Dear Representative Ryan,

This is in response to your email inviting me to take the 2015 Congressional Policy Survey because “This survey is one of the best ways for your voice to be heard.” Being asked for my opinion on leaders who spend more time unilaterally disarming themselves than engaging in the battles that I and others sent them to Washington to fight on our behalf is a dicey proposition, after all. It’s rather like being asked, “Aside from the obvious unpleasantries, how was your voyage on the Titanic?”

My first inclination was to print the email out so I could experience the exhilaration of physically tossing it in the garbage, but I thought better of it. You want my voice to be heard? Fine. Here we go:

From Survey 4869362-42K, I read, “The answers to this questionnaire will help Republican House Leaders confirm where grassroots Conservatives stand on important issues being debated in Congress.”  To which I quickly point out that grassroots Conservatives, by some 60 percent, wanted someone other than John Boehner as House Speaker, and not only were they summarily ignored by Republican House leaders, but Republican members who sided with their constituents were punished.  Just the same, I’ll play along:

• 1. Please check the top three issues you want House Republicans to focus on in the 114th Congress:

  • Help create jobs and real economic growth

  • Cut spending

  • Eliminate excessive government red tape

  • Repeal Obamacare & lower health care costs

  • Reform the tax code

  • Exercise vigorous oversight of the Obama Administration

  • Keep Americans safe

  • Improve access to quality education

  • Expand energy production

  • Secure the border & enforce our laws

  • Ban taxpayer funding of abortions

  • Make Congress more open & accountable

An innocuous list really, and utterly meaningless since the pursuit of any of these items would require an involuntary spinal transplant for Republican leaders. “Repeal Obamacare?” You’ve had multiple opportunities to sink real teeth into that monstrous law — constitutional opportunities at that. Aside from a plethora of meaningless show votes destined for nowhere, every time Republicans have had a chance to take serious action on Obamacare, you’ve voted to fund it fully.  “Keep Americans safe?” Mr. Ryan, would you be so kind as to inform Mitch McConnell that surrendering the Senate’s treaty review power under the Constitution doesn’t exactly keep Americans safe?

Tell ya what, sir, instead of checking off the top three issues from your list, I’ll narrow it down to one issue — the fact that Nancy Pelosi has more testicular fortitude than all the Republican leaders combined. Oh, she’s about as batty as a saucer-eyed moonie on mushrooms, no question about it! Her ideas consist of undiluted lunacy on the half-shell, but at least she’s willing to advance them rather than cower at her own political shadow. Unless your colleagues on Capitol Hill “grow a pair,” to use the current vernacular, none of the items on your list are attainable, and you know it.

• 2. Do you believe our $18 trillion debt is a threat to our children and grandchildren?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Undecide

• 3. Would you say that the current tax code is easy and fair to understand?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Undecided

Anyone who would answer that the debt is not a threat, or that the tax code is easy and fair to understand, wouldn’t be very likely to be on the list of this survey’s recipients, would they? These are “gimme” questions, but to what end? Shallow affirmations of empathy are of little use at this point.

• 4. Have you or someone you know lost health care coverage, or a doctor, as a result of Obamacare?
• Yes
• No
• Undecided

No, but no one I know personally has contracted AIDS either — that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I’ve read the data and heard the interviews. What I want to know is why Republicans keep funding this hideous destruction of American healthcare?

• 5. Should faith-based employers be forced – through Obamacare – to provide services that go against their religious beliefs?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Undecided

Of course not. Should anyone be forced to enter into a private contract by virtue of their simple existence? Of course not. Should the constitutional power of the purse be surrendered in the effort to free Americans from this coercion? Of course not.  And yet Republicans have done it.

• 6. Should Congress promote responsible legislation that would preserve and protect Social Security and Medicare for future generations?
• Yes
• No
• Undecided

Yes, but hold on to your Depends, because there will be resistance from the White House and the media. Which means that the odds of such legislation being advanced in any meaningful way by your colleagues are exactly zero.

7. Do you believe the Obama Administration needs to outline a comprehensive strategy to defeat and destroy terrorist groups that threaten Americans – like ISIS?
– Yes
– No
– Undecided

The Obama Administration has a comprehensive strategy and it is called appeasement. At home, ISIS can walk right across our southern border, and your leadership is willing to do exactly nothing to stop them. Our ally, Israel, faces an existential threat from Iran, which vows to also destroy America even as the Obama Administration surrenders at the negotiating table and Republicans hand over their only constitutional means of stopping the madness. The question isn’t whether the Administration has a strategy to defeat these maniacs.  They don’t. The question is whether the GOP has a comprehensive strategy to stop Barack Obama’s crippling of America’s security. Stick some substantive ideas on one of your surveys and then we can talk.

• 8. Should Republicans continue to press the Obama Administration to provide a full and complete accounting of its response to the terror attack in Benghazi and the correspondences on Hillary Clinton’s private email server?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Undecided

That server should have been subpoenaed long ago. It wasn’t. Representative Gowdy’s cross-examinations are stunning in their ability to expose incompetence and fraud while puncturing the egos of the elite. Aside from that most excellent theater, what are the real consequences for those who abuse the public trust and break the law? I fear this is yet another example of Republican theatrics that highlight, but do not seriously address or correct, the problem.

• 9. Should Iran be allowed to continue enriching uranium?

• Yes

• No

• Undecided

Should I be required to make a redundant point? With Republican assistance, Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium, and Iran will be allowed to nuke up.  Next question please.

• 10. Do you agree with Republicans that President Obama’s executive amnesty cannot stand?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Undecided

Hell, Republicans don’t even agree with Republicans on this one, because President Obama’s executive amnesty now stands with bipartisan support! Quoth Mitch McConnell back when he was courting voters: “We will use the power of the purse to push back against this overactive bureaucracy.” And here is one of my favorites: “If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act. We’re considering a variety of options.  But make no mistake. When the newly elected representatives of the people take their seats, they will act.”

And act they did, because, within days of gaining a clear majority, the Senator took to the microphones to announce that, “We will not be shutting the government down or threatening to default on the federal debt.” So not only did McConnell preemptively surrender the power of the purse, he adopted the fictional narrative that Republicans would be the ones to close the government and default on the debt. When asked what exactly he would do to stop the President’s unilateral overreach, McConnell said, “We’ll let you know.” The result was as predicted. Those who doubt whether the concept of unconditional surrender is realistic in modern times need only watch Republicans in action.

As for your boss, Speaker Boehner said, “We are going to fight the President tooth and nail if he continues down this path. This is the wrong way to govern. This is exactly what the American people said on election day they didn’t want!” Fiery rhetoric, that — signifying nothing.

The sad fact is that the President’s executive overreach can indeed stand. It stands to this day, buttressed by the self-emasculation of a nominal opposition that now adds insult to injury with this complimentary idiocy of a survey that I predict will ultimately prove as useful as our own votes were last November.

Now you have your answers.