House Speaker John Boehner has joined fellow Republicans in criticizing Rep. Michele Bachmann’s criticism of a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Bachmann recently urged executive branch agencies to launch investigations to determine whether the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the American government. Bachmann and other conservative colleagues expressed particular concerns about Huma Abedin, an aide to Clinton who is Muslim.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was among the first to condemn Bachmann’s effort. One day after McCain spoke on the Senate floor to criticize the effort, Boehner, R-West Chester Twp., weighted in.

Boehner said he did not know Abedin well, but that “from everything that I know of her she has a sterling character.”

“I think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous,” he said.

Brown campaign promotes endorsement from FOP, quiet about MoveOn.org backing

When the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police last week endorsed Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the Brown campaign bombarded reporters with an e-mail and tweets boasting of the endorsement, including one e-mail headlined, “In case anyone missed it.’’

But when MoveOn.Org, a progressive national organization that nobody would accuse of being a middle-of-the-road group, endorsed Brown last week, the Brown campaign was quiet. Instead, reporters learned about the endorsement because the National Republican Senate Committee distributed it to news organizations.

The Republicans even included a snide statement, declaring that “while the ever-voluble Brown campaign press shop is normally all too happy to trumpet their endorsements, it appears they have been silent on this one. Perhaps that’s because MoveOn.Org has been responsible for some of the most despicable political smears ever.’’

Turner introduces bill to rehab older school buildings

Reps. Mike Turner, R-Centerville and Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., have introduced a bill aimed at spurring private investment to help rehabilitate the country’s older K-12 public school buildings.

Current law restricts the ability of local governments to partner with private organizations to rehabilitate older public schools by using the Historic Tax Credit. Turner’s bill would remove that measure in order to spur the renovation of older K-12 public schools.

According to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, 28 percent of all public K-12 schools were built before 1950. And a study by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the quality of our nation’s public school facilities a “D” rating.

Compiled by Jessica Wehrman and Jack Torry.