Unconscionable

And this is one reason there'll be another January 6.

It's Sunday

As you can see, I'm with Elie.

How did I miss this?

Louie Gohmert, the goober that Molly Jong Fast has called a man with few thoughts and fewer teeth, come November will no longer be disgracing Texas in Congress.

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert’s decision to give up a safe Republican seat in the House [to] take on a troubled state attorney general ended in defeat Tuesday, when he finished last in a four-person primary.

A firebrand who led pre-Jan. 6 efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and has since denounced the “un-American and illegal treatment” of people detained after the riots, Gohmert decided to take on state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump himself who was facing mounting legal troubles.

Gohmert was fourth, with 17 percent of the vote, while Paxton led with 43 percent and was headed toward a runoff against state Land Commissioner George P. Bush, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush.

Gohmert had argued that he would do a better job representing conservative values in the federal courts than Paxton, who teamed up with Trump allies in a series of lawsuits against the Biden administration and unsuccessfully sued to overturn election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges six years ago during his first months in office, and has more recently been the subject of an FBI investigation over allegations by some of his former deputies that he abused his office to aid a wealthy donor.

  MSN

Nathaniel Moran will vie with Democrat Jmar Jefferson for Gohmert's old seat in November.  I know nothing about either of them, but Moran has to be better than Gohmert, doesn't he?

Gohmert, for his part, couldn't even defeat a man under indictment and under FBI investigation. But then, nobody did. Paxton beat out George P in the end.

Jesus Christ, Texas. Do better.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The McCarthy hits just keep on coming

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, feared in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that several far-right members of Congress would incite violence against other lawmakers, identifying several by name as security risks in private conversations with party leaders.

[...]

But Mr. McCarthy did not follow through on the sterner steps that some Republicans encouraged him to take, opting instead to seek a political accommodation with the most extreme members of the G.O.P. in the interests of advancing his own career.

  NYT

Well there's a surprise.

In the phone call with other Republican leaders on Jan. 10, Mr. McCarthy referred chiefly to two representatives, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Mo Brooks of Alabama, as endangering the security of other lawmakers and the Capitol complex. But he and his allies discussed several other representatives who made comments they saw as offensive or dangerous, including Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Barry Moore of Alabama.

[...]

After Jan. 6, Mr. Gaetz went on television to attack multiple Republicans who had criticized Mr. Trump, including Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a member of the leadership team.

Those comments by Mr. Gaetz alarmed Mr. McCarthy and his colleagues in leadership — particularly the reference to Ms. Cheney, who was already the target of threats and public abuse from Mr. Trump’s faction in the party because of her criticism of the defeated president.

[...]

“He’s putting people in jeopardy,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Gaetz. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, suggested that Mr. Gaetz might be crossing a legal boundary.

“It’s potentially illegal what he’s doing,” Mr. Scalise said.

[...]

Speaking about rank-and-file lawmakers to his fellow leaders, Mr. McCarthy was sharply critical and suggested he was going to tell them to stop their inflammatory conduct.

“Our members have got to start paying attention to what they say, too, and you can’t put up with that,” he said, adding an expletive.

And yet, now they're all giving everybody a pass.

On Jan. 10, he urged his fellow G.O.P. leaders to keep a close eye on members like Mr. Brooks and Mr. Gaetz and asked them to alert him if they saw any potentially dangerous public communications.

Mr. McCarthy said it was particularly unacceptable for lawmakers to attack other lawmakers with whom they disagreed about the outcome of the 2020 election: “That stuff’s got to stop.”

“The country is too crazy,” Mr. McCarthy said. “I do not want to look back and think we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt. I don’t want to play politics with any of that.”

And then he went down to Mar-A-Lago.

During the Jan. 10, 2021, phone call, Mr. McCarthy was speaking with a small group of Republican leaders, including Mr. Scalise, Ms. Cheney and Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, as well as a number of aides.

It was on this G.O.P. leadership call that Mr. McCarthy told his colleagues he would call Mr. Trump and tell him, “it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

[...]

