Everything you didn’t want to know about Darrell “BENGHAAAZII$!!II” Issa because you had better things to do with your time.

 

 

 

 

Darrell Issa was appointed as Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with the stated task:

“to have jurisdiction to investigate any federal program and any matter with federal policy implications.”

Weirdly, prior to the appointment, Issa had already sought to expand subpoena powers in his quest to deal with “Washington’s institutionalized waste, fraud, and abuse.” In the past, Issa (incidentally), has been quick to note that — like any good manager — some matters just aren’t worthy of his attention. Like what Blackwater was up to in Iraq!

What’s this guy all about? Let’s just say that Darrell Issa has never met a false, trumped-up accusation, he wouldn’t blindly repeat at least once.  And maybe dozens of times. Let’s just say that he’s the kind of paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorist amoral swindling chiseling grifter that Orly Taitz can only dream of being. His BENGHAAAAZIIII$1!!! hearings were designed to root out, among other potentially “explosive” points, that Issa has evidence of the administration’s “premeditated lying to the American people.” Also, that there’s “no question” that “someone from Hillary Clinton’s “circle” was involved in a “cover-up” following the attack on the U.S. consulate.

He called President Obama: “the most corrupt Presidents in modern times”, only to walk it back later clarifying that Obama was not “PERSONALLY” corrupt. In January 2011, he repeated the charge, ignoring both Nixon’s Watergate scandals and the Abramoff, U.S. attorneys, Plamegate, domestic spying and MZM imbroglios which defined the Bush White House.

The funny part is, after dropping out of both high school and college, so to begin his life of crime and disgrace more quickly, Darrell Issa has racked up a pretty impressive list of misdeeds. Although, if I just needed one reason to distrust Issa; It wouldn’t be because he has no education or because he’s a felon, it’s because he’s the wealthiest member ($450 million), of Congress. That and just that make me raise my suspicions. Anyway, here is a timeline:

1972: Issa gets Caught with Guns and Ammo:

Two police officers on patrol saw a yellow Volkswagen driving the wrong way down a one-way street. When they pulled the car over, the officer found in the glovebox a .25-calibre Colt automatic inside a box of ammunition and a “military pouch” that contained “44 rounds of ammo and a tear gas gun and two rounds of ammo for it.” The driver, Darrell Issa, was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. When the policeman asked why he was armed, Issa stated  that “in Ohio you could carry a gun as long as you had a justifiable reason”. His justifiable reason was for his car’s protection and his. Issa pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of possession of an unregistered gun, was sentenced to probation and paid a small fine.

1972: Issa Steals his First Car.

Issa stole the car of a member of his own Army unit, a yellow Dodge Charger. When the enraged owner confronted Issa, threatening to kill him, the car “magically reappeared” the next day, abandoned on the turnpike.

1972: Issa Steals a Better Car.

Ohio police arrested Issa and his brother, William, charging them with felony-auto theft for stealing a red Maserati from a Cleveland showroom.

1979: Issa Steals Another Car.

William Issa arrived at Smythe European Motors in San Jose offering to sell Darrell’s red 1976 Mercedes sedan. William was carrying an Ohio driver’s license with his brother’s name on it and the dealer gave him a check for $16,000, which he immediately cashed. Darrell then reported the Mercedes stolen from the Monterey airport, telling police that he had left the title in the trunk. After Darrell gave a series of conflicting statements, the investigator in the case became suspicious that the brothers had conspired to fraudulently sell Darrell’s car and then collect the insurance money.

1980: Issa borrows $50,000 from his family to invest in Bug Zapper and CB Radio Parts Enterprise.

Issa bought into Quantum, an electronics manufacturer run by a friend. One of Quantum’s clients, car alarm manufacturer Steal Stopper, was struggling, and Issa took control of it by foreclosing a $60,000 loan he had made to it when its founder, Joey Adkins, missed a payment. Issa’s company went on to bring us the terrible Viper car security alarm (that’s Issa’s recorded squawking: “PROTECTED BY VIPER! STAND BACK!”),  a car alarm so annoying that I nearly took an ice axe to some ahole’s beemer every time one of the multitude of homeless cats jumped on the car.

