How about "Oink" or maybe "Squeal".

All three of the current major party presidential candidates backed the DeMint-McCain amendment to the budget resolution that would place a one-year moratorium on congressional earmarks. Unfortunately, 71 of their peers in the Senate couldn’t get behind the idea and the amendment went down in flames.

What a shame. Probably half of the senators that voted for the amendment were co-sponsors.

Both Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray from the State of Washington voted against the amendment. How does that square up with this statement from Maria Cantwell? (Through her spokeswoman, as reported by David Postman back in January)

"Senator Cantwell believes that how our government operates should be open and clear to the public. Transparency in government can only add to the public’s confidence that Congress is doing its job for them. If additional transparency also helps to make Congress more aware of its actions and accountability to the public — all the better."

I think his own words speak to that. The Oregonian has an article today telling us what the governor of Oregon thinks about the Iraq war…

Gov. Ted Kulongoski continues to attend nearly every funeral of Oregonians killed in Iraq. And he doesn’t believe for a minute they died defending the nation from terrorism.

"It’s all part of a message, but it is not the reason we’re there," Kulongoski said in an interview with The Oregonian. The real reason: Oil, he said.

"If they had zero oil, do you think we’d be there?"

Yes Mr. Kulongoski, I think we’d still be there. Read this post for an enumerated listing of the reason’s we’re there in the first place. We have enough proven sources of oil here in the United States to take care of our need for oil for a decent amount of time… if Democrats like yourself would let us tap them.

This year’s crop of Presidential candidates is anything but inspiring. Conservatives don’t really have any great choices, but John McCain is certainly looking better than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Even so, if conservatives want to hold the line against socialism we need to concentrate on the congressional elections.

… or so I thought.

This AP story reminds me of where the real problems in our government lie. It’s in the court systems.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an injunction against a Minnesota law that targeted at children under 17 who rent or buy violent video games.

A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with a lower-court judge that Minnesota went too far when it passed its law two years ago because the state couldn’t prove that such games hurt children.

Excuse me?

This morning, I was awakened by my wife, who brought me coffee. As I was rousing from my groggy slumber my clock radio turned itself on, and I heard Mr. Spitzer’s resignation speech.

New York governor Eliot Spitzer has resigned, purportedly over a sex scandal. It seems the governor, who spent his career as an attorney general and politician has been visiting high-priced hookers for the past ten or so years. He’s right to resign.

After all, prostitution is illegal in New York. It’s illegal in Washington D.C. It’s also illegal in both places to solicit prosecution. As a former attorney general, Mr. Spitzer knew this, and in fact probably prosecuted people for it.

Democratic calls for his resignation that I’ve heard have touched on his hypocrisy. Democratic support for Mr. Spitzer has ranged from condemnation of America because of our backward value system to the it’s just about sex argument. After all, more enlightened and culturally advanced Europeans think there’s nothing wrong with a man acting on his base animal instincts, or cheating on his wife.

Once again, the Patriot Post picks a winner…

“Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.”

– James Madison (Federalist No. 39, 1788)

In this year when we are getting ready to select another President via a vast popularity contest, it seems good to remember what the original purpose of our federal government was and why the founders chose the method of electing a President that they did.

Remember, our Founders sought to bind thirteen nations together into a single union for the purposes of mutual defense, and to ensure liberty. It wasn’t their purpose to eliminate the States, but to unify and defend them.

OK, in case you didn't know, a small bomb was detonated in New York's famed Times Square, just outside the door of a USMC recruiting office.

Now, I admit when I heard this, my first inclination was similar to many of my blogging peers, that the anti war activists had decided to take their show to the big apple, in a big way.  Hot Air summarized it well:

Given the escalating protests over military recruitment, it seems inevitable that people would bomb those who seek to protect the nation and fight our enemies. This morning, unknown attackers bombed a Times Square military recruitment office.

…

Now the movement has decided to morph into domestic terrorism. Of course, the people responsible will claim that they bombed the office during the night to keep anyone from being hurt. That’s exactly the same kind of rationalization that people like the Weather Underground and the SLA used at first, anyway — that terrorism was justified by their politics. In fact, a few like William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn still claim that.