The House minority leader has in recent days lied about and tried to downplay his comments: Last week, after The Times reported the remarks, Mr. McCarthy called the report “totally false and wrong.” After Mr. McCarthy’s denial, a source who had confidentially shared a recording of the call with the book’s authors agreed to let The Times publish parts of the audio. In the days since that recording has been made public, the Republican leader has repeated his denial and emphasized that he never actually carried out his plan to urge Mr. Trump to quit.

About time to admit this was not leaked by Liz Cheney, who has been getting the blame for it since the audio clip only has her and McCarthy on it.

On the leadership call, Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Scalise and others discussed several other lawmakers who had made provocative comments around Jan. 6, including Mr. Moore and Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas. Ms. Cheney, who was on the call, suggested Ms. Boebert was a security risk, pointing out that she had publicly tweeted about the sensitive movements of other lawmakers during the Jan. 6 evacuation.

[...]

On the Jan. 10 call, Mr. McCarthy said he planned to speak with Mr. Gaetz and ask him not to attack other lawmakers by name. The following day, in a larger meeting for all House Republicans, Mr. McCarthy pleaded with lawmakers not to “incite” but rather to “respect one another.”

Does he know his colleagues?

But in his determination to become speaker of the House after the 2022 elections, Mr. McCarthy has spent much of the last year forging a closer political partnership with the far right, showing little public concern that his most extreme colleagues could instigate bloodshed with their overheated or hateful rhetoric.

In recent months Mr. McCarthy has opposed punishing Republican members of Congress who have been accused of inciting violence, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and, most recently, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, who posted an animated video on social media that depicted him killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the left-wing Democrat.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Naming names

Republican members of Congress were heavily involved in calls and meetings with former President Donald Trump and his top aides as they devised a strategy to overturn the election in December 2020, according to new evidence filed in federal court late Friday.

[...]

Lawmakers who attended meetings, in person or by phone, included Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows who provided key testimony about the conversations and meetings Meadows had in December 2020.

The new evidence underscores the expansive cast of elected Republicans who had ultimately enlisted themselves in Trump’s last-ditch effort to cling to power. Members traded theories about ways to push then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Biden’s election, they parried with the White House Counsel’s Office on the boundaries of the law regarding presidential electors and they met directly with Pence’s staff to encourage him to take direct action on Jan. 6, when Congress convened to count electoral votes.

[...]

Some of the GOP lawmakers were present in December meetings, Hutchinson recalled, when members of the White House Counsel’s Office raised significant legal doubts about a plan for pro-Trump activists to submit “alternate” electors in states won by Joe Biden.

Others attended a Dec. 21 meeting where Rudy Giuliani, then the president’s personal lawyer, and some associates advocated a plan for Pence to unilaterally refuse to count Biden’s electors and instead send the election back to various GOP-controlled state legislatures to replace Biden’s electors with Trump’s.

The panel also released text messages between Perry and Meadows about replacing Justice Department leadership before Jan. 6 with officials thought to be more sympathetic to Trump’s claims of voter fraud.

[...]

The panel concluded: “It is also now clear that Mr. Trump never telephoned his Secretary of Defense that day to order deployment of National Guard, and never contacted any federal law enforcement agency to order security assistance to the Capitol Police.”

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The top of the list

Top names that are grist for the Jan 6 Committee mill:

Scott Perry (R-PA)

Jim Jordan (R-OH)

Mark Meadows (CoS, former congressman R-NC)

Andy Biggs (R-AZ)

Paul Gosar  (R-AZ)

Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

Richard Donoghue (DoJ official)

Stephen Miller (adviser)

Bill Stepien (campaign mgr)

Kayleigh McEnany (press sect'y)

Mo Brooks (R -AL)

Bill Barr (Atty Gen)

Doug Ducey (gov AZ)

Jeffrey Clark (DoJ civil div)

You can read about these folks and their connection to the coup attempt in this New York Times article.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

No surprise here

[S]ome of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.

Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. [...] The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.

[...]

“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”

[...]

These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.

[...]

[In addition to Greene,] the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

  Rolling Stone

Exactly the list you would predict.

Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.

“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”

[...]

The rally planner describes the pardon as being offered while “encouraging” the staging of protests against the election. While the organizer says they did not get involved in planning the rallies solely due to the pardon, they were upset that it ultimately did not materialize.

[...]

Rolling Stone has separately obtained documentary evidence that both sources were in contact with Gosar and Boebert on Jan. 6. We are not describing the nature of that evidence to preserve their anonymity

[...]

