All hat, no cashmere goats. That’s the only possible explanation for the out-of touch remarks made by Representative Rehberg when he suggested that there is no danger in agricultural work.

Rehberg, a six-term congressman who’s running to unseat Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), said he’s a fifth-generation Montana rancher whose great grandfather, born in 1873, started breaking horses at age 11. Rehberg said he has “taken all the glamour” out of his ranching operation. “I don’t rope and I don’t tie and I don’t brand with a hot iron,” he went on, adding that he uses modern equipment that he said is virtually incapable of hurting children.

“You can’t get hurt,” Rehberg fumed. “It’s impossible. You could have a five-year-old out there running it.”

Rehberg’s right, of course, when it comes to his version of ranching, which no doubt involves a lot of hired help planning driveways on the land his great-grandfather broke horses on.

Of course, the reality for those who aren’t farming subdivisions is a bit more complicated and dangerous. In fact, according to the Department of Labor, working in agriculture is the 4th most deadly profession in the United States. All of us who work and live in Montana know people who’ve been seriously hurt or even killed on our farms and ranches—and appreciate the dangers and sacrifices those jobs entail.

It’s a critical—and dangerous job, as Representative Rehberg should know:

The Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) notes that the fatality rate for agricultural workers who are 15 to 17 years of age is 4.4 times greater than the risk for the average worker in that age range. The most common cause of agricultural deaths among young workers is farm machinery, with tractors involved in over half of the fatalities.
“Many tragic and unnecessary accidents involving children employed in agriculture never make the national news, but result in significant harm to the lives of those children and their families,” Leppink said.

For Rehberg to suggest that farmers and ranchers “can’t get hurt” demonstrates just how little connection he has to the land he once pretended to farm and to the people who really work that land.

Rehberg’s defense of agriculture might make a good sound bite in an election year, but it’s certainly telling that he doesn’t understand the real dangers faced by people he pretends to be one of.

While I’m inclined to agree with those who decry the media’s focus on fundraising instead of discussion of issues, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Representative Rehberg is making national news for his inept fundraising this cycle:

LOSERS

For whatever reason, Reps. Rick Berg (R-N.D.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) all had lackluster quarters for sitting incumbents, pulling in less than $660,000 each. Rehberg was badly outraised, while Flake and Berg narrowly outraised Democratic underdogs.

While it’s a step in the right direction that the Congressman isn’t making news for wanting contaminants in children’s toys or the nation’s blood supply, it’s certainly interesting that he can’t raise much money for this race.

Perhaps a decade of being small government pork king and libertarian supporter of the PATRIOT Act and REAL ID have confused potential donors who’ve decided to give to a more consistent candidate like Mitt Romney.

Senator Tester, on NPR’s All Things Considered, today:

“Well, I think corporations are a whole lot different than people. I don’t know corporations that can be put in prison. I do know people that can be put in prison. I mean, it’s a totally different entity. I don’t think the forefathers envisioned when this country was setup that we would have corporations that had the same rights or more rights than people…

“It’s ridiculous and it’s not what our forefathers sought and it really goes against our democracy. It goes against what this country is built upon.”

Representative Rehberg, after cashing his $10,000 check from the group that wants to turn multinational corporations into people:

Paints a pretty striking contrast, doesn’t it?

Surely Montana newspapers have to report that Rehberg took money from Citizens United, right?

Not only is Representative Rehberg championing the right of corporations to pollute Montana politics, he’s benefiting financially from those who were responsible for the Supreme Court decision to allow limitless, secret corporate contributions to campaigns:

In a news release, Tester’s campaign will point out that Rehberg accepted a $10,000 donation from the conservative group Citizens United, the plaintiff in the controversial Supreme Court decision, on Sept. 21.  Tester believes that decision “undermines democracy” and supports overturning it through a constitutional amendment.

For 100 years, Montana has protected its political process from the pernicious influence of corporations. We saw firsthand the dangers corporate control of politics as people like William Clark bought their way into the US Senate, using corporate wealth to fuel his rise to power.

A century later, Montana has a candidate for the Senate who is not only advocating an ahistorical “right” for corporations to access the Bill of Rights and undermine Montana law, but taking money from the very corporate interests responsible for this absurd Supreme Court decision.

