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Looks like Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor is getting some push back from Republican governors in states ravaged by Hurricane Irene after his statements calling for budget cuts before funding for disaster relief.

As Ed Schultz discussed during this segment, it looks like Cantor may be backing away from his rigid stance, even if it's ever so slightly, now that he's being criticized from the likes of his state's Gov. Bob McDonnell and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

From ThinkProgress -- Republican Revolt: Virgina’s GOP Governor Splits With Cantor, Rejects Conditioning Disaster Aid On Budget Cuts:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), along with some of his House GOP colleagues, have been saying that disaster aid for the areas affected by Hurricane Irene must be offset by, in Cantor’s words, “savings elsewhere.” Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) said yesterday on Bloomberg News that budget cuts must be a prerequisite for disaster aid in order to reassure “the business markets.” Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) added that the days when disaster relief could be funded without offsetting budget cuts “are gone.”

However, not everyone in the GOP agrees that disaster funding should play second fiddle to the GOP’s budget-slashing agenda. Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) yesterday broke with Cantor, saying that “I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate“:

Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell, breaking with Cantor, on Tuesday suggested that deficit-spending concerns should not be a factor as Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) respond to the hurricane.

“My concern is that we help people in need,” McDonnell said during his monthly radio show. “For the FEMA money that’s going to flow, it’s up to them on how they get it. I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn't have any kind words for Cantor and his fellow Republicans as well and slammed them for the games they were playing during the debt-ceiling hostage taking, and said the citizens of his state weren't going to wait around for similar games with their disaster relief. From the HuffPo -- Chris Christie: Don't Delay Hurricane Irene Disaster Aid Over Federal Spending Cuts:

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While we're still in the middle of watching the devastating flooding left in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene with the likelihood that President Obama is going to come out and push the Republicans for some spending on infrastructure to get Americans back to work and help repair some of the damage from this storm, what's the reaction on Fox?

Apparently toeing the line for Paul Ryan's budget proposal which contains massive cuts to transportation and infrastructure spending. Ryan's name was never used and his proposal was never mentioned here, but that doesn't matter much, because what they were doing is advocating for everything that's in it. From the DC Streets Blog which I've got more of below the fold:

The proposal would also radically shift the balance of federal transportation spending toward highways. It promises to eliminate all new intercity rail projects unless they can be established as profitable private enterprises, for example. It also blames the highway trust fund’s deficits on non-highway spending, with “bike trails” specifically singled out. Of course, the real cause of the trust fund shortfall isn’t the minuscule amount spent on bikeways but the declining revenues from a gas tax that hasn’t even been adjusted for inflation since 1993.

Fox's Cavuto and Sarah Palin fan-girl Kate Obenshain attacked the tolls being collected at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel and the Golden Gate Bridge and then immediately conflated the tolls being collected on those bridges to the gas tax and spending on infrastructure and transportation at the federal level instead of the state level, and claimed that those taxes weren't really being used on infrastructure, but instead being “wasted” on things like bike trails, maintaining our parks, historic preservation and mass transit, rather than paying to maintain roads and bridges.

As I already noted, more on what's wrong with these arguments below the fold, but first here's some of Obenshain's word-salad gibberish she ended the segment with (I think she's been spending a little too much time paling around with Sarah Palin).

OBENSHAIN: Well of course it doesn't. And you look at the President's priorities right now. That is the essence of the problem Neil. Instead of going to the government's responsibility, that's making sure that our roads and our bridges are safe, instead we've the President proposing $53 billion for the fast rail with no cost analysis benefit. This is government philosophy. Instead of focusing on the true, real, good purposes of government, and of our responsibility to provide for, just this kind of scenario, we're off helping build more bike trails with federal funds when we've seen unsustainable increases in transportation spending right now. We've just seen, I think we've just hit the $4 trillion dollar mark that the President has increased the debt by, and yet we're talking about adding to that?

How about focusing our transportation funds on what is real and necessary and right now, frankly, cutting out the stuff that we can put off until we've renewed the prosperity that the free market can bring about. But if we continue to think that just by pouring more and more government money into the problem, this is going to solve the issue, we're making a huge mistake.

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Bill Nye "The Science Guy" found himself in the tough position Monday of explaining science to Fox Business guest host Charles Payne.

Payne began the Freedom Watch segment by pressing Nye to prove that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming.

"I don't think the word proof is what you are looking for," Nye told Payne. "Evidence or result of? Yeah."

"Here's the thing though, Bill," Payne said. "Ever since Katrina, we heard that the hurricane season is going to be more devastating and it was apocalyptic and the end of the world. And the reality is we haven't seen that. So, how can Newsweek say this is a new normal? Is this irresponsible or is there any science behind that?"

