Pork Alert!

[Highwayman]

There’s nothing like the smell of bacon in the morning.

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of H.R. 3222, the Fiscal 2008 Department of Defense Appropriations Act.

CAGW found 2,047 projects worth $6.6 billion in this year’s defense bill, compared to 2,618 projects worth $10.8 billion that were identified in CAGW’s 2007 Congressional Pig Book. This represents a decrease of 21 percent in the number of earmarks and a 38 percent decrease in the dollar amount. The 2006 Congressional Pig Book identified 2,822 projects worth $14.9 billion, while the 2005 Congressional Pig Book found 2,606 with at a cost of $12.7 billion.

Here are some of the more egregious pork projects added to the defense bill:

• $25,000,000 for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network, added by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).
  
  $23,000,000 for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), added by Rep. John “Jack” Murtha (D-Pa.). This is the project over which Rep. Murtha threatened a colleague for challenging in the spring. Since 1992, more than $509 million has been used to fund NDIC, which is administered by the Department of Justice (DOJ.). Ironically, DOJ does not want the NDIC and has asked Congress to shut the agency down because the department believes the operations are duplicative.
  
  *$20,000,000 for historically black colleges and universities, added by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
  
  $5,000,000 for Project SOAR, added by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), and Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
  
  *$5,000,000 for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Paralympic Military Program, added by Reps. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.).
  
  $4,800,000 for the Jamaica Bay Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area added by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). The Gateway National Recreation Area’s website describes the Jamaica Bay Unit as “a wealth of history, nature and recreation, from New York City's first major airport and coastal fortifications to a wildlife refuge and pristine beaches.”
  
  *$3,000,000 for “The First Tee,” added by House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) The program’s mission, according to its website, is “To impact the lives of young people by providing learning facilities and educational programs that promote character development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf.” First Tee won CAGW’s “The Taxpayers Get Teed Off” Oinker Award in 2004 for receiving $3 million in two separate appropriations bills.
  
  $2,400,000 for the Lewis Center for Education Research, added by its namesake, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.). The center is described on its website as “a unique educational facility designed to improve educational effectiveness and scientific literacy among American schoolchildren.”
  
  $2,400,000 for the Vertical Lift Center of Excellence-Institute of Maintenance, Science and Technology, added by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.).
  
  $2,000,000 for brown tree snakes, added by Sen. Inouye, which has been a staple in the Congressional Pig Book since 1996.
  
  $1,600,000 for the New York Structural Biology Center, added by Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The center’s mission, according to its website, is to “increase our understanding of the role that proteins play in disease pathways and enhance the ability of scientists to carry out advanced biomedical research in a number of areas including the new fields of structural genomics, and proteomics.”
  
  $1,600,000 for the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP), added by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kans.) himself.
  
  $1,600,000 for the Allen Telescope Array, added by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.). This project first appeared in the 2005 Congressional Pig Book and has received a total of $5.6 million. It is part of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which describes the telescope as “dedicated to astronomical and simultaneous search for extra-terrestrial intelligence observations.”
  
  $1,600,000 for the development of enabling chemical technologies for power from green sources, added by Rep. John Olver (D-Mass.).
  
  $1,200,000 for the National Bureau for Asian Research, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution dedicated to informing and strengthening policy in the Asia-Pacific,” according to its website, added by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.).
  
  $1,000,000 for transforming waste plastics into alterative fuels, added by Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio).
  
  $800,000 for extended shelf life produce for remotely deployed forces, added by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.). This sounds suspiciously like a 2007 Congressional Pig Book project: $1,650,000 added by Senate appropriator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to improve the shelf life of vegetables.
  
  *$500,000 for the Maine Institute for Human Genetics, described on its website as “blending inventive research with emerging concepts in clinical care in rural communities,” added by Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine).

* airdropped in conference

Citizens Against Government Waste: Pork Alert: Indefensible Defense Pork

[Highwayman]

Here’s how they make room for all that pork.

WASHINGTON | Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said Tuesday that Democrats had stripped from a defense spending bill a $3 billion border-security amendment that the Senate passed overwhelmingly last month.

Graham said Democrats also attached conditions to the Iraq war funding, leading all Republican senators on a conference committee to refuse to sign the panel’s report.

“I’m incredibly disappointed,” Graham said in an interview. “Congress would serve itself well if we funded border security as my amendment proposes, and it would help us move the immigration debate further down the road.”.....

www.kansascity.com | 11/06/2007 | Graham says border-security measure yanked from defense bill

[Army_of_One]

I see that last night on the news. They Dems cut the money for border security. Again.....I wonder who's side the Dems are on? The Republicans haven't exactly shut the border down but DAMN...stripping money from the bill to MAKE OUR COUNTRY SAFER? It looks like the Democratic (Al Qaeda Party) is at it again. ANY bill that seems to make our country safer they vote against or won't fund. I guess I'm the only fool that see's a pattern here.

[Made in the USA]

The TaxPayers are the ones getting "porked"!

[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by Army_of_One

... Again.....I wonder who's side the Dems are on?...

Army, I think the best answer to that question came from Senator Joe Lieberman last Thursday. The fact that Senator Joe won reelection as an independent over an anti-war Democrat in one of the bluest states should send a message to the Democrat party. Remember that Howard Dean did a brilliant job of winning the House majority by recruiting Blue Dog Democrats in red states. Given the thin majority vote count in several districts Democrats could not have taken the House had they ran far left, anti-war candidates.

I read the blogs. The Daily Kos Kids have called for the ousting of those Blue Dog Democrats because they don’t toe the far left line. The very reason Democrats have a majority in the House and they are willing to discard them for not toeing the far-left line. These same folks have called for the impeachment of Nancy Pelosi because she hasn’t stopped the war and started impeachment proceedings against President Bush. This is the same bunch that the current Democrat Presidential candidates recently attended their convention to suck up and gain approval. They have not learned anything from Joe Lieberman’s reelection.

I’m going to quote a teaser from Senator Joe’s speech but like all sound bites you really need to follow the link and read the whole thing to understand the context. I don’t agree with the Senator on many of his policies but he really does hit home with his analysis of the issues. I encourage anyone serious about what’s going on to read the entire speech.

I understand that President Bush is a divisive figure. I recognize the distrust that many Americans feel toward his administration. I recognize the anger and outrage that exists out there about the war in Iraq.

But there is something profoundly wrong—something that should trouble all of us—when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.

There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base—even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.

Senator Joe Lieberman: News Release