If the White House had just let it go, the whole million-dollar ham thing would’ve been taken as some partisan nitpicking. But when Agriculture Secretary Vilsack publicly responded to the Drudge Report’s Recovery.gov diggings (and many other sites broke it first), he opened the door for more.
And remember, because of that stimulus money the president said, “We are seeing shovels hit the ground”…
— $971,711.42 to “replace pond liners” at the Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery in Cole Harbor, N.D.
We’re thankful to this administration now that the pond liner crisis has been averted.
— $193,077 for a “double-vault toilet building” at the Hoyer Campground in Spokane, Wash.
— $487,944 for “toilet buildings and vaults” in the Pike and San Isabel National Forests
— $254,000 for “pre-fabricated restroom facilities” in Atlanta, Ga.
They’re shoveling up a whole lot of money on #####.
— $17,110 in hotel bills at a Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va., for the Employment Standards Administration’s annual “Prevailing Wage Conference.”
Were the waiters on the prevailing wage too?
— $326,304 for “roadside vegetation removal” in the Six Rivers National Forest in Eureka, Calif.
Weeds.
— $928,194.50 to nine different firms to provide an “increased level of effort for dtv [digital television] installation”
An “increased level of effort”. Are we talking “greasing the wheels” as it were…?
— $6,066.18 to buy “three laptop computers” for the National Fish and Wildlife Service
Must be some damn good laptops. Hopefully they won’t get left behind on some park bench.
— $4,250 for “short-term vehicle rental” from Enterprise Rent-A-Car in order to “run errands” in Kings Canyon National Park in King’s Canyon, Calif.
What the hell kind of errands does one run in a national park?
— $840 to “disassemble” one desk and “properly reassemble and relocate” 2 other desks in Reston, Va.
The president told us we would get transparency.
Maybe a tad more than he wanted.
