PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The New York Times sniffs out some healthcare pork:

Despite promises by Congress to end the secrecy of earmarks and other pet projects, the House of Representatives has quietly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to specific hospitals and health care providers under a bill passed this month to help low-income children.

Instead of naming the hospitals, the bill describes them in cryptic terms, so that identifying a beneficiary is like solving a riddle. Most of the provisions were added to the bill at the request of Democratic lawmakers. . . .

Republicans sometimes did the same thing when they controlled Congress. Under a 1999 law, for example, a small hospital in rural Dixon, Ill., was deemed to be in the Chicago area — 95 miles away — at the behest of its congressman, J. Dennis Hastert, who was then speaker.

Meet the new boss, yada yada. (Via Prairie Pundit).

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More and more news outlets seem to be noticing the Democrats’ disappointing performance on pork:

When the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives passed one of its first spending bills, funding the Energy Department for the rest of 2007, it proudly boasted that the legislation contained no money earmarked for lawmakers’ pet projects and stressed that any prior congressional requests for such spending “shall have no legal effect.”

Within days, however, lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) began directly contacting the Energy Department. They sought to secure money for their favorite causes outside of the congressional appropriations process — a practice that lobbyists and appropriations insiders call “phonemarking.” . . .

The number of earmarks, in which lawmakers target funds to specific spending projects, exploded over the past decade from about 3,000 in 1996 to more than 13,000 in 2006, according to the Congressional Research Service. Most earmarks made it into appropriations bills or their accompanying conference reports without identifying their sponsors. Upon taking control of Congress after November’s midterm elections, Democrats vowed to try to halve the number of earmarks, and to require lawmakers to disclose their requests and to certify that the money they are requesting will not benefit them.

But the new majority is already skirting its own reforms. . . . “Absolutely nothing has changed,” said the Center for Defense Information’s Winslow T. Wheeler, a Senate appropriations and national security aide who worked for both Democrats and Republicans over three decades before stepping down in 2002. “The rhetoric has changed but not the behavior, and the behavior has gotten worse in the sense that while they are pretending to reform things, they are still groveling in the trough.”

Meet the new boss, yada yada. Read the whole thing.

HEY, RUBE! Americans Are Outraged Because in Voting for Obama, They Thought They Were Rejecting Bush. Meet the new boss, yada yada.

UPDATE: Heh. Obama’s Apology Letter To George W. Bush. “I am sorry that, as a United States senator and presidential candidate, I was critical of you about so many things I now, myself, am doing. . . . You can take heart that, even though I am a Democrat, I decided to keep going nearly all your vision and plans on national security and even take it to all-new levels.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ:

Liberation under the Piven doctrine effectively becomes a choice by the serfs of which aristocracy they believe will do best by them, since worth is determined by the political process anyway. Which side do we back by our “mass actions”? Liberation becomes the process of putting the “right” people in charge of the masses. It is not — it is never — putting the masses in charge of themselves.

Why not put the masses in charge of their own lives? Because that would require facilitating innumerable transactions and contracts between individuals. That would require self-interest and economic calculation to propel the system. That would mean a market, whose job it would be for the state to keep fair, and that were too little a role for such as Piven thinks should rule the roost.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

A NON-OUTRAGE OUTRAGE: “The NY Times covers a trial balloon that would provoke outrage from the left if Bush-Cheney had proposed it. However, as the Times tells it, the proposal has no sponsorship at all – apparently it just fell from the sky, or something.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

THE FIERCE MORAL URGENCY OF CHANGE (CONT’D):

President Obama and former Vice President Cheney weren’t so much a study in contrast today as a portrait of harmony. Both men agree that the Bush administration’s anti-terrorist policies were largely correct. Cheney signaled his acceptance of this view by vigorously defending those policies. Obama signaled it by largely adopting those same policies and emitting a fog of words to cover up the fact.

Meet the new boss, yada yada. Actually, he manages to yada yada on for quite a while.

