It’s been a banner week for malakatude, which made planning this feature rather difficult. I have-literally not figuratively as Joey the Shark would say-changed my mind every day about what wingnut would be granted the malakatude crown of thorns. On Monday, it was Horrible Boss Carly Fiorina for her whoppers about Planned Parenthood. On Tuesday it wasn’t Belgium, it was Dr. Carson and his brain-dead mellow hate speech. On Wednesday, I had an epihany, which really epihanied me off. I was awakened in the middle of the night by a howling, body slamming cat and realized there’s only one person as annoying this week as Della Street in dalek mode, Congressman Jason Chafftez (R-LDS) and that is why he is malaka of the week.

Chaffetz is an ambitious halfwit who has found a platform in his Chairmalakaship of the House Oversight and Guvmint Reform Committee. I like the reform label: what GOPers like Chaffetz want to do is to *destroy* government, not reform or oversee it. The fact that a fourth term Congressmalaka can be a Chairperson makes me nostalgic for the days when Speakers were benevolent dictators doling out chairmanships based on seniority. Where have you gone, Mister Sam?

I think you all know why Chairmalaka Chaffetz is this week’s honoree: the horrendous hearing he conducted yesterday, ostensibly about Planned Parenthood’s business practices. It was an attack, not a hearing since PP honcho Cecile Richards initially had a hard time getting a word in edgewise and wound up having to talk over Chaffetz and his wingmalakas. The show trial nature of the hearing is best illustrated by this exchange between the Chairmalaka and Ms. Richards who, like her late mother, is one helluva tough broad:

Chaffetz, who chairs the committee, at one point showed a slide that had one straight line heading downward and another straight line heading upward.

“You created this slide. I have no idea what it is,” Richards said.

“Well, it is the reduction over the course of years — in pink, that’s the reduction in the breast exams — and the red is the increase in the abortions,” Chaffetz said. “That’s what’s going on in the organization.”

Richards said that she had not seen the slide before and that it “absolutely does not reflect what’s happening at Planned Parenthood.”

“You’re going to deny that —” Chaffetz said.

“I’m going to deny this slide that you just showed me that no one has ever provided us before,” she said. “We’ve provided you all the information about everything — all the services that Planned Parenthood provides. And it doesn’t feel like we’re trying to get to the truth here. You just showed me this.”

“I pulled those numbers directly out of your corporate reports,” Chaffetz said.

“Excuse me,” Richards said. “My lawyers have informed me that the source of this is Americans United for Life which is an anti-abortion group so I would check your source.”

Chaffetz, paused, stuttered a bit and said, “Then we will get to the bottom of the truth of that.”

The truth? The only truth that a bottom dweller like Chaffetz is interested in is his own truth. The entire anti-choice movement seems to have adopted the Mormon practice of “lying for the Lord,” which ratifies mendacity in a good cause. The most rabid right to lifers are convinced that they are the modern-day equivalent of the abolitionist movement. They’re convinced that their cause is so just that lying and fabricating evidence is hunky dory with the man (their God is always a white male) upstairs. That’s not righteousness, that’s delusional nonsense or, to be even blunter, unmitigated horse shit.

The ideal Congressional hearing is an investigation, not an inquisition. Notice that I used the word ideal because neither the Chaffetz committee nor the Gowdy committee is interested in investigating the facts. They’re misogynistic inquisitions looking for a witch to burn, the facts be damned. This is particularly egregious in the case of Chaffetz’s committee. It’s relying on fabricated videos and charts to “prove” its perverted point that Planned Parenthood is all about baby killing. It’s futile to tell them that 97% of PP’s work is dedicated to other OB/GYN services for women. They don’t want to hear about it, especially if it involves contraception. All they want to do is:

One thing that strikes me about the most extreme wingnuts is their aversion to common courtesy. They believe that their ideological purity gives them license to treat those who differ in insulting and demeaning ways. That’s one reason they’re dancing in the streets over the imminent departure of Speaker Boner. It’s nuts: Boner is a hardcore pro-life conservative BUT he’s known for being courteous and polite. That was one of his major sins to so-called Freedom Caucus, a misnomer if there ever was one. Another delicious irony is that they claim to revere Ronald Reagan who was a man known for his exquisite manners. They’re not only lying, they’re being assholes for the Lord. Miss Manners weeps.

It looks as if the Chaffetz committee’s work, if you want to call it that, isn’t going anywhere. The odds *against* a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding grow every day. That was never the point: current House hearings are all about heat, not light. They’re exercises in ideological bluster and bullying, which doesn’t work that well when dealing with someone like Cecile Richards. She knows how to deal with right wing bullies: when they hit below the belt, kick them in the balls, preferably with a steel-toed stiletto. I think I saw Jason Chaffetz wince when she called him out on the bogus chart he introduced into evidence. The best way to combat a lie is with the truth, not that Chairmalaka Chaffetz would know the truth if it bit him in the ass. And that is why Jason Chaffetz is the malaka of the week.

There’s only one more thing to remember: