[scottw]

and the GOP earmarkers are rightly being pummelled by their constituents and many are withdrawing their earmarks...

After his caucus passed a voluntary earmark moratorium last month, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) — perhaps with the offing of co-delegate Bob Bennett fresh in his mind — did something both politically smart and substantively commendable: he withdrew each of his earmark requests from the omnibus.
“People have the right to do whatever they want,” he said. “I just felt my own personal moral obligation to do that.”

What’s putting senators like Thune, Cornyn, and even Republican Leader McConnell in such a tough position on the omnibus is not just that they requested earmarks, but that every earmark in the bill went through the regular committee order. There simply are no surprises in that part of the omnibus, and in many cases senators had months to register protest. Senator Hatch did just that. Why didn’t others?

Thune tells Beutler, simply, that “I guess I hadn’t thought about doing it.” Thune’s office elaborates for me, saying the senator didn’t withdraw his requests (which were made months before the moratorium vote) because he didn’t think the Democrats would have the “audacity” to move on an omnibus in the lame duck. But Thune now says that he will vote to strip out all the earmarks — his included — from the omnibus if given the chance.

and then there's this little gem

Redistribution on steroids
Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Mike Jensen
Rep. Cleaver has proposed a $48 billion earmark When absurdity gives way to hilarity, you must be talking about politics.

In the midst of a colossal global concern for the economic stability of our great nation, Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri's 5th Congressional District representative, has one small earmark on his wish list that deserves some attention.

Cleaver has listed a new earmark -- one of several -- and he promises to "fight for every one." But this is a whopping $48 billion package that must go down as the grandaddy of all earmarks.
Proposed by a gentleman named Lamar Mickens, president of the not-for-profit Quality Day Campus, the $48 billion earmark would funnel money into the inner cities to give money to the poor and thereby produce a much larger consumer class to buy the goods and services produced in this country.

Cleaver's office says this of the proposal:

"The Epicenter is a proposed estimated $48 billion (Phase One) mass scale urban reclamation project for combating, reducing, reversing and/or eliminating poverty within under served communities by utilizing mass scale economic redevelopment to bring about stability and self reliance.