1982: Issa Burns Down his own Factory for the Insurance Money.

Seven months after acquiring A.C. Custom Electronics, Darrell Issa was under suspicion of arson by state authorities after the Quantum Enterprises manufacturing plant was completely destroyed in a 3 a.m. fire. State arson investigators concluded that the fire was “not accidental”, and that a flammable liquid accelerator such as gasoline was “poured on the only area not covered by fire sprinklers”.

Investigators’ suspicions centered around Issa. Witnesses at Quantum recalled Issa lurking around the building several times over the weekend. The company’s bookkeeper told investigators that all computers and records holding accounting and customer information and discs had been removed from the building eight days prior to the fire by Issa’s lawyer, and that Issa had transferred a copy of every design used by Steal Stopper from a filing cabinet to a fireproof box. The fire seriously injured a firefighter.

Just three weeks before the fire, Issa and a business partner had quadrupled their fire insurance –  from $100,000 to $462,000. At the same time, another business located at Quantum increased its insurance to $400,000. Investigators claimed that it was obvious Issa had prepared for a fire by increasing the fire insurance policy 462%. The insurance company was also suspicious of arson and paid only one-tenth the insured amount.

The insurance company found something else peculiar about Issa, unrelated to the arson: there was no indication of where his initial capital came from. They were unable to find the source of his financing for the business ventures he is engaged in at the present time.

1998: Issa Rewrites his Past to Run for the Senate:

The biography that he provided to the press in the context of his campaign claimed, among other things, that as a soldier,he was part of an elite bomb detecting unit that guarded President Nixon at the 1971 World Series.

He did no such thing. He had a bad conduct rating. He was demoted, and a fellow soldier accused him of stealing his car.

1998: Issa Wages a War against a Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter that Continues to this day.

Darrell Issa blamed his defeat in the GOP California Senate primary on an unflattering expose that reporter Eric Lichtblau penned for the LA Times. Thirteen years later, when Lichtblau was preparing a new profile for the NY Times, Issa refused to even answer any questions and then demanded retractions afterwards. He called Lichtblau a “notorious hatchet man” in aNew Yorker interview. But Issa wasn’t content to let the matter rest. The now 15 year war against the reporter, Issa attacked Lichtblau for his NY Times expose of the Bush administration;s illicit program of warrentless domestic surveillance by the NSA. When Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey testified in 2008 about the impact of national security leaks, Issa suggested Lichtblau was public enemy number one. He asked Mukasey to comment both about how:

“the effects of organizations like the New York Times” on “the ability of us to conduct the war on terror and as to potential prosecutions.”

2003: Issa Throws his own Brother under the bus for HIS own felonies.

In the run-up to his aborted campaign for CA governor, Issa faced scrutiny over his arrests in all those auto theft charges. It’s take a lot of gall to blame someone else for your own mistakes – even shameless a pol like Darrell Issa – let alone a family member. But that’s just what Darrell Issa did. Issa was quick to blame his brother for both his run-ins with the police and his later riches selling car security systems:

“William has inflicted pain and sorrow upon our family since he was a teenager. Obviously, his past continues to inflict pain today,” said Issa, who became a multimillionaire manufacturer of electronic auto alarms, including the popular “Viper” anti-theft device. “When people ask me why I got into the car alarm business, I tell them the truth. It was because my brother was a car thief.”

2003: Issa Cries Over Premature Withdrawal from Gubernatorial Race after being bumrushed by the Terminator.

In 2003, Issa led the psychotic effort to recall California Governor Gray Davis – who was undone by energy crisis market manipulation by Enron. Alas! Part two of the Issa plan – to put his own fat ass in the Governor’s office – abruptly ran aground when The fucking Terminator decided to get in the race. Comically claiming, “It had nothing to do with Schwarzenegger’s decision,” Issa made his premature withdrawal sobbing uncontrollably.

The infamous video showing Issa crying like a little girl who didn’t get her pony as he concluded his gubernatorial ambitions, never gets old. It’s only slightly unsatisfying because when watching it live when it happened, it went on for like twenty minutes of him sobbing and gasping and struggling to talk.

