Terms of impeachment

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn dangles impeachment to soothe the angry base at a home district speaking event.

“No, I agree,” Coburn said. “My little wiggle out of that when I get that written to me is I believe that needs to be evaluated and determined, but thank goodness it doesn’t have to happen in the Senate until they’ve brought charges in the House. Those are serious things, but we’re in a serious time. I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to high crimes and misdemeanor, but I think they’re getting perilously close.”

Translation: Happy to feed your impeachment fever. Get back to me when John Boehner's House of Dysfunction gets their shit together.

A year ago I would have laughed derisively at the notion the GOPers would try for it. Thing is, they won't be able to pretend they can kill Obamacare for the next three years and all their other faux scandals are falling apart. They're going to need a new chew toy for the rubes to gnaw on and the angry base loves them the taste of impeachment.

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Blaming Obama

This takes Obama Derangement Syndrome to a new level.

The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders.

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame.

To be clear, the question specifically asked, "Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?"

In other words 73% of Louisiana Republicans don't remember who was president when Katrina hit NOLA. And people wonder why we can't have an informed debate on anything in this country anymore?

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Grimm assessments

New York Congressman Michael Grimm is appalled Obama would use his executive power to do nice things for the peoples because, founding fathers never intended that to happen.

Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) said recent executive actions by President Obama, including a plan to extend high-speed Internet connections to virtually every school in the nation, demonstrate a "blatant" attempt to subvert the will of the American people.

"It's just a flagrant, you know, arrogant disregard not just for the current Congress," Grimm said in an interview with Fox News. "Look, it's not about me personally. That's not what this is about. You think about who is the Congress? It really — it is the voice of the people."

Or, if you're a Republican Congressman in John Boehner's House of Dysfunction, you're the voice of a handful of crackpots, but hey -- they're loud . But what's more interesting is new evidence of the GOP's emerging plan to blame their planned government shutdown on Obama.

"I really do believe because of political reasons, it's more advantageous for the president to keep us divided so that he can make these end runs and use these administrators and the people he puts in charge to just go around the Congress to do an agenda that he knows ultimately the people are not going to support," Grimm said.

Greg Sargent flagged the first inklings of the GOP's bizarre strategy last week and the GOPers are staying on message. They're floating this theme among the pary faithful while they're home in their districts. Last week in Virginia:

U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.-10th), speaking in Loudoun County today, said he believes President Barack Obama wants a federal government shutdown in the fall.

If the government shuts down, Obama, a Democrat, will use the closure to score political points against Republicans and "stick it to them," [U.S. Rep. Frank] Wolf said. “I believe the president wants us to shut it down … I think he'll literally come at us,” Wolf, a 30-year incumbent, said.

And I believe Frank Wolf is "literally" either a flagrant liar or a raging lunatic who shouldn't be allowed within 50 miles of Capitol Hill. But the point is the GOP felt it necessary to come up with a ploy to shift the blame for a government shutdown using the defense: Obama made us do it. Finding that simultaneously hilarious, pathetic and terrifying.

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Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies

Encouraging the misplaced outrage was all fun and games until the "angry mob" turned on them. Now Republicans run from holding Town Hall meetings in order to avoid their angry base. And yes there's a few conservative Democrats who have been voting with them who are doing the same.

Though Republicans in recent years have harnessed the political power of these open mic, face-the-music sessions, people from both parties say they are noticing a decline in the number of meetings. They also say they are seeing Congressional offices go to greater lengths to conceal when and where the meetings take place.

Members of Congress and their aides were reluctant to talk about the lack of town halls on the record, mindful of the pressure from liberal and conservative groups alike. “Ninety percent of the audience will be there interested in what you have to say,” one Senate Republican aide said. “It’s the other 5 or 10 percent who aren’t. They’re there to make a point and, frankly, to hijack the meeting.”

Wannabe internet stars are a problem to be sure. Also I imagine even the legislators who can defend their record with good conscience might be reluctant to appear unprotected in public in light of the rise of gun rights paranoids and their firearm arsenals. You never know when one deluded crackpot who believes the government is coming to take his guns might show up and exercise his Second Amendment rights. Watering the tree of liberty and all that jazz.

