The Enquirer’s got the latest, what little of it there is.

Meanwhile, this story has got me steaming:

NYT > As Power Shifts in New Congress, Pork May Linger

Meet the new cardinals, as the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees are known on Capitol Hill. Many have a lot in common with the Republicans they will succeed.

All have worked for years to climb to their posts, where the authority to grant earmarks puts them among the most powerful lawmakers in Congress. Like Mr. Inouye and Mr. Stevens, many have developed unusual bipartisan camaraderie while divvying up projects. By longstanding, informal agreement, the majority typically doles out about 60 percent of the money for earmarks and lets the minority pass out the rest. And they form a united front against limitations on the earmark process.

“What is good for the goose is good for the gander,” Senator Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who is set to become chairwoman of the transportation subcommittee, said last fall in a speech defending an Alaska Republican’s allocation of more than $200 million in federal money for a bridge to remote Gravina, Alaska, with a population of 50. It became notorious as the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Thousands of people on the ground didn’t bust their humps so that these pigs could get their turn at the national trough. The Federal Reserve is not their petty cash drawer. Oversight, transparency, and accountability need to be the new watchwords in the corridors of American power and any politician who thinks otherwise should feel Uncle Sam’s boot kicking their fat asses to the curb.

It takes one Democrat to pull a Duke Cunningham before the right wing harpies collectively string up the Democratic Party and use it as a giant pinata. Democrats won the majority not on how well they distribute pork but on how corrupt and incompetent the Republicans were. Any Democrat who doesn’t realize this needs to retire now while the Party is still in the majority.

BTW, it looks like Emanuel gets it. I sure hope so.