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(H/T: Mark Tapscott, Editorial Page Editor for The Washington Examiner)

The Tuscaloosa News, just posted an article based on a recent speech Trent Lott gave at the local Lincoln-Reagan Dinner. During the speech, Lott said he knew in his heart earmarks were wrong. He also acknowledge that Republicans, who feasted on the orgy of congressional pork, are now paying the price.

Here are the key paragraphs:

Lott was known as one of the "Princes of Pork" while he was in Congress for his ability to bring home the bacon to Mississippi and he said that also caused some friction with McCain.

"John used to harass me because I would get earmarks -- or pork barrel projects -- in Mississippi," he said. "And I would say, 'Well, yes, John, I'm a senator from Mississippi and we're the poorest state in the nation.'

"But we're not anymore, that pork paid off."

Then Lott made a couple of admissions I found startling.

"But you know what, in my heart I knew he was right," he said of his pork barrel ways. That's no way to do business, we shouldn't be doing all that earmarking -- it got completely out of control.

"It got out of control with Republicans and that's why we are being punished a little bit," he added. "Because we forgot how we got there, what we believed in, the principles that after 30 years put us in the majority, gave us the White House, the congress, the senate, the house. And then we ran out of ideas...

"But that was an aberration, that's not who we really are."

It is, however, an aberration from which Democrats across the nation, from the top of the ticket on down, are counting to make hay this election cycle.

Read the full article here.

Earlier this week, Red County contributor Media Lizzy interviewed Congressman Eric Cantor for her BlogTalkRadio show, Heading Right.

FROM LIZZY:

Guerrilla House or Great Leadership? Yesterday, Members of the US House GOP defied Speaker Nancy Pelosi - even after she turned the lights off while Chief Deputy (Minority) Whip Eric Cantor, R-VA, was speaking. Congressman Cantor called in to discuss the Economic Crisis in America - and the American Energy Plan.

By Clare Venegas

Pork-lovers beware: Rep. Jeff Flake is watching.

Should a fellow Congressman decide to slip an earmark into a spending bill, Rep. Flake might call them to the floor to publicly defend it during "The Flake Hour," the time after every spending bill that Flake calls on earmark sponsors to justify the waste of taxpayer dollars.

Or they might find their pet project the subject of Flake's Friday email blast for the "egregious earmark of the week," which always concludes with a humorous quotation. Case in point: Flake said, of a $13.4 million earmark compensating Suffolk County, Massachusetts fishermen for "economic losses" from "fishing limitations": "Give a man an earmark and you have fed him for today."

He and Rep. John Campbell (CA-48) have led the way speaking out against Democrat Charlie Rangel's nearly $3 million earmark to build his "Monument to Me" on the City College of New York campus.

Flake's courageously public fight against earmarks apparently angered his colleagues so much that he was pulled from the Judiciary Committee in 2007 for "bad behavior." One source said the decision was influenced by Appropriations Committee members who resented Flake's outspoken opposition to earmarks. If speaking out against earmarks is "bad behavior," then Republicans everywhere should call their congressmen to behave even worse.

In January, Flake wrote a letter to House Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner requesting to be assigned to one of 29 Republican seats on the Appropriations Committee. Flake asks the simple question, "Wouldn't it make sense to have at least one Republican member of the Appropriations committee who doesn't earmark?"

Boehner should answer with a resounding YES. But if he and other Republican leaders ignore reform-minded members like Flake, then it's time to change leadership and Flake's name should be on the short list.

From Reason.tv:

Taxpayers are shelling out over $17 billion for more than 11,000 Congressional earmarks in FY 2008. One such project is a $1.6 million earmark in this year's defense spending bill. The money is going to the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a program that searches for evidence of life elsewhere in the universe.

That alien pork project is just one example of how elected officials use earmarks to funnel federal tax dollars back to powerful interests in their districts. While politicians and a few of their most well-connected constituents benefit from earmarks, the costs fall on individual taxpayers. Since 1991, Americans have paid over $271 billion for pork projects.

In this new Reason.tv video, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) - who is known as  the Senate's "Dr. No" for his aggressive opposition to earmarks - explains how taxpayers are being fleeced by Washington's insatiable appetite for pork.

By Chip Hanlon @ GreenFaucet.com

News is breaking that Alaska Senator, Ted Stevens (R), has been indicted on multiple corruption charges relating to his service in public office. Shocker.

By now you have most likely also heard that this year's fiscal deficit will mark a record, but fear not! Today's Democratic-led Congress has a plan to fix the reckless fiscal habits of the Republicans they replaced... by spending even more! Seriously, the House Appropriations Committee is considering a 2009 fiscal budget nearly 8% larger than this year's!

Runaway spending is a disease plaguing both parties today.

So, the fall of Republican Ted Stevens doesn't break the heart of this GOP-er because he's precisely the type of pork barrel piggy who needs to be replaced if our party is to return to its fiscal senses. The good news is, you can help improve Alaska's delegation even further-- by contributing to the primary challenger of the state's only Congressman, Don Young.

Why Young? Because he's the architect of the ultimate spending boondoggle, the infamous "bridge to nowhere." And his primary challenger, Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, will enter Congress as a spending reformer, one who has been edorsed by many prominent national Republican organizations--a rarity against a sitting GOP representative--including the Club for Growth. Good enough for...

For the complete article and more just like it, go to GreenFaucet.com