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Let their freak flag fly high

I don't suppose the baby Jebus loves me enough to let this happen. Responding to a birther's question at a town hall a Texas Congressman confides they have the votes in the House to impeach Obama, but the crackpot cons should not be getting the hopes up.

“You tie into a question I get a lot: ‘If everyone’s so unhappy with the president’s done, why don’t you impeach him?’” [Rep. Blake] Farenthold continued. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that: If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.”

The Texas congressman then described the impeachment process, mentioning the vote in the House and the trial in the Senate. Farenthold then said that the failed attempt to remove President Bill Clinton from office through the impeach process actually damaged the country.[...]

“What message do we sent to America if we impeach Obama and he gets away with what he’s impeached for and he is found innocent? What then do we say is OK?” the Congressman concluded. “Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be effective, I think there’s some potential damage to society that would be done with a failed attempt at impeachment.”

Haven't seen any mention of what grounds he thinks they might conjure up for said impeachment. Pretty sure one of them isn't "we hate this black President so kick him out even though he legitimately won twice by a landslide."

But it's not just birthers who have the NRSC dancing on the thin edge of sharp knife. The Tea Party spawned a legion of big time grifters who are making a very good living bucking the establishment GOP and they know exactly what prime cuts of raw red meat to throw to their slavering base to keep them thirsting for more blood.

To which I say, please proceed... The more blood they draw, the weaker their chances are at the ballot box. We may yet be able to dislodge them from the broken gears of our government despite the shameless gerrymandering that allowed them to grind good governance to a halt for the last few years. [Think Progress image]

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GOP jokesters

I'm sure Maine's crackpot Gov. Paul LePage's expressed desire to blow up the local newspapers was meant to be taken as a joke, but it's not funny. While he was at photo op, manning a fighter jet simulator in the local Pratt & Whitney factory, he told the crowd, "I want to find the Portland Press Herald building and blow it up."

And if it was meant as an offhand remark, one wonders why he repeated it twice:

Later in the event, a television reporter from WMTW asked LePage again if he had any targets. The governor answered: "The Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News."

This was after the Bangor Daily News posted about the first "joke." This isn't the first time he's expressed contempt for the press. He does it regularly.

LePage has had a tense relationship with the media -- newspapers in particular -- since he took office in January 2011.

At least twice, he has told students that his biggest fear is newspapers. He once said that buying a copy of a newspaper is like paying someone to lie to you.

Because facts have a well known liberal bias and quoting him accurately is a threat to his freedom. Or something.

I'm sure he didn't mean he actually would blow up the newspapers. Not so sure he really wouldn't like to if he thought he could get away with it. But the real danger of this kind of violent ideation by the highest officeholder in his state is he was elected by well armed sovereign citizen types who might want to do their hero a favor and blow up the buildings for him. This kind of reckless "joking" only encourages the truly unhinged to act out violent fantasies. One hopes the good people of Maine will realize their error and get this man off the public stage in the next election.

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Hold your nose touting

How embarrassing for Mitch McConnell. Somebody managed to get a recording of a private telephone call made by his campaign manager.

In the recording, obtained by Economic Policy Journal, Jesse Benton — who ran Paul's successful 2010 campaign before joining McConnell's team — told conservative activist Dennis Fusaro that he has an ulterior motive in working the GOP leader's 2014 campaign.

"Between you an me, I'm sorta holding my nose for two years," Benton said in the recording, "'cause what we're doing here is gonna be a big benefit to Rand in '16."

And yes, it's real:

Benton confirmed the authenticity of the recording telling the Weekly Standard, "It is truly sick that someone would record a private phone conversation I had out of kindness and use it to try to hurt me."

I'm not comfortable with such invasions of privacy but must admit my extreme disgust with Mitch McConnell leaves me more amused by this than I probably should be.

Adding: Alec MacGillis was in Kentucky recently and discovered McConnell's trouble in Kentucky runs much deeper than just a reluctant campaign manager.

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Politifact still useless after all these years

I stopped reading (and especially linking to) Politifact years ago. After they gave the Dems "Lie of the Year" for something that was absolutely true, I was hoping the very serious important people would do the same. They didn't but maybe today's Politifact idiocy will do the trick. Steve Benen catches us up:

Cantor said that the federal deficit is "growing." Annual federal deficits are not growing right now, and they are not projected to grow through 2015, a point at which the deficit will have shrunk by three-quarters since 2009. By this standard, Cantor is wrong. However, unless policies are changed, deficits are projected to grow again in 2016 and beyond, according to the CBO. On balance, we rate his claim Half True.

