Lawmakers are investigating the Obama administration’s controversial decision to purchase over 100 advertisements touting so-called “green jobs” on the far-left MSNBC cable television outlet using “stimulus” funds, raising serious questions among analysts about misappropriation of taxpayer money to reward allies of the president who parrot White House talking points. No other TV media channels received similar contracts and no jobs were “created.”

The dubious Obama-friendly commercials touting “green” stimulus schemes ran over 100 times on MSNBC, costing taxpayers about half of a million dollars. But after the administration’s decision became a public scandal in the wake of watchdogs and media reports exposing it, criticism of the plot is growing. And now, members of Congress want answers.

Republican leaders on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which oversees the Department of Labor, are leading the charge. In a letter, the lawmakers demanded access to all documents and communications surrounding the administration’s “public relations” contract with McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations, as well as details about meetings between officials and the PR contractor hired to tout the stimulus scheme.

“We understand this contract used taxpayer dollars to purchase advertisements on MSNBC during ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ and ‘The Rachel Maddow Show,’” wrote Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), Rep Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), and Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) in the letter. Since 2009, they added, the Labor Department has spent nearly $2 million with the PR firm to promote its “Job Corps” schemes.

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Photo: Phil Griffin, left, president of MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, center, and Lawrence O'Donnell, host of "The Last Word," take part in a panel discussion on Aug. 2, 2011, in Beverly Hills, Calif.: AP Images