When I started the DC Shuffle over a year ago, my intention was to write pieces that were well-informed, neutral in tone, and factually accurate. What I wanted to do was remove the top heavy political spin that I saw in most political blogs. Any difference in opinion on so many blogs is met with either denigrating ad-hominem attacks, blanket statements that are based on a minor event, emotional arguments, and a whole host of other fallacies.

The problem I ran into in my effort to remove the spin is that I also largely removed my voice and perspective. In addition, investigating source material that verifies the facts in most posts takes a whole lot of time. I will continue to strive to keep my arguments factually grounded, but I’m going to begin writing opinion pieces that are based on facts and experience without necessarily doing the legwork to find the source material and hyperlinking to it in my piece. For this reason, these types of posts will be categorized as being “from the hip”.

Feel free to challenge me on a post and I will do my best to find the source material to back it up if necessary. If I’m wrong, I will certainly admit to it. I’m not as interested in being right as I am in being truthful.

I’ll be taking a week’s vacation to visit family and go fishing in Northern Wisconsin beginning now. I’ll be off the grid for most of the time. I will be back to regular posting come the beginning of July.

In the very first session of Congress this year, the newly Democratic-led House of Representatives passed a resolution requiring members to disclose the earmarks they have placed in spending bills. It would identify what is was for, how much it is for and which House member requested it. This was hailed as fulfilling a promise House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made to “bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks.” Apparently the celebration came far too early.

Not only does House Speaker Pelosi not want to reveal any earmarks she’s added to the current spending bills, she doesn’t even want you to say the word “earmark.” She had this to say to her colleagues on the floor:

If I just might direct the record to another place, why don’t we just leave this room today forgetting the word earmark? This is legislatively directed spending as opposed to executive spending.

CNN has reported that they asked all the House members to inform them of the earmarks, erm… legislatively directed spending requests they have submitted into the pending bill. The result of the new transparency is that only 31 out of 435 members, just seven percent, provided the information. 68 members flatly refused to provide the information and the rest just ignored the request. Even Nancy Pelosi’s staff said the they would not reveal her earmarks.

So when the House Speaker says she’s going to bring a new era of transparency and openness, what she means is renaming earmarks so they don’t sound so politically beneficial, and then declining to reveal what ones she’s responsible for.