This is a flashback post, because the article was published just before the ‘06 elections. But we found the great article over at local blog Aikane Leo

You can read the whole story there, or at the original WSJ page, but here’s the key parts

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jerry Lewis and seven fellow members of Congress jetted to Europe in July 2003 on official government business and dined in restaurants from Warsaw to Lisbon.

Instead of paying for the meals out of their government allowances, they were treated by a parade of defense contractors and lobbyists, most of which sent personnel to Europe to host the meals, according to foreign-service officials and the companies. The meals gave Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and others private access to legislators who control billions of dollars in government contracts.

…

One problem: The hitherto undisclosed free meals likely violated House rules and possibly federal law, experts on congressional ethics say. House rules, designed to prevent private interests from unduly influencing legislators’ work, bar members — with some exceptions — from accepting such meals on congressional trips abroad. [….]

The Lewis delegation traveled in late July and early August during Congress’s summer recess. In addition to Mr. Lewis, the Republicans in the delegation were Joe Barton of Texas, Ken Calvert of California, Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, John McHugh of New York and Adam Putnam of Florida. The Democrats were Mr. Mollohan of West Virginia and Lucille Roybal-Allard of California.

In response to written questions, a spokesman for Mr. Putnam says in an email that the lawmaker “didn’t know/remember who paid for the dinners,” but that he “fully complied with the regulations governing per diems.” [….]

Wow. He doesn’t remember who paid for his dinners, but he does remember following all the rules o the per diems. I’d like to see some more reporting on this issue… ahem. Ledger? Rufty? What happened to this story?

Well, we’ll have to do some investigative reporting of our own. Check back soon.

Adam Putnam often says things like “The American People don’t want Congress to defund the troops.”  Of course the implication here is something along the lines of Democrats leaving troops high and dry in the middle of the desert with no fuel for their helicopters, bullets for their guns, or food for the winter… something that is patently false on its face, and completely misleading.

Thankfully, after many months of this type of rhetoric from Putnam and other GOP leaders, the American People have figured out what’s really going on (perhaps they knew all along).

Check out this story from the Washington Post:    Most in Poll Want War Funding Cut

Most Americans oppose fully funding President Bush’s $190 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a sizable majority support an expansion of a children’s health insurance bill he has promised to veto, putting Bush and many congressional Republicans on the wrong side of public opinion on upcoming foreign and domestic policy battles.

The whole story is worth a read.  Among other things, the new poll shows that in every Congressional District in our country, including ours right here in Central Florida, the majority of voters not only want to see the war ended soon, but they want Congress to stop appropriating so much money for the war.

I just don’t see how Adam Putnam can keep blatently and openly voting against the wishes of his district.  It’s not like these are trivial issues… these are the biggest issues of our day.  The majority of our district (polling shows)

• are in favor of tougher environmental standards (Putnam is for looser standards)
• are in favor of bigger/better Government-run health care & against Medicare Part D (Putnam is against and for those two respectively)
• want the War in Iraq to end, and funding to be cut off (Putnam is one of the most vocal Congressmen against those two measures in DC)
• have lost confidence in George W. Bush (Putnam still considers him a close ally worth shilling for)
•  want to see S-CHIP to pass quickly (Putnam is almost single handidly keeping this life-saving, childrens’ health insurance bill from going through)

Only on a handful of wedge issues, does Putnam seem to be in-line with the people of our district (abortion, gun-control, flag-burning) and most of those are not issues the House has any big roll in these days.

Message To Adam:  Start Representing US!  

 I’ve been going back and reading archives of the Lakeland Ledger, especially Bill Rufty, the main political writer. He leans to the conservative view point on most things, for sure, but I’m glad to see that sometimes he can also see through Putnam’s BS. This is a blog post he wrote a few months ago:

U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, say that the new high on the Dow Jones Industrial Average is all because of Reopublicans. (Gee, I thought it was because of investors).