August, 2007: Issa Forces Jerry Nadler to Withdraw Truthful Statement about Bush’s Illegal Domestic Surveillance

As Congress debated revisions to FISA under the so-called “Protect America Act”,  Issa went on the attack against opponents of George Bush’s domestic surveillance program. Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) spoke out against the codification of  Bush’s regime of warrantless wiretapping, domestic surveillance which prior to August 2007 was almost certainly illegal:

“This bill is not needed to protect America from terrorists. The only purpose of this bill is to protect this administration from its own political problems and cynicism, and its own illegal actions it has taken outside the law without any authorization.”

Issa demanded that Nadler withdraw his assertion that the Bush administration had engaged in illegal activities.ThinkProgress detailed the ensuing Issa brouhaha:

After some pause, Nadler said he would withdraw his “truthful and accurate statements” in order to proceed with the floor debate. Issa, unhappy with Nadler’s retraction, said, “He is not withdrawing it if he claims they’re accurate.” Nadler responded, “I’m withdrawing them without any reservation but I retain my opinion.”

February, 2007: Issa Attacks and Mocks Families of Killed Blackwater Contractors.

Possibly the lowest point in Issa’s career as Bush sycophant was his vicious defense of the spooky mercenary firm Blackwater. As the security company faced charges ranging from atrocities in Iraq to abandoning the families of its slain workers, Issa waged jihad in its defense. His targets? Family members of those killed by insurgents in Fallujah in 2004, burnt, dragged through the streets, and hung from a bridge. During the 2007 Blackwater hearings, family members described how BlackwaterUSA had denied them information about the deaths of their loved ones to cover up its own errors. Naturally, Issa attacked and mocked four women. Issa’s war in defense of Blackwater continued when he accused Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman of “going after our troops”, by pressing for oversight of private contractors in Iraq. Ironically, just two weeks earlier, Issa comically pressed  Blackwater CEO and son of Satan Erik Prince to acknowledge his ties to the Bush administration and the GOP, only to then claim:

“labeling some company as Republican because of a family’s background “is inappropriate.”

Issa wasn’t merely a defender of out-sourcing America’s national security to run amok contractors like Blackwater, he’s made clear that protecting the profits of outsourcing firms would be at the top of his agenda by government “insourcing”.

2007: Issa Accuses Valerie Plame of Perjury

The House Judiciary Committee held a session to discuss the misuse of presidential clemency powers in President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence. That hearing occurred just four months after outed covert CIA operative Valerie Plame had testified under oath before Congress on March 16, 2007. Not content to merely confront Ambassador Joe Wilson during his testimony, Congressman Issa accused both Wilson and his wife of perjury:

“I certainly believe Ambassador Wilson at his word, but I hope he believes me at my word, which is that in fact having read all the information, I believe that his wife will soon be asking for a pardon, that in fact she has not been genuine in her testimony before Congress and, if pursued, Ambassador Wilson and Valerie would be asking for the same sort of treatment, which is that in fact we put this behind us.”

Sweet.

2007: Issa Offers Howard Krongard a Ticket to the White House Christmas Party

All Americans were alarmed by the staggering corruption, ineptitude and conflicts of interest of then State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, except one American. Within days of Krongard’s devastating appearance before Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee (including his admission that his own brother served as an adviser to Blackwater), Krongard resigned over allegations he impeded “ongoing criminal investigations into the construction of a new, $740 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and security firm Blackwater Worldwide.” During the calamitous Congressional hearing, one man, Darrell Issa, actually stood up to praise Howard and invited him to somebody else’s party:

“Thank you for your service. And I’ll end by saying that the first week of December the president’s having a Christmas party. I have an extra guest ticket. After today, I know that you’ve earned it. I would be happy to have you use my guest ticket and then you’ll get your picture with the president and you’ll get to meet him as well you should.”

Neat.

