A huge step forward

This just seems like it was way too easy.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, was successful yesterday in securing Senate passage of an amendment that he believes "will lift the veil of secrecy that conceals the process of inserting special projects - or pork - into appropriations bills."

...The Coburn amendment requires that any limitation, directive, or earmarking be included in the bill's conference report. Previous Senate procedures allowed the Senate to automatically approve earmarks or special projects included in the House version of an appropriations bill.

Consequently, many earmarks that became law did not even come up for a vote in the Senate. This process was used to essentially hide millions of dollars of pork spending from public view.

Let's hope the House gets the message, too.  Wait--no, let's not hope, let's contact our representatives and make sure they get it.

This comes just in time to help prevent billions of dollars in wasteful spending associated with the devastation caused by Katrina, and now, possibly, Rita as well.

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UPDATE:  Thanks to Dan over at Searchlight Crusade for the link and especially for the kind words of praise, but while I appreciate any positive reinforcement that can be had, I hardly think that the brilliantly innovative idea to actually contact our representatives deserves being characterized as "a heck of a suggestion" (but many thanks to you anyway, Dan).  It's something that we should be doing as a matter of course, but I don't follow my own advice very well in this area.  Maybe it's because, as Dan puts it, "is it likely to pass? No. Is it worth the effort? YES."  It's too easy to fall victim to cynical pessimism after years of effort and no payoff.

But, it's "worth the effort" only because it is most certainly possible for it to pass, likelihood be hanged.  In politics, "conventional wisdom" is proven wrong so often that it's now a cliché to say so.  The blogosphere has already proven multiple times, this year alone, that it wields unprecedented influence over the legacy media¹ because, as with all such things, the key is influencing the many people who vote, whether by ballot, by pocketbook, or both.  All else follows.

So, get to wielding already!  Start with your representatives and go from there.

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¹ I've decided that I prefer the term "legacy media" over "mainstream media," "liberal mainstream media," or anything else that non-leftists use to refer to the media which has (have?) existed before Dan Ra^ther's "new journalism order" (and probably always will at least exist in one form or another).

First, not only is the "mainstream media" no longer in the maintream of thought in this country, it continually moves farther out of said mainstream each day; second, even the NYTimes has admitted to being "liberal" (in the leftist sense) so case closed, already; and third, to me, "legacy" conveys both the ideas of having a foundational and relatively venerable heritage while simultaneously being hopelessly obsolete. 

There you go; a simple, elegantly descriptive term for a conglomerate, maladroit dinosaur.  Just wish I'd thought of it first!

Comments

[CERDIP]

Yes, and you may not have noticed, but the "MSM" construct moved from prevalent to ubiquitous when members of the MSM starting using it... I prefer this acronym: L.A.M.E.

[Obi-Wan]

HAH! Too good, Cerdip. Too good.