Tag: Darrell Issa

Witness Panel for House Republicans’ Hearing on Contraceptives Is Men Only

Jon Ponder

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“What I want to know is, where are the women?” asked Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) shortly before she walked out of House oversight committee hearing on insurance coverage for contraceptives. “I look at this panel [of witnesses], and I don’t see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventive health care services, including family planning.”

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa called five witnesses who opposed a rule floated and then quickly rescinded by the Obama administration last week that would have required church-owned businesses to cover the cost of contraceptives for their employees. All five Republican witnesses were men.

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Beltway Media Finally Musters Outrage – Over Rep. Issa Spokesman Leaking Reporters’ Emails to an Author

Jon Ponder

Kurt Bardella
Kurt Bardella
George Bush’s obviously false rationale for invading Iraq didn’t do it. Neither did the revelation that Bush senior staffers, including Vice Pres. Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, wrote a torture manual for the CIA — or that Cheney, Karl Rove and others deliberately betrayed a covert CIA program tracking the black market for weapons of mass destruction.

“Death panels” didn’t do it. The fakery of the astroturfed tea party mobs didn’t do it. Nor has the increasingly embarrassing presence of the Fox News cuckoo bird hatchling befouling the media elites’ well-feathered nest.

In fact, you’d have to go back to the Chandra Levy scandal in 2001, — in which Democratic Rep. Gary Condit was tried and convicted (falsely, of course) by the Beltway media in the murder of Levy, a young congressional intern — to find the last time the bewigged media dandies in the capitol shook off their collective torpor … until today:

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Issa to Double Staff, Barrage White House with Subpoenas If He Becomes Oversight Chair

Jon Ponder

Issa
Issa
Outside his Camp Pendleton-adjacent district north of San Diego, which he has served since 2001, GOP Rep. Darrell Issa is considered a laughingstock in California — mostly because he broke down in sobs in front of local television cameras after Arnold Schwarzenegger bigfooted him out of the governor’s race during the 2003 recall election. (But really, who didn’t see that coming?) Which is why Californians are amazed that this buffoon is on track to becoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the committee Dan Burton of Indiana chaired during the Clinton era, if Republicans win control of the House in November.

Cynical GOP-watchers, including yours truly, are predicting that if the GOP wins Congress in November Speaker Boehner will greenlight multiple, simultaneous investigations into the White House with the ultimate goal of impeaching Pres. Obama at any cost. There’s no surer sign of Boehner’s intent than the choice of a nutbag like Issa to chair the Oversight Committee. Anyone familiar with Issa’s record knows that he will devote whatever time and government resources it takes to find a pretext — any bogus reason — to impeach the president.

If you think this is too Chicken Little-ish or an alarmist attempt to scare the bejesus out of fans of the president who are complacent about the midterms, a new report in right-leaning Politico.com might give you pause: Issa has been boasting that he has requested a doubling of the committee’s staff in order to handle the volume of subpoenas he’ll be issuing to the White House, if he becomes chairman:

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