Nick Dyer, who is Greene’s communications director, said she was solely involved in planning to object to the electoral certification on the House floor. Spokespeople for the other members of Congress, who the sources describe as involved in the planning for protests, did not respond to requests for comment.

[...]

In another indication members of Congress may have been involved in planning the protests against the election, Ali Alexander, who helped organize the “Wild Protest,” declared in a since-deleted livestream broadcast that Gosar, Brooks, and Biggs helped him formulate the strategy for that event.

“I was the person who came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks, and Congressman Andy Biggs,” Alexander said at the time. “We four schemed up on putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting so that — who we couldn’t lobby — we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud roar from outside.”

Planning the protests against the election isn't illegal. The problem is with planning the break-in.

The two potential witnesses plan to present to the committee allegations about how these demonstrations were funded and to detail communications between organizers and the White House. According to both sources, members of Trump’s administration and former members of his campaign team were involved in the planning. Both describe Katrina Pierson, who worked for Trump’s campaign in 2016 and 2020, as a key liaison between the organizers of protests against the election and the White House.

[...]

Both sources also describe Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as someone who played a major role in the conversations surrounding the protests on Jan. 6.

[...]

“Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” says the organizer. “He’s also like a regular figure in these really tiny groups of national organizers.”

[...]

While it was already clear members of Congress played some role in the Jan. 6 events and similar rallies that occurred in the lead-up to that day, the two sources say they can provide new details about the members’ specific roles in these efforts. The sources plan to share that information with congressional investigators right away. While both sources say their communications with the House’s Jan. 6 committee thus far have been informal, they are expecting to testify publicly.

That needs to be done ASAP, or perhaps - for the most political impact - closer to the 2022 elections.

Both of the sources made clear that they still believe in Trump’s agenda. They also have questions about how his election loss occurred. The two sources say they do not necessarily believe there were issues with the actual vote count. However, they are concerned that Democrats gained an unfair advantage in the race due to perceived social media censorship of Trump allies and the voting rules that were implemented as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Republicans and autocrats don't like it when people are able to vote.

Despite their remaining affinity for Trump and their questions about the vote, both sources say they were motivated to come forward because of their concerns about how the pro-Trump protests against the election ultimately resulted in the violent attack on the Capitol. Of course, with their other legal issues and the House investigation, both of these sources have clear motivation to cooperate with investigators and turn on their former allies.

I'm guessing the latter reason is a real one, while the former is B.S.

And both of their accounts paint them in a decidedly favorable light compared with their former allies.

Naturally.

“The reason I’m talking to the committee and the reason it’s so important is that — despite Republicans refusing to participate … this commission’s all we got as far as being able to uncover the truth about what happened at the Capitol that day,” the organizer says. “It’s clear that a lot of bad actors set out to cause chaos. … They made us all look like shit.”

No argument there.

“The breaking point for me [on Jan. 6 was when] Trump starts talking about walking to the Capitol,” the organizer says. “I was like. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ ”

“I do kind of feel abandoned by Trump,” says the planner. “I’m actually pretty pissed about it and I’m pissed at him.”

The organizer offers an even more succinct assessment when asked what they would say to Trump.

“What the fuck?” the organizer says.

I'd like to know what the fuck they expected. It's Trump.

Good point, Fred.

Heading into Jan. 6, both sources say, the plan they had discussed with other organizers, Trump allies, and members of Congress was a rally that would solely take place at the Ellipse.

If true, that puts Trump squarely in play for urging the Ellipse crowd to march on the Capitol.

A senior staffer for a Republican member of Congress, who was also granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, similarly says they believed the events would only involve supporting objections on the House floor. The staffer says their member was engaged in planning that was “specifically and fully above board.”

“A whole host of people let this go a totally different way,” the senior Republican staffer says. “They fucked it up for a lot of people who were planning to present evidence on the House floor. We were pissed off at everything that happened.”

Thank Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

It's not over.  It's ongoing.

The GOP G String

UPDATE:

NOT soon enough.

Indeed.

Funny, I thought "Anglo-Saxon political traditions" were monarchies

These people are reprehensible.

Read the whole thing here if you can stomach it.  I can't.

