I talk about pork a lot not because I’m obsessed with pigs, but because I cover Congress.

I talk about pork spending not because it’s the worst spending the federal government does, but because it should be the easiest to stop.

And yet it goes on and on. Pork spending is snuck into legislation as “earmarks.” The President of the United States explained it to Congress last year:

Over 90 percent of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate. They are dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You didn’t vote them into law. I didn’t sign them into law. Yet, they’re treated as if they have the force of law.

Actually, the prez went on to say the practice must stop. Congress applauded. But they might as well have been snorting, we’ve seen tens of thousands of earmarks since.

I have mentioned before that the President could simply sign an Executive Order telling his branch of government to ignore earmarks not actually placed in the legislation.

And so he did, on January 29th. All earmarks not voted on by Congress from now on will be as if nothing. Further, the president promised to veto any bill that did not cut the amount of earmarks actually voted on by Congress in half.

So is the stalemate over pork  . . . over? Well, with a cut in half of earmarks as the goal, we seem set to go only halfway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Good news for political bloggers and other practitioners of non-mainstream media.

The Freedom of Information Act has been expanded. Apparently, it means that uncredentialed folks will have an easier time learning what the dadblasted government has been up to.

The expansion gives agencies just 20 days to comply with information requests. If there’s foot-dragging, we’ll be able to point to this law and say, “Hey, it’s been 20 days! Where’s that info I requested, Mr. Stonewalling Bureaucrat?”

It also broadens the definition of who is a representative of the news media. The new definition is “any person or entity that gathers information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses its editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience.”

One reason this is important is that members of the “official” news media typically get waivers of certain fees associated with these requests. Until now, bloggers and other non-traditional journalists couldn’t get the same waiver.

How the new law plays out remains to be seen. But anything that helps put the amateur citizen journalist on the same legal footing as the New York Times sounds like good news to me. It helps us do what we’ve gotta do to change our country for the better — that is, it helps us compete with a journalistic establishment that too often plays yes-man to the political establishment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Wall Street and the real estate markets have taken big hits, and so, to prevent a major recession, our president and representatives immediately began one-upping each other about a “stimulus package.”

And my thoughts go back to my classroom days. In biology.

There were these frogs, see. Dead frogs. On the table. Some of the kids would take a battery with some wires attached, and prod the dead frog, stimulating nerves to make the dead, half-dissected frogs jump.

Half the boys in the class thought it a hoot, half the girls thought it gross. Or maybe more than half.

Sometimes I think this is about as much as we ever were prepared for thinking about stimulus packages.

The economy is not a dead frog. it’s alive, and it’s received a shock. A better analogy might be to someone who’s received a blow to the head. You don’t necessarily immediately start applying shock therapy to get the person moving. Ask a nurse what to do. Most of the time, the body repairs itself. In due time. With care taken not to jar the person again.

But a blow to an ecosystem — like an economy — is more complicated than even some guy with a concussion. And, listening to the debate over the stimulus package, and then reading actual, astute economists consider the politicians’ proposals, and I’m thinking . . .

Frog or no frog, the stimulus notions politicians prefer seem more directed towards influencing voters than getting the economy to jump back into action.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Seems every November in Washington state, Tim Eyman of the aptly named Voters Want More Choices has an initiative on the ballot that’s dramatically outspent by the powerful interests who dominate the state’s legislature.

And yet his initiative still wins.

In recent years, each January, as the legislature convenes, here come bills to “reform” the initiative process. Reform meaning kill.

This year’s bills seek to force citizens collecting petitions to register with the government and be licensed. Forget the fact that requiring a license to use one’s First Amendment rights is about as American as Joseph Stalin.

One bill makes sponsors of initiatives liable for any mistakes made by those petitioning. Better to scare away the citizen leaders. Mostly, the goal is to invalidate perfectly valid voter signatures on some technicality committed by the person circulating the measure.

The excuse for these bills, we’re told, is to fight fraud. But Washington’s Secretary of State, in response to a public records request, disclosed they “have no instances of verified forgeries or fraud in the signature gathering process for initiatives in those years (1999 through 2006).” That’s over eight million signatures with zero instances of fraud.

The real reason? The politicians and special interests that live off of our hard work won’t come out and say it, of course, but they figure that if they can’t win a vote of the people, then they’ll find a way to stop the people from voting at all.

That’s just wrong. It’s a fraud.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Do we have the right to say things only when other people can’t hear us?

Such seems to be the principle informing an attempt by the government of St. Louis. The city’s trying to force citizen activist Jim Roos to take down a sign that allegedly violates the city’s zoning laws.

It’s a special sign: painted on the side of an apartment building owned by a “housing ministry” founded by Mr. Roos. The city claims the sign is too big. It’s special in another way, too. It says: “End Eminent Domain Abuse.” Mr. Roos has been fighting such abuse by the city. And now, along with the Institute for Justice, he’s fighting for his freedom of speech.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says there’s a “tricky” constitutional issue at stake — “fighting clutter versus protecting free speech,” supposedly. As if somebody’s ability to call your communication unsightly might justify tossing out the Constitution and our individual rights.

Meanwhile the city has no problem granting exemptions for signs it has no disagreement with. It allows a gas company with downtown offices to display a sign over 1,000 square feet.

So how do we resolve this “tricky” problem?

Simple: Uphold the right of individuals to exercise their freedom of speech and property rights. End zoning laws that violate these rights. And advise persons who don’t like the sign that they are free to look in other directions entirely. Presto, problem solved.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.