsuits are resolved.
Earlier this month, the U.S. House voted to eliminate the federal funding to Cherokees that normally would be included in the housing assistance bill. But Boren pushed through an amendment allowing the funding to continue while federal courts hear the freedmen suits.
The Cherokee housing funding amounts to about $30 million, 10 percent of the annual federal funding for the Cherokee Nation.
Read More
The controversy over the Cherokee Nation’s vote to exclude some descendants of slaves from tribal membership made it to the floor of the U.S. House on Thursday, and a last-minute compromise saved the tribe from potentially losing millions of dollars in housing aid.
Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, brokered the deal with Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., to allow the tribe to continue receiving federal housing assistance as long as the tribal court is deciding the validity of the vote to exclude Cherokee freedmen from the tribe.
However, if the tribal court ultimately rules the vote in March was valid, the tribe could lose the assistance, which has averaged about $33 million a year, Boren said.
The controversy over the Cherokee Nation’s vote to exclude some descendants of slaves from tribal membership made it to the floor of the U.S. House on Thursday, and a last-minute compromise saved the tribe from potentially losing millions of dollars in housing aid.
Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, brokered the deal with Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., to allow the tribe to continue receiving federal housing assistance as long as the tribal court is deciding the validity of the vote to exclude Cherokee freedmen from the tribe.
However, if the tribal court ultimately rules the vote in March was valid, the tribe could lose the assistance, which has averaged about $33 million a year, Boren said.
Congressman Boren as an Honorary UPS Driver
Of the 435 members of the House, there were 31 individuals (7 percent of House members) who voted against each of these measures. In short, they took the anti-animal position at every turn, defending dogfighting and cockfighting, the slaughter of wild horses for human consumption, and the needless killing of imperiled polar bears by trophy hunters.
Their antipathy for the protection of animals from cruelty and needless killing could not be more apparent.
There are 10 Texans among the group—about one third of the 32-member delegation from the Lone Star state. There is just one northeastern member on the entire list—Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey. There is only one Californian on the list—Rep. John Doolittle, even though California has 53 representatives. And there are two Floridians—Reps. Connie Mack and Cliff Stearns.
There is only one Democrat on the list—Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma: Read more…
The Conservative Democrat Dan Boren
The Washington Post has been following four members of Congress as they grapple with what to do about the Iraq war in the coming months. The focus during Congress’s August recess is on what these lawmakers are hearing from voters in their home districts. Future installments will feature Rep. Jan Schakowksy (D-Ill.) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).
By Jonathan Weisman
HUGO, Okla. R ep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) was settling into his chair in the snug broadcast booth at K95.5 Country as the station’s Jo Ann Matthews sing-songed her way through the subjects she wanted him to touch on.
There was the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Of course, talk about federal livestock assistance, she went on.
Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) meets with constituents in Hugo, Okla. At more than a dozen town hall meetings in the past two weeks, Boren has heard the subject of Iraq come up voluntarily only once. (By Jerry Ward For The Washington Post)
“And I know the war is a big issue on everybody’s mind, but,” she said haltingly, her sweetly twanged voice tailing off to silence. Then, “I’m real impressed with the work you’re doing on cancer,” she finished.
If lawmakers in most parts of the country are being accosted with questions about the September showdown on Iraq, here, in the sleepy southeastern corner of Oklahoma, the war is the subject that almost cannot be discussed. The McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Boren’s district supplies virtually all of the war’s munitions. The hamlets and small towns, such as Antlers and Hugo, Miami and Nowata, have sent their sons and daughters to fight. About 3,200 Oklahomans are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan; 18,428 have served since the wars began, from a state of 3 1/2 million. Most of the parents of those warriors split their tickets and voted for President Bush as they voted for Boren. Read more…
Related:
Sooner Thought: “DINO Dan Boren Takes the Heat for Supporting Bush”
Washington was buzzing over a heated meeting between President Bush and 11 moderate Republicans who told the president that their support for the war was slipping fast. That same day in May, Rep. Dan Boren and a group of fellow moderate-to-conservative Democrats made the trip to the White House to hear Bush out on Iraq. The tone, according to Boren, was quite different.
“Over the last six or seven years, he’s really been knocked as someone who does not try to build bridges with Democrats, and I think over the last six months to a year, his office has really tried to reach out to members like me,” Boren said. The congressman even has his own dedicated White House liaison officer, Marty McGuinness, whose phone line is always open.