UPDATE:

In the 1920 publication “The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy," Lothrop Stoddard made the same claims, warning that white Americans were being engulfed by the more "fertile" nonwhite races. Americans of “Anglo-Saxon origin,” he insisted, had to restrict immigration to preserve their country for “future generations who have a right to demand of us that they shall be born white in a white man’s land.”

  Kevin Kruse @ NYT

You might want to run that by the Native Americans.

This popular panic over immigration helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, which pressed the issue aggressively in the early 1920s.

[...]

The National Origins Act of 1924, a quota-based measure that drastically reduced immigration from southeastern Europe and banned all Asians from immigrating entirely, [...] was passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress, with equally strong support from both parties. President Calvin Coolidge then signed the measure into law, marking a significant turning point in American history.

[...]

[T]he National Origins Act in turn served as a model for the “racial citizenship” laws that took root in Germany a decade later.

“The United States of the new world have come to understand the monstrous danger of the ‘great melting pot of races’ over the course of the last decades, and put a check on bastardization through draconian immigration law,” a Nazi Party publication noted in 1933. “To these circles of tribally related Americans we reach out our hand in friendship.”

[...]

History isn’t predictive, of course. But if the America First Caucus wants to argue what history has shown us, then let’s not ignore what it has shown us about their own arguments. We need to remember the dangerous ends and drastic horrors such arguments led us to before and might well lead us to again.

UPDATE:  I thought abortion was anathema to these people, but they aborted this insane launch.

Nick Dyer, Greene's spokesperson, told CNN in an email on Saturday afternoon the Georgia Republican is not "launching anything."

"The Congresswoman wants to make clear that she is not launching anything. This was an early planning proposal and nothing was agreed to or approved," he said in an email to CNN, referring to a flier promoting the caucus, obtained by Punchbowl News, that used inflammatory rhetoric.

He added that "she didn't approve that language and has no plans to launch anything."

This is a reversal from Friday, when her office said she would launch the caucus "very soon."

On Friday, amid news reports of the caucus, Dyer complained about the initial draft of the flier being leaked but confirmed to CNN in a statement that plans were in the works to form the group, which he said would be "announced to the public very soon."

Greene in a series of tweets Saturday afternoon also claimed that the staff-level draft proposal of her "America First" caucus is "from an outside group that I hadn't read." She also accused the media of creating "false narratives" and focusing on race to "divide the American people with hate through identity politics."

[...]

Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican, denied his involvement in plans to launch an "America First" caucus and wrote in a statement Saturday he will "continue to work on America First issues in the House Freedom Caucus."

  CNN

Republicans stepping all over their own dicks these days

A dozen Republicans voted against a resolution honoring US Capitol police for their efforts to protect members of Congress during the insurrection on 6 January.

The House voted 413-12 on Wednesday to award congressional gold medals, Congress’s “highest expression of national appreciation”, to all members of the Capitol police force.

[...]

“The desecration of the US Capitol, which is the temple of our American democracy, and the violence targeting Congress are horrors that will forever stain our nation’s history,” the bill said.

[...]

The resolution said: “On January 6, 2021, a mob of insurrectionists forced its way into the US Capitol building and congressional office buildings and engaged in acts of vandalism, looting, and violently attacked Capitol police officers.”

It also named the three officers who responded to the attack and died shortly after – Capitol police officers Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood and Metropolitan police department officer Jeffrey Smith – and said seven other people died and more than 140 law enforcement officers were injured.

[...]

The Republicans who opposed this honor included Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. They and other opposing members said they had problems with the text of the legislation.

Massie told reporters he disagreed with the terms “insurrection” and “temple” in the legislation.

[...]

Louie Gohmert, a congressman from Texas, said in a statement that the text “does not honor anyone, but rather seeks to drive a narrative that isn’t substantiated by known facts”.

Gohmert separately circulated a competing bill to honor Capitol police that did not mention the 6 January attack. [...] His text also named the officers who died after the insurrection but did not specify the circumstances of their deaths, writing instead that they: “All passed in January 2021.”

  Guardian

That's a pretty neat trick.

The other Republicans who voted against the legislation were Andy Biggs of Arizona, Andy Harris of Maryland, Lance Gooden of Texas, Michael Cloud of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Greg Steube of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia and John Rose of Tennessee.