Issa Drives the Firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam

Congressman Issa was a key player in a major Bush administration scandal, the political purge of U.S. attorneys. Carol Lam, who successfully prosecuted disgraced San Diego Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, was one of the 8 U.S. prosecutors forced out by shitface Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department. Issa created the façade that supposedly lax immigration enforcement by Lam’s office was behind her dismissal, releasing an anonymously written 41 page Border Patrol report claiming “Lam was giving less attention to human smugglers than she should.” The Voice of San Diego reported in March 2007:

Six days after the Associated Press story broke, Issa’s office sent a letter to Lam, in which the congressman called the memo “an embarrassment to your office.”Monica Goodling, a Justice Department spokeswoman, sent the letter to Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff who resigned in the attorney firing scandal’s wake, and two other high-ranking officials. “FYI,” she wrote, “the assault continues.”

Lam was eventually sacked, as TPM Muckraker concluded: “despite the fact that no one from the Justice Department ever confronted Carol Lam over her performance on immigration prosecutions.”

2008: Issa Calls 9/11 Attacks in New York a “Plane Crash”.

Desperate to deny federal funds to the ailing rescue workers who rushed to Ground Zero, Issa made a stunning attack, reducing the terrorist attack on the United States to a “simple” plane crash, denying the September 11 carnage was an attack on the United States at all:

“It’s very simple: I can’t vote for additional money for New York if I can’t see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens, which quite frankly includes any urban terrorist. It doesn’t have to be somebody from al Qaeda. It can be someone who decides that they don’t like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities.”

Issa said the destruction of the World Trade Center did not involve a dirty bomb or a chemical weapon designed to make people sick. It “simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building.”

2008: Issa Blames “Software” for White House Email Destruction

Committed to defending Bush administration wrong-doing at every turn, Darrell Issa weighed in on the White House’s destruction of millions of emails. A self-proclaimed “IT expert“, Issa claimed that the criminal loss of the emails, including those for critical time periods such as the breaking PlameGate scandal, was just the result of a “software glitch.”

Mother Jones described Issa’s feeble attempt to blame IBM’s “Lotus Notes” software then used by the Bush White House, an accusation he was later forced to recant:

Defending the White House’s decision to switch from the Lotus Notes-based archiving system used by the Clinton administration, Issa compared the software to “using wooden wagon wheels” and Sony Betamax tapes. To observers of the missing emails controversy, Issa’s comments seemed little more than an attempt to deflect blame from the White House for replacing a working system for archiving presidential records with an ad hoc substitute. But to IT professionals who use Lotus at their companies, Issa’s remarks seemed controversial, if not downright slanderous. Now, according to an executive at IBM, the software’s manufacturer, the California congressman has apologized for his characterization of Lotus and offered to correct the congressional record.

2008: Issa Says U.S. Treat Hospital Patients Worse Than Al Qaeda

For years, Republican supporters of President Bush’s regime of detainee torture used the “Club Gitmo“ defense, comparing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to everything from Sandals to a summer camp. GOP leaders insisted Al Qaeda suspects never had it go good!

During his 2008 testimony from former Eagle lover General John Ashcroft, Darrell Issa insisted that Americans are subject to much worse things than waterboarding and sleep deprivation…right here at home!

“It is sort of amazing that as a member of the permanent Select Intelligence Committee, I’ve never heard any allegation of any detainee being denied food or water for a week. It’s clear that we treated our hospital patients at times worse than al Qaeda.”

2008: Issa uses Tim Russert’s Death for Excuse for Oil Drilling.

After the death of NBC reporter and Meet the Press host Tim Russert, members of the House of Representatives offered their condolences and eulogies to Russert while discussing a resolution in his honor. During the debate, Issa took to the floor to instead make a pitch for off-shore drilling:

“We are going to miss Tim Russert when it comes to the people on both sides of the issue of why we have $5 oil – $5 gasoline and $135 oil. I think Tim Russert would have been just the right guy to hold people accountable, who would talk about the 68 million acres that are, quote, inactive, while in fact 41 million are under current lease and use and are producing millions of barrels of oil and natural gas a day……So, Madam Speaker, I am going to miss Tim Russert because this debate is too important not to have a fact-oriented, unbiased moderator who could in fact bring to bear the truth that we need to have.”

