At Least John Boehner (R-OH) Didn't Report Spending His Campaign Money On Hookers Last Year

If you've donated to John Boehner's political action committee, the misnamed Freedom Project PAC, which spent $2,693,033 in 2008, and has already sucked up over a million dollars this year, let me be the first progressive to thank you for the donation. Although a significant amount of your donations was wasted-- in chunks above $10,000 each-- on political losers like Greg Davis (R-MS), Phil English (R-PA), Jay Love (R-AL), Andy Harris (R-MD), Chris Shays (R-CT), Dean Andal (R-CA), Vito Fossella (R-NY), David Cappiello (R-CT), John Stone (R-GA), Fred Dailey (R-OH), Darren White (R-NM), Keith Fimian (R-VA), John Gard (R-WI), and Rick Goddard (R-GA), far more went towards sating the Minority Leader's golf addiction.

The Muirfield Village Golf Club ($41,374), Disney Resorts ($28,787), Big Horn Golf Club ($25,310 + $18,357), Walt Disney Parks & Resorts ($25,200), The Greenbrier ($22,412), La Quinta Resort ($21,818) each got far more than any Republican candidate running for office-- any office. And Boehner is spending at tony golf resorts at the same clip this year. Even with GOP candidates dropping out of races because of an inability to raise money, the high living Minority Leader has already dropped another $29,501-- in campaign contributions-- at the Muirfield Village Golf Club. He spent even more at the Ritz Carlton in Naples (where the golfing is supposed to be sublime). Fact of the matter is, Boehner has already spent around $83,000 on golfing junkets this year. And we are so happy to see that money being spent that way instead of towards electing right wing lunatics.

One Republican electoral expert told us, after lots of prodding and a fifth beer, that had Boehner used that money he's been wasting on golf excursions on Doug Hoffman, who narrowly lost to some little known healthcare-supporting Democrat, Hoffman would have been in Congress and been the deciding vote to stop the healthcare reform bill!

The golf events this year sponsored by Boehner’s Freedom Project political action committee have stretched from April until October, from Florida to Ohio. And the minority leader doesn’t hold his events at worn-out municipal courses. The most recent outing was a $20,921.34 event at the plush Robert Trent Jones track in Gainesville, Va., an invitation-only private club that was once also home to the Professional Golfers Association's President’s Cup.

The highest expenditure was a September event at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. The Freedom Project spent $29,501.20 for an event on the course, which hosts the annual PGA Memorial Tournament.

Another favorite of Boehner’s PAC seems to be the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla., where the committee spent more than $30,000 in April and May. The Tiburon Golf Course, a 36-hole course at the hotel, also hosts a professional tournament each year.