I'm pleased to present the following statement on behalf of the undersigned bloggers.

We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.

We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members.

But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.

As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.

Signed,

N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear
Hugh Hewitt, HughHewitt.com
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.com
Kevin Aylward, Wizbang!
La Shawn Barber, La Shawn Barber's Corner
Lorie Byrd / DJ Drummond , Polipundit
Beth Cleaver, MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Jeff Goldstein, Protein Wisdom
Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
John Hawkins, Right Wing News
John Hinderaker, Power Line
Jon Henke / McQ / Dale Franks, QandO
James Joyner, Outside The Beltway
Mike Krempasky, Redstate.org
Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com
Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters
Scott Ott, Scrappleface
The Anchoress, The Anchoress
John Donovan / Bill Tuttle, Castle Argghhh!!!

If you would like to be known as also supporting this statement, please include a comment below, or Trackback to this post on your blog.

Update 1/15/06: As a next step in the effort to help push forward a reform agenda in the GOP leadership fight, I have published a page where bloggers and blog-readers can submit questions which they would like to see answered by the candidates, and vote on which questions submitted by others they like best. Ultimately, I'll submit the most popular questions to the three candidates' offices, and hopefully we'll be able to actually get some responses. Please check out the questions page here, and join in with your suggestions and feedback!

Friday Ark #69 (7 links)
Modulator
We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....? We will

Under Clinton, NY Times called surveilla (7 links)
The American Thinker
The controversy following revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored suspected terrorist related communications since 9/11 reflects a severe case of selective amnesia by the New York Times and other...]]>

How Many Dems Could Be Confirmed? (7 links)
The RCP Blog
After watching the wife of the nominee break down into tears yesterday evening at the treatment being given to her husband by Senate Democrats, it seems fair to ask: how many Democrats sitting on the Judiciary Committee could be confirmed using t

The Kos Kidz Go After Alito's Wife (7 links)
Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)
It can't be pleasant for any family member of a judge who sits through confirmation hearings. Just imagine being in...
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Max Blumenthal: Alito's Pro-Internm (8 links)
The Huffington Post
If there's another terror attack on American soil, you can forget about civil rights. That's according to Peter Kirsanow, who will testify to Samu

AMERICAblog just bought General Wesley Clark's cell phone records for $89.95 (8 links)
AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth
UPDATE: We tried to get the cell phone records of other high-profile Washingtonians like ABC's George Stephanopoulos, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, and the New York Time's Adam Nagourney, but LocateCe

Sparks Fly at Alito Hearing (7 links)
TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime
We were waiting for some fireworks at Judge Sam Alito's confirmation hearing. Tuesday was definitely dullsville. We wanted sparks to fly. We wanted to hear
Bell's goin

ALITO WATCH: THE DEAD HORSE DEMOCRATS (7 links)
Michelle Malkin
We're an hour and a half into the hearings and I need to hear no more. It's all about the Dems beating dead horses. Over and over again. Unitary executive.
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VIDEO: CLASH OF THE WINDBAGS (7 links)
Michelle Malkin
To save you the trouble of sitting through the Democrats' unrelenting condescension, arrogance, and Category 5 windbagginess, I bring you a video clip of today's Alito confirmation hearings that epitomizes the Left's desperation.
You've r
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Liberal Red Book leaked! (20 links)
Western Standard - Independent Voice of the New West.

Waiting for the Liberal Red Book? Wait no longer! Here's an, ahem, advance copy. Please credit the Western Standard and our blog, The Shotgun! LATE NIGHT READING UPDATE: Use the word search function to see what's important in the Red...

ALITO WATCH: BIGGEST SENATE WINDBAG (9 links)
Michelle Malkin
Robert Bluey at Human Events Online has the results of
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My very own Liberal campaign ads (9 links)
Daimnation!
Stephen Harper has a dog. You know who else had a dog? Hitler. Adolf Hitler. That's who. Did Stephen Harper train his dog to attack racial minorities on command? We don't know. He's not saying. Choose Your Canada. * *...
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Things have been a bit quiet on the Porkbusters front for the past month, given the holidays, the Congressional break, as well as other competing priorities for both Glenn and myself.

But it is a new year, and we are gearing up to push forward with new ideas to expand and continue the work we started on Porkbusters in 2005. So, we wanted to open the floor up for suggestions. How can we evolve the project to have the greatest benefit? What features would you like to see on the Porkbusters pages? What types of issues should the project be focusing on?

Comments are open below, and we're listening...

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the pluses and minuses of the two frontrunning candidates for the Republican's next Majority Leader. One issue I certainly wanted to understand was their position on pork, and so I headed over to Citizen's Against Government Waste to check how they were rated. Here's how they stacked up:

John Boehner: 75% positive score for the 108th congress

Roy Blunt: 65% positive score for 108th congress

So: both candidates make it into CAGW's "friendly" category, but neither are lighting up the sky as blazing stars of Porkbusting.

Any chance we can throw these two back in the pond and ask for a do-over...?

Update: Can't throw these two back, but now there is an Option C:

John Shadegg: 97% positive score for the 108th congress

This post will self destruct in 5 second (7 links)
NIF

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Annoy Away. Just Put It In Writing. (7 links)
Football Fans for Truth
Jeff Jarvis and others are upset about a

top ten blogger lies (7 links)
gapingvoid
1. I don't consider myself an A-Lister. No, but I turn up for speaking gigs at all the big conferences anyway. Uh-huh. 2. I don't care about traffic. Of course I don't. Even though I'm a freelance consultant, and...
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Send Me to Iraq (7 links)
Michael J. Totten
Its time for me to go to Iraq. I am not going to embed with the military. While it sounds exciting (as well as terrifying), Im only going to be there a few weeks. War correspondence isnt something a person...
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A Cotillion Salute to Amazing Grace (7 links)
Cotillion
Not very many women were getting degrees in mathematics in 1928. (Not many are doing so today.) Grace Hopper got her MA in 1930 and a PhD. in 1934. She joined the Naval Reserve in 1943. Rear Admiral Grace Murray...
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Your click is important, please hold (8 links)
NIF
NIF : Delayed, I was up too late working on my car last night (stupid fuel pump).
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The Guerrillas who Came in from the Cold (7 links)
Informed Comment
The Guerrillas who Came in from the Cold Al-Hayat [Ar.]: Sour

TEDDY KENNEDY DIVES INTO KIDDIE LIT (7 links)
Michelle Malkin
You can't make these things up...
Via Yahoo News:
Meet the latest children's author, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and his Portuguese Water Dog, Splash, his
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The End of the Internets (7 links)
Eschaton
Oh, great, crappy congress with more crappy unconstitutional laws.

ALL THINGS ALITO (7 links)
Michelle Malkin
***scroll for updates***
Townhall.com has an "Alito Central" clearinghouse with tons o' links.
Stephen B
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Another Scandal that Wasn’t (7 links)
The American Thinker
There is often much less than meets the eye in the news from our nation’s capital. Rarely, however, does anything as trivial as the NSA “domestic spying” story make the...]]>

#111 Best of Me Symphony (7 links)
The Owner's Manual
All over the world, parents rely on school systems to teach children history and its lessons. How well is it working? Shiloh Musings proposes Imprinting Memory. [After leading the crowd in a kazoo chorus of There's No Business Like...
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Dean issues Smack-down on Wolfie (8 links)
Crooks and Liars
Dean issues Smack-down on Wolfie They are trying so hard to link Democrats to Abramoff's scandal that on today&ap
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