earmarks

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:

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing


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Good Lord! When it rains it pours around here!!! Two big stories we're tracking tonight:

First, I guess you can color me unsurprised... (via AC-T):

The debate is off.

In late September, U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, agreed to debate his congressional opponent on television for the first time since 1994. But this year’s Democratic challenger, Heath Shuler, said he doesn’t have time in his schedule for a televised debate, which was tentatively planned for Oct. 22.

The Asheville Citizen-Times and WLOS-News 13 had planned to co-sponsor the debate, which would have aired on the TV station. Taylor, who last debated Democratic challenger Maggie Lauterer 12 years ago, had agreed to all the format specifications and the date, but a Shuler spokesman told the Citizen-Times the challenger's schedule did not allow him the time for a debate.