In 2006, the Bush White House used taxpayer money to campaign for Republican candidates across the country, and George W. Bush took a particular interest in Minnesota, according to a report released Monday by the Office of Special Counsel. Former Rep. Mark Kennedy, who ran for the seat vacated by former Sen. Mark Dayton, benefited from a number of campaign appearances by Bush cabinet members, and those appearances were illegally paid for with taxpayer money, the report found.

The report, “Investigation of Political Activities by White House and Federal Agency Officials During the 2006 Midterm Elections,” found that “White House Office of Political Affairs (OPA) employees, as well as high-level agency political appointees, violated the Hatch Act through a number of practices that were prevalent during the months leading up to the 2006 midterm elections.”

The Hatch Act prohibits the use of government resources for campaign purposes.

But the report found that the OPA, under the direction of Karl Rove, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act. In one instance, the OPA singled out former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and the Secretary of the Interior indicated he wanted to assist his campaign for governor in 2006:

On October 20, 2006, former OPA Director Sara Taylor sent an e-mail to several OPA Associate Directors informing them that Secretary Dirk Kempthorne “Wants to help Taylor, Pombo and Gov. Pawlenty.” North Carolina Representative Charles Taylor was seeking reelection in 2006 and was listed as a “Tier 1” priority on OPA’s target list. Similarly, California Representative Richard Pombo and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty were up for reelection in 2006. Former DOI appointees testified that when Secretary Kempthorne expressed a desire to help elected officials in 2006, they interpreted it to mean he wanted to help those individuals with their reelection efforts.

While that OPA email only indicated support for Pawlenty’s reelection, former Rep. Mark Kennedy got a huge boost from Bush’s cabinet members. Bush’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Alphonso Roy Jackson, visited Minnesota to campaign for Kennedy on Oct. 12, 2006.

“The event was designated as political on Secretary Jackson’s Confidential Schedule and Travel Order Request and Authorization,” the report noted. “Specifically, the Secretary’s Confidential Schedule reflects that on October 12, 2006, Secretary Jackson was to participate in approximately 45 minutes of official activity and one hour of political activity, thus obliging the Kennedy campaign to bear financial responsibility for over 50 percent of the total travel costs.”

The fundraiser was listed as completed by Bush’s OPA and by HUD and was listed as 91 percent official and 9 percent political, instead of the 50 percent split that should have been taken by the campaign and the federal government. The report’s authors asked the department about the discrepancy.

In response, HUD acknowledged that the Kennedy campaign actually owed 57 percent of the total trip cost, or $542.46, as opposed to the $85.85 previously assessed. However, HUD has provided no evidence showing that the balance owed for Secretary Jackson’s political travel has been sought or received by HUD. Therefore, U.S. Treasury funds apparently were used to finance Secretary Jackson’s political activity in violation of the Hatch Act.

The event in question was held in Minneapolis to discuss “housing, homelessness and other issues affecting new and low-income Americans.”

The Bush White House also dispatched USDA Secretary Mike Johanns for a lunchtime fundraiser for Kennedy in Lake Crystal, Minn., on Mar. 23, 2006, and again for a political townhall and fundraiser on the Iron Range on Oct. 24, 2006. But according to the report released on Monday, there’s little record that the government was properly reimbursed for the event.

In the margin of both bills submitted to the Kennedy campaign for the expenses incurred by Secretary Johann were the words “Payment Unknown.”

The reports authors concluded, “This failure to ensure timely reimbursement of U.S. Treasury funds that were used for political activity was a violation of the Hatch Act.”

In yet another instance, the report found that a visit by Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt on Oct. 27, 2006, in Minneapolis, didn’t appear to be billed to the Kennedy campaign at all. Despite being a political fundraiser, the trip was classified as “official,” the report states.

“However, the documentation provided to OSC by HHS regarding the Secretary’s October 27, 2006, travel to Minnesota indicates that the trip was classified as official, despite his attendance at a political fundraiser,” wrote the report’s authors. “In fact, the ‘remarks’ sections of the Secretary’s Traveler Authorization and Travel Voucher identified the official purpose of the travel as ‘Value Driven Healthcare.’”

