Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announced Monday that he would join a GOP effort to ban congressional earmarks, a stunning turnaround that reflects a huge victory for the Tea Party movement.

A senior member of the Appropriations Committee, McConnell has been one of the Senate's strongest proponents of local pork, but watched the practice fall into disfavor amid growing public anger over Washington spending that fueled GOP victories in this month's midterm election.

"There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight," McConnell said Monday in a speech on the Senate floor.

"And unless people like me show the American people that we're willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government," he said.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) wants to ban all earmarks -- except for the ones that she supports.

In a Tuesday interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Minnesota Republican explained that she wanted to "redefine" earmarks so that transportation projects are not included in a proposed ban.

"Advocating for transportation projects for ones district in my mind does not equate to an earmark," she told the Star Tribune.

"I don’t believe that building roads and bridges and interchanges should be considered an earmark," Bachmann said. "There’s a big difference between funding a tea pot museum and a bridge over a vital waterway."

Under Bachmann's rules, projects like the Gravina Island "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska would be allowed.

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland's Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.
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"Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap," added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris's request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.