Pork barrel

[Minionman]

coburn amendment

another one

a third one

a fourth one

a fifth one

Haven't heard of this until now. I'm not surprised by the votes, but this is still nutty.

[whyBish]

coburn amendment

another one

a third one

a fourth one

a fifth one

Haven't heard of this until now.  I'm not surprised by the votes, but this is still nutty.
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"The cost of the bridge alone would be enough to buy every island resident his own personal Lear jet."

It must be great to live in a country large enough to hide this type of spending :blink:

[Occhidiangela]

"The cost of the bridge alone would be enough to buy every island resident his own personal Lear jet."

It must be great to live in a country large enough to hide this type of spending  :blink:
[right][snapback]92914[/snapback][/right]

1. It isn't hidden, what creates the impression of "hidden" is the general public's lack of detailed interest in legislative details. It is all a matter of public record, in the Congressional Register. For those who care enough to stay informed, it is pretty much there.

2. The attempts to sneak stuff into a large bill are as old as our political process. Part of the Freedom of the Press is to ensure that the public is informed of what is going on. What the public does about it, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

Occhi

[Nystul]

Pork projects should be fought by not allowing them in as amendments, or amending them out of bills if they come in as riders. As I understand it, this was an attempt to cut the legs out of a project at appropriations after the project was already passed in another law? If so, it should surprise nobody that it failed so miserably. The nature of the Senate is so dependant on dealmaking and coalition building that if things were done this way, I'm not sure anything would ever get passed in the first place. Not that this would necessarily be a bad thing...

[Lady Vashj]

I'm not so surprised that the amendment got shot down, as that anyone had the solid steel balls to propose it in the first place.

Should that horrify me?

[whyBish]

1.  It isn't hidden, what creates the impression of "hidden" is the general public's lack of detailed interest in legislative details. It is all a matter of public record, in the Congressional Register.  For those who care enough to stay informed, it is pretty much there.

2.  The attempts to sneak stuff into a large bill are as old as our political process.  Part of the Freedom of the Press is to ensure that the public is informed of what is going on.  What the public does about it, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

Occhi
[right][snapback]92915[/snapback][/right]

Sorry, you are right. I'm just crabby from submitting my fifth green card lottery application... only anouther 64 to go before I reach my theoretical 50% chance of having recieved one :( (10k per 1M eack year i.e. 1% success per year)

In related news... I'm weighing up buying 1/4 of a mountain... 500 acres for ~$US175k... including a potential goldmine (literally)...even if it doesn't happen it has been a very entertaining process... I now know about the price of gold/kg :P

[--Pete]

Hi,

1.  It isn't hidden, what creates the impression of "hidden" is the general public's lack of detailed interest in legislative details. It is all a matter of public record, in the Congressional Register.  For those who care enough to stay informed, it is pretty much there.

2.  The attempts to sneak stuff into a large bill are as old as our political process.  Part of the Freedom of the Press is to ensure that the public is informed of what is going on.  What the public does about it, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

Occhi
[right][snapback]92915[/snapback][/right]

Yes, in principle. No, in practice.

Most people have a life to lead. They do not have time to consume the entrée of Congressional Register, committee reports, white papers, etc., that are generated on the Potomac (not to mention the antipasto of state government papers, the hor dourve of county matters, and the dessert of city issues). Hell, even the politicians don't do that -- they use a staff to tell condense it and tell them how to vote.

There is (or, rather was,) a group, a body, indeed, an estate (the fifth, if I'm not mistaken) whose job it should be to distill all the governmental fermentation into a glass which the common citizen could drink. An aperitif, if you will. That estate was once considered so sacred that it was given rights and privileges nearly as great as religion. But that estate, the guardian and the conscience of the state at the best of times, has fallen into the worst of times. Indeed, who guards the guardians?

--Pete

PS I hate waking up hungry in the middle of the night. Food seems to color all my thoughts ;)

-

[Boutros]

I love my crazy, unstable, yet extremely powerful congressional delegation.

[Occhidiangela]

Hi,
Yes, in principle. No, in practice.  Indeed, who guards the guardians?

--Pete

PS I hate waking up hungry in the middle of the night.  Food seems to color all my thoughts ;)
[right][snapback]93076[/snapback][/right]

Fourth Estate, IIRC, versus Fifth Column (saboteurs/spies/dissidents/rogues) Food is a good, universal metaphor/condiment to any conversation, eating being a universal habit. (Eating FOOD, for all of you Lurkers out there with minds in the gutters . . . :wacko: )

Media amalgamation and the attendant reduction of choice in the print media has yet to be counteracted by the explosion of news outlets on the internet, due IMO to Internet's inability to reach out as the omnipresent broadcast mechanism allows. It is a variable stovepipe information medium, whose broadcast elements typically induce information overload, and who rely on an individual's desire to do more than "hear what he wants to hear and disregard the rest . . ."

This leaves radio as a broadcast conduit, due to the constraints at the present that AM and FM bandwidth impose, but radio has been increasingly monopolized by trash music on FM, while on AM, talk radio seems to have reinforced itself to a narrow audience thanks to the corporations running the station networks, and the FM and AM audience's demonstrated choices.

Freedom isn't free, and in a like fashion, a free press costs time and money to enable. In whose interest is a free press? Not in the interest of those who prefer to work at the edges of honor and into dishonorable exercises. For those, misdirection is a key asset.

Competition for attention, and therefore priority of message -- as in a classroom full of attention-starved kids -- goes to those clever enough to get the eye and ear of the listener/viewer (teacher in the model). Clever does not necessarily connote honorable.

From where come the guardians of the public interest? In re your "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" from the population base. How does one grow guardians?

That is a point worth pondering. Just what, in an increasingly insular and chaotic, diverse, allegedly multicultural society (there's an oxymoron for you, given that society is based on culture) is of public interest?

In deference to P.J. O'Rourke, I'd say the one thing that is of interest to everyone is "where the 'public' money goes" in a nation governed by a Parliament of Whores. Paradoxically, that generic interest seems to drive a desire to "hide where the money is going" behind a wall of obfuscation and misdirection by those handling it. This boils down to integrity. The question put generically: "If you are hiding what you are doing from the public, whom you allegedly serve, just what are you doing up there in office, Senator? What are you doing in uniform, General? What are you doing in the Cabinet, Madam Secretary of _________?"

The alleged purpose, character, and structure of a constitutional republic drives a more fundamental question set, with assumption number one given being that a Free Press is indispensible to a government suited to a Free People, and that people give a crap about being "free" versus well sheparded sheep.

Is the purpose of government to serve or to rule?

If to rule, then the society is not free, go back looking for enlightened despots/kings

If to serve, where do you find people who wish to serve their fellow man, their fellow citizens? What cultural baseline, and basis, creates such citizens? From that same baseline, and basis, will come the journalists and editors who wish to serve the role the Fourth Estate is supposed to play in a Free society. I will offer my usual public service announcement that censorship of crap like the PC movement has no place.

What common cultural assumption evokes the desire to serve others?

What common cultural assumption imbues integrity as a behavior?

How does one apply that across a society?

Answer those, and you'll have your guards. ;) If I had an answer that was implemntable, I'd be working on making it happen. The thorn on this rose is the matter of public vitrue. The agents of the French Revolution, for example, tried to inflict a certain amount of virtue on the recently freed from despotism Republic, with mixed results. Likewise the Prohibitionists, and Abolitionists, and the Progressives of the early 20th century.

It is sobering and troubling to observe that the analogous movements in the direction of public virtue these days seem to be religion based movements, of varying stripes. Steps forward, or back?

Occhi