2008: Issa Defends Roger Clemens Against Steroid Allegations

During the obnoxious hearings in which both political parties looked dumb, but Issa the dumbest, Henry Waxman’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee probed the use of performance enhancing drugs in MBA.  George W. Bush himself turned a blind eye to his players’ steroid use while running the Texas Rangers, so Darrell Issa rushed to Roger Clemens’ defense. Issa attacked Clemens’ alleged supplier relentlessly, calling him “a drug pusher” and proclaiming his diploma-mill PhD stood for “pile it higher and deeper.” Amazingly, Issa compared Clemens’ use of B-12 to his own “mother getting B-12 shots from our family physician,” adding, “She was pre-menopausal and simply a little anemic she thought.”

Three years later, as chairman of the oversight committee, Issa sharply criticized Waxman’s handling of the Clemens hearing:

“I don’t believe that we were deceived by Roger Clemens. don’t believe that his false testimony when he gave it was anything other than Henry Waxman trapping him into perjury.”

Issa said Waxman should not have invited Clemens to testify under oath when he knew that his account would not be truthful:

“I believe that we should be very careful when we bring people and we have some questions where we already know the answer. Because to be deceived is not to be lied to. To be deceived is to act on somebody’s lie as though it’s the truth. So that deeply does concern me.”

2011: Issa asks the oil industry, drug manufacturers and other trade groups and companies to list which Obama administration regulations – existing and proposed –  he should target.

2011: The Watchdog Institute, an independent nonprofit reporting center based at San Diego State University, published an investigation alleging that Issa built a team that included staff members with close connections to industries that could benefit from his investigations.

2012: Issa Holds his Famous “Penis-Americans Only” Birth Control Hearings.

Issa held a hearing on the Department of Health and Human Services’s regulation requiring insurance plans to cover birth control, which Issa believed was a violation of the religious freedom of people who oppose the use of birth control. Issa did not permit Sandra Fluke to testify, saying that her name was submitted “too late”. In fact, NO women were allowed to testify.

The infamous “MEN ONLY” hearing – men mostly from the religious right – restricted ladeez because according to Issa, non-penis-Americans had nothing to contribute to the subject (but apparently the Roman Catholic bishop who testified did).

2012: Issa won’t Help Roger Clemens. He is TOO BUSY to comply with his own Subpoenas.

After seven months of chastising Attorney Eric Holder for failing to comply with a subpoena, Issa fought his own subpoenas – in the Roger Clemens perjury trial – on the grounds that he was TOO BUSY. Clemens’ attorneys sought Issa’s testimony, along with committee documents, for the trial in U.S District Court in Washington. Lawyers for Issa responded to Clemens’ attorneys with a 47-page explanation as to why Darrell Issa does not have to comply with their subpoenas. The gist of their reasoning? He’s too important, there’s nothing “unique about his perspective”, and it would “require too much effort”

“Compliance with the subpoena would interfere with Chairman Issa’s official government responsibilities,” the document reads. Past legal cases have ruled that “the practice of calling high officials as witnesses should be discouraged” because “high ranking officials have greater duties and time constraints than other witnesses.

Only in Washington can you find a Congressman upset that DOJ won’t comply with a subpoena [also] refusing to comply with subpoenas.

2013: Issa Accuses David Petraeus of Carrying Obama’s Water

Issa’s use of General Petraeus as a human shield came to an end when George W. Bush stumbled out of the White House. Six years after decrying that Petraeus was being targeted by Democrats “as part of an ongoing partisan smear campaign against U.S. efforts in Iraq,” Issa accused the former CIA chief of doing Obama’s bidding and lying over the Benghazi tragedy:

“David Petraeus said what the administration wanted him to say is the indication. Ambassador Pickering heard what the administration wanted to hear. The only under oath people I know about who have said what happened on the ground that day was, in fact, before our committee just on Wednesday.”

