Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) made it clear this morning that when he calls a committee hearing he’s not going to tolerate any questions from Democrats — or answers from witnesses — that undermine him.
During a House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee hearing looking into whether an ATF program to interdict gun smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border went horribly awry, Democratic committee members tried to ask ATF witnesses whether the nation’s gun laws are too weak and make prosecutions difficult. Issa would have none of it, calling any such testimony invalid.
“I want to caution the witnesses that the scope of this, your testimony here is limited, and that it’s not about proposed legislation and the like and under House rules would not fall within the scope of this,” Issa said. “So, anecdotally you can have opinions but ultimately it would not be considered valid testimony.”
Watch Issa’s heavy-handed effort to control the hearing here.
Tim Pawlenty’s proposed tax cuts make the Bush tax cuts look the size of J.J. Barea.
Jon Stewart mocks Pawlenty’s big wuss out at the GOP debate. Watch.
You know congressional Republicans are dead serious about not wanting to do anything to boost the economy when they won’t even take up the president’s offer to do it entirely with tax cuts.
NYT reporting that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has told friends he’s resigning from Congress. Our Benjy Sarlin reports that he saw staff leaving Weiner’s office a short time ago and the lights are now out.
We’ve been telling you all week about this TV ad attacking Democrat Janice Hahn in the CA-36 race in Los Angeles. Now we’ve talked to the self-described filmmaker behind the ad and to the treasurer of the PAC who funded it. The treasurer tells TPM the ad is so bad he’s considering stepping down from his post.
Meanwhile, the campaign of the Republican candidate who was supposed to benefit from this attack on their Democratic rival says they’re desperate to get the ad off the air because of the backlash against their candidate but that it’s beyond their control.
I should note that to throw together this ad the filmmaker took a short break from his current project — “a post-apocalyptic feature film about the last man on Earth, conservative talk show host Doug Trench, a.k.a. The Trench Mouth.”