Louie Gohmert still the stupidest member of the House of Representatives

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"Ass backwards" is one way to describe Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert. Not to be too crass, but you have to wonder if when he goes to the toilet he sticks his mouth deep in the bowl because he thinks that's where you defecate from.

And so you knew you could count on him to get the debt ceiling, like everything else, completely wrong: 

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) isn't sure whether he'll support a debt limit deal, but he is sure of one thing: a debt default would be President Barack Obama's fault.

A reporter for The Young Turks asked Gohmert whether he'd support a bill that would raise the debt ceiling at the Values Voter Summit on Friday.

"The word 'deal' concerns me," he said. "If it's good for America."

When asked whether he would allow the government to default on its debt, Gohmert projected the responsibility for such circumstances onto Obama.

"No," he said, "that would be an impeachable offense by the president."

What's amazing is that Gohmert actually seems to believe his own moronic bullshit. Republicans often say stupid things, but for many of them it's just the usual cynical partisan nonsense. They say down is up even though they know that down is down. But Gohmert and those like him -- and he's hardly alone -- really do seem to think that down is up.

In this case, last time I checked President Obama actually does want to raise the debt ceiling so that the country doesn't go into default. All Democrats do. It's a significant number of Republicans who are playing politics with the debt ceiling, either opposing an increase for right-wing ideological reasons (and disregarding the near-certainty of a subsequent economic catastrophe) or opposing it rhetorically (and holding the country hostage) so as to try to extract concessions from the Democrats in other areas.

Apparently Gohmert is too stupid to understand this.

An impeachable offense? Seriously? What a fucking moron.

Though he faces incredibly (and increasingly) stiff competition from any number of his fellow Republicans, he wins this award running away.

Louie Gohmert just can't stop reminding us he's the stupidest member of Congress

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Monday that the Obama administration is making the United States look "like a bunch of cowards" by closing 19 embassies amid intelligence reports about possible terrorist attacks.

Gohmert, guest-hosting on Sean Hannity's radio program Monday, said the administration failed to learn from last year's deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans.

"We don't want any more people to die," Gohmert said in response to a caller's question. "But it brings us back to the question that [then-Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton asked, what difference does it make at this point?

"The difference it makes is, that if you will bother to find out exactly what went wrong, why you didn't have security where you needed it, where you need security to shore up, what you can do to make sure that doesn't happen again, you don't have to close your embassies like a bunch of cowards that go running away," he continued.

It's possible that the U.S. government hyped (or largely made up) the threats against its facilities overseas as a way to support its case for (essentially universal) surveillance, just as justification for the entire war on terror has been based largely on government fearmongering about threats that the public, given lack of access to evidence, has no way of proving one way or the other -- and the media are playing right along, hyping the "worldwide alert," as CNN blared, without a shred of evidence -- but Gohmert's suggestion that closing embassies is cowardice is just plain stupid.

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Louie Gohmert, asshole extraordinaire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You all know that Louie Gohmert is crazy, even by the lofty standards of craziness set by House Republicans, but did you also know that he's a bullying jackass with a massive sense of entitlement? It's true:

A Texas Republican congressman got into a late-night verbal altercation with U.S. Park Police officers earlier this month, pulling rank in an attempt to get out of a parking ticket near the Lincoln Memorial.

Shortly after 11 p.m. on March 13, officers wrote Rep. Louie Gohmert a citation for parking his black Ford SUV in a spot reserved for National Park Service vehicles, according to a Park Police report obtained by POLITICO.

But Gohmert wasn't having it: He told the Park Police that his congressional parking placard allows him to park in that spot, and he's on the committee that oversees the agency.

Gohmert took the ticket off his windshield and placed it on a police car along with his business card with a written message: "Oversight of Park Service is my job! Natural Resources Thus the Congressional Plate in window."

He was "rude and irate," one officer reported. Another wrote that Gohmert was "ranting."

Oh, so very, very hard to believe.

Stupid and Evil, Inc.

By Mustang Bobby

I sometimes wonder if the racists and the bigots get their franchise like some Amway promotion: find one person, then get them to find another, and then that one finds another, and so on. That's about the only way I can explain how stupid spreads across the land. For example:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Monday openly admitted that she opposed the latest reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) because it included protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims of domestic violence.

In an appearance on MSNBC, Blackburn pointed out that the latest iteration of the law protects "different groups" and thus dilutes funding for straight, non-Native American women with the proper documentation.

Because of course if you're a lesbian or Native American or undocumented, you probably deserved whatever happens to you because, well, you're just not one of us.

Not just to pick on Ms. Blackburn — she regularly turns up on cable TV as a second-string Michele Bachmann and entertains with all sorts of harebrained stuff, including birtherism — because I'm pretty sure that she didn't come up with this justification for voting against VAWA on her own. She's not that creative. Someone had to hand this talking point to her, or there's some website where she downloaded it.

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Idiot extraordinaire Louie Gohmert wants to stop gun violence with more guns

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He's often our "Craziest Republican of the Day," but today let's just call him out for being an idiot:

Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, says he wishes Dawn Hochsprung, the principal of the Sandy Hook Elementary School, was armed with an M-4 assault rifle when she confronted Adam Lanza, the shooter who killed 20 children.

"I wish to God she had an M-4 in her office locked up so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

Yes, but she didn't, and arming school administrators to the teeth as the way to deal with the problem of gun violence is just idiotic. 

Yes, the way to deal with Ameria's gun-obsessed culture of violence is... more guns! This is how the gun nuts think, and why they must be politically obliterated.

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Craziest Republican of the Day: Louie Gohmert

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Gohmert gets this award a lot (e.g., here and here). But there's just no denying it: he's fucking crazy. (And a fucking idiot; see, e.g., here and here.) Here's more proof:

The House voted on Wednesday to strike the word "lunatic" from all federal laws and only one lawmaker voted against the measure: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). 

