Boehner Hits Casino on Road Trip

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More on Majority Leader John Boehner’s lucky pee break.

The casino Boehner hit, the Kewadin Casino of Manistique, Michigan, is way up in Michigan’s upper peninsula. A number of readers have written in to ask, with some suspicion, what Boehner was doing up there. As TPMm reader DS put it, “there’s a whole lot of nothing-but-pine-trees, swamps and logging camps (and trains loaded with pulp logs on the way to a paper mill somewhere) out there.”

To illustrate the point, here’s a map of the upper peninsula area. The red dot is where Boehner’s lucky break happened:

Earlier this afternoon, I got a call back from Rep. John Boehner’s press rep Kevin Madden, who gave me the following account:

Boehner had been in a meeting with Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) in “an adjacent district” to Michigan’s upper peninsula. He was on his way to another event in Wisconsin.

On the way there (and Madden digressed here to mention that even though Boehner has caught flak for being a frequent flyer on corporate jets, he does “a lot of driving”), Boehner and his companions decided to stop off the main traveling highway for a break. There were some restaurants in the area, gas stations, etc. and they saw that a casino was nearby, so they went in there to use the restroom and take a break from travel. Boehner “played the casino and had a hit” while “he was waiting for his political aide” – to get back from the john, presumably.

That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

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