But Putnam, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said it was Republican tax cuts when the GOP was in charge in Congress that has propelled the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 14,000 and closing at another record high:

“It’s no surprise the market’s on a good run right now - investors are feeling confident about the state of our economy and rightly so. Whether it’s more new jobs, a lower deficit, or a surging Dow, the benefits of pro-growth Republican policies are clear as day,” Putnam said in a press release.

“Republicans will continue to lead the way on fiscal responsibility by holding the line on spending and fighting to keep taxes low. In stark contrast, Democrats are setting the wrong fiscal priorities for our nation by passing one budget-busting spending bill after another,” the press release continued.

Say, remember last week when the Dow dropped 148 points? Not to rain on anyone’s parade with a shower of Keynesian economic theory, but what did that?

Two main problems with Adam’s assessment:

• The stock market is not the same as the economy.  One can do well while the other fails miserably.  They are related, but not at all the same.
• The economy is not so great, and has taken some major hits since Adam’s last rosy assessment.  Who should we blame for that Congressman Putnam?  Bill Clinton?  Nancy Pelosi?  Iran?

The truth is, Adam Putnam’s current job is to spin the truth until it looks completely different.  When it comes to the economy, Iraq, S-CHIP, or corruption in Washington… up is down, down is up, the GOP can do no wrong, and the Democrats are the Devil.  It doesn’t matter what the facts are, because in Putnam’s world Partisanship trumps Reality. 

Not suprisingly, it fell to Adam Putnam, as the chief partisan spokesman for the GOP House Conference, to defend their actions in trying to stop the S-CHIP bill. (more info on S-CHIP & Adam Putnam here, and here.)

This week he spoke, at a GOP press conference, defending the 1/3 of the House that voted against S-CHIP (the other 2/3rds, an overwhelming bipartisan majority, voted for the bill… as did 2/3rds of the Senate), and of course sticking up for his good buddy George W. Bush.

And, during a two week period where Congress debated war funding, passed literally hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, and the health insurance of literally millions of children… what issue does Adam Putnam think is the “most important” thing for our Congress to be worrying about?

Answer: A newspaper advertisement placed by the grass-roots organization MoveOn.org, which has over 3 million members, and ran the add only 1 day, in 1 newspaper, over 2 weeks ago.

If you can stomach the video, you can watch it here.

It’s times like this that I really sympathize with those people who think Congress is hopelessly messed-up.

Update:  Adam makes no mention of S-CHIP on his website, the last press release is from over 2 weeks ago, and it’s a commemoration of 9/11.   Speeking of priorities, it’s good to see Adam has his in order.  Health Insurance for Kids? Not worth a press release.  Iraq War?  Not worth a press release.  Moveon.org  add & exploiting the memory of 9/11 for partisan gain?  Priceless.

A young tech-savvy wikipedia user named Virgil Griffith recently created a new online program that tracks the IP adresses used to edit wikipedia pages, including what edits were made and when. The program, called wikiscanner, has caused quite an uproar as more and more organizations an officials have been traced to their not-so-honest wikipedia edits.

Now, for the less tech-savvy among us, here’s a quick explanation:

• whenever anyone uses the internet, their computer is assigned an IP (or Internet Protocol) address, which is just a long string of numbers unique to their individual internet connection.
• Wikipedia, the free and popular online encyclopedia, can be edited by anyone. However, it keeps track of which edits are made, and by which IP address.
• This new program, allows an easy cross reference of known IP addresses, with wikipedia edits.

So what does this have to do with Adam Putnam?

Well, someone in Putnam’s office (perhaps Adam himself?) has been editing the Adam Putnam wikipedia page.

Well, editing would be the wrong word, since judicious use of the delete key is about the sum of what they were doing.

Check out these sections removed on June 26th of this year,

Putnam also garnered attention when he stated “white rednecks” who “didn’t show up to vote for us” cost Republicans their Congressional majority in the 2006 elections. [http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/11/post_122.html]

Putnam also accepted at least $1,000 in contributions from disgraced Republican lawmaker Mark Foley. [http://www.capitaleye.org/foleycontrib.asp]

143.231.249.138 is the IP address used to make these edits, and it traces right back to Adam Putnam & the U.S. House of Representatives office building.

