More of Moroun’s lies in bridge battle

Contrary to what you might think, I have friends whose politics are different from mine. Last week, I got an angry and indignant letter from a longtime woman friend, now a rising star in the corporate world. She is Republican to her very core.

For many years, she worked for GOP causes and campaigns, and held positions in state government. I suspect we cancel each other out in most meaningful state and national elections.

She is a happy and easygoing person, with a far sunnier disposition than mine. But this time, she was angrier than I've ever seen her, and not at President Obama or the liberals.

My friend was raging at the "misinformation and outright lies," spread by Matty Moroun, his wife and son, and all the Permian-era creatures on their Ambassador Bridge payroll.

"Lies! Loads of misinformation and outright lies," she wrote, enclosing a flier sent to her home by one of Matty Moroun's front organizations, Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the infamous Koch brothers. "They deliberately use messaging that will get GOP voters in an uproar. They are intimidating public officials by telling them that they will all have primaries. They are papering over the truth with money," she wrote heatedly.

I looked at the flier. I've been covering campaigns of all sorts since the 1970s. Virtually all of them exaggerate, stretch the truth, demonize the opposition, etc. But I've never seen anything like this.

The flier urged voters to call their state senator and make sure he stays in line opposing any new bridge.

Why? Well, it claims that the bridge would mean $550 million in new debt to Canada (a lie; this is money they'd recoup from toll revenues when the new bridge generates them).

It claims the bridge would cost "$2.2 billion hard-earned tax dollars," which is an amazing and double lie, since A) the bridge would cost Michigan nothing and B) would actually mean we get $2.2 billion from Washington in matching highway money to fix our roads.

Finally, the Americans for Prosperity flier claims the new bridge would mean "$100 million in welfare-style community benefits giveaways," on which my Republican friend had scrawled "LIES!"

By the way, I cannot identify my source because she now works in the private sector, in a job that requires her not to take any public political position whatsoever. But I can say she has never steered me wrong in all the years I've known her. 

"Community benefits aren't swimming pools," she said, something else Americans for Prosperity has been claiming. This woman is in a position to know; she has worked in high-level state positions and is familiar with what happens with major projects.

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