Here's Your Ethics 'Reform'

Here's what the just-passed ethics 'reform' bill included, as reported by Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times today:

"The legislation did away with a proposed ban on earmarks in which a lawmaker's family or staff stood to make money, and substituted a weaker measure to prohibit an earmark if it is intended only to give a "pecuniary" benefit to a lawmaker or his family. It leaves it up to party leaders to decide if a bill meets earmark disclosure rules, rather than the neutral Senate parliamentarian. It says the earmarks can be put on a database only if "technically feasible." What is not technically feasible about posting the text of a bill in this Internet age?"

Woo-hoo. Things should be much less corrupted now.

There's my two cents.