Representative Rehberg was wrong. Montanans have been right on this issue for 100 years.

Rehberg certainly hasn’t been shy about promoting constitutional amendments for frivolous, political causes. Surely he should support one, like Jon Tester and Max Baucus do, that would actually protect the integrity of our political process.

Senator Tester and Senator Baucus are standing up for Montana’s law and the relatively obvious idea that free speech rights attach to people, not multinational corporations, reports KXLH’s Marnee Banks.

Representative Rehberg, on the other hand, likes the idea of massive corporate polluting the electoral process:

Congressman Denny Rehberg won’t support the amendment. He says a healthy democracy is made up of many voices.

“I don’t think we should deny people their Constitutional right to free speech just because they’re part of a corporation instead of a different form of organization like a non-profit, a campaign or a union,” Rehberg says.

It’s probably not too difficult to understand why Rehberg feels this way, give the reciprocal love he enjoys with corporations of all kinds.

In another note, Rehberg claimed that he believed that “all campaign contributions should be posted online within 24 hours.”

Well, then, Mr. Rehberg, why don’t you do it? It seems that a man who believes in transparency and immediate disclosure of campaign contributions should the lead and start doing it.

Highlighting some of the most interesting and provocative posts in the past week at Montana blogs.

D Gregory Smith pointed out, that despite constantly talking about his availability to Montanans, Representative Rehberg has been awfully unwilling to meet with them lately.

Montana Cowgirl found it interesting that Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Hill would depict himself as someone who struggled as a single father, given the reasons he became one.

I’m not sure that I agree with much of anything Ed Berry says, but I wonder if he’s right that far right conservatives will not support Representative Rehberg because of his support of the Defense Authorization Act and HR 1505.

Rob Natelson managed to blame liberals for the Citizens United decision. It’s really a conservative jurisprudence must-read.

Barb Rush showed once again why she should not ever be elected to the School Board.

Over here, I kept yammering on about Representative Rehberg’s continued dishonesty about Pell Grants, new poster Winston wondered why campaign web sites weren’t in better shape, and Gabriel Furshong argued for the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act.

In announcing his bid for the U.S. Senate Erik Iverson Dennis Rehberg offered this fascinating condemnation of Jon Tester and comparison between himself and a Republican hero:

He said the federal debt has almost doubled since Tester became a senator in 2007, that Tester voted for the 2009 economic-stimulus bill that "was a government solution that did not work," and was the deciding vote for the 2010 federal health-reform law that isn’t working, either.

Rehberg also compared the 2012 election to the 1980 campaign of Republican Ronald Reagan against President Jimmy Carter, when Reagan said he was running against the philosophy of "if it moves, tax it; if it still moves, regulate it, and when it finally quits moving, subsidize it."

No commentary, just some facts in response:

• The Bush tax cuts, which Rehberg voted for are responsible for 27% of the debt accumulated since 2001.
• The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that Representative Rehberg voted for will end up costing at least $3.7 trillion dollars.
• Representative Rehberg received the most pork projects on any member of the House in 2010.
• The federal budget deficit was higher under Ronald Reagan every year than it was under Jimmy Carter.

Why is the United States facing a fiscal crisis? Not the programs Representative Rehberg wants to blame, not Jon Tester’s votes. The fiscal crisis is the direct result of eight years of reckless tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and wars that the President Bush and Representative Rehberg refused to pay for.

It’s certainly reasonable for Representative Rehberg to make a case that he will better represent Montana in Washington than Senator Tester at some level, but for the Representative to lecture anyone about fiscal responsibility is about as appropriate as him lecturing someone about responsible drinking.

it’s because it’s newsworthy that a member of the Senate lives a life like an ordinary American—and because he loves his Montana beef:

An evening around their table is informal (dinner is served family style and everyone clears his or her own plate) and amusing, with the conversation veering from President Obama’s jobs bill to the benefits of local honey to the type of gun best used to eliminate pigeons or deer.

While many Washington wives like to make the dinner party scene and attend spouse lunches on Capitol Hill, Mrs. Tester spends most of her time tending the farm back home. There is harvesting and plowing in the spring and beating back the snow in the winter. In the summer she cans tomatoes and puts up pickles (“Jon eats them like candy”) and choke cherries, though last year those flooded out.

