8:04: Government wants to take a family farm in order to expand an Illinois roadway called the Prairie Park. Former GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert is the bad guy. (Bonus points for getting footage of President Bush mentioning the road project at a presser.) Hastert snagged the earmark to fund it worth $2 million.
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8:07: Just realized this show is a rerun. It originally ran in June. (The kicker on this is that Denny owned property that would benefit from the highway improvement.) Still worth blogging!
8:10: Local farm owner does all the legwork to figure out who would benefit from the new beltway. Connects with the Washington-based Sunlight Foundation. They find out Mrs. Dennis Hastert was on land documents. Their trust was oddly named, "Little Rock trust." Hastert's good buddy bought land, too.
8:15 After the earmark was greased through, greatly increasing the value of the adjoining land owned by Hastert and his friend, it was soon sold to a developer for $5 million.
8:17: Family farmers are sad their will be forced to live by a beltway. Woman calls the former Speaker a bad word.
8:40: Still watching. Have had it on while in the kitchen making some blueberry muffins. (Yum!). Back to pork. They are talking to the notorious earmark hawk Jeff Flake who is (rightfully) blaming GOP leadership for removing him for the Judiciary Committee. They can't support "bad behavior" they said.
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8:52: Fox's Jeff Garret is talking to Jo Bonner--who got the slot of the Appropriations Committee Flake should have received. Garret is nailing Bonner on his own earmarks.
"Is it inappropiate?" Garrets asks.
Bonner replies, "It's not illegal."
Ugh.
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