Related: CNN Poll: Favorable opinion of Dick Cheney on the rise. Plus, a roundup of reactions from Tom Maguire.

ANDREW SULLIVAN FIGURES OUT WHO THE RUBES ARE: “I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away. . . . Yesterday, Robert Gibbs gave non-answer after non-answer on civil unions and Obama’s clear campaign pledge to grant equal federal rights for gay couples; non-answer after non-answer on the military’s remaining ban on honest servicemembers. What was once a categorical pledge is now – well let’s call it the toilet paper that it is.”

In entirely unrelated news, Obama has also flip-flopped on releasing the “torture” photos. Meet the new boss, yada yada. All of this was entirely predictable. And yet, his election was a matter of fierce moral urgency about which there could be no serious disagreement. . . .

UPDATE: More hope and change! Indefinite Detention Weighed. “The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil — indefinitely and without trial — as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

Previously: “You were expecting a Chicago machine politician to show an enthusiasm for civil liberties?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments at Politico, limited sympathy for Andrew’s plight. My favorite: “Gee, it seems like I’ve lived through this before.”

And this rings true: “Shoulda stuck with conservatives sully, we woulda kept ya around. Chicago style politics just uses you until you run out of use. You have run out my friend.” As Jim Geraghty notes: “All statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.”

I talk to the wind. The wind cannot hear. And I don’t look as good as Kirsty Hawkshaw when I do it. . . .

HMM: White House Mum On Legislation That Would Nix Bush “State Secrets Privilege”. “The White House’s silence on the bill will give more fodder to critics who charge that Obama has broken a campaign promise to dramatically scale back use of the Bush legal maneuver and wants the latitude to use it himself.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

CORY DOCTOROW: Obama DOJ invents radical authoritarian theory to defend Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping. “I don’t expect the guy to walk on water, but I’d sure like it if he’d stop wallowing in the mud.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

GOOD THING THE ERA OF BUSH IS OVER! Obama Administration Invokes State Secrets Privilege in Anti-Torture Lawsuit. ‘Cause if Bush did this, it would be a sign of lawlessness, and incipient fascism. [Well, sure, if Bush did it. — ed. Yeah, that’s what I said.]

Plus, Glenn Greenwald: “Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability — resoundingly and disgracefully. . . . What makes this particularly appalling and inexcusable is that Senate Democrats had long vehemently opposed the use of the ‘state secrets’ privilege in exactly the way that the Bush administration used it in this case, even sponsoring legislation to limits its use and scope. Yet here is Obama, the very first chance he gets, invoking exactly this doctrine in its most expansive and abusive form.” Meet the new boss, yada yada. Some of us are more surprised about this than others . . . .

UPDATE: Much more at Memeorandum. And this comment from reader Douglas Mortimer: “So. Greenwald concludes that the Obama administration has adopted this litigation position for the obvious (to him) reason that they advocate having Executive Branch officials being able to act above and beyond the reach of the rule of law. Now why, pray tell, would they want a ruling like that? He makes it sound like they are simply squeamish about a prosecution of those GOP officials. However, the real justification couldn’t be bare and blatant self-interest and future self-protection of President Obama and his officials for doing the same things, could it? Could it?” Greenwald has shown a touching naivete where Obama is concerned, though it appears to be wearing thin.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Change, hope, and torture coverups.”

HOPE AND CHANGE! Obama Sides With Bush in Spy Case. “The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

UPDATE: A reader points out that not long ago the warrantless eavesdropping program was a sign of incipient fascism. But now it’s hope and change!

OBAMA GIVES CIA INTERROGATORS a pass on torture. Of course he does.

UPDATE: Maybe he’s following Cass Sunstein’s advice.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Col. Douglas Mortimer emails:

Of course, indeed. Just this week, NPR (Terry Gross?) had some British yak talking about how he hopes during Eric Holder’s confirmation hearing, he is asked whether he thinks waterboarding is torture. The guest went to say that he hopes Holder says “yes,” and that he then goes on to investigate and prosecute everyone who was involved in waterboarding terrorist suspects and who was involved in approving the decision to allow it.

