Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Red Light Express

[A big Brain welcome to Crooks & Liars readers. - F]

The latest Repug stimulus lies from Think Progress. Many links and a video.

In the days and weeks since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, conservatives have distorted its provisions in a desperate attempt to mislead the public about what the package will do. First they mocked parks preservation funds as spending on “grass.” Then they repeatedly and falsely claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought $30 million to save a mouse. And they completely made up a mythical high-speed rail line between L.A. and Las Vegas, gleefully attacking the “magnetic levitation” train apparently because they thought the term sounds funny.

The term might sound funny to Repug ignoramuses, but maglev trains are totally bitchin'.

The highest recorded speed of a maglev train is 581 km/h (361 mph), achieved in Japan in 2003

That's L.A. to Lost Wages in under an hour. If such a train were to exist, that is, and it's not a bad idea. I-15 on weekends is a 200-mile-long 80MPH desert traffic jam. Howsomever, there are many more important transportation priorities than high-speed delivery of people's money to playground operators.

This one's a doozy:

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) took the lies to a new level today when he — with the help of an enthusiastic Fox News’s Megyn Kelly — declared that the 2009 omnibus bill included funding for a train traveling straight from “Disney” to Nevada’s most famous brothel, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch (Employee of the Month is 'Air Force Amy'. - G):

KELLY: It’s a super railroad, of sorts — a line that will deliver customers straight from Disney, we kid you not, to the doorstep of the moonlight bunny ranch brothel in Nevada. I say, to the moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada. So should your tax dollars be paying for these kinds of projects? […]

Heh. High-speed rail from one 'Fantasyland' to another! Win-win! I got no problem with it except it's another Repug lie.

The Moonlight Bunny Ranch is in Carson City, which is 320 miles from Las Vegas, 50 miles farther than Vegas is from L.A. If one were to go from Carson to L.A. via Vegas, it's about 590 miles. The direct route is about 360 miles.

Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas, but there are many legal brothels a lot closer to it than The Ranch. In that desolate desert country you can see them from miles away at night. One light bulb - nothing, a thousand light bulbs and no gas pumps - pull right in, weary traveler. The Ranch must have been the only brothel this dildo congressman ever heard of, even though he's from right next door in Arizona. Maybe he's just been from state capital to state capital in an airplane, and then a limo to The Ranch. Drunk and at night, sometimes it's hard to tell where you are.

Or maybe he just likes to watch the HBO shows with his pants around his ankles. I hope he goes blind.

Reid’s office confirmed that Franks is referring to a proposal to refurbish a historic railroad line (See F&G on the V&T too- G) between Gold Hill, NV, and Carson City — hardly a direct line from L.A. to the “doorstep” of a brothel. Considering there’s no funding for high-speed rail between L.A. and Las Vegas — despite Republicans’ frenetic assertions to the contrary — the idea of a Disneyland-Bunny Ranch supertrain is far-fetched, to say the least.

Ironically, at the end of the pathetically ill-informed segment, Kelly asked how politicians can be held accountable for these mythical boondoggles; Franks replied with praise for Fox News: “Fortunately, people like yourself and Fox News are a tremendous help in that regard because they tell the people — you know, sunlight has a way of being an accountability all by itself.”

The only problem with sunlight is getting it under the rocks where F** and the Repugs live.

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