Remember them.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Memorandum Opinion filed in the Gohmert v. Pence case

[...]

Plaintiffs’ aims in this election challenge are bold indeed: they ask this Court to declare unconstitutional several decades-old federal statutes governing the appointment of electors and the counting of electoral votes for President of the United States; to invalidate multiple state statutes regulating the certification of Presidential votes; to ignore certain Supreme Court decisions; and, the coup de grace, to enjoin the U.S. Congress from counting the electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and declaring Joseph R. Biden the next President.

Ed. Nice open.

In addition to being filed on behalf of Plaintiffs without standing and (at least as to the state Defendants) in the wrong court and with no effort to even serve their adversaries, the suit rests on a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution. It would be risible were its target not so grave: the undermining of a democratic election for President of the United States. The Court will deny the Motion.

[...]

After explicitly disclaiming any theory of fraud, see ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶ 44 (“This lawsuit is not about voter fraud.”), Plaintiffs spend scores of pages cataloguing every conceivable discrepancy or irregularity in the 2020 vote in the five relevant states, already debunked or not, most of which they nonetheless describe as a species of fraud.

[...] 

In order to provide an equitable briefing and hearing schedule on a very tight timetable, this Court immediately instructed Plaintiffs to file proofs of service on Defendants so that they could proceed on their preliminary-injunction Motion. [...] Twelve days later, Plaintiffs have still not provided proof of notice to any Defendant, let alone filed a single proof of service or explained their inability to do so.

Bold.

Given that time is short and the legal errors underpinning this action manifold, the Court treats only the central ones and in the order of who, where, what, and why. Most obviously, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated the “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Although they claim to have been “disenfranchised,” ECF No. 4 (PI Mem.) at 37, this is plainly not true. Their votes have been counted and their electors certified pursuant to state-authorized procedures; indeed, any vote nullification would obtain only were their own suit to succeed. [...] Finally, to the extent that Plaintiffs seek an injunction preventing certain state officials from certifying their election results, see PI Mem. at 1, that claim is moot as certification has already occurred.

Moving on from subject-matter jurisdiction, the Court must also pause at personal jurisdiction. Plaintiffs cannot simply sue anyone they wish here in the District of Columbia. On the contrary, they must find a court or courts that have personal jurisdiction over each Defendant, and they never explain how a court in this city can subject to its jurisdiction, say, the Majority Leader of the Wisconsin State Senate. Absent personal jurisdiction over a particular Defendant, of course, this Court lacks authority to compel him to do anything.

Even if the Court had subject-matter and personal jurisdiction, it still could not rule in Plaintiffs’ favor because their central contention is flat-out wrong.

[...]

Plaintiffs readily acknowledge that their position also means that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), and Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 155 (Orig.), 2020 WL 7296814 (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020), “are in constitutional error.” Compl., ¶ 76. They do not, however, explain how this District Court has authority to disregard Supreme Court precedent. Nor do they ever mention why they have waited until seven weeks after the election to bring this action and seek a preliminary injunction based on purportedly unconstitutional statutes that have existed for decades — since 1948 in the case of the federal ones. It is not a stretch to find a serious lack of good faith here. e. See Trump v. Wis. Elections Comm’n, No. 20-3414, 2020 WL 7654295, at *4 (7th Cir. Dec. 24, 2020).

Yet even that may be letting Plaintiffs off the hook too lightly. Their failure to make any effort to serve or formally notify any Defendant — even after reminder by the Court in its Minute Order — renders it difficult to believe that the suit is meant seriously. Courts are not instruments through which parties engage in such gamesmanship or symbolic political gestures. As a result, at the conclusion of this litigation, the Court will determine whether to issue an order to show cause why this matter should not be referred to its Committee on Grievances for potential discipline of Plaintiffs’ counsel.

Please! These assholes filing these ridiculous lawsuits need to start paying a penalty.

PDF

Gohmert's ridiculous lawsuit is dismissed

A US judge has rejected a lawsuit from a Republican congressman that sought to allow vice president Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden when Congress meets on Wednesday to certify his victory over president Donald Trump.

The latest long-shot attempt by Trump’s Republican allies to overturn the November election result was dismissed by one of Trump’s own appointees to the federal bench, Jeremy Kernodle.

