Tag: congress

New Pig Book is Out

Posted on by Michael Bishop

Citizens Against Government Waste has released their annual report outlining the pork barrel additions to spending bills from Congress.
Some of my favorites are:

  • $3,000,000 for the Animal Waste Management Research Laboratory in Kentucky
  • $1,099,000 for alternative salmon products in Alaska – WTF are alternative salmon products?
  • $6,435,000 for wood utilization research in Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Mich., Minn., Miss., N.C., Ore., Tenn., Wash., and W.Va. Since 1985, $86 million has been sapped from the taxpayers for this purpose – Um we’ve kinda got an idea how to use wood, don’t we?
  • $1,000,000 for the Gaming-Technology Software Initiative in Michigan- huh?
  • $13,500,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), which has released a five-year strategy focusing on grassroots reconciliation and cross-community projects such as: the construction of Creggan Community Café and Catering Ltd., the Newcastle YMCA, the Donegal Town Waterbus, the Leitrim Food Center of Excellence, the Chef Development Program, and funding toward the World Toilet Summit. – World Toilet Summit, come on…
  • $46,908 for Hampton Jitney, Inc. The Jitney is known primarily for shuttling wealthy New Yorkers to their summer homes in the Hamptons.
  • $4,000,000 for a visitors center at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska – yet another pork barrell project from Sen Stevens. What gets me about this one is A, $4 million is a lot for a visitor center, and B, this is a guy who basically wants to ruin another wildlife refuge in Alaska for the sake of oil. Will the visitor center at Kodiak have pictures of the other, to make up for the loss?
  • $21,750,000 added for the National Writing Project, a program established by Congress and developed by the DoE, which aims to enhance the writing skills of grade school teachers
  • $100,000 added by the House for the Harpers Ferry Police Department in West Virginia. The population of Harpers Ferry was less than 400 in 2004 and the police force today consists of two full-time and one part-time police officers..
  • $5,880,000 for the Zora and Main Street Interchange in Missouri- Joplin requested the funding, purportedly to maintain safety and prevent congestion in the town of 50,000 people
  • $500,000 for construction of the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, North Carolina – yep, you read that right

Those are just some highlights of the highlights, I’m sure there are even more mind blowers in there.

Guess He Heard the Footsteps!

Posted on by Michael Bishop

New services around the country are reporting that good ol’ Tom “The Hammer” DeLay is stepping down from his bid to run again for Congress. Couldn’t be better news to me. I just wonder why it’s taken so long. Perhaps he got advanced warning of the extent of Tom Rudy’s cooperation, and pending charges that will be harder to shake.
I also wonder if those who donated to his re-election can ask for a refund, and how the successor is chosen. A run off between the remaining 3 candidates?
I also wonder if Bush and the Rove machine will continue to stand by their man, or will attempt to distance themselves and the White House from DeLay.
I’m sure some answers will come sooner than later, but that’s at least one perpetrator of the culture of corruption that won’t be influencing the laws of our country, and won’t be perpetuating the good ol’ boy network on Capitol Hill come this fall.

Jan Schneider for Congress FL-13 in 2006

Posted on by Michael Bishop

Jan Schneider for CongressJust a note to any readers in Congressional district 13, to support Jan Schneider in her attempt to take the seat vacated by Katherine Harris. I’ve gotten several emails pushing for her support, and come across a couple of blog posts as well, so I took a minute to check out her credentials. Not your soccer mom got bored, or super rich white girl with nothing better to do type of candidate. It’s also my understanding that a recent Democrat convert is being supported by the DNC. I hope that’s not the case, and all because one may have a few more dollars than the other. Shame shame.

I’d love to know more about this one, so if you have any details, do share.

Proverbial Fox Guarding the Hen House

Posted on by Michael Bishop

AP (via Yahoo) So, the old Hammer slips in shit and comes out smelling like a rose. He’s been handed a “coveted” seat on the Appropriations Committee, and get this, a seat on the sub-committee overseeing the Justice Department. Which, just so happens to be who is investigating the Abramhoff scandal. And while he’s at it, he got a seat overseeing NASA (the same NASA that was recently revealed to have a political appointee of Bush’s who’s been censoring its scientists on global warming, that doesn’t have a completed college degree and regardless of his studies, his major was journalism). Anyway, back to DeLay, go figure, he’s up for reelection, and now sits on the NASA subcommittee, and guess what, his home district just happens to be Houston, home of Johnson Space Center. So anyone with half a brain can tell you that was as politically motivated an appointment as they get, and despite what anyone says, the Republicans are going about dirty business as usual.