In light of the recent tragedy in Philadelphia, the Democrats on Capitol Hill and their liberal cohorts in the media have concocted a thoroughly absurd theory that the Amtrak train crash was caused by evil Republicans and their budget cuts. Never mind the fact that no amount of money in the world was going to prevent a train travelling 106 mph around a 50 mph curve from derailing.
The theory that Republicans caused the train wreck has been pushed by the media, and apparently caused Speaker of the House John Boehner to lose his cool a bit.
At a weekly press briefing, International Business Times reporter Ginger Gibson decided she was going to ask about funding to Amtrak, even framing it in the sense that ‘Oh, Democrats are saying …’
Boehner would have none of it, cutting her off before the question was finished and making his own inquiry.
“Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?” he wondered out loud.
Boehner went on to explain why the whole concept that the Amtrak crash occurred because of funding is false.
“Listen, you know they started this yesterday, ‘it’s all about funding, it’s all about funding.’ Well, obviously it’s not about funding. The train was going twice the speed limit. Adequate funds were there. No money’s been cut from rail safety, and the House passed a bill earlier this spring to reauthorize Amtrak and authorize a lot of these programs. And it’s hard for me to imagine that people take the bait on some of the nonsense that gets spewed around here.”
Watch Speaker Boehner go off …
Side note: How long before the media turns the narrative on this into a ‘War on Women’ since the reporter asking the question was female?
Funding isn’t the issue according to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
via MRC TV:
According to the Wall Street Journal, while Amtrak has requested additional funding for infrastructure, they had already received the funding for “positive train control,” the advanced signal system which many in the media are saying would have prevented Tuesday’s derailment.
The railroad has already installed the federally mandated system between New Haven, Conn., and Boston and was to complete work between New York and Washington by the end of this year, an Amtrak official said.
Robert Sumwalt, the National Transportation Safety Board official who is leading the investigation, told the New York Times:
Even without the system, rail safety experts said Amtrak locomotives have multiple systems to alert train operators to excess speed, with warning lights and sound alarms. Mr. Sumwalt said he did not know yet whether those systems had worked.
It’s hard to fault Gibson for towing the Democrat line. Reporters typically regurgitate liberal talking points whenever they can, because journalism is a lazy industry in America these days. And if one party is willing to tell them how to do their job, so be it. It’s much easier to have the questions written for you, isn’t it?
In this case at least, John Boehner wasn’t going to stand for it. Good for him.
What do our readers think of the Speaker’s reaction? Too much, or not enough of this king of push back from Republicans?