The White House knows that Boren is a man trapped between the conservative constituents of his eastern Oklahoma district and a Democratic Party pushing hard to seize control of the war in Iraq and bring it to a close. Read more…
From Bounded Rationality:
It’s not like the Republicans, at least on the national level, have clean hands on campaign fund shenanigans. But in Oklahoma, the Democrats have the corner on the notoriously corrupt market. Case in point: Gene Stipe. Apparently he likes to set up all his most powerful colleagues with illegal campaign contributions, in such a way that everyone can say they didn’t know about the contributions. Pretty slick. The candidates can use the money during the campaign, and then just give it away to charity after the campaign.
This is easy easy. Have the guy that’s already in big trouble do all the dirty work. That way, the candidate can quickly distance themselves from the malfeasor.
Somehow, if a candidate gives the illegal money to charity, and say they didn’t know about the contributions, that absolves them of any responsibility. That’s weak logic.
Here is an opinion from the Techumseh Countywide News and Shawnee Sun Online News
The Democrats who are getting dragged through at least a little mud as a result of the latest contribution talk are in order of descending rank: Gov. Brad Henry of Shawnee, U.S. Rep. Dan Boren who used to be from Seminole, Atty. Gen. Drew Edmondson of Muskogee and State Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan of Tecumseh. Three of the four, you may notice, are either hometown boys or the next thing to it. Read more…
From Bounded Rationality:
It’s not like the Republicans, at least on the national level, have clean hands on campaign fund shenanigans. But in Oklahoma, the Democrats have the corner on the notoriously corrupt market. Case in point: Gene Stipe. Apparently he likes to set up all his most powerful colleagues with illegal campaign contributions, in such a way that everyone can say they didn’t know about the contributions. Pretty slick. The candidates can use the money during the campaign, and then just give it away to charity after the campaign.
This is easy easy. Have the guy that’s already in big trouble do all the dirty work. That way, the candidate can quickly distance themselves from the malfeasor.
Somehow, if a candidate gives the illegal money to charity, and say they didn’t know about the contributions, that absolves them of any responsibility. That’s weak logic.
Here is an opinion from the Techumseh Countywide News and Shawnee Sun Online News
The Democrats who are getting dragged through at least a little mud as a result of the latest contribution talk are in order of descending rank: Gov. Brad Henry of Shawnee, U.S. Rep. Dan Boren who used to be from Seminole, Atty. Gen. Drew Edmondson of Muskogee and State Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan of Tecumseh. Three of the four, you may notice, are either hometown boys or the next thing to it. Read more…
By SUSAN HYLTON
World Staff Writer
MUSKOGEE — Former state Rep. Mike Mass of Hartshorne was at the federal courthouse in Muskogee the same day a grand jury was in session Wednesday, but he said he was not there to testify.
Mass, who is embroiled in an FBI investigation involving former longtime state Sen. Gene Stipe, visited the local office of the Oklahoma attorney general two days after he was subpoenaed to testify in a civil trial involving Stipe and Stipe’s former business partner, Steve Phipps.
The investigation concerns an alleged straw donor scheme in which people who contributed to several Democratic campaigns — including that of U.S. Rep Dan Boren — were reimbursed by companies controlled by Stipe and Phipps. Boren has claimed no knowledge of the scheme. Read more…
We admit we’re not big fans of today’s reality shows. To us, they poignantly illustrate the void of creativity currently in the entertainment industry. But there is one show that has our attention every week. That show is the NBC Dateline series “To Catch a Predator”.
It has our interest, not because of the luridness of grown men having sexually charged online chats with underage girls and sometime underage boys. Or the sick perverts often driving several hours and hundreds of miles to the teenage decoy’s home to engage in their disgusting fantasies.
No. It is the fascination that with all the publicity the show has garnered over the months, there are still people who will risk everything; reputation, marriages, careers, and freedom to still attempt to break the law. There once was an episode of a pervert being busted twice in the same show! Our fascination is similar to the almost magnetic attraction human beings have with watching fist fights or traffic accidents. This brings us to former state Senator Gene Stipe
The FBI says Stipe continued to illegally fund political campaigns EVEN AFTER HE WAS CONVICTED OF DOING THE SAME THING!
The Oklahoman reports today that an unsealed affidavit says Stipe gave over $34,000 dollars to Congressman Dan Boren’s 2004 primary campaign by reimbursing friends and associates for their contributions. Boren says he wasn’t aware of the scheme.
The March 2004 contributions were made two months after Stipe was sentenced to house arrest and fined more than $735,000 dollars for a similar scheme in a 1998 congressional campaign.