He ruled that representative Louie Gohmert of Texas and a slate of Republican electors from Arizona could not show they suffered any personal harm “fairly traceable” to Pence’s allegedly unlawful conduct and, therefore, lacked legal standing to bring the case.

  Guardian

Too bad the lack of merit was not discussed.

A justice department lawyer representing Pence on Thursday had urged Kernodle to dismiss the lawsuit, saying they had sued the wrong person because they raised “a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for president are to be counted”.

“The Senate and the House, not the vice president, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy,” Pence’s filing said.

Yeah, well, they're not going to sue themselves.

“All this stuff about it [election fraud] being debunked, unsubstantiated, those are absolute lies,” [Gohmert] said, without evidence. “Basically in effect the ruling would be that you got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM [Black Lives Matter].”

Asshole.

Gohmert and his fellow plaintiffs said they would appeal.

Highly doubtful.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Gohmert and allied goobers are suing Mike Pence

It's because Pence drew the line at refusing to count Biden's electoral win on January 6.

The suit asks Texas federal judge appointed by Trump to declare that Pence has the “exclusive authority and sole discretion” to decide which electoral votes from a given state should be counted.

  CNBC

Absolutely absurd. He has no such thing.

When are these assholes going to get sanctioned?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Dismissed. Of course.  On the grounds that they lack standing.  Unfortunately, the merits are not discussed.  I should say, the lack of merits.  Gohmert says he will appeal.  I doubt it.

Suck harder, GOP Trumpies

Vice President Pence was sued Sunday by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and several other Republicans in a far-fetched bid that appeared aimed at overturning President-elect Joe Biden's election win.

The lawsuit focuses on Pence’s role in an upcoming Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count states’ electoral votes and finalize Biden’s victory over President Trump. Typically, the vice president’s role in presiding over the meeting is a largely ceremonial one governed by an 1887 federal law known as the Electoral Count Act.

But the Republican lawsuit, which was filed against Pence in his official capacity as vice president, asks a federal judge in Texas to strike down the law as unconstitutional. The GOP plaintiffs go further: They ask the court to grant Pence the authority on Jan. 6 to effectively overturn Trump’s defeat in key battleground states.

  The Hill

Even Gohmert isn't this stupid. It's just an attempt to kiss further up Trump's ass.

And here's the pleading naming the ass kissers:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The hoax is now running through Congress

"While I cannot blame anyone directly for this, this week has shown that there are some Members of Congress who fail to take this crisis seriously," he said in a statement. "Stopping the spread of a deadly virus should not be a partisan issue."

The Arizona Democrat announced he would enter quarantine earlier this week, shortly after Gohmert (R-Texas) revealed his positive test on Wednesday.

[...]

Gohmert wore a mask during that hearing except while questioning the witnesses, as mandated by committee rules, despite frequently refusing to do so while on Capitol Hill.

  Politico

We'll never hear the end of it

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Wednesday he will take an anti-malaria drug that experts have warned doesn’t treat the coronavirus after he tested positive for the virus.

"My doctor and I are all in," Gohmert said about hydroxychloroquine during a Wednesday evening interview with Fox News, according to Newsweek.

"I got a text before I came on from a friend doctor who just found out he had it, and he started the regimen too — zinc and hydroxychloroquine. And that will start in a day or two, so thank you," the congressman added.

  The Hill

Is his doctor Trump's doctor? Or Stella Immanuel?

Unless Gohmert dies, he - and the Trumpets - will claim hydroxychloroquine cured him.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jesus, Gohmert is doubling down

UPDATE:

It works.

UPDATE:

There is no reason anyone who walks the halls of Congress should be allowed to be in the building without a mask except in their own office.

UPDATE:

Yeah, asshole.  We SAW the pictures in the hall.

UPDATE:  Gohmert and his doctor are going to take hydroxychloroquine.

Gohmert has Covid-19

Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Gohmert was scheduled to fly to Texas on Wednesday morning with President Donald Trump and tested positive in a pre-screen at the White House. The eighth-term Republican told CNN last month that he was not wearing a mask because he was being tested regularly for the coronavirus.

  Politico

On Tuesday, Gohmert attended the House Judiciary Committee's hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr. He walked around his colleagues in the hearing room and outside it without a mask.

