GOP Ready For Another Defeat as Rep. Blackburn Will Lead Abortion Investigation

U.S. GOP Rep Marsha Blackburn (TN-7) will head a select investigative panel on “big abortion providers”. House Speaker John Boehner announced on Friday that Blackburn would be tasked with the leading the inquiry.

Boehner stated:

Chairman Blackburn and our members will have the resources and the subpoena power to get to the bottom of these horrific practices, and build on our work to protect the sanctity of all human life.

As with the Benghazi investigation, Republicans attempted to describe the panel as embarking upon a fact-finding mission rather than a political witch hunt. Blackburn opined:

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This will be a broad-based, information gathering, fact finding mission to answer questions about how we treat and protect life in this country.

Despite her innocuous rhetoric, the panel will be stacked with right-wing anti choice zealots. Blackburn will be joined on the committee by fellow GOP representatives Larry Buschon (IN-8), Andy Harris (MD-1), Vicky Hartzler (MO-4), Joe Pitts (PA-16), Mia Love (UT-4) and Sean Duffy (WI-7).

The Republicans do not seem to have learned any lessons from the thumping they took from Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings. Rather than lick their wounds and devise a new political approach, they have decided to continue creating investigative panels to grill people they disagree with. Republicans keep desperately hoping to manufacture a scandal that they can use to hurt liberals and Democrats.

Instead, however, the GOP is setting up another politically embarrassing inquest that will end up backfiring against them, much like the Benghazi panel boomeranged against the Republicans on Thursday. Marsha Blackburn is an extremist and a “birther”, who isn’t known for her command of factual information, so putting her in charge of a fact-finding expedition is fraught with peril for the GOP. The odds of the committee looking foolish are astronomically high with Blackburn at the helm.

If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results, then the House GOP must be regarded as insane. Just one day after getting humiliated in a marathon Benghazi hearing, the House has decided to launch an investigation against abortion providers. Good luck with that.

Keith Brekhus

Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.