Yeah. Right. Like that’s gonna happen.

I’d be surprised. Plus this: Obama Taps CIA Veteran As Adviser On Terror. To a position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. “The president-elect’s decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

MORE: TalkLeft: “This reminds me of Bush’s tendency towards recess appointments to get around Senate confirmation.”

THE PANETTA PICK: A brave choice. “The choice is a brave one because it can open Mr. Obama to charges of appointing a loyalist to a crucial post. But that is exactly what is needed at this time.”

UPDATE: More on the Panetta pick: “He’s 70. A 70-year-old man with no background will lead the hunt for al Qaeda. . . . Whatever happened to deep knowledge and real-world experience? Now, you’re willing to go on assertions of good character and a cocky belief in the soundness of what your instincts tell you is obvious and right? That attitude is positively… Bushian.” Meet the new boss, yada yada!

JACOB SULLUM: “Barack Obama’s selection of Eric Holder as his attorney general is a very discouraging sign for anyone who hoped the new administration would de-escalate the war on drugs.” Meet the new boss, yada yada. As Nick Gillespie said on PJTV a while back, there was no good libertarian reason to vote for Obama — though some libertarians did.

PORK HYPOCRISY: “10 months later and Dr. Fiscal Crisis has become Mr. Hide The Earmark. He has gone from blasting that $26 million in pet projects for his district to grabbing $27 million for pet projects for his home district. Yee-haw!” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

MORE ON CONGRESS’S PLUMMETING APPROVAL NUMBERS:

Congress now has no base outside of its staff, the reporters who cover it and Mom, and even she is wavering.

I am not laughing. I am not gloating. I am troubled. . . .

In a democracy, people must have faith in their institutions. In a totalitarian government, fear will do.

The problem is that neither party shows leaders in Washington who are in touch with the realities that their constituents face. Congressmen and senators have too much money, too much power and too much tenure.

Last year, the congressional Republicans went hog wild on pork spending. Prosecutors put a couple of them in prison for selling favors. One of them was caught messing with the House pages, who are the equivalent of political altar boys.

Voters threw the bums out. But unlike 1994, when voters voted in new Republican leadership, voters elected the old Democratic leadership. Democrat David Obey of Wisconsin became House appropriations chairman — again after a 12-year absence.

This is reform?

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: CNN rounds up some delightful Congressional action. Well, okay, “delightful” isn’t the right word. They make a big point of noting how Democratic promises on pork have been broken repeatedly, with particular emphasis on David Obey’s stealth earmark move.

Meet the new boss, yada yada. (Via Tom Elia).

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Shockingly, more earmark issues with Rep. John Murtha:

Democrats controlling the House of Representatives demonstrated this month the hollowness of their claim that they have ended the corruption of 12 Republican years. Rep. John Murtha quietly slipped into the Intelligence authorization bill two earmarks costing taxpayers $5.5 million. The beneficiary was a contractor headquartered in Murtha’s hometown of Johnstown, Pa., whose executives have been generous political contributors to the powerful 17-term congressman.

This scandalous conduct would be unknown except for reforms by the new Democratic majority. But the remodeled system is not sufficiently transparent to expose in a timely manner machinations of Murtha and fellow earmarkers to his colleagues, much less to the public. It took Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, the leading House earmark-buster, to discover the truth.

Jack Murtha, the maestro of imposing personal preferences on the appropriations process, looks increasingly like an embarrassment to Congress and the Democratic Party. But there is no Democratic will to curb Murtha, one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s closest associates. Nor are Republicans eager for a crackdown endangering their own earmarkers.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Good grief, did somebody declare this “Make a mockery of Democratic promises for reform” week?

The House Appropriations Committee has decided to insert earmarks into all of the FY08 spending bills during the conferencing committees, instead of during the initial House-only process.

