Ace, did you just use the words "Patty Murray" and "naked" in the same sentence?

Why? Why do you hurt me so? I thought we were friends?!

*Shudder*

What Murray did today is typical of Senate Appropriators. Ted Stevens (R-AK)-Chairman of Approps. Cmte-has often taken to the Senate floor and made the same kinds of threats to his colleagues. And Robert Byrd (in his days as Chairman) did the same.

In fact, that's one of the reasons Byrd gets a free pass among his colleagues for his KKK background. None of his colleagues mentions it on the Senate floor, or even when talking to reporters, for fear of his ability to retaliate against them in committee.

The members of the Appropriations Committee think of themselves as "super-Senators", since they ultimately decide (in committee) who will get their pet projects funded, which, for re-election minded Senators place incredible importance on.

As a result, their decisions are almost always given more deference than a "regular" Senators.

Interestingly, often times the only people who will vote against the express wishes of an Approps Committee member on one of these "pork spending" issues is a Senator who's State has a Senator serving on the Commitee.

In that event, Senator 1 can vote aginst the Commitee wishes, knowing that Senator 2 (who sits on the committee) will have his back on home state projects.

I used to work with the Approps Committee. I could tell you some stories.

I haven't seen the roll-calls yet, but I would not be surprised if this dynamic plays out.

Accusing a politician of wanting pork for his home district/state is like accusing water of being wet.

It's what they do. It's what they are there to do.

It's your basic game theory-Spanish Prisoner situation. No one state is going to voluntarily and unilaterally give up the quest for more federal dollars in its direction. That means that no politician can openly lobby for it without being promptly voted out of office.

Honestly, that's what the Supreme Court was for. We had a Constitutional provision that addressed this. It was phrased in the negative -- Congress cannot do anything except a list of about a dozen things.

Then in 1937, the FDR-appointed Supreme Court gave the federal gov't the green light to spend money on anything it wanted. Until that is corrected, the pork-spending problem will never go away.

Give me Supreme Court justice that has the stones to declare that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional. These two programs make discretionary pork-spending look like pocket change anyway.

Patty murray your typical liberal tax and spend demacrat who just look upon the american tax payer and piggy bank to dip their hands into when ever they want for pork spending its time to vote her out along with few other of her kind

Remember, you are talking about Patty "I aint no rocket scientist" Murray.... http://www.washingtonian.com/inwashington/bwcongress.html

Patty the Dummy, Maria "RealNetworks" Cantwell and Jim McDermott all make me proud to be a resident of the Upper Left Washington. Only Massachusetts inflicts more stupid politcians on the rest of the country on a per capita basis.

This rminds of the last time that Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.'s father ran for re-election. After he had won re-election, a TV station stopped him at his re-election party and asked him for some comments. He said"

"I drove around East Memphis and wrote down the addresses of you white devils that had signs for my opponent in your yard. You better not come to me asking for any help in the future."

Needless to say, the next time an election rolled around, he decided to step aside and allow his no-experience-at-anything-except-going-to-college son run in his place.

These are the Wrong Pork Chops. This is highways money. It is not the general fund money that should be used to pay for disasters. Highways kill 40,000 people a year -- 40 times the deaths in Katrina.
Cut something else

"Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told a group of high-school students in her state that the U.S. should adopt Osama bin Laden's nation-building tactics..."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30114

Sir,

Perhaps Miss Murray could solicit assistance from that well- known philanthropist Osama bin Laden on pork projects that she feels are essential for the commonweal.

rcl

The demacratic party need a new symbol they should dump the donkey and replace it with a picture of a old sow laying on her side with all the little piggies sucking away this will reprisent the way the demacrats spend on pork more then the rebublicans