The Office of Special Counsel concluded, “Failure to determine what percentage of U.S. Treasury funds was used to pay for political activity, and ensuring that those costs were reimbursed to the Treasury, was a violation of the Hatch Act.”

The involvement in Kennedy’s campaign was a small part of a much larger effort to turn an official government office, funded by the taxpayer, in to a political war room for the Republican Party.

The report’s authors identified numerous instances where campaign coordination occurred. Among the findings were that Bush’s office “worked with the RNC to develop a ‘target list’” of Republicans facing a close election. It also engaged in “asset deployment” by encouraging Bush’s political appointees — including cabinet members — to attend events with GOP candidates “in order to attract positive media attention to their campaigns.”

The office also used RNC Desk Coordinators “to help coordinate high-level political appointees’ travel to both political and official events with Republican candidates.” And the office kept track of GOP candidates’ fundraising numbers, tracked appearances by high-level appointees at campaign events, and, on behalf of the RNC, recruited political appointees to “participate in 72-hour deployment efforts.”

Though Mark Kennedy enjoyed unprecedented campaign assistance through Bush’s use of taxpayer money, he lost his race against Amy Klobuchar by a landslide in November 2006. Klobuchar won 58 percent to 38 percent.

Following Kennedy’s defeat, he would soon become a political appointee himself when President Bush named him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiation in 2007.

So far, the Office of Special Counsel has been mum about why the report came out more than four years after the violations occurred, but according to Politico, the report may have been blocked by another Bush appointee, former Office of Special Counsel Chief Scott Bloch, who was convicted of concealing information from a House panel.

While the report specifically lists fundraisers and appearances by Bush appointees for Kennedy, most Minnesota Republicans received some help from Rove’s Office of Political Affairs.

In 2006, Pawlenty got visits from Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, HHS Secretary Leavitt, and USDA Secretary Johanns. Rep. Michele Bachmann was the beneficiary of visits from Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Interior Secretary Kempthorne.

The report’s authors don’t fault the candidates for the fact that public money was used to promote their campaigns by the Bush administration — the onus is on political appointees to reimburse the government for their political activity.

“If the campaign or political party does not timely reimburse the government, then the exempt employee will be billed for the outstanding amount because political activity is tantamount to personal activity,” the authors wrote.

The full 118-page report can be viewed at the Office of Special Counsel.

It’s the second politically unpalatable presidential pardon in six weeks to touch Coleman, who remains in the grips of a drawn-out recount in his bid for re-election against Democratic challenger Al Franken. The Minnesota Independent broke the news last month that soon after taking office in 2003, Coleman wrote letters of support for the pardon application of Frank Vennes, Jr. A convicted money launderer now best known as an associate of accused Ponzi schemer Tom Petters, Vennes was also a donor to Coleman’s 2002 campaign fund and to political action committees that supported Coleman.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann revoked her support of a pardon for Vennes after the Petters scandal broke this year. She also redirected a portion of Vennes’s contributions to her campaign to Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug treatment program that’s been a favorite of Minnesota politicians.

Sarah Palin on the stump with John McCain, with Kenyan minister John Muthee and as speaker at the Master's Commission graduation ceremony. Photos: WDCpix.com, YouTube, Wasilla Assembly of God Church

The religious right had a bad day on Tuesday. The election of Barack Obama and Democratic gains in the U.S. Senate and House put support for religious right policies further out of reach, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. Some say Republican John McCain coddled Obama on the issues, and others point to President Bush’s noncommittal attitude for issues the religious right cares about the most: gay marriage and abortion. The one bit of post-election hope seems to be the ascension of Sarah Palin as a religious right figurehead.

Here’s which way the fingers are pointing:

It was McCain’s fault.

“McCain gave Obama the free pass of the century by NOT talking about the Illinois Senator’s radical anti-DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) plan, his campaign promise to open up the military to homosexuality, and Obama’s pro-abortion extremism,” said Peter Labarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. “Most Americans have no idea how extreme Obama is on abortion and homosexuality, due to Obama’s clever obfuscations and McCain’s refusal to educate Americans on the Democratic candidate’s social record.”

LaBarbera offers this solution: “The GOP must return to its pro-family roots if it wants to start winning again.”