This will prevent lawmakers like Jeff Flake from offering amendments to strip out wasteful pork projects…which is EXACTLY why David Obey, the Approps Chairman, is changing the rules. In defending his move, Obey said ($),

“It’s my job to protect the committee.”

Apparently, Obey’s job to protect the American taxpayer is a lower priority. In a recent press release, Flake said, “This is a huge step backwards on earmark reform. As bad as the earmark process is now, this would make it immensely worse.”

On this, the porkbusting blogosphere should raise its alert status to DEFCON 1. First the Murtha debacle and now this? Things are getting out of control.

Actually, they’re getting back under the control of the same old bunch of sleazoids. Meet the new boss, yada yada.

UPDATE: And the new guys aren’t helping: Freshmen fail ethics test. Congratulations to Jim Cooper, though, for doing the right thing.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More on the Democrats’ broken promises of reform:

When Democrats took control of Congress last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised voters that her party would “drain the swamp” and “lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.” Four month later, Democrats are reflooding the swamp with earmarks and more. . . .

No wonder the former head of the Congressional Accountability Project called Pelosi’s first pick for House Majority Leader “a one-man wrecking crew” of congressional ethics. Rogers has since filed a formal complaint, but don’t expect the House to hurry to consider it. Pelosi is defending Murtha against Rogers and other critics.

Earmarks have so distorted the legislative process that repealing even the worst of them is becoming nearly impossible. Members of Congress who dare challenge these sacred cows are on notice from Pelosi and Murtha that they will meet a similar fate as Rogers and Tiahrt. Looks like that swamp won’t be going dry anytime soon.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

Meanwhile, from Roll Call, Mollohan, Town Do Battle Over Earmark:

The driving force behind earmarks is the notion that constituents back home will embrace the arrival of federal largesse in their neighborhoods.

But a town in West Virginia is trying to undo an earmark by taking back land a local nonprofit bought with federal money provided in an earmark from Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.).

Mollohan has been under investigation amid allegations that he has channeled earmarks to friends and campaign contributors and that he has profited personally from federal land purchases near property he owns.

Mollohan has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any offense, but he stepped down from the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct last year when the investigation into his earmarks was revealed.

Since then, one of his earmarks has become a local battleground and appears likely to drag the Department of Commerce into a legal fight over land that Mollohan directed the agency to buy.

In February, Mollohan wrote to the Commerce Department warning that one of his earmarks was in jeopardy and suggesting “it appears that it is necessary for the Department to become a party to this case in order to protect its investment in the project and the property in issue.”

Mollohan was referring to an attempt by the town of Davis, W.Va., to condemn 6 acres of the portion of land that the Canaan Valley Institute bought in 2002 for $7 million, money that came from earmarks Mollohan had attached to the budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. . . .

Mollohan takes credit for creating the CVI, which since 1995 has studied watershed science and conservation in northern West Virginia, and he has provided a steady stream of earmarks to the organization to sustain it.

But the earmarks for the institute and other Mollohan-sponsored nonprofits have not been without controversy in the county, which has raised concerns about the increase in tax-exempt property. Davis Mayor Joe Drenning, who said he would not discuss the condemnation case because it is in litigation, said “probably 60 percent of the county is either no taxes or very little taxes” because it is either held by federal agencies or federally funded nonprofit groups such as the CVI.

Whatever this is, it doesn’t sound much like constituent service.

Then, of course, there’s always the business with the jets. So far, Pelosi’s record on reform is rather poor.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Jeanne Cummings of The Politico reports:

It’s a familiar backpedaling pattern emerging early in the new Democratic-controlled Congress. From lobbying reforms to anti-corruption proposals to curbing earmarks, Democratic lawmakers who railed against Republican corruption a year ago have flinched from imposing the harshest standards on themselves. Consequently, this Democratic Congress may end up no better prepared to police itself than the Republicans were when the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal broke and the spate of criminal convictions it spawned surfaced as a primary reason for voters’ angst last fall.