In other words, Cantor's bogus claim might be true someday if the planets align perfectly and nothing ever changes in the whole world from this hot minute. As Steve points out, that's sort of like saying: Imagine we're driving down the highway in a car and I step on the accelerator. I then assure you, "Don't worry, the car is slowing down," despite the fact that the car is speeding up. PolitiFact would apparently say my claim is "half true" because sometime soon, the car will probably decelerate.

Or the car might crash into a tree in which case it would certainly stop accelerating. Politifact started out with a good idea and for a while they did a good job. But it's been long since they realized all the biggest lies were coming from one side so they invented false balance so as to look like a neutral observer. Because we all know the truth has a liberal bias.

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McConnell and Graham face Tea Party flack

Don't want to get my hopes up too high but it's not impossible that we could get rid of both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham in 2014. To begin with, McConnell's Dem opponent Alison Grimes delivered a sharp blow to McConnell at the annual Fancy Farm hoedown in Kentucky. She's polling ahead of him already. Here's hoping that will hold.

More importantly, McConnell is facing a Republican primary challenger who speaks Teabonics and is likely to win over the hard core angry cons who demand purity. Could split enough of the GOP vote to give Grimes the win. One can dream anyway.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham now has a Tea Party challenger and she's a hot ticket. Nancy Mace, "a small business owner and the first female graduate of The Citadel," opened her candidacy with a fiery little speech:

"Washington thinks it knows better than the people," she said. "The federal government has worked its way into nearly every corner of our lives, trying to solve every problem for us. And yet, we are still not better off for it.”

She joins businessman Richard Cash in challenging the two-term senator for the GOP nomination. Republican State Sen. Lee Bright has also said he will run.

Not sure who to root for here. We can be sure a Republican is going to win the seat. Any one of these folks is likely to be even worse than Lindsey. Still, it might be worth it just so we don't ever have to listen to his pathetic pandering to the crackpot cons anymore.

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Calling out the crackpots

Lazy posting today because, real life is exhausting. So, outsourcing to Charlie Pierce for the definitive take on Boehner's House of Dysfunction.

Earlier this week, Boehner pretended he was leading the House when Steve King and the flying-monkey caucus pretty much killed off the possibility of immigration reform for the balance of the president's second term. Republican senators wanted a bill. Republican power brokers wanted a bill. Hell, Boehner wanted a bill. But the House is not being led by John Boehner at the moment. He is no more the actual Speaker Of The House than Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is vice-president of the United States. The House Of Representatives is being led by the vicious and demented Id of one of the two major political parties that we have allowed ourselves to have in this country. The House Of Representatives speaks with the savage vocabulary of ancient and durable prejudice. The House Of Representatives speaks with the twisted syntax of frustrated white supremacy. The House Of Representatives speaks with the cruel and singular voice of unreasoning prejudice and inhumanity. There is no Speaker Of this House. The Id speaks, and it speaks for them all.

More at the link and always worth reading in full.

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GOP's grand plan: Feed the rich, starve the poor

The willingness to call out GOP perfidy continues today with a Dana Millbank column on farm bill finagling in John Boehner's House of Dysfunction. The Republican crackpot conservative caucus identified the unnecessary spending.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), a committee chairman and the man who led House Republicans to their majority in 2010, was explaining why he and his colleagues decided to drop the food stamp program from the farm bill.

“What we have carefully done is exclude some extraneous pieces,” he said.

Got that? The 47 million Americans, about half of which were newly impoverished by the Great Recession, are an extraneous expense to be "carefully excluded." So, sorry you 23 million hungry children. If you want to eat maybe you can get jobs as a janitor at your elementary school. Or something.

Oh and any Democrat who wants to enter a dissent to this inhumane maneuver to the Congressional record, well can't have that because, Louis Gohmert insists you STFU. (Not for nothing did Charlie Pierce dub Gohmert Emperor for Life of the Crazy People.)

