Republican desperation and lies

One of the new talking points for the GOP is to demonize the $8 billion in the Recovery Act to build high-speed rail lines. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal trots out the line on the Sunday talkers, criticizing the "Disneyland to Las Vegas" line.

Chris Matthews rightly dismisses it as "cartoon talk", "stupid talk".

MSNBC's David Schuster confronts Republican Congressman Darrell Issa when Issa tries to slip the lie in. Forward to 4:20 for the clip. Ironically.


As reported by Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:

...as negotiations on the package wrapped up, Rahm Emanuel secured an extra $8 billion for high-speed rail. The Maine and Pennsylvania Republican "centrists" approved, and the bill progressed. The $8 billion is not directed at any specific state or project.

Meanwhile, Newt Ginrich sees this bill as his party's ticket back to power in 2010.  He's been leading the cry against pork-barrel spending such as a project for marsh-mouse preservation.

Here's the problem: there is NO project. It's another lie. In some more great reporting, Benen notes:

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" has been repeating the marsh-mouse claim quite a bit lately, and to its credit, the show invited PolitiFact.com's Bill Adair on to the show this morning to scrutinize the story. Asked if MSNBC was "unfair" to go after this story, Adair said, "You were.... This one gets a 'false' on the Truth-o-Meter.... The reality is, the money is just not in the bill to do this the way that they said."

Joe Scarborough said he'd talked to a Republican House member about this, who defended the claim. Adair said the GOP lawmaker "lied to you."

Go to the :45 mark and watch how simply flabbergasted the crew is that they miht have *gasp* reported a lie as true.

How disingenuous. How awful.