Even though I’m a vegetarian, it’s hard not to admire someone who has certainly remained true to his Montana roots in Washington, even it means eating what sounds like a somewhat unhealthy amount of beef.

When Dennis Rehberg makes the New York Times, it’s for selling his votes to the mining industry and voting to increase the lead in children’s toys.

Just a thought.

Last week, as Representative Rehberg went on his Talking Points Tour of Montana editorial boards, he dropped by the Missoulian and offered this gem:

Among the priorities Rehberg said he’d protect from cuts, Pell grants for college students was the first mentioned. He said he worked to maintain the $5,550 annual top grant, but also put new controls on who could get them.

Working to protect Pell Grants which allow middle and working class Montana students to attend college would be a noble endeavor, but Representative’s rhetoric in the Missoulian has not, unfortunately, been matched by his record.

In just the past two years, Rehberg has done exact opposite of his claim, not only voting against $5,5000 maximum Pell Grants, but repeatedly voting to cut them.

• On March 25, 2010, Rehberg voted against the Reconciliation Act of 2010, which raised the maximum Pell Grant to $5,550
• On February 19, 2011, Rehberg  voted for his House Resolution 1, which cut the maximum Pell Grant to $4,705.
• On April 1, 2011, Represenative Rehberg infamously called Pell Grants the “welfare of the 21st century.”
• On Aug 22, 2011, Rehberg directly told the people of Montana that he personally cut Pell Grants by almost $1,000/year: He told the Mark Allen Show in Bozeman, “with HR 1, I just attempted to roll it back by $845 and you thought I was destroying the program.”

You just can’t have your TEA and drink it, too, Representative Rehberg. While the reactionary wing of your party wants you to gut vital services, you can’t tell them you’re making cuts while telling the rest of us you’re working to preserve programs.

At least have the decency to tell Montana families the truth when you’re working to make college less affordable for them.

Eric Lipton, writing in the New York Times, describes a unique cause for a budget-conscious member of the House, selling himself out to the mining industry so indiscriminately that he’s willing to risk the health and safety of workers and cost the federal government billions of dollars in disability payments.

Unsurprisingly, that members of the House is Montana’s Dennis Rehberg, who

… pushed through a provision for 2012 federal budget that blocks the enforcement of a new regulation that would have cut in half the amount of ambient coal dust permitted in mines. Inhalation of the tiny coal particles is blamed for pneumoconiosis, or black lung, a preventable disease that has taken thousands of lives and cost the federal government an estimated $44 billion in federal disability payments since the 1970s.

Lipton’s piece is loaded with documentation about Rehberg’s obeisance to the mining industry. He’s also pushed for land swaps which would benefit mining companies at the expense of taxpayers, lobbied against safety regulations that protect miners, and fought to open copper mining in pristine Montana wilderness.

The mining companies have rewarded Rehberg, with the 7th most donations of all House and Senate members.

The industry has shown its gratitude for his vigilance. “He has been incredibly valuable to us,” said Bud Clinch, executive director of the Montana Coal Council.

Just in the past two years, mining industry executives and companies including big players like Murray Energy, Arch Coal and Cloud Peak Energy have donated nearly $100,000 to Mr. Rehberg’s Senate campaign.

Rehberg doesn’t even want to ensure that mining companies clean up the messes they leave on our land.

It’s just another case of Representative Rehberg putting the interest of corporations ahead of workers, and multinationals ahead of Montanans.

And the influence game doesn’t end with direct contributions to the Congressman. The Rehberg family is in on the act. Rehberg’s son, A.J., who embodies the American meritocracy as well as Luke Russert, has repeatedly lobbied his father’s office in the past year, on behalf of mining interests:

A.J. Rehberg is also an executive at a lobbying firm that is representing Mongolia Forward and the Mongolian government in Washington. That lobbying firm, on behalf of the Mongolian government, has contacted Representative Rehberg’s office repeatedly this year, as well as other members of Congress. Representative Rehberg said in an interview that his son had not personally lobbied him, and that as far as he knew, his office had not taken any steps to help his son’s clients.

Maybe a New York Times story, a Freedom of Information Act request, and just some common sense will lead the Montana media to dig into Representative Rehberg’s sweet deal at the expense of Montana’s workers and lands.