Tag Archives: Paul Gosar

Scandals That Weren’t.

Posted on by

Since Teapublicans took control of the House in 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Paul Gosar and other extremists have conducted a barrage of hearings with the intent of exposing the misdeeds of the Obama administration. They began by examining government loans made to administration “loyalists” at Solyndra, a start-up manufacturer of solar panels. They moved on to the failed ATFE “gun-running” program in Arizona. After that it was Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, interrupted briefly by IRS scrutiny of conservative “non-profits.” Finally, they turned to the Ebola crisis.

After dozens of hearings, numerous investigations and millions of dollars in expenses, here’s what they found:

The loans to Solyndra were initiated during the George W. Bush administration and finalized during the first year of the Obama administration. The company failed when faced with competition financed, in part, by the Chinese government. And, instead of losing millions as Teapublicans claimed, the government actually made a $5 billion profit on the sale of Solyndra’s assets.

Though Issa and his Teapublican investigations found that Fast & Furious resulted in hundreds of guns being trafficked across the border into Mexico; and though Teapublicans blamed the Department of Justice, calling for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder; the facts show that the blame was entirely misplaced. Yes, the ATFE allowed guns to cross the border with hopes of tracking them to the leaders of Mexican drug cartels. But, thanks to Arizona’s loose gun laws, guns have been trafficked across the border for decades. Fast & Furious was created out of frustration with the courts’ refusal to allow charges against so-called straw buyers. The hope was that, by tracking the guns, the ATFE would be able to disrupt the pipeline of illegal weapons.

With regard to Benghazi, contrary to an endless stream of Teapublican propaganda, 7 non-partisan investigations have found absolutely no wrongdoing by the administration or anyone else. There were no orders for rescuers to stand down. And absolutely no evidence of an administration cover-up. It was simply an unexpected and spontaneous attack by terrorists resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans…the kind of attack that led to many more deaths in American embassies under previous administrations. Yet, despite the findings of 7 investigations, Teapublicans are still insisting on spending millions more for yet another investigation by a “select” committee of Teapublican fools.

As for the IRS scandal, there is little evidence of wrong-doing. Yes, Lois Lerner and her IRS colleagues compiled a list of watch words indicating a political committee disguised as a charitable non-profit in order to ferret out those intent on skirting election laws to flood political campaigns with dark money. Yes, that list included numerous words used by Teapublican groups. And, yes, more Teapublican groups were subjected to extra scrutiny by the IRS. But it is also true that, thanks to the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires, more Teapublican groups had applied for non-profit status than Democratic groups. Moreover, following a series of questionable Supreme Court decisions, Lerner’s IRS department was overwhelmed with such requests. And none of the groups affected were denied such status.

Finally, the Teapublican’s weakest attempt to scaremonger was the Ebola “scandal.” So far, only two people have died of the disease in the US. And though it appears that the Dallas hospital was ill-prepared to deal with the disease, the CDC and NIH quickly responded. There have been no further events and no “epidemic” despite the fact that Teapublicans dramatically cut the budget for the Center for Disease Control, making it unable to conduct necessary research.

And what were the Obama administration’s failures in all of these scandals? None. Yet, thanks to Teapublican control of Congress, the investigations, and the propaganda, will continue.

UPDATE: It is estimated that the direct costs of investigations by Issa’s committee have exceeded more than $26 million to date. The indirect costs of the time needed to provide thousands of documents in compliance with the committee’s demands may have exceeded $1 trillion.

Impeach Obama?

Posted on by

In the fantasy world of right wing crazies, the impeachment of President Obama is becoming a greater possibility. For example, Michele “Batsh*t Crazy” Bachmann recently told viewers of Fox News Channel that President Obama has “rewritten the Constitution to serve his own purposes.” First, I doubt that Bachmann has ever actually read the Constitution. Second, the “evidence” she used to support her claim is the Affordable Care Act (ACA)…a bill passed by Congress, signed by the president and upheld as constitutional by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

Some evidence.

Bachmann isn’t the only mental hospital escapee making such claims. At Tea Party rallies throughout the US, it’s common to see people holding “Impeach Obama” signs or verbally calling for the president’s impeachment. Even worse, numerous Teapublican congressmen have suggested that impeachment may soon be “necessary.” To justify their calls for impeachment, they point to manufactured “scandals” such as Benghazi.  But, unlike his predecessor who ignored numerous warnings prior to 9/11 and led our nation into war under false pretenses, President Obama has done absolutely nothing to warrant impeachment. And, just one year ago, voters had the ultimate opportunity to remove him from office.

It’s called an election.

Unfortunately for Teapublicans, they lost…badly. Nevertheless, Teapublicans continue to blame the president for their own failings. They ran up the debt with their wars and tax cuts and blamed it on Obama. They collapsed the economy and blamed Obama for unemployment. They created the debt crisis in 2011 and blamed Obama for the damage done. They have used the filibuster to nullify many of the president’s initiatives and to block many of his appointments and nominations.

They cry that Obama “refuses to defend our border” despite the fact that the Obama administration has doubled the size of the Border Patrol and invested billions in a border fence. They forced our government into sequestration then howled when the cuts resulted in long lines at airport screening. Most recently, they shut down our government then blamed Obama for parks and monuments being closed.

They continue to complain that Obama was foreign born (he was not) though their most vociferous whiner and presidential wannabe, Ted Cruz, was born in Canada. They attacked Obama for attending a “radical” black Christian church yet claim he’s a Muslim (as if that’s something bad). They howl about the start-up issues with the ACA website despite the fact that they have done everything in their power to sabotage it. They not only withheld much of the funding needed for its creation, Teapublican-controlled states refused to implement their own health insurance exchanges, forcing millions more Americans to log onto www.HealthCare.gov to find health care coverage.

Now Teapublicans are back home holding town halls and giving speeches about the evils of Obamacare. They are also inviting people to bring their “horror stories” about Obamacare. One can only imagine that they will spend their last 8 working days of 2013 reading these anecdotal, and likely false, stories into the congressional record and voting to repeal the law for the 48th time. And don’t be surprised if, next year, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Paul Gosar and others use these stories as the basis for impeachment.

Knowing that impeachment is doomed to fail unless they gain control of the Senate, Teapublican congressmen are also continuing their attempts to destroy the Obama presidency by refusing to negotiate a budget and refusing to raise the debt ceiling which would force the US treasury into default. Never mind that such a move would have severe and long-lasting consequences for the world economy and our nation’s ability to borrow. It might even cause the world to replace the dollar as the world’s prime currency. But in the minds of many Teapublicans, such realities are dwarfed by their dislike for President Obama.

Teapublican hatred has no bounds.