"Well, there's a lot more science behind it than saying it's not," Nye flatly stated. "But that aside, that's only six years. In geologic times or in terms of climate events, that's not very long."

"The world is getting warmer, everybody. The world is getting warmer... Do we not agree the world is getting warmer?"

"I have no idea," Payne admitted. "Someone told me it's one degree in the last hundred years and I'll take their word for it."

The Fox Business host then changed the subject to Al Gore's suggestion that climate change deniers need to be confronted just as racists were confronted during the civil rights movement.

"[Gore is] very passionate about it," Nye explained. "As the world has become smaller -- this is to say that as communication has become better and better, and we get to know each other better, we all travel all over the world. It's routine to get on a plane and go to Asia and come back. As we get to know each other, we realize we are all one species; we are all the same human. But in tribal times, the importance of your tribe was so great that you were afraid of other tribes."

"If someone from New England has sex with someone from Papua, New Guinea, you get a human. You don't get anything else. So, racism is scientifically not especially compelling. If you learn the science of it, you let go of it. And when you learn the science of climate change, in my opinion, you will find it quite compelling and you will want to do something about it rather than pretend it doesn't happen."

"We brought you on because we knew you could connect the dots," Payne interrupted. "Although the route you've taken is still confusing some of the viewers."

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann told voters in Florida Sunday that Hurricane Irene and the recent East Coast earthquake were just God's way of telling politicians to reign in government spending.

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians," Bachmann said during the speech in Sarasota.

"We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

At least 21 people died over the weekend due to the storm.

UPDATE: Bachmann made a similar claim at another event (via Scarce).

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How completely out of touch is right-wing pundit during this segment on ABC's This Week? After showing the politicians giving warnings to residents to take shelter and evacuate dangerous areas and Jake Tapper asking if they're being overly cautious after the debacle we saw with how the Bush administration handled Hurricane Katrina, here's how Will responds.

WILL: I have a home on South Carolina's Atlantic coast. I know that the Atlantic Ocean generates hurricanes and they can be dangerous and those are predictable. That said, this too must be said. Florence Nightingale said, whatever you say about hospitals, they shouldn't make their patients sicker. And whatever else you want to say about journalism, it shouldn't subtract from the nation's understanding, and it certainly shouldn't contribute to the manufactured, synthetic hysteria that is so much a part of modern life. And I think we may have done so with regard to this "tropical storm", as it now seems to be.

We've got team members here at Crooks and Liars with their power out, trees down and having to temporarily move out of their homes and as one of them noted after hearing this, I doubt we'll see George Will having to evacuate to a shelter anytime soon. Ain't that the truth? You notice Will didn't say "his home" as in where he lives. He said "I have a home", as in one of multiple homes, meaning this is his vacation house on the beach he's talking about.

Cokie Roberts was quite obviously disgusted after hearing Will's remark and reminded him what a horrible toll Hurricane Katrina took on the lives of everyone, but especially the most vulnerable like the elderly and children and also reminded him that for the people who are actually stuck in the middle of these disaster areas, there is no such thing as an overabundance of caution.

I'm not sure how many more rotten things have to come out of George Will's mouth before the network removes him as a permanent fixture from this show, but it seems the chances of every getting rid of him are probably about as likely as seeing MSNBC ever tell their resident bigot Pat Buchanan to hit the bricks.

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The moment Hurricane Irene was sweeping through New York, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was calling for additional spending cuts before funding disaster relief.

The Texas congressman doubled down comments he made Friday that the nation was better off in the 1900s, before the existence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"Congressman, you would really at this point, do away with FEMA and all the things it's doing to help hundreds of thousands of people along the East Coast?" Fox News Chris Wallace asked Paul.

"Have you ever read the reports that came out of New Orleans [after Hurricane Katrina]?" Paul laughed. "It's a system of bureaucratic central economic planning, which is a policy that is deeply flawed."

"So, no. You don't get rid of something like that in one day... I propose we save a billion dollars from overseas war mongering, bring half of that home, put it against the deficit and yes, tide people over until we come to our senses and realize that FEMA has been around since 1978. It has one of the worst reputations for a bureaucracy ever."

"I assume if the Obama administration comes and asks for a emergency funding bill for FEMA, you're a definite no?" Wallace pressed.

"Where would the money come from?" Paul said, again laughing. "We don't have any money... I would consider what I just said. I have precise beliefs in what we should do and I want to transition out of dependency on the federal governent."

"But I would say, 'Yes, Obama you want a billion dollars? Quit that war in Libya that is undeclared and unconstitutional. Bring those troops home, save two billion dollars. Put a billion against the deficit and tide our people over.'"

He continued: "We've conditioned our people that FEMA will take care of us and everything will be OK. But you try to make these programs work the best you can. You can't just keep saying, 'Oh, they need money.' We're out of money. The country is bankrupt."