House GOP leaders stuck to the status quo and gave the open seat on the Appropriations Committee to Alabama's Jo Bonner instead of Jeff Flake. Anyone unfamillar with Rep. Flake's dislike for earmarks can read up on him here. As the WSJ points out, Rep. Bonner had less seniority that Rep. Flake ( 3 terms compared to 4) and seems comfortable with the growth in earmarks over the past few years.

In a study of 50 votes to strike earmarks from bills, Rep. Bonner voted against all but one. In contrast, Rep. Flake voted to get rid all 50 of them.
Among the earmarks Mr. Bonner voted to keep were the Charles Rangel Center for Public Service ($200,000) at City College of New York, a fake prison in Kansas ($100,000), and $150,000 for the American Ballet Theater in New York City.
Its hard to win a battle over earmarks when you keep shooting yourself in the foot.

I recently found a cool Internet publication called the Patriot Post. I signed up to receive their thrice-weekly emails and have used several portions of them on my blog. Sign up, you won't be disappointed.
"The Conservative Journal of Record," can be summed up briefly in the belief that individual liberty, the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and the promotion of free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values can only be secured through the exercise of individual rights and responsibilities as ordained by God and established by our nation's Founders in our Declaration of Independence and its subordinate guidance, our Republic's Constitution.