earmarks

From the book of Matthew, chapter 7:

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

Dredging Today

His lips are moving and he's making a new "pledge."

[Burr] promised in 2009 that he wouldn’t ask for new earmarks, though he did agree to continue sponsoring requests for some ongoing projects.

Sponsoring requests, asking for earmarks. Same Burr baloney, different day. Don't worry Friends of Dick, he'll find a way around his promise. Your special interest will be well rewarded.

For someone who says we need to cut spending, he sure throws those earmarks around:

Deirdre Murphy, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, also fired a volley at Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) for “hypocritically request[ing] millions of dollars in pork spending while delivering empty rhetoric on restricting spending.”

Burr, who is facing a tough reelection, requested $320 million worth of earmarks. His requests include $8.7 million to Defense Technologies Inc. for an intelligence-gathering system and $6.5 million to Hexatech Inc. for next-generation wireless and optical communications systems to equip the military.

Here's a tiny little item from USA Today that points out that self-proclaimed Uber-Conservative, so-called anti-earmark, defender of the Pocketbook, tea-bagging Crusader Virginia Foxx (R-NC5) was instrumental is handing out federal funds for a nice little pet project that favored her local conglomerate Lowes, who just happens to be a major contributor to her warchest. Go figure.

From Monday's travel section:

I know that this is a North Carolina blog, but this situation has my blood boiling and I thought I would share my thoughts with your regarding the news from the John McCain camp. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well, Saint McSame has some good news and some bad news for Americans. I would love to do a "first the good news and then the bad news" sort of diary, but with McSame, it is all bad news for those of us that pay attention to current events once again.

From CNN:

An end to earmarks, a gas-tax holiday, government-backed mortgages -- they're all part of GOP Sen. John McCain's "big and ambitious" plan to revive a flailing economy, a top aide said Tuesday.

So I'm perusing the Winston-Salem Journal today and come across an article "Foxx Swearing Off Earmarks."

As Forrest Gump might say, I thought good, one less thing to worry about. Then I read the fine-print.

Two earmarks for $3.25 million.

That's what Pat McHorny wrote letters asking for this year while promoting himself as an anti-earmark crusader on the House floor:

"We need to lay clear these earmarks . . . so the American people can judge the worthiness of the programs and the money allocated to them."

And now he's saying he won't ever ask for any earmarks, starting next year.

[Photo from TPMMuckraker]

Bob Novak is my hero. What a muckraker! I thank the Lord he's all over Patrick McHenry's earmark hypocrisy.

Who knew? Republicans can get embarrassed by their own hypocrisy. At least Arizona's Representative Flake was peeved enough Thursday to cut McHenry's Christmas Tree earmark for WNC's Mitchell county. Check this out from Crypt's blog at politico dot com:

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona — with the help of plenty of Democrats — just screwed his GOP colleague Patrick McHenry out of earmarked money for a project in the latter's western North Carolina district.

Too, too cute. After all his bitchin' and moanin' about earmarks in the last two weeks, our dear Pat got outed. He wasn't really against earmarks themselves, he says. He just wanted everyone to know what they were voting for. But if he wanted people to know what they were voting for why didn't he mention his personal earmark of $129,000 for a Christmas Tree store in Mitchell County?

Commenters from all over are having a jolly ole time with Santa's little hypocrite: