Blunt's dishonest campaigning continues

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-K Street) can't seem to give a speech without making things up. Last night, before a home crowd at the American Conservative Union's CPAC conference, Blunt regurgitated discredited stories about the recently-passed economic recovery package.

Specifically, Blunt said that the economic recovery package includes (1) money for a "bullet train" from "Disneyland to Las Vegas" and (2) millions for "wetland mouse preservation" in San Francisco.  Neither is true. To be fair, Blunt is just one of many conservatives spreading the falsehoods, but that doesn't make it okay.

The "bullet train" myth has been widely discredited:

• FactCheck.org: A widely repeated claim that $8 billion is set aside for a "levitating train" to Disneyland is untrue. That total is for unspecified high-speed rail projects, and some of it may or may not end up going to a proposed 300-mph "maglev" train connecting Anaheim, Calif., with Las Vegas....Even vigilant pork-busting budget watchdogs agree that the "levitating train earmark" charge is without merit: Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that scours legislation for earmarks, told us that there is "no way that this provision is an earmark for Sen. Reid." [link]

The "mouse preservation" claim isn't true either:

• PolitiFact.com: Several Republicans claimed this week that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put $30 million in a bill to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse. We looked into the issue and found that was not the case. There's no money for mice in the bill. There might — or might not — be money for a major coastal restoration project in California that could help out the mice. And a state agency submitted the project, not Pelosi. We rate the claim, made most plainly by Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana [and repeated by Blunt], as False. [link]

The full video of the speech is here, but I wouldn't recommend it. Rep. Michelle Bachmann is way too close to Blunt's microphone, and her constant laughing at his bad jokes is unbearable.