House keeps pet projects from scrutiny

[Speck Tater]

Source: AP Via Yahoo News

WASHINGTON - After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress' pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.
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Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify "earmarks" — lawmakers' requests for specific projects and contracts for their states — in documents that accompany spending bills.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070603/ap_on_go_co/congress_pet_projects

[Solo_in_MD]

1. Murtha has been a major force in doing this

[progressivebydesign]

2. I can't BELIEVE this hit piece!

Seriously. It reads like a republican PRESS RELEASE. The first line says it all about the spirit in which this was written. Time for AP to collect their paycheck from Rove now... just disgusting.

[still_one]

5. They do seem to be taking great pains to point out the hypocrocy of the Democrats

while for the last FOURTEEN YEARS THEY GAVE THE republicans A FREE PASS

AP has been one of the worse

What is funny is AP will print one story for U.S. audiences, and the same story for Canadian audiences, but with a different slant

There is definitely an agenda going on here

[Up2Late]

6. I'm sure you're right, but what's even worse is what usually happens to these...

...AP "hit pieces" is, they almost always get edited even further by Local TV and small town "news" paper websites. Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

<http://wkbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=6604803>

This sort of editing should be illegal, but unfortunately, it's par for the AP course. :grr:

[progressivebydesign]

3. Wow.. the writer uses "Citizens Against Government Waste" a TOBACCO/OIL front..

Nice to see how partisan this article is... I'm adding more info for people who do not research hit pieces like these. The "OUTRAGED" group that is quoted is the Citizens Against Government Waste, which has been funded by the likes of Exxon, Phillip Morris, and other corporate republicans. They bill themselves as "non-partisan" but it's a front for big biz and the republicans. They've lobbied on behalf of tobacco industries and Microsoft. This piece was submitted on Sunday night for a reason. It's a smear piece put out, no doubt, as a press release by the aforementioned lobby group. They know that by submitting in on a Sunday night, the editors (sleepy and weekend editors) will just plug it in for Monday's news cycle.

[Kolesar]

8. CAGW wrote op eds to help Jack Abramoff

Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff

By James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 13, 2006; 1:32 AM



Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.

The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff funneled money from his clients to the groups. In exchange, the groups, among other things, produced ostensibly independent newspaper op-ed columns or news releases that favored the clients' positions.

Officers of the groups "were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff's requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments," said the report, issued by the Senate Finance Committee. The report was written by the Democratic staff after a yearlong investigation and authorized by the Republican chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889_pf.html

[Scooter24]

4. In 2005, all earmarks totalled only $19 Billion.

However, that figure pales in comparison to the $440 Billion Defense Department budget.

Earmarks, for the most part, help the general public by building parks, repairing infrastrucure, etc.

[bklyncowgirl]

7. Earmarks are bad whether they have a donkey brand or an elephant brand on them.

Congress critters will get away with whatever they can. Defending them by saying our guys are less slimy than their guys (however true) does not help the cause of good government.

I'd prefer to try and hold the Democratic leadership's feet to the fire on this issue rather than make excuses.

And yes, AP sucks, but that's not the point.

[originalpckelly]

9. Wow, that's pretty fucking weird. I swear to God this is not the story I read YESTERDAY...

by the same author with the same title. I read the whole damn thing, it wasn't that long, and it didn't have any quotes from Obey. Now it does.

Is the AP editing it's published stories or something?

[originalpckelly]

10. I don't know what to make of this:

The earliest DU posting of this story I could find was at Sun Jun 3, around 6 AM MDT or 9 AM EDT.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1031458

The yahoo story says it was published on Sun Jun 3, 12:36 PM ET.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070603/ap_on_go_co/congress_pet_projects

Something is up here, this is not the same story. I know this author has written a number of hit pieces before. I have a feeling that for some reason this was edited.

I don't doubt it's true now that I've seen some quotes from the actual people that can be confirmed or denied.

I wish there was something I could do to follow up on why this story was edited.