BIPARTISAN TO SOME REPUBLICANS MEANS DISCONNECTING THE OPPONENT’S MICROPHONES

Darrell Issa is just a “caricature” of a House committee chairman.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is a true "Dictator" over his oversight committee.

In my last article, I had shown a picture of the Republican Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).  I also had a caption for this picture saying, “…one of the Republican Chairmen that continually lies about President Obama”.

Within the article, I had also made a comment about how chairman Issa had been laughing at the Democratic Representative, Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) as Rep. Guitierrez, had slammed his hand down on a table and yelled, “This is not a laughing matter.”  Committee Chairman, Issa, had then stop laughing as he immediately cut off Rep. Gutierrez from any further comment.  I also had stated that this was, “A very typical Chairman Issa movement.”

Well, I didn’t realize that I was "being prescient" in this statement by showing knowledge of some events, before they would later be taking place.

Once again, this GOP chairman has tried to use his position to silence his Democratic critics who question his comments, actions and untrue statements.  But this time, he tried by cutting off their microphone.

In this situation, this Republican committee chairman had again recalled to testify, Ms. Lois Lerner, who was the head of the IRS group that was accused by the chairman, and other Republican lawmakers, for the targeting of Tea Party groups. Issa had stated that Ms. Lerner would be testifying before his House committee on Wednesday.  However, that did not occur as her lawyer had once again advised her to take the 5^th Amendment.  After Issa forced Ms. Lerner to invoke her 5^th Amendment rights, no fewer than 10 times, the committee’s ranking minority Democratic Representative, Elijah Cummings (D-MD.), raised his hand to speak.

Now, this is the proper way in a normal democracy, that the nation’s House committees are supposed to act.  After a committee chairman has had their say, which Issa had done in his 10 approaches to Ms. Lerner, the minority Representative is supposed to have about 5 minutes to ask questions and to make some statements.  No, it’s not an absolute House “rule”, but it is the normal protocol.

Instead, Issa, just  looked at Cummings, totally ignored him, and turning away, adjourned the hearing as he slammed down the gavel.

Rep. Cummings then virtually yelled three times, “Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?”

Issa, continued to ignore Rep. Cummings.  He gathered his papers, turned away and stated, “We’ve adjourned.”

A very upset Cummings, in a loud voice stated, “Mr. Chairman, you cannot run a committee like this, We’re better than that as a committee. I have asked for a few minutes to ask a procedural…. ”

At that point, Issa stood up and pressed a button in front of him that cut-off Cummings’s microphone.

“Now you’re turning me off?” Cummings said, incredulous, as Issa pressed the silencing button.

Issa must have realized it didn’t look good for him to be standing and holding the mute button while the ranking Democrat was still speaking. He then briefly sat and allowed Cummings to speak, but then stood and silenced the microphone again.

“I am a member of the Congress of the United States of America! I am tired of this!” Cummings shouted. “You cannot just have a one-sided investigation. . . . It is absolutely un-American.”

The very big voice of the Democrat just kept coming. 

The microphones then came back on as Issa had released his override button. As the Democratic Rep. continued to speak, Issa made a "throat-slitting" gesture at his staff running the mikes as he said, “Close it down,” and the sound system went dead.

Issa gave Cummings a look of loathing and said, quietly, “We had a hearing. It is adjourned. I gave you an opportunity to ask a question. You have no question.”

Rep. Cummings said he did have a question and he continued to read his unamplified statement, and Issa turned and walked out. He was asked by reporters in the hallway why he shut down the mike. Issa said, “He was actually slandering me at the moment that the mikes did go off by claiming that this had not been a real investigation,” Issa said. “This has been a bipartisan investigation.”

Issa and one of his fellow Republicans walked off to loud cries of the committee members and the visitor’s of “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

Rep. Cummings then called out after Issa, “Mr. Chairman, what are you hiding?”

The Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), then yelled out to Cummings, “He’s taking the 5^th, Elijah.”

We are all aware of how divided the House is today.  But to not allow a minority member to speak, especially, the ranking minority member of the committee, to ask a question or to make a statement is more than unusual.  This is totally against the protocol of the House committees, especially since it was Issa that had called the meeting.

To demonstrate another Issa untruth, on a Fox News show before the committee meeting, Issa had told Chris Wallace on Fox on that Ms. Lerner’s “attorney indicates now that she will testify” after previously refusing to do so.  However, her lawyer totally denied Issa's statement, as we now know to be true, as Ms. Lerner took the 5^th and did not testify.  And that would have been the whole news of the committee, if not for Issa’s use of the sound-system’s silencing button on Rep. Cummings.

On the other hand, these kinds of happenings from the chairman, and his telling of major untruths, is starting to get out hand. 

As another example regarding the IRS issue, Issa had previously said that the IRS was responsible for, “the targeting of the president’s political enemies effectively”, and he said he would prove it was directed “out of Washington headquarters.” But after major efforts by Issa’s Republican members, no such proof was found.

As another example of Issa’s ineptness, right after Issa was made chairman, we can’t forget how Issa banned the Democratic witness, Sandra Fluke, from a panel about birth control.  This banning left the panel with an all-male slate of witnesses to talk about women’s birth control.  This obviously received a lot of negative publicity and it gave his party a major embarrassment.  (Yes, this is the same Sandra Fluke that Rush Limbaugh had made famous, and that lost him over 100 radio sponsors, by Rush calling her a “slut” on his national radio show.)

Finally, just last month, Issa was once again speculating at a fundraiser as to why the Pentagon was not mobilized to protect American facilities in Benghazi, Libya, when they were attacked in 2012.  His speculation was that the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, “told them to stand down.” However, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found and confirmed that there were no such orders from the Secretary.  Issa’s response to Fox News’ Chris Wallace was, “Well, the use in answering questions at a political fundraiser, the term ‘stand down’ was not used in an explicit way.”

So, Issa was saying he didn’t explicitly say “stand down” at the fundraiser?  Right!

It wasn’t until last year that Rep. Issa finally retracted his statement that President Barack Obama was “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern history”, saying he should have parsed his words more carefully.  Apparently, the chairman’s more careful parsing meant his declaring Obama's “government, is the most corrupt in history”.  His basis for this latest statement was, “Because of the money, because of the amount of TARP and stimulus funds, this was going to be the most corrupt government in history, and it is proving to be just exactly that," Issa said in a Bloomberg television interview.

Now, as expected, Issa never stated just “how” these stimulus funds were corrupting the government.  He just said that the funds themselves were going to make the US government corrupt….?

Chairman Issa has continuingly stated that his IRS oversight committee is “a bipartisan committee and performs bipartisan investigations”. 

I guess bipartisan to the chairman means turning off the opposition microphones.

Copyright G.Ater  2014