When asked if he was accusing the Obama administration of having “bullied the CIA into saying what the political advisors in the White House wanted him to say,” Issa responded simply, “we’re not making charges.” Of course, just the previous week Issa insisted that there’s

“no question” someone from Hillary Clinton’s circle – if not the former secretary of state herself – was involved in a “cover-up.”

Petraeus should have said “Look you fucking car thief, eat shit and die.”

And so it goes.

Some of his other targets included ACORN and Toyota Motor Corp. Darrell Issa mounted an unsuccessful campaign to join the ranks of the House GOP leadership hierarchy, vying for the chairmanship of the House Republican Policy Committee, and was ultimately passed over in favor of certified lunatic comic book character Thaddeus McCotter. Issa has said he supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions yet voted against a cap and trade bill designed to cut them. He believes that “the science community does not agree to the extent of the problem or the critical threshold of when this problem is truly catastrophic.”

He’s all sound and thunder. He does not withstand a modicum of questioning – on the few occasions he has to endure anything above a Sunday Show Nerfquestionfest he sounds like an unmitigated idiot. His past is beyond shady. His methods are, besides dubious as well as unproductive, are of the casting a fishnet variety. Because due process has always allowed him to skate he operates under the ( not unreasonable, in a very sad way ) premise that due process will elude his victims, thus allowing him to cast aspersion and suspicion without fear or apprehension that he will be called to task. He insists everything is like “Watergate”, “Fast and Furious” gun walking operation, the allegations that Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak was offered an administration job in exchange for dropping out of the Senate race against Arlen Spector. As it turned out, Issa didn’t pursue his inquisition over the Sestak affair for a simple reason. Not only was there no quid pro quo, but Issa had to contend with an actual case during the Bush administration’s drive for Medicare drug coverage.

What does it say about the GOP that instead of putting someone that is respected in charge of oversight, who could possibly make a point when the other side screw up, they put a greasy, squinty-eyed weasel, hacksaw assclown politician like Issa there who will make anything they do look partisan and foolish? Darrell Issa is literally the least equipped person to be running anything about ethics. Could you imagine what the Democratic party would be like if Sheila Jackson Lee and others set the agenda and ran all the committees? This is what happens when you elect people into government only because they hate government. You end up with the Issas, Palins, Bush’s, etc. running the show, and they are idealogical idiots.

Issa, Shrub, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy…why, one would think that Republicans actually PREFER petty criminals and film-flam men as their heroes and exemplars!  I suppose you have to be either an actual criminal to do the GOP’s bidding these days. I mean, at every turn, Darrell Issa has served as the faithful Republican hatchet man, defending President Bush and company from all foes and now bringing the hammer down.

Puffed up with shocking, empty assertions Darrell Issa is, like all petty criminals/bullies, all bloviation/no cattlecompass. He counts on needling and wearing out his opponents until they back down. His outrageous, unsubstantiated claims are followed by bluster, then he quietly folds and cries as soon as he is challenged. The more bombastic he is, the more he hungrily seeks out the cameras, the more he promises “explosive revelations,” the less he actually has. Bullies don’t win fights; they win defaults. Push back just the tiniest bit, and it’s all over.

The most egregious thing about Darrell Issa is that he is how much money he is costing taxpayers. He claimed he would save taxpayers $200 billion by rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. He then said that he planned hundreds of investigations (he even promised to go after George W. Bush — which, not surprisingly, he did not). He boasted that he would hold “7 hearings a week, times 40 weeks” (that would be 560 hearings in just one Congress, take THAT, taxpayers!).The White House even had to hire a battle-hardened communications staffer to:

“matters relating to and resulting from investigations launched by Rep. Darrell Issa.”

The White House treats Darrell Issa’s requests like incoherent bleats from a crazy person. Eric Holder himself, had smacked back at his inquisitor by accusing him of McCarthyism. telling him:

“At some point, as they said in the McCarthy hearings—at some point, have you no shame?”

So now you know what all of us in California have known about Darrell Issa for better than a decade, since even before the vulgar poop ferret tried to back-door his way (heh) into the governor’s seat, then gave us Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger, then were subjected to Issa weeping on our teevees (then he took out an arson insurance policy on the governor’s mansion and set it on fire).