McCarthy had nothing on these guys.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_01/027777.php


ISSA'S OVERREACH ALREADY UNDERWAY.... The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was tasked with an unpleasant job: identify and explain the events that caused the global economic crash in 2008. Last week, the panel largely wrapped up its work, and blamed ... just about everyone.

Wall Street banks and their widespread mismanagement shared responsibility in the final report with law federal regulators, credit rating agencies, the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Federal Reserve, and a motley crew of thousands.

But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the grand inquisitor chairman of the House oversight committee, has a few questions of his own. The conservative Republican has decided the investigation needs an investigation, and according to the Financial Times, has demanded that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission turn over its emails and related records to the committee for review.

Keep in mind, there have been no accusations of wrongdoing on the part of the commission; Issa says he just wants to look around and see what, if anything, he can turn up.

Paul Krugman explained the motivations behind a move like this one.



This is, by the way, the same Issa who, just three weeks on the job, announced that he wants his committee to have a running list of everyone who files Freedom of Information Act requests. If this makes you uncomfortable, you're not alone -- it "just seems sort of creepy that one person in the government could track who is looking into what and what kinds of questions they are asking," said David Cuillier, a University of Arizona journalism professor and chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. "It is an easy way to target people who he might think are up to no good."

And for good measure, let's also note that Issa last week compared his GOP predecessor -- the melon-shooting Dan Burton of Indiana -- to Abraham Lincoln.

It's going to be a long two years.

—Steve Benen

According to an NPR story from a few weeks ago.

Didn't see that one.

he figured it out because he knew the ins and outs of car theft...first hand knowledge I'll wager.

As for the factory fire...there was certainly a motive there for the "mysterious" fire.

That's tears, as in "renders" as opposed to "the water works".

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133071575/Past-Haunts-Rep-Issa-Head-Of-Investigative-Committee

MONTAGNE: Your profile of congressman Issa spends a lot of time in his background, his history...

Mr. LIZZA: Yeah.

MONTAGNE: ...going back to when he was in his early 20s...

Mr. LIZZA: Yeah.

MONTAGNE: ...and some of the things that have dogged him. Describe some of that for us.

Mr. LIZZA: There are basically, that we know of, five incidents.

MONTAGNE: From what years?

Mr. LIZZA: From 1972 to 1982. There was one concealed weapon charge; there were three incidents involving stolen cars; and there was - the most serious allegation was his former business associates accuse him of burning down a building for the insurance money. Now, these are really serious allegations. They came up first when Darrell Issa ran in the Republican primary for the Senate from California, in 1998. These allegations probably cost him that primary. And this stuff has never gone away. As he said to me - he said, you can always build a circumstantial case.

MONTAGNE: The fire that destroyed his factory, the insurance company concluded it was arson. The Ohio state fire marshal, you write, never determined the cause of the fire. No charges were brought, but this fire back in 1982 - we're talking almost 30 years ago...

Mr. LIZZA: Yeah.

MONTAGNE: ...has haunted him to this day. I am wondering how you think that's affected him.

Mr. LIZZA: Well, I think the jury is out because he has not started his committee's work yet - or he's just starting it now. I will say this: Given the fact that during about 12 years of his life, he was charged or accused of committing crimes - he was investigated for sometimes weeks; in the case of the arson, that case went on for two years - so you think in that period of his life, being investigated, having to go to court, thinking perhaps that you're going to go to jail if these cases aren't dismissed, I wonder if maybe that has some impact on the care with which he will investigate this administration.

MONTAGNE: As you write, he's put certain things off-limits in terms of President Obama's past.

Mr. LIZZA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean...

MONTAGNE: Like the birther issue.

Mr. LIZZA: Well, in the line that he's drawn - and this is sort of interesting, given his own past - is, he wants to look at things that the Obama administration has done since Obama was elected. In other words, nothing personal to Obama before his election. And that's very different than what happened with Bill Clinton.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_lizza
...
At 2:35 A.M. on September 7, 1982, the phone rang in Issa’s house. The Quantum and Steal Stopper office and factory was on fire. Issa got dressed and drove the seven miles from his house, in Oakwood Village, to his workplace, in Maple Heights. He arrived by 3 A.M., to find blue flames shooting from holes in the roof. Four fire engines, a helicopter, and forty-three firefighters from three departments responded to the alarm. When the firemen entered the building, they encountered black smoke so thick they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. The fire took three hours to bring under control.

A lieutenant in the Maple Heights Fire Department noted in his incident report that the “cause of this fire appears to be electrical.” The fire had started at a workbench where light bulbs for bug zappers were tested. Almost everything of value was gone. Fortunately for Issa, he had recently increased his fire insurance.


http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1CkJARjac

...
A member of Issa’s Army unit, Jay Bergey, told Williams that his most vivid recollection of the young Issa was that in December, 1971, Issa stole his car, a yellow Dodge Charger. “I confronted Issa,” Bergey said in 1998. “I got in his face and threatened to kill him, and magically my car reappeared the next day, abandoned on the turnpike.”

Bergey died of lung cancer in 2002, but his widow, Joyce, recently said to me that she remembered her husband telling the story of the stolen Dodge Charger. She laughed when she heard that Issa is now a prominent member of Congress. “Well, he probably figured he was borrowing it from a friend,” she said. “But now we’re discussing politicians, so we all know how honest they are. When I meet a good one, I’ll let you know.”

On March 15, 1972, three months after Issa allegedly stole Jay Bergey’s car and one month after he left the Army for the first time, Ohio police arrested Issa and his older brother, William, and charged them with stealing a red Maserati from a Cleveland showroom. The judge eventually dismissed the case.

While the Maserati case was pending, Issa went to college. Just before 11 P.M. on Friday, December 1, 1972, two police officers on patrol in the small town of Adrian noticed Issa driving a yellow Volkswagen the wrong way down a one-way street. The police pulled him over, and, as Issa retrieved the car registration, an officer saw something peculiar in the glove compartment. He searched it, and, according to the police report, found a .25-calibre Colt automatic inside a box of ammunition, along with a “military pouch” that contained “44 rounds of ammo and a tear gas gun and two rounds of ammo for it.” Issa was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. The policeman asked why he was armed. “He stated in Ohio you could carry a gun as long as you had a justifiable reason,” the report said. “His justifiable reason was for his car’s protection and his.” Issa pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of possession of an unregistered gun. He paid a small fine and was sentenced to six months’ probation.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1CkJqLcZV

even to the point of having his brother take the fall for his own criminal activity, (caveat, both were involved).

Issa will nothing, unless he himself gains from it, he's a single entity mobster. How this slug of a human being was ever elected is beyond me, he doesn't even try to cover his tracks, he's overtly corrupt...the people of his district have a very serious problem on their hands, they'd have been better off voting fort a Capone clone...oh, wait, they did!

CHECK HIM FOR TOP GUN SCAMS