So what did the Republicans find worthy of funding, you ask? Well, instead of direct payments which have become too obvious a handout to huge corporate mono-farms and wealthy urbanites who don't even have a farm, they invented a smoke and mirrors revenue based insurance program that saves money on paper but looks likely to balloon spending once it's put into practice. This placates the Northern farmers. And for the southern plantation owners?

Southern commodity farmers, meanwhile, are pleased that target price-based supports are kept and prices are updated in a way that will likely increase payments in the future.

Because, these are real Murkins. It's only a "culture of dependency" that needs to be broken if poor people (of improper pigmentation) get assistance.

Addendum: To add to the GOP hypocrisy, House Republicans are spending more than Obama wants to spend on the farm subsidies.

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The tyranny of light bulbs

Who says Boehner's House of Dysfunction can't get anything done? Why just today Republicans rescued America from freedom robbing energy efficiency.

The House on Wednesday voted to block the enforcement of light bulb standards that many say would effectively force people to buy more expensive compact fluorescent bulbs.

Just like last year, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) proposed the language as an addition to the energy and water spending bill. His language prohibits the use of any funds at the Department of Energy to implement the standards.

Of course, the law doesn't actually force anyone to buy any particular light bulb. There will be incandescent bulbs available that meet the standards. In fact, the industry has spent significant sums of money retooling their manufacturing plants to produce a variety of bulbs that meet the standards.

By abolishing the funding for the enforcement of the standards, Republicans have effectively given Chinese rip-off artists a license to undercut American manufacturers. But the freedom to waste our declining energy resources is a God-given right that can not be abridged. Or something. As long as it pisses off liberals and those gotdam tree huggers, it will please the crackpot base. Nothing else matters. Ever.

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Objections on monitor may be closer than they appear

I get really pissed off at the Big Daddy Theocrats for their vagina control obsession on the one hand.


[Nick Anderson cartoon]

On the other hand I want to believe their overreach is going to generate a backlash among women voters of every ideology come 2014 that will surprise all the pundits. So there's that...

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New adventures in GOP hostage taking

Over at John Boehner's House of Dysfunction the Republicans have a problem. They want to use the next debt ceiling reauthorization to extract policy concessions from the Democratic party. The old strategy of issuing an all or nothing demand was a loser. It was a PR disaster.They couldn't find a way to blame the outcome, (or lack thereof), on the White House. Any sort of compromise is impossible. Boehner's crackpot caucus not only won't entertain discussion on the subject, they threaten to take Boehner's gavel for even bringing it up.

So the genius tacticians of the GOP have come up with what I'm certain they think is a brilliant plan. Instead of a single ultimatum, Republicans are offering a menu of hostage demands with various levels of rewards.

Option A: Enact Paul Ryan's voucherizing of Medicare scam. Agree to throw Medicare recipients to the private insurance industry vultures and Republicans will raise the debt limit through the end of Obama's presidency.

Option B: Mercilessly slash SNAP food assistance to the poor, eviscerate Medicaid with block-granting and implement chained CPI to calculate benefits. In return Republicans will raise the debt limit for an unspecified amount of time, one would assume said time frame being dependent on how big the concessions are.

Option C: Agree to means-test Social Security and/or slash some agricultural subsidies, (which I assume still means slashing SNAP and not insurance subsidies for corporate farms) and Republicans will raise the debt limit on pro-rated basis, which criteria appears to be one month of funding increase for every month by which the White House agrees to raise the retirement age for Social Security benefits.

Apparently the Republicans believe by breaking down their hostage demands incrementally and offering false choices, they'll look like the reasonable ones and be able to avoid taking responsibility for acheiving their lifelong dream of destroying the social safety net.

It might even work if Obama is still naive enough to negotiate with them. One can only hope our POTUS has learned his lesson on that score. As Booman said, "If the House wants to spend the rest of the year demanding that Obama privatize Medicare, block-grant Medicaid, raise the Social Security retirement age, and starve poor children, I don't think the Democrats will object. 'Please proceed, congressmen.'"

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Lying, cheating, SOBs GOP

Apparently having seen what happened when the Big Daddy theocrats tried to ram through a vagina control bill in Texas, our homegrown crackpot conservatives in Raleigh figured they would sneak through a similar anti-choice bill in North Carolina on the eve of a long holiday weekend.

