Go for it, Johnny!! Push that self fulfilling prophecy! After all, you're just "observing" these events, how can that possibly affect the outcome of the election? You aren't responsible for GOP voters being "disillusioned", right? You're merely repeating hyperbole and spreading such messages against "your" party! How can you possibly be the instrument of your own undoing?! Betcha Don get's re-elected because his constituents (you remember, the ones who VOTE for the candidates) WANT HIM TO BRING HOME THE BACON! Let's nationalize his pork, though! Let's make sure everyone things it's epidemic in the GOP! We simply CAN'T have them thinking it's a problem that spans across the partisan spectrum! NO! We are out to tear down "our" own party! Go Johnathan! Go! The War on Terror isn't as important as a couple of bridges financed by the feds!

Hey Val,
I didn't like the article as much as you did. I think Jonathan is a donk mole. If he isn't he sure acts like one. He reminds me of those donks who say they support the troops and then call them baby killers and war criminals. Go Jonathan, you're on a roll.

And Val,
as far as the idiotic "PorkBusters" baloney going on at NZ Bear's, here's what The Daily Pundit thinks of it:

N.S. Bear's pork list looks like a pretty iffy proposition. That darned bridge to nowhere seems to be mentioned more than once times in the Alaska listings, under different names, and it even crops up again in the Alabama listings. (Or maybe an Alabama bridge is duplicated in the Alaska listings. It's hard to tell. I'm also fairly sure the "Gravina Island Bridge" isn't going to cost 2.15 billion dollars). That's just with a cursory glance at the first couple of states. If this sort of inaccuracy holds throughout the entire compendium, it is probably fairly worthless as a teaching/learning tool.

If we had a choice between losing Mr. Young's seat in the House or losing the White House to Comrade Hillary I'd go with sacrificing Mr. Young.

Why would you think that we have to make such a choice, Leslie? We don't. Let Alaska worry about Don Young. They'll either be pissed with him his behavior, or they will praise him, or they won't even care. Pork is not a Don Young or GOP issue, it is an issue for each and every elected representative that must answer to the people who elected them. It is not a national party issue depsite Johnathan's best efforts to make it so. And out of a 2.4 TRILLION dollar budget where Housing and Human services claims the lions share of that total, Citizens Against Public Waste estimated the pork in the 2005 budget at 28 Billion. H Y P E R B O L E ! Don't buy into it.

I'd like to see the President suggest that each and every Senator put his/her money where his/her mouth is, regarding the need to rebuild New Orleans, etc. and go back to scrape all the pork out of the budget and apply that money to the hurricane rebuilding effort. It would be a lot harder to insist on keeping your pet projects when the money is clearly better used in the national interest, and it might help sort out the worst of the worst.

The money is already allocated. It's spent, for all intents and purposes. So why not redirect it to where it can do some good, and at the same time shine a spotlight on those who have padded the bills so shamelessly?

Yes, pork crosses party lines. Yes, it has been part of our process forever. But someone has to draw the line, and this is one place where I think the President could score a lot of points with the public and at the same time do a lot of good. We all know we've been hosed---it's not like he would be revealing some deep dark secret. But I think the whole country would enjoy putting Congress on the spot by challenging each and every one of them to do the right thing.