Senator Coburn Lists Every Bit of Pork In New Omnibus Spending Bill

Republican Earmark Hypocrisy
From The Senate Democrats, Republicans are finally taking a little bit of heat in the press for their hypocrisy on Earmarks. Senate Republicans took a lot of heat yesterday for stuffing a bill with millions of their own earmarks, then trying to claim they oppose Earmarks. but Republicans’ earmark hypocrisy is even starker when you compare what they are saying in Washington, DC to what they are saying to their constituents back home. In D.C., DeMint Decries Earmarks: “Americans want ...

Many Senators Who Voted to Ban Earmarks Also Pushed Pet Projects
WASHINGTON — Dozens of senators who voted to ban the practice of earmarking nevertheless requested nearly $1 billion for pet projects in the spending bill released Tuesday. The latest on President Obama, the new Congress and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion. The $1.2 Trillion measure includes more than 6,700 Earmarks totaling $8.1 billion, according to data from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington Watchdog group, including millions from 24 of the ...

Reid Pulls Controversial $1.2 Trillion Spending Bill in Favor of Short-Term Budget Fix
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., pauses while speaking with the media, after their Senate Democratic Caucus, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, bowing to Republican opposition to a 1,924-page $1.2 Trillion spending measure packed with Earmarks, withdrew the bill and said he would work with Republican leaders on a smaller, short-term Budget fix to avoid a looming government shutdown. The government already is operating on a te...

ANALYSIS: A Look At Republicans Who Are Blasting An Omnibus Bill Laden With Their Own Pork
As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell requested and received millions of dollars in Earmarks for this year’s omnibus spending bill, but has now denounced the measure and plans to vote against it. Overall, Republican Senators have gotten nearly $2 billion in Earmarks into the omnibus, and yet because of concerns over “wasteful spending,” they are threatening to block the entire bill — which contains not only funding for their own projec...

Senators vote to ban earmarks _ then grab them
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty-five senators, most Republicans, who recently voted to ban homestate projects are claiming hundreds of earmarks in an almost $1.3 trillion bill to fund most federal programs and agencies until next year. Republicans are calling the 1,924-page bill a pork-filled mess and accusing Democrats of trying to jam it through Congress with minimal debate and little if any opportunity to make changes. Some GOP senators voiced outrage but made no effort to dump their own earma...

Senators vote to ban earmarks _ then grab them
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than two dozen senators, most Republicans, who recently voted to ban homestate projects are claiming hundreds of Earmarks in an almost $1.3 Trillion bill to fund most federal programs and agencies into next fall. Republicans are calling the 1,924-page bill a pork-filled mess and accusing Democrats of trying to jam it through Congress with minimal debate and little if any opportunity to make changes. Some GOP senators voiced outrage but made no effort to dump their own ear...

Senators vote to ban earmarks _ then grab them
Twenty-five senators, most Republicans, who recently voted to ban homestate projects are claiming hundreds of Earmarks in an almost $1.3 Trillion bill to fund most federal programs and agencies until next year. Republicans are calling the 1,924-page bill a pork-filled mess and accusing Democrats of trying to jam it through Congress with minimal debate and little if any opportunity to make changes. Some GOP senators voiced outrage but made no effort to dump their own Earmarks from the Legislation...

Employment in most states better than last year
WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:41am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Employment conditions in more than half of U.S. states improved in November from a year earlier, the government reported on Friday, with Unemployment Rates dropping in 28 states and the District of Columbia. Compared to October, jobless rates rose in 21 states and the District of Columbia, the Labor Department said, and were unchanged in 14 states. Last month, jobless rates rose in 16 states. Nevada continued to have the highest...

Texas Sen. John Cornyn at odds with spending bill because of earmarks
Texas Sen. John Cornyn at odds with spending bill because of Earmarks 09:30 AM CST on Thursday, December 16, 2010 By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News [email protected] WASHINGTON - Texas' senators sought Wednesday to distance themselves from a $1.1 Trillion spending package that contains hundreds of millions in earmarks they requested, including $20 million for Dallas' Trinity River Project. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, with fellow Republican John Thune of South Dakota, ...

Harry Reid Pulls Massive Omnibus Spending Bill; Mitch McConnell Reacts Video 12/16/10
Here is video of GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reacting to news that Democrat Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid had pulled the massive $1.1 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill because he did not have the 60-votes for Cloture - which would bring it up for an Up or Down vote. The massive bill was filled with more than 39,000 Earmarks, and was 1,924-pages long . This means some kind of continuing resolution will likely be needed to fund the Government until the new Congress can act in J...

Employment in most states better than last year
WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:41am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Employment conditions in more than half of U.S. states improved in November from a year earlier, the government reported on Friday, with Unemployment Rates dropping in 28 states and the District of Columbia. Compared to October, jobless rates rose in 21 states and the District of Columbia, the Labor Department said, and were unchanged in 14 states. Last month, jobless rates rose in 16 states. Nevada continued to have the highest...

Have Republicans Cleaned Up Their Act On Earmarking?
In times past porking up bills was a bit of Bipartisanship both parties enjoyed, but these days it seems that while Democrats just keep right on porking Republicans are becoming much more reticent in their spending requests. A new analysis by a group of federal-spending Watchdogs shows a striking imbalance between the parties when it comes to earmark requests. Democrats remain raging spenders, while Republicans have made enormous strides in cleaning up their act. In the Senate, the GOP made only...