It was unclear initially why the Tea Party favorite opposed the change, and a Gohmert spokeswoman did not return a request for comment. The point of the bill, which cleared the Senate in May with no opposition, is to strike language from current law that contributes to the stigmatization of mental health conditions.

But during a rant on the House floor later in the day, about the need for a flat tax, Gohmert shed some light on why the word needs to stay.

"To keep spending and not pay the price, that is immoral," Gohmert said. "That's why we shouldn't eliminate the word 'lunatic.' It really has application around this town."

Right, so it's okay to keep stigmatizing those with mental health problems with a word the medical community rejects. Louie doesn't give a shit. He's got a stupid political point to make, a point that has nothing to do with the matter at hand, and darn it he'll make it even if he has to stand against his own party, the craziest among the crazy, no small feat.

Congrats, Louie! You certainly have a way of distinguishing yourself.

Harry situation

By Mustang Bobby

Ed Kilgore writes:

I don't know whether Harry Reid is making stuff up or not. But I think it's important to stipulate that if he is, that's a bad thing, although it in no way absolves Mitt Romney's completely independent responsibility to release his tax records and resolve all doubts.

I have said all along that I don't know for a fact whether or not Mr. Reid is making stuff up. That is an important element of the story, to be sure, but what's also important is how the defenders of Mr. Romney have reacted to the allegation that he didn't pay taxes for ten years. We've gotten a lot of outrage and accusations flung at Mr. Reid, including the rather laughable riposte from Mr. Romney himself of "put up or shut up," but no one who is defending Mr. Romney has offered any affirmative proof that Mr. Reid is making stuff up.

The Republicans have made a cottage industry out of accusing the Democrats (they're communists and atheists) and the president of terrible things and unsavory associations (he's a Muslim, he's a Kenyan, he's a socialist*) without a shred of evidence. The list of such accusers is long and includes such luminaries as Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Louie Gohmert, Virginia Foxx, Steve King, and Darrell Issa, just to name a few. (And just when you thought he was gone, Newt Gingrich pops up like a toadstool on the lawn.) These are not Cheetos-munching bloggers in some basement, but members of Congress. When they're called out on their fact-free rants, they respond with evasions and red herrings, and when the Republican leaders such as Speaker John Boehner or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are asked to comment or repudiate their wild-eyed members, they shrug and say "Oh, well, it's not for me to tell others what to say." The harshest pushback from these brave souls is "Those aren't the words I would use."

It's a little more than ironic -- not to mention hypocritical -- to get buckets of crocodile tears and righteous indignation from the GOP when Harry Reid makes a so-far unsubstantiated statement about Mitt Romney's taxes. Their only claim should be one of copyright infringement.

*There's nothing at all wrong with being a Muslim, a Kenyan, or a socialist. It's just that in Mr. Obama's case, he's not.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Could Rep. Louie Gohmert be even more of an idiot if he worked at it?

By Comrade Misfit 

Rep. Gohmert: Did No One Else in Aurora Theater Have a Gun? 

I suspect that if Gohmert was any more of an imbecile, that he'd have his feet in a pot and he'd be watered twice a week.

For the moment, let's set aside Gohmert's babblings about how such things wouldn't happen if people were able to pray more in public. Let's instead look at the situation you'd be faced with if you were at that theater with your concealed pistol.

It's dark. The theater is packed. Some clown comes in from the front, through an emergency exit, lobs a smoke or gas grenade and begins shooting. Pandemonium ensues.

You wouldn't have known that he was wearing body armor. But you'd be trying to shoot a guy dressed head-to-toe in black gear in a very dark room. The clown had a rifle. You'd have a handgun, probably a compact 9mm or a five-shot .38 with open sights. With your heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through your system and your eyes watering from the smoke/gas grenade, you'd have to make the steadiest shot in your life. While he is shooting other people, the noise of his shots are ringing through the theater and people are screaming, dying and pushing to get the hell out of Dodge. And when he didn't go down to a couple of shots to center-of-mass, you'd have to very carefully shoot him in the face while he is trying to kill you with a far better weapon.

And all that assumes that you're maybe fifteen feet away from Asswipe, which is about as far as you probably can be and have a hope in hell of making the shot.

Having said all that, what you'd probably end up doing is hopefully distracting Asswipe long enough so some other people could escape. But for that, you'd pay with your life and probably cost the lives of people around you.

Bottom line: It would be like trying to stop a fully-involved house fire with a garden hose.

Gohmert is an idiot. 

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Louie Gohmert may be the craziest, stupidest, most idiotic Republican ever

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not crazy, I'm a Republican!

It's hardly breaking news that Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas is an idiot. We've called him on it a few times, like here, and he's been awarded our Craziest Republican of the Day (just once, though he deserves it pretty much on a daily basis).

The thing is, he isn't just an idiot and he isn't just crazy. I'm tempted to go with fucking idiot and fucking crazy, but even that isn't enough. Really, he may just be the craziest, stupidest, most idiotic Republican ever. I realize the competition is stiff, though (e.g., Bachmann, Michele), so, at the very least, I think it's fair to say he's near the top of the list.

And he just keeps outdoing himself:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings that took place in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater hours earlier were a result of "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs" and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter.

During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation's "Istook Live!" show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country.

"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.

*****

Gohmert also said the tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter. Istook noted that Colorado laws allow people to carry concealed guns.

"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he asked.

Is there any point responding to an ideological madman? In this case, I'd just like to point out that, for all his craziness, stupidity, and idiocy, Gohmert's extremist views on "God" and guns, as on everything else, aren't outside today's Republican mainstream.

And that tells you something about today's Republican Party.