Rep. Shelley Berkley went to bat for Las Vegas against the critics who've been singling it out for the stimulus money designated for Nevada.

Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I'm mad and I'm not going to take it anymore. I've had enough of my colleagues bashing my district, my hometown and the community I love, Las Vegas. I've sat back as Las Vegas has been maligned, insulted and lied about for the sole purpose of making political points. I've been waiting for common sense to prevail. But I'm here to say that this nonsense, the bashing and the lies about Las Vegas have got to end, and they've got to end now.

As her full remarks make clear she took dead aim at the braindead republicans who have been trying to make political hay out of this, largely by making shit up.

It started with Senator McConnell's misguided attack on the stimulus bill by singling out a mob museum in Las Vegas as an earmark in the stimulus package. There's only a couple of things wrong with that. There never was an earmark in the stimulus bill. There are none. And there certainly wasn't one for a mob museum. There was never a mention of it in the stimulus package. But the lies continued.

And then we found out about the maglev train. Countless Republicans have misrepresented the $8 billion included in the stimulus bill as being an earmark for the Las Vegas-Anaheim maglev route. The only problem is, even after it was pointed out that there is no earmark, that Las Vegas and California are going to have to compete with the other projects, that this has been a project that's been in the works for 20 years, and that it will bring thousands of visitors to the Las Vegas area and to the

Southern California area, the lies continue.

The latest one was Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. He repeated the lie in his televised response to the President's remarks to Congress, claiming the bill included funding for a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland. That is absolute nonsense.

And then it goes one worse. Representative Trent Franks just mentioned today that there's a maglev train going all the way from Disneyland to the Moonlit Bunny Brothel. Now, I grew up in Las Vegas. I've never heard of the Moonlit Bunny Brothel. But I guarantee that maglev train is not going there.

And then the latest whipping boy is in the omnibus bill. Sustainable Las Vegas. Just yesterday Senator McCain took to the floor of the Senate to attack Sustainable Las Vegas. What does Sustainable Las Vegas mean, he yelled?

Well, let me enlighten the Senator. It's a University of Nevada education and research program on energy supply, water supply and air quality, very serious issues for the desert Southwest, cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix and Tucson. But the Senator knows that.

Yesterday the crazed Governor of Nevada Jim Gibbons criticized Berkley and Rep. Dina Titus for promoting unemployment money, the same tack Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is trying to pull in Louisiana.

Gibbons criticized U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, for saying it would be "foolish" for Nevada to turn down unemployment money that's part of the federal stimulus package and U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Henderson, for saying she was concerned about Gibbons' hesitancy to take part of the stimulus funds.

"What is truly foolish is Berkley's cavalier attitude that Nevada should bow down to the federal government and give up its own state sovereignty in a mad grab to claim every last penny of stimulus dollars," Gibbons said.

Yes, Nevada whose unemployment rate is near 10%, among the highest int he country, should reject stimulus funding intended to help that situation. Republicans...

Dina Titus responded in a press release:

"The Governor's ill-advised proposal to leave money on the table for unemployed Nevadans rather than consider temporary changes to unemployment coverage shows just how out of touch he really is."