If you like politics as blood sport, this is great stuff. On the other hand, if you worry about people, their lives, their health, how their money is spent and how their government protects their lives, their health and how their money is spent, well, then, this sucks.

If you had been waiting for the three-month follow-up to the Senate Environment and Public Works committee hearing on the Fukushima Near-Term Task Force recommendations–the one Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) promised in August at the last hearing on this issue of vital importance to US nuclear safety–well, that hearing was yesterday, Thursday, December 15. . . and whether you watched them or not, you are still waiting.

Readers of this space know that the pace of safety reforms for America’s nuclear facilities, especially in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, has been alarmingly slow. The recalcitrance–if not active hostility–exhibited by the nuclear operators and their government handmaidens borders on the criminal. So, it might sound more than a little bit shocking to hear that the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, is now under attack. . . for trying to implement new safety standards too quickly.

That’s not how House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is putting it, of course. In doublespeak that would make Orwell proud, Issa has written to the White House, issued a report, and fallen just shy of calling for Jaczko’s head.

Solyndra executives are being hauled before a GOP House Committee today, the latest props in the conservative right’s war on clean energy. The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants to bat them around a bit and also use them as a way to point out alleged White House corruption. But the executives will plead the fifth instead.

Darrell Issa is a happy man. After flailing around for a while, he finally thinks he has a product to push, an example of Obama corruption, with the Solyndra story. There’s even another piece of it that has popped up in the form of LightSquared, a wireless startup which, according to allegations, was the subject of unfavorable testimony to Congress by Air Force Gen. William Shelton until the White House intimidated him into changing his view. Issa is ready to widen his investigation. Loan guarantee programs for clean energy have actually migrated to the subject of a potential government shutdown, with Republicans trying to cancel a program for hybrid vehicles to pay for disaster relief.

Republicans definitely think they have a winning hand by criticizing corruption in the clean energy realm. It’s a tailor-made Glenn Beck conspiracist rant where the corruption lines up with a philosophical view against climate change and a lucrative view in support of wealthy oil and gas company contributors over the clean energy industry. The government, you see, cannot “pick winners and losers” in the energy space. Can’t do it.

Unless those winners happen to be in Republican districts and states.

Peter Haller, a former Goldman Sachs VP now working for Darrell Issa on the House Oversight Committee and advocating for the interests of the banks changed his name shortly before moving to work for the Oversight Committee. Now we learn he was involved in the weak attempt by Patrick McHenry to embarrass Elizabeth Warren at a recent hearing.

Darrell Issa is really not happy about a New York Times spread about how business interests have affected his job on the House Oversight Committee.

But first of all, the NYT should credit Lee Fang and Think Progress for the work that they’ve done on this. Second, Issa has no real reason to complain about what he has called a hit piece.

Republicans are big fans of projection. When they’re neck-deep in conflicts of interest, they like to hide it by accusing Democrats of such conflicts. When they leak stuff, they accuse Democrats. When they mismanage stuff, they accuse Democrats.

And yesterday, Darrell Issa got caught doing just that.

When Darrell Issa took over the House Oversight Committee, Democrats were nervous that he would use it as a launching pad to pummel the White House with frivolous investigations. It hasn’t really worked out that way. And now, he’s covering investigations up.

Live blogging of the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Cybersecruity. Rep. Darrel Issa being himself. Can you say “Viper”?

Darrell Issa is trying to stop House Oversight Committee Democrats from calling minority witnesses for hearings, and if successful this could become a more widespread Congressional practice.