It was Bush’s fault.
“The conservative movement knows how to rise from the ashes, and we need to pick up the pieces of the movement, which was so badly dismantled and put in disarray by the George W. Bush administration. But we can do it. And we’ve got to get started immediately,” said Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum. “The disarray of the conservative movement is the fault of George W. Bush and his advisor Karl Rove. I guess it turned out that he was not a conservative after all. He was a big government, big spending, globalist, ‘New World Order’-type of Republican.”

Schlafly offers this solution: “Sarah Palin is certainly a rising star – she was a breath of fresh air, and a lot of excitement to the conservative movement. I think she is a genuine conservative.”

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land agrees that Palin could take the mantle as the face of the religious right. “I think there are several contestants for it,” Land told One News Now, a Christian news outlet affiliated with the American Family Association. “Sarah Palin is certainly going to be a prominent one. Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell — who just won re-election [in Kentucky] — [and] Bobby Jindal from Louisiana.”

Land echoed LaBarbera’s call to make the GOP more socially conservative. “I think that we need to stay consistent with our message of family values and the sanctity of human life — and we need to find attractive and articulate candidates who will go out and make those cases.”

Some in the movement are frightened that they are not in the driver’s seat any longer. “We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. “We’re going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack.”

Perkin’s is to join other members of the religious right, fiscal conservatives and GOP insiders Thursday for an emergency strategy meeting, Politico reports. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society are also expected to attend.

Religious right watchers say that while the chips may be down for the religious right at the federal level, voters are sure to see their candidates crop up at the state and local level.

“The Religious Right is not dead,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, “but I’m happy that most Americans seem very wary of the movement’s reckless merger of religion and politics. Those of us who value church-state separation must remain on the alert to counter the Religious Right’s next gambit.”

He said they are down but not out. “James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Richard Land and Company did everything but declare Obama the Antichrist,” said Lynn. “In the end, they kept their own flock in line, but the majority of Americans were unmoved. On Jan. 20, the Religious Right’s eight-year run of the White House will come to a screeching halt.”

The lab is one of three in the world. Current studies are being conducted on a new type of wheat rust that is rapidly spreading across Africa to the Middle East. The Bush administration is seeking to cut more than $300,000 in funding for the research.

The move is not only unpopular among humanitarians concerned about mass famine, but also in the agricultural community here in America, which relies on the CDL to help keep crops healthy. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., has said she’ll fight for the lab as she has in years past.

Continued: Click “Read more”The continued push for cuts in the funding of research on plant diseases contrasts with the administration’s foot-and-mouth research policy. President Bush advocates for a foot-and-mouth disease research facility to be constructed inside the United States, but congressional investigators from the General Accounting Office found that safety can not be ensured against the extremely contagious and often deadly viral disease that can affect cattle, pigs and other hoofed mammals.

Recent outbreaks in the United Kingdom, Taiwan and China have had world beef markets on high alert for the last decade, but the United States hasn’t had a foot-and-mouth outbreak since 1929. A new outbreak would be a blow to the U.S. economy and devastating to small farms and a cattle industry already struggling against bovine tuberculosis. Again the administration’s position puts the president at odds with farmers and leaves him besieged by congressional Democrats.

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A security checkpoint was closed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Tuesday after security officials complained of irritating fumes.

Airport spokesman Pat Hogan said that about 11 a.m. security screeners complained about an odd smell that was irritating their eyes, noses and throats.

The airport fire department was called, but could not find the source of the smell, Hogan said. Neither could a hazardous materials team from St. Paul.

Nineteen employees of either airlines or the Transportation Security Administration were taken to area hospitals. All were lucid, conscious and breathing when they left, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned.

He said some of screeners described the odor as sweet, like perfume, with others said it was peppery. He speculated the fumes could have come from something a traveler threw into a trash bin while in the security line.

“It is possible it was a discarded item, like pepper spray, or perfume,” he said.

The check-in counters for American Airlines and U.S. Airways, which are next to the checkpoint, were closed while airport officials continued investigating Monday afternoon.

The incident happened hours before President Bush was scheduled to arrive at 2 p.m. at a National Guard base adjacent to the airport.