The Senate met for much of the day, handling a variety of bills in other committees and on the floor. Just before 5:20 p.m., Senate Rules Committee Chairman Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, announced a recess and said the Judiciary 1 Committee would meet at 5:30 p.m.

Until then, the committee's calendar listed only House Bill 695, which prohibits the recognition of foreign law, such as Islamic Sharia law, in family courts. That measure was controversial when it cleared the House in May, with opponents fearing it could interfere with recognition of U.S. law in foreign courts.

However, when the committee convened at 5:30 p.m., it quickly took up an amendment to revise the bill to include the regulations on abortion.

Chairman of the Senate Judiciary 1 Committee, Buck Newton (R-BigFatLiar) claimed this was pushed through so suddenly because they reached a surprising consensus just at that hot minute. Which totally explains why:

Lobbyists with nonprofits that have religious or moral purposes, including the Family Policy Council, Christian Action League and North Carolina Values Coalition, were in the room for the committee debate and the subsequent Senate floor debate. Senators noted that those lobbyists were given notice of the bill and its contents ahead of time.

Yet shockingly no one thought to alert the opponents of the odious amendments which will effectively shut down all the low cost women's health clinics that provide many more services than just abortions.

Their devious ploy didn't work as intended. Thanks to the NC media, a sizable group of women's rights supporters were alerted in time to attend today's hearing on the bill. And in a stunning display of the Republican's version of democratic governance, they were told to STFU.

"The gallery is to remain silent. The senators on the floor are the only voices that matter."

-- North Carolina Senate Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R), quoted on Facebook, to women in the Senate gallery protesting surprise abortion legislation passed last night.

These guys need to be reminded who they work for and 2014 isn't that far off. One hopes the voters will reward them appropriately at the ballot box by voting these arrogant SOBs out.

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Farm bill fails in the House

Boehner blames the Democrats for not delivering the votes for him.

In a blow to House GOP leaders, the House on Thursday rejected a five-year farm bill.

Members voted down the $940 billion bill in a 195-234 vote that only won 24 Democratic votes. Most Democrats voted against the bill because it cut food stamp programs by more than $20 billion.

The 62 crackpot cons voted against it because it didn't cut food assistance enough. The crackpots think they might pass it if they make bigger cuts. In which case Boehner better have all the votes on his side because they'll likely lose the 8 Dems that voted for this abomination.

Still would be a horrible outcome, but let the damn GOPers own their own inhumane policy. No reason for a single Dem to help them do it.

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Steve King's Tea Party rally small but devoted

Crackpot Congressman Steve King was all ready to filibuster the hell out of all six hours of this Tea Party rally. But not to worry. The usual lunatics were there to help.

Crowds showed up in droves. One member of Congress after another showed up to give speeches. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector dropped by to talk about his widely criticized study that the Senate’s immigration bill would cost $6 trillion (though there was no criticism from this crowd).

For King the outpouring of support from Tea Party groups and likeminded members of Congress was proof that his efforts to stall, and hopefully kill, the Senate’s immigration bill in the House were working. If party leaders had hoped King would sit this fight out, by day’s end on Wednesday he had made it abundantly clear he wasn’t going anywhere.

While visions of 2016 danced in his head....

Of course, no Tea Party party would be complete without a royal appearance by the Queen of the Crackpots, now facing the end of her reign.

Bachmann, feeling inspired, asked that all children under the age of 18 come up to the stage, and a woman attending the rally from North Carolina, Angela Murray, handed Bachmann her six-month-old, Terra.

“Say hello to Terra, and say hello to America’s future. I want to ask you something. Little baby Terra is looking at a very different future, when you look at what the politicians have promised … someone has to pay for those programs. The children that are here on this stage including baby Terra, this is their obligation. Is it compassionate to ask Baby Terra to potentially pay for all of this?” she said.

And thus inspired the crowd of hundreds busted out into a tearful rendition of God Bless America.

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Please proceed GOP

In case you had any remaining doubts, this should clear them up. The crackpot cons are clearly running the asylum.

