I end my BLOG writing today with that old Bette David quote, “Fasten your seat belts... It’s going to be a bumpy night.” My picture for today might be more appropriately paired with a remark attributed to May West when she is said to have told her impatient date in that famous sultry voice, “You go on up, Big Boy, and if I’m not there in half an hour, you start without me.” I know it’s a stretch, but the picture is a vulgar reminder of what the tea party has planned for us if their representatives in Congress have their way.The stream of Obama hate propaganda has increased steadily this week, much of it made up out of whole cloth with absolutely no basis in fact. The new majority in the House of Representatives, emboldened by the November elections, announced plans yesterday and today to remake America. A couple of congressmen from California, after they made their celebratory remarks over the replacement of Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, declared their reasons for the makeover. Neither gave any hint that he knows how to do it, only that it is going to be done.

Howard "Buck" McKeon, representive from California’s 25th district north of Los Angeles, is the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He has no military experience. During the Vietnam War he served as a Mormon missionary and casually pursued a BA in animal husbandry from Brigham Young University for twenty-five years. He enrolled in the university in 1956 and got the degree in 1985. As a reporter from Huntington Press reported, “He bankrupted his family’s western wear company, so he knows how to order shirts no one wants.” Nobody knows why the GOP leadership in the House feels he is the right man for the Armed Services Committee chairmanship. Find his UTube presentation and you can hear the Congressman give his views on the United States, freedom, and what the Lord wants for America. About “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell he said, “Implementation of any new process should proceed when our unaccompanied concentration is no longer on fight operation or scheming units for combat.” You read it right; that’s what he said. What he said about freedom and why he serves his country is just as nonsensical and scary (I took the quote directly from his UTube speech): "The Battle of Lexington and Concord began what gave us the liberty, the freedom that we now enjoy, to where we can congregate together like this, we can talk about things, we can have free elections. We've been able to have real freedom and liberty, which is what the Lord, many, many years ago said that this land was set aside for. About a little over a year later, on July Fourth, 1776, the Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence, which states that we would be free to pursue life, liberty and happiness. That's what the Lord said that this land was set aside for, so that battle began the fulfillment of the prophecy. Now there's no guarantee that those freedoms are always to be here. We've continued and fought for years. Hundreds of thousands have given their lives so that we can continue to enjoy those freedoms, and that fight goes on, on a daily basis. In discussions that you hold. In the people that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Afghanistan was where the planning, the kick-off of the attack on us on 9/11 took place. That's why we're there. To prevent that from happening again. It's better that we fight there, than on the streets of New York, or downtown Valencia. I just pray that we always will be able to hold those freedoms. Elder Ballard, a few years ago, visiting with the members of the Church (Latter Day Saints) in Washington in the Congress, said that it's important that we always keep this land free, because it's the cradle of the Church. It's where from here we send our missionaries around the world. We need to have freedom to do that. It's my prayer that we might always retain that freedom, and I wish we could do it without continued loss of treasure and blood, but it seems that that's the world we live in.”

Another member of the new majority who is determined to liberate us from the evil administration of Barack Obama is also from California. Darrel Issa from San Diego County is the newly appointed Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. When his chairmanship was announced, he said, “I want seven hearings a week times forty weeks.” The new chairman has a colorful past. Maybe if he appears busy enough, nobody will notice.

In 1982 Issa was suspected, but never formally charged, in an arson incident at one of his manufacturing plants. Authorities were troubled by a dramatic escalation in the facility’s fire insurance just weeks earlier. According to the Los Angeles Times: “Weeks before the fire, Issa and a business partner boosted their fire insurance from $100,000 to $460,000 on property stored for other companies... At the same time, a separate company that contracted with Issa’s company to outfit bug zappers increased its insurance to $400,000, and, according to an insurance report, one investigator was ‘concerned about the coincidence.‘ Fire investigators also noted that a computer was taken off the site eight days before the fire.” The Washington Post reported: “Investigators reported ‘suspicious burn patterns’ and said the fire may have been set. A company bookkeeper, Karen Brasdovich, also told them that computers and records had been removed from the site days before the fire for no clear reason. ‘It was totally out of normal practice,’ she told (Washington Post reporter) in a telephone interview.

Congressman Issa was also accused of intimidation with a weapon. In May, 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that an executive in Issa’s company claimed Issa intimidated him with a gun. According to the Times report, One of Issa’s first tasks as the new boss (of AC Custom) was to remove an executive named Jack Frantz. According to Frantz, Issa came into his office, placed a small box on the desk and opened it. Inside, he said, was a gun. The Times also reported that a secretary in the company recalled Issa having a gun at the company that day. She said, ‘It was pretty terrifying,’ Issa said about the incident, ‘Shots were never fired.’” (Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98) In another report (San Francisco Chronicle), "Court records...show that in March 1972, one month after getting out of the Army, Issa was arrested on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and auto theft. The court file doesn't indicate the type of weapon involved." Also in 1972 Issa Was Arrested For Auto Theft. According to the New York Times (07/23.03): "In 1972, Darrell Issa and his brother William were arrested in the theft of a Maserati from a Cleveland car dealership." Congressman Issa doesn’t deny any of the reports of his colorful past and credits his brushes with law to “youthful indiscretion.”

This is the fellow who has been appointed by the GOP to the Government Oversight Committee. Issa, now in possession of some of the broadest oversight and subpoena powers in Washington, has promised to focus on repealing health reform, attacking the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” bringing big corporations into his committee because they know how to run government the way businesses are run. He said on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, “Barack Obama is the most corrupt president in modern times.”

Keep in mind that the Government Oversight Committee is the investigative arm of the House of Representatives. Wow! Talk about a fox in the hen house. Let’s take Bette Davis’ advice: “Fasten your seatbelts... It’s going to be a Bumpy Night.”