TPM Reader RW on Hastert's sweet earmark deal ...

You can tell how bad a deal is by the mendacity used to defend it. Take, for example, J. Randolph Evans, Esq. (sounds like someone out of Trading Places), attorney for Denny Hastert. He defends Hastert's land-deal earmarks by "asserting that a new road project would have an impact on land values more than 5 1/2 miles away 'would be like complaining about a purchase in Alexandria, Virginia, based on renovations at the Capitol'." I can assure you, there's a big difference between a change in a well-settled city like Washington, D.C. and proto-exurban farmland outside of D.C. I've lived in both places and I can tell you that before development got there, there was nothing. A multi-lane highway going through near proto-exurban farmland like that is bound to make land values skyrocket. I assure you however, if there was a way in which GOP legislators could make money off of a parcel of land in Alexandria by renovating the Capital, there would be an earmark ready to go.