House Republicans flexed their cultural and conservative muscles Tuesday, passing the most restrictive abortion measure in years. They also advanced legislation to crack down on immigrants living illegally in the country, even as senators pursue a plan that would offer those same millions a shot at citizenship.

The actions reflect a roiling debate among Republicans over why they lost two elections to President Barack Obama, and how best to rebuild a winning formula.

They really do create their own reality.

Many Republicans in Congress and elsewhere think the party’s establishment erred in concluding the GOP must embrace “comprehensive immigration reform” to attract Hispanic voters. And they dismiss the notion that Republicans should soft-pedal their opposition to abortion, a subject on which they say public opinion is moving their way.

But Fleming, a former Navy and family physician, said there’s no political or policy harm in trying to restrict abortion.

For sure. Check the unskewed polling. Us lil' wimmin, we loves it when Big Daddy GOPers get all up in policing our vaginas. And cognitive dissonance? They eat that shit for breakfast.

“The pathology report of the death of the Republican Party is grossly overstated,” Wilbur said. Republicans must do better jobs of messaging and finding voters, but they should not overreact to Romney’s relatively narrow loss to Obama, he said. Obama won 51 percent of the popular vote to Romney’s 47 percent but defeated the Republican by a wide margin in the Electoral College, 332-206.

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Jan Brewer, crazy but not stupid

No news because, Father's Day weekend, but didn't get around to posting this earlier and it's still worth mentioning. She's been a poster girl for crackpot conservatism, but apparently Jan Brewer understands the value of free money and figured out the economics of keeping uninsured people out of the ER is cost effective for the state's finances.

After a marathon session that lasted until nearly 4 in the morning on Thursday, the Arizona House approved a plan backed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act by providing health insurance coverage to an additional 350,000 low-income Arizonans.

The 33-27 vote followed 9 hours of debate and fiery pleas by conservative Republicans who wanted to kill the expansion and break the bipartisan coalition that ultimately pushed it to victory, according to the Arizona Republic.

“I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut,” Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko told the paper. “And I feel like I’ve been betrayed.”

Because, nothing matters more than screwing Obama and pissing off liberals, no matter how lamebrained the policy or how much it costs. Gotta give Brewer credit for standing up to the constituency that pretty much put her in office in the first place. She forced the crazed cons to do the right thing.

In Arizona this week, black is white, up is down, left is right and Gov. Jan Brewer is getting praised by gay Democrats and slammed by Tea Party conservatives.

But this conservative edifice has come crashing down since she announced in her State of the State address this year, to the shock of everyone, that Arizona would accept Obamacare and expand its Medicaid coverage whether her Republican allies in the state liked it or not. Needless to say, they did not like it. But Brewer’s newfound love of Obamacare was so strong that she vowed to veto every single bill the Legislature sent to her office until they caved on Obamacare.

Ironically Democrats and our President could take a lesson from Brewer here. She won that fight because she didn't back down. Have to respect that kind of political courage. It's too rare.

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Darrell Issa's reckless and dangerous transcripts

Shorter Darrell Issa: I couldn't possibly release the full transcripts because (a) NSA scandal is sucking up all of the news cycles and (b) they would prove my IRS scandal is a partisan scam.

WASHINGTON -- One week after he released partial transcripts of interviews with IRS officials involved in the scandal surrounding the targeting of conservative groups, the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said releasing the full transcripts would be "reckless" and "irresponsible."

Get that? Releasing hand picked excerpts to media is fine. The full transcripts to put the excerpts in context, dangerous. By which he means it's dangerous to Issa's now ruined plan to keep his fakery alive all summer. Ranking Democratic on the committee, Elijah Cummings, called Issa out.

Shorter Cummings: Cut the bullshit Issa. You got nothing. Release the transcripts and end the hearings or I'll release the damn transcripts myself.

Issa is of course, appalled that his good friend across the aisle would utter such a coarse challenge.

"Your decision to publicly announce that the investigation should wrap up was irresponsible, but not surprising," said Issa, in a letter to Cummings. "However, your push to release entire transcripts from witness interviews while the investigation remains active was reckless and threatened to undermine the integrity of the Committee’s investigation."

Cummings is not alone. Apparently even Republicans are grumbling in private. Amusing development in light of the current media meme -- transparency in government. Steve Benen adds more context.

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