  The Hill

STDs aren't the only disease you can pick up in the men's room.

Gohmert has at times worn a facial covering while on Capitol Hill. But he has been among the handful of GOP lawmakers spotted on the House floor in recent weeks without a mask while mingling with colleagues.

Gohmert also raised eyebrows in March after he returned to the Capitol despite potential exposure to the coronavirus in March while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference. Other lawmakers had self-quarantined out of fear of exposure.

[...]

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, responded to the news of Gohmert's infection by condemning, more broadly, those Republicans who are still refusing to wear masks as they roam around Capitol Hill.

Those lawmakers, Jeffries charged, are threatening the health of everyone around them simply out of "fealty" to President Trump.

[...]

Gohmert is now the tenth member of Congress with a presumed or confirmed case of COVID-19.

Reps. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.), Ben McAdams (D-Utah), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Neal Dunn (R-Fla.), Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), Tom Rice (R-S.C.) and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), as well as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have also tested positive for the disease.

[...]

Most of the lawmakers who've had COVID-19 tested positive in March and April when physical distancing measures to curb spread of the disease had only just begun.

The handful who have come down with COVID-19 since then are all Republicans, some of whom have flouted guidelines like wearing masks.

[...]

House Democrats began requiring face masks at committee hearings in June. [...] Some committee leaders, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis Chairman James Clyburn (D-S.C.), have since made it a policy to not grant speaking time to any member not wearing a mask.

[...]

Nadler admonished some GOP lawmakers for not wearing masks during the hearing with Barr on Tuesday, including Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Mike Johnson (La.).

  The Hill

Some of the biggest jerks in Congress.

"I would remind Mr. Jordan, Mr. Biggs, and Mr. Johnson to stop violating the rules of the committee, to stop violating the safety of the members of the committee, to stop holding themselves out as not caring by refusing to wear their masks," Nadler said.

Forget requiring masks to speak. Require masks to enter the building, ffs.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Gohmert doubles down.

Despicable AND hypocritical

Like this?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) introduced a House resolution Thursday calling on lawmakers to ban organizations or political groups that have historically supported the Confederacy or slavery in the U.S., a list he said includes the Democratic Party.

“A great portion of the history of the Democratic Party is filled with racism and hatred. Since people are demanding we rid ourselves of the entities, symbols, and reminders of the repugnant aspects of our past, then the time has come for Democrats to acknowledge their party’s loathsome and bigoted past, and consider changing their party name to something that isn’t so blatantly and offensively tied to slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and the Ku Klux Klan,” Gohmert said in a statement.

  The Hill

In fact, did the makers of "Despicable Me" use Gohmert as their model for the movie's main character?  

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GOP: Just plain nuts

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) introduced a House resolution Thursday calling on lawmakers to ban organizations or political groups that have historically supported the Confederacy or slavery in the U.S., a list he said includes the Democratic Party.

“A great portion of the history of the Democratic Party is filled with racism and hatred. Since people are demanding we rid ourselves of the entities, symbols, and reminders of the repugnant aspects of our past, then the time has come for Democrats to acknowledge their party’s loathsome and bigoted past, and consider changing their party name to something that isn’t so blatantly and offensively tied to slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and the Ku Klux Klan,” Gohmert said in a statement.

The resolution is co-sponsored by GOP Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Randy Weber (Texas) and Andy Harris (Md.)

[...]

Gohmert also cited examples of racist policies within the Democratic Party’s history, including former President Woodrow Wilson’s endorsement of racial discrimination.

  The Hill

Meanwhile...

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) has introduced a bill to prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project in public schools.

“The New York Times’s 1619 Project is a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded. Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage,” said Cotton in a release.

Published last year, the 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that honors the year the first African slaves were brought to an English colony.

  The Hill

I'm not sure "honors" is the appropriate word.

"The goal of The 1619 Project is to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year. Doing so requires us to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country," said Jake Silverstein, editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine, in a letter.

The "Saving American History Act of 2020" would require the Department of Education to determine the cost associated with planning and teaching the 1619 Project in schools in order to reduce federal funding by that amount.

Irony in the GOP party died a long time ago. It's corpse is stinking.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.