So what you have here is someone from Putnam’s office (perhaps we should ask him who?) scrubbing factual information from his wikipedia page, simply because it’s negative.

What’s wrong Congressman Putnam? Can’t handle the truth?

UPDATE: If you want more info on the Putnam / Foley connection, go to the videos section of the Putnam Report and watch Adam Putnam defend the GOP Leadership in response to the Foley scandal. It’s the video 3rd from the top on This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos.

UPDATE II: Welcome ThinkProgress Readers! Here at the Putnam Report we have been long TP readers, and think the Center for American Progress is exactly the type of independent progressive organization we need in this country. We couldn’t be more happy to get “linked” from such a prestigious blog. Come back soon!

Here we go- ready, set, blast off!

Today is the official launch of the Putnam Report.

Read the press release here.

One of the founding principles of the Putnam Report is that Adam spends far too much time worrying about (and exacerbating) partisan politics in Washington DC, and far too little time actually fighting for us back home. As such, it was a pleasant surprise (or not too pleasant, depending on how you look at it) to see him give us this gift today:

Adam Putnam is a Republican congressman from Florida. He wants his colleagues to bash the Democrats over tax hikes and pork projects. He put together the list of points for House Republicans.

That’s NPR’s Marketplace describing our good buddy. The point essentially is this: when you hear words in the media like “bashing democrats” or “talking points” or really any other words that we in Florida associate with what’s wrong in Washington… Adam Putnam is not far behind. We’re going to shine the light on this.

Rep. Adam Putnam is well known for cris-crossing the United States raising money for Republican Congressmen and political hopefuls.  Almost any night of the week you can find him on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, usually identified as the Republican Talking Head spreading partisan rhetoric to anyone who will listen.  He’s so good at these two partisan posts, that he was this year elected to the position of GOP Conference Chair, the highest ranking Republican political job in the House!

But who’s house is he in?  Who is Adam Putnam supposed to be fighting for, and who is he supposed to be fighting against?  The House of Representatives is the People’s House, and the people Putnam’s supposed to fight for are the people of our district, the people of South Central Florida.

Instead, Adam Putnam spends his time picking partisan fights with his opposition, defending fellow corrupt Republicans (as he infamously did on TV for Rep. Mark Foley in 2006), promoting the gridlock we see in Congress daily, and lowering our public discourse.

The Putnam Report aims to stop this travesty.  To force the man we elected to represent us, to - for once- represent us, we are going to shine the light on his votes, his statements, and his political posturing.  And, if Adam Putnam continues to pledge his allegiance to his party, and his DC-buddies, before the people of Florida, we will help support his replacement.  We can & will do no less.

Adam Putnam has for too long gone unchallenged, undebated, unwatched. He has risen up quickly through the ranks of the Washington, DC GOP partially because of the “safety” of his home district, FL-12.

But FL-12 is not a safe district for Putnam, or any other Republican who consistently votes with the most extremist elements of his party on issues such as The Iraq War, Health Care, Student Aid, and Immigration. The residents of Polk & Hillsborough counties are overwhelmingly moderate voters, and don’t like to be used as political capitol in the Washington DC insider games of our congressman.

We need a Congressman who is working for us, not for his own political aspirations.

Until that day comes when we have such a congressman (or woman!), we’re not going to let the congressman we have no our of our site.

From August 1st 2007 onward, the Putnam Report pledges to keep tabs on Adam Putnam, and be your one-stop-shop for everything you need to know going on in our district.

If you would like to help in this effort, please contact us, …Adam Putnam has the support of big business, his DC buddies, and the Florida GOP, but we have true grassroots energy, netroots idealism, and a commitment to change. This site isn’t meant to be a soapbox, it’s meant to be a community effort. So contact us today, to join the Putnam Report team.