In a Victory for Earmark Opponents, Dems Drop Their Trillion-Dollar Omnibus Spending Bill
Friday, December 17, 2010 By Patrick Goodenough Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell holds up the 1,924-page omnibus spending bill on the Senate floor on Thursday night. (Screenshot: C-SPAN) (CNSNews.com) - Senate Democrats Thursday evening withdrew an earmark-laden omnibus spending bill, agreeing instead to work on a short-term, stop-gap funding bill - a “continuing resolution” - to keep the Federal Government running beyond midnight Saturday. Earlier, Secretary of

Harry Reid Pulls Massive Omnibus Spending Bill; Mitch McConnell Reacts Video 12/16/10
Here is video of GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reacting to news that Democrat Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid had pulled the massive $1.1 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill because he did not have the 60-votes for Cloture - which would bring it up for an Up or Down vote. The massive bill was filled with more than 39,000 Earmarks, and was 1,924-pages long . This means some kind of continuing resolution will likely be needed to fund the Government until the new Congress can act in J...

The weather: Just a lot more bad news
Snow, sleet and freezing rain wreaked havoc across Mid-Atlantic and Southern states on Thursday, causing hundreds of accidents, four fatal. The nasty pre-winter mix also forced schools to start late, close early or cancel classes altogether. Three people died in separate weather-related crashes in North Carolina. In south-central Kentucky, State Police said an 80-year-old man died when his sport-utility vehicle hit a patch of ice, ran off the road and overturned. Thousands of people in North Car...

NYT editorial: Round Up the Usual Prospects
To no one’s shock, the lame-duck session is offering daily profiles in hypocrisy by lawmakers who made loud campaign vows to “change the culture” of Washington. In the Senate, prominent Republicans who took the anti-earmark pledge as part of the Tea Party crusade against Deficits now must deal with a mammoth $1.2 Trillion Government Spending bill that happens to be routinely packed with their own customized pork. What to do? “The simple answer is: I’m going to vote against th

White House: Pass giant year-end spending bill
WASHINGTON -- The White House is pressing for passage of a $1.27 Trillion year-end spending bill despite the inclusion of thousands of congressional pet projects that President Barack Obama had vowed to oppose. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Thursday that Obama would prefer a bill without Earmarks. But he said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates had told Obama that the Legislation is necessary because it contains key financing for National Security - including $158 billion ...

Getting Over Earmarks
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann during a rally in April.(AP/Jim Mone) For Republicans, as well as some Democrats and the media, Earmarks are a symbol of wasteful spending and harmful quid pro quo. Recently, Republican leaders agreed to place a Moratorium on these spending requests, with support from the White House. Sean Kelly and Scott Frisch, political scientists at California State University, Channel Islands, have a friendlier view of earmarks. In their book Cheese Factories on The Moon, ...

Defeat 6 Weeks Too Late Is Still Sweet
Last night, Harry Reid pulled the pork-filled omnibus spending bill , agreeing to a 1-page CR to fund the government through the holidays: After wrestling with, and finally abandoning, a 1,900-page catch-all spending bill stuffed with more than $8 billion in home-state projects known as Earmarks in Washington and pork in the rest of the country, Senate leaders need to come up with a measure to keep the Federal Government running into early next year. Nearly $1.3 Trillion in unfinished Budget wo...

How They Learned to Start Worrying and Stop Appropriating
The omnibus spending bill died in the Senate last night, and the death was a long time coming. It started to bleed in 2006, when a series of rule changes and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act were passed, opening up the process by which bills were marked up to public scrutiny. It got a good hard kick in December 2009, when President Obama signed that year's omnibus, but only after an angry Speech declaring that the bill had to "mark an end to the old way of doing business a...

Flood the lines, stop the OMNIBUS PORK BILL!
Totaling $1.1 Trillion and stuffed with $8.3 billion worth of over 6,000 pet projects, the omnibus spending bill in the Senate will be a disaster for the country. Call your Senators now and tell them this bill should be stopped IMMEDIATELY! Casey, Robert P., Jr. - (D - PA)Class I Flood the lines, stop the OMNIBUS PORK BILL!&u;=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lauraingraham.com%2Fblog%3Faction%3DviewBlog%26blogID%3D569857816763812273">Furl Made in the USA! Gary says a real tree is the way to go! ...

Government May Shut Down Amid Standoff on Pork-Filled Spending Bill
A government shutdown looms as Congress risks missing a key deadline this weekend over the battle in the Senate on a massive 2,000-page catchall spending bill that Republicans have vowed to oppose unless they can strip it of Earmarks. A government shutdown looms as Congress risks missing a key deadline this weekend over the battle in the Senate on a massive 2,000-page catchall spending bill that Republicans have vowed to oppose unless they can strip it of Earmarks. Senate Majority Lead...

Massive Land Grab Stuffed Into Omnibus Spending Bill
The nearly 2,000 page omnibus spending bill Democrats are trying to cram through the Lame Duck session of Congress is an odorous enough piece of Legislation on its own. Democrats did no budgeting this year because they didn’t want to have a spending debate before the election, now they want to pass an entire year’s worth of appropriations at the last minute with votes from a Congress that lost its mandate on Election Day. Plus, the bill is tucked with thousands of Earmarks worth $8.3...

Center-right and faith-based group Freedom Federation targets 10 senators to oppose repeal of 'don't ask don't tell'
Repeal of the Military’s ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy appears to be a lock. With four moderate Senate Republicans planning to vote for Repeal, supporters now have 61 votes — more than the majority needed for passage and enough to to prevent a Filibuster. But opponents are going into hyper-drive, attempting to stop what now appears to be inevitable. The Freedom Federation, a coalition of more than 90 center-right and faith-based organizations that says it repr...

Good Gotcha.
I've long been on record as a critic of a particular kind of gotcha played by many reporters, what we might call "The Russert." This is where the reporter reads the politician something he said some time in the past, or describes something he did some time in the past, and contrasts it with what he's saying or doing today, to charge him with hypocrisy. There's nothing illegitimate about pointing out a politician's hypocrisy, of course, and it's a good thing if politicians fear being called hypoc...