Even though Ted Stevens (”Tube”) (R-AK) got his $233 milliion dollar “bridge to nowhere” (see nowhere here), he’s still holding a grudge against Tom Coburn (R-OK) for challenging him about it. Tube took a break from trying to sell-out the Internet and placed an indefinite hold on Coburn’s bill, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S2590), which would publish a public database of every company who has received federal funding–an effort to expose pork barrel earmarks. The Tube is probably just a bit worried about how many bogus earmarks might get exposed if such a database existed.
Just to give you a sense of how snarky Tubey really is, during the debate over the bridge, according to a Washington Post article, Tube threw a fit and whined,
I will put the Senate on notice — and I don’t kid people — if the Senate decides to discriminate against our state and take money only from our state, I will resign from this body.”
Alas, Senate members got a little misty-eyed at the idea of the Senate without the Tube and gave him his bridge, contributing even more to the greedy state of Alaska, which receives $1.89 in federal help for every tax dollar they sent to Washington.
[UPDATE] Now why did Tube hold up that bill? Wait, I think I better put this in the comedy section. Ted Stevens is concerned about the cost (which is $15 million over the next 4 years (PDF).
Stevens “wanted to make sure that this wasn’t going to be a huge cost to the taxpayer and that it achieves the goal which the bill is meant to achieve” – spokesperson for Tube Stevens
I’m sure Stevens could barely get the words out without laughing and choking on all the pork in his craw. The guy who got over $200 million to build a Golden Gate sized bridge over a little canal of a waterway to an island with 50 people on it is concerned about cost. Perhaps politicians lie so much because they actually think they can get away with stuff like this.
I’m not sure what they’re investigating, but the FBI probably isn’t looking too hard for the person who defaced Lieberman’s website. The hacker has already been found. 
As the blogosphere calms down after just over a week of frenzied investigation into the real cause of Lieberman’s website woes, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any investigation at all. While the Lieberman campaign asked the FBI and the Connecticut Attorney General’s office to investigate the failure of their site on Election Day, sufficient questions have been raised as to the veracity of their claims that I expect they might want to rescind those requests.