Lots of news on the pork-barrel earmark front this morning:

Roll Call reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are conspiring to ram new ethics reform legislation through Congress before the August recess -- with no amendments allowed.  Anti-pork champ Jim DeMint of South Carolina might have something to say about that, though:

"But according to Republican aides, DeMint and other conservatives who have been pushing ethics and earmark reforms in the Senate will likely be in no mood to simply accept a new bill, particularly if they feel any of the provisions have been changed or watered down. “If it’s watered down, I can tell you we’ll have 15 amendments of our own we’ll want to propose,” said one Republican aide.

“The Democrats are getting very good and making sport of manipulating the rules,” said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton. “But at least now we will get to see their bill and find out how Senator Reid plans to gut the earmark reform rules. And Senator DeMint will have a chance to restore them on the Senate floor.”

Meanwhile, over in the House, Congressman Jeff Flake continues his brave, if somewhat lonely, fight against specific pork-barrel projects.  He offered a series of unsuccessful amendments yesterday, including one to strip $100,000 in funding for the Kansas Regional Prisons Museum, which we visited and questioned last week.

That amendment fared better than most of the others Flake offered yesterday, garnering 112 votes.  The Prisons Museum was also the subject of a critical editorial in the Hutchinson (Kan.) News:

"If the Leavenworth-Lansing community thinks a prisons museum would be popular, then the community should figure out how to finance it locally. And if we in Kansas don't stand by the principle that such federal giveaways are wasteful everywhere, including in our own backyard, then we have no credibility on this issue.

Undeterred, Congressman Flake will continue his anti-pork crusade  today, including an amendment to strike $200,000 in taxpayer funding for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Mo.  A quick glance at the certification letter filed by the earmark's sponsor, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, shows that the Congressman's son is employed by the Jazz Museum.  Hmmmm......