Indeed, the public may become increasingly dependent on the lobbyists to disclose the business of lawmakers. Why? The outsiders will face more serious consequences if they don’t follow the law, including the threat of Justice Department investigations, than the incumbents. . . . Congress’ ability to turn seemingly strong reforms into something a bit squishier has already been on display this year. In January, both chambers vowed to crack down on earmarks, which are the very local budget projects slipped into spending bills to help the constituents of a particular House or Senate member. It’s an issue Democrats used against Republicans to accuse them of wasteful spending (remember the Alaskan “bridge to nowhere”?) and running up the deficit. House members passed a rule that was supposed to result in publication of the name of the member requesting an earmark. The Senate took a legislative approach to the reform. Neither was actually signed into law — a step that could have given it some staying power.

Jeez. Meet the new boss, yada yada.

A LOOK AT THE LATEST BUDGET FICTION in Washington:

Under their “Pay-Go” rules, congressional Democrats promised not to raise spending unless there was specific federal revenue available to pay for it. The Reserve Fund is their way of guaranteeing a funding increase when — wink, wink — at a later date they will have found the needed revenues. Call it the “Spend Now, Maybe Pay Later” approach to federal budgeting.

Today’s congressional Democrats aren’t unique in using a sleight of hand like the Reserve Fund to mask the fact they are spending more of our hard-earned tax dollars on another of their favored special interests.

When the Republicans were in the majority, they used fictions like counting projected budget savings in future years to make this year’s budget appear to be balanced or at least getting closer to being balanced.

The problem is that like all lies, Washington’s spending fictions are meant to obscure the truth about irresponsible budgets, bureaucratic waste, fraud and rampant conflicts of interest.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

THE POLITICO: “Democrats are wielding a heavy hand on the House Rules Committee, committing many of the procedural sins for which they condemned Republicans during their 12 years in power. . . . If this sounds familiar, it is. Republicans made similar promises in 1994, only to renege when they took control of the Congress in 1995.” Meet the new boss, yada yada.

UPDATE: More:

Powerful Democrat Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania threatened to deny any further spending projects to a Republican who challenged him over an earmark, his antagonist has charged — a potential violation of House rules.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) had challenged money Murtha inserted into an intelligence bill last week.

Rogers turned the tables later that night by saying he would propose a reprimand of Murtha for violating House rules.

Read the whole thing.

I HAVEN’T PAID AS MUCH ATTENTION TO THE PELOSI EARMARKS STORY as I should have, but Stephen Spruiell has a roundup. Excerpt:

For now, it appears that the problem is less with Pelosi’s disclosure on this particular earmark and more with the state of earmark reform in general. The Democrats swept into power making a lot of noise about cleaning up the “culture of corruption” in Washington. Earmark reform was a big part of their stated agenda. First, they put a “moratorium on earmarks” until new rules governing them could be put into place. Then the House passed new earmark-disclosure requirements. “It’s good that we’re even having this discussion about Pelosi’s earmark,” Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, tells NRO, “because now [thanks to new disclosure requirements] we know that she’s the one who asked for it.”

But that’s where Democrats left it. The House rules apply only to the House. The Senate lumped earmark reform into its ethics and lobbying bill, which is now languishing in conference and has yet to take effect. Nevertheless, the Democrats must think these half-measures constitute thorough earmark reform, because the moratorium is long gone. The Water Resources Development Bill contains, along with Pelosi’s earmark, more than 800 others. Perhaps the most egregious is a provision to add sand to a California beach famous for its annual sandcastle competition.

The Democrats campaigned as a party that would clean up Washington. But the water-development bill, exemplified by Pelosi’s earmark, is nothing if not Beltway business as usual.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

DNC PULLS ANTI-BUSH AD. I kinda thought that the whole “won’t be fooled again” theme was probably a mistake.