Jason Chaffetz, grandstanding charlatan: What you need to know about the GOP’s shameless up-and-come

[applegrove]

Jason Chaffetz, grandstanding charlatan: What you need to know about the GOP’s shameless up-and-comer

by Heather Digby Parton at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/06/jason_chaffetz_grandstanding_charlatan_what_you_need_to_know_about_the_gops_shameless_up_and_comer/

"SNIP..............

But as luck would have it, just as Chaffetz’s reputation looked to be seriously frayed, his star rose once again when the Washington Post reported that the director of the Secret Service had wanted to release personal information on Chaffetz in retaliation for his contentious oversight of the agency in the wake of the various tabloid scandals that have plagued it in recent years. Needless to say, civil libertarians and elected officials on both sides of the aisle were appalled by such an abuse of power and Chaffetz was back on TV, this time as the victim of government abuse, instead of as the abuser.

And then came presumptive Speaker, Kevin “Loose Lips Sink Ships” McCarthy, with his now-infamous admission that the Select Committee on Benghazi was a political enterprise which was being used to damage Hillary Clinton. (As he said to Jake Tapper on CNN: “Have the select committee get all the information, all the hearings, so the public can see that. You win the argument to win the vote.“)

It was already obvious that the select committee was misusing its authority since there had already been eight earlier investigations which had thoroughly examined the facts and issued numerous reports, but McCarthy’s admission pulled back the very thin veil of legitimacy and exposed the Republicans to charges of malfeasance. But among the first to rush to the cameras was none other than Jason Chaffetz, the man who had just hours before been justly railing against the Secret Service illegally using its authority to damage his reputation, defending the Benghazi committee for doing the same thing and criticizing his friend Kevin McCarthy for accidentally speaking the truth.

Everywhere you turned, it seemed Jason Chaffetz was on television, so much so that if you didn’t know better you might think he was running for speaker himself. Lo and behold, by the weekend, he was. A week that started off with him brow-beating the director of Planned Parenthood ended with him on “Fox News Sunday” and explaining to Politico that his rationale for running for Speaker was his superior communication skills. (And truthfully, compared to McCarthy, he’s Winston Churchill.)




..............SNIP"

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Maybe it's about time we just gave up and let these shitheads run things for a while...

Trump or one of the lesser evils for Prez, more wingnuts in congress...

Let the goddam idiots in the lesser half of the country have their way and see how they really like it.

[applegrove]

2. But that is what happened with George W. Bush. Now he is popular with the base again. I've come to

realize many people have very limited long term memories.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. And, the awful truth is, that is also what happened with Reagan...

Very simply, half the population is below average, but we never publicly acknowledge it. We do come up with all sorts of finger pointing toward what we try to call substandard groups, but never acknowledge that the enemy is really us. The stupidity within the species is well spread around, but it does seem to gravitate more toward the right.

While there is such a thing as conservative thought, it's really not all that important and is simply a brake upon the crazier ideas out there. But, it puts the brakes on experimentation with potentially good ideas, too.

So, my half-assed idea won't really work until we evolve a bit more.

Or a lot more.

[applegrove]

4. I think part of it is the noise machine. There is so much noise out there, people have a really hard

time getting to the truth because there are not only three anchormen disseminating information like there used to be. There are thousands of sources of information domestically. That means people, who for one reason or another are not so great sussing out the best sources of information themselves, get bad information. And the GOP certainly are a manufacturing hub of bad information. It is a much more complicated world informationwise these days. People were built to know a few hundred people really well and to hear the the same oral tradition again and again. They were not built for this world. As with any group of psychopaths like those on the right, this gap is exploited and it benefits the right.

[malaise]

5. Here's his former boss Jon Huntsman

http://www.sltrib.com/home/3034294-155/jon-huntsman-backhands-jason-chaffetz-over
<snip>
So far the biggest criticism of Rep. Jason Chaffetz's campaign to become House speaker comes from the man who gave Chaffetz his start in politics — Jon Huntsman.

Utah's former governor took to Twitter late Monday, weighing in on the leadership race between House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Huntsman's former chief of staff.

Here's what he wrote:

Jon Huntsman
✔
@JonHuntsman

.@GOPLeader McCarthy just got "Chaffetzed."Something I know a little something about. #selfpromoter #powerhungry