We're SO close to a bracket of 64. RT @thehill: SCOOP: Rep. Gohmert weighing presidential bid http://t.co/SIagyo76hK pic.twitter.com/RzSCVDtZNg
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) March 27, 2015
Yeah, now it’s officially Silly Season, and it’s not even April Fool’s Day:
Conservative firebrand Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told The Hill that he might run for president in 2016…
“Conservative firebrand” sounds so much more presidential than Charles P. Pierce’s cruelly accurate moniker for Gohmert: “Emperor for Life of the Crazy People.”
Gohmert indicated he might launch an exploratory committee for president when originally asked if he would support Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) White House bid.
“Ted is a good friend and would be an outstanding President; however, I haven’t ruled out an exploratory committee myself,” Gohmert said in a statement to The Hill…
Punk newbie be stealing precious media attention, and on Gohmert’s own Texan turf!
Gohmert is a frequent guest on Fox News and is known around the Capitol for his lengthy, extemporaneous speeches to a usually empty House chamber on weekly basis. He logged the most speaking time on the House floor last year out of any other lawmaker: a whopping 29 hours.
Gohmert’s 29 hours of floor time last year far outstripped the runner-up, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who spoke just 10 hours…
Ah, Steve “Pigslurry” King, another fierce competitor for the Crazy People throne, getting the spotlight just because his pitiful little state has a lock on the early caucuses. Louie Gohmert will not be ignored!!!!
No matter how much of spectacle he has to make of himself, he surely will not be ignored. Per the Washington Post‘s tech section:
It was a fairly sleepy congressional hearing, the last in a two-week marathon of appearances by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler before lawmakers to defend his agency’s net neutrality rules. But then Louie Gohmert chimed in.
Gohmert (R-Tex.), an outspoken critic of the agency’s rules that prevent Internet providers from blocking Web sites or speeding some of them up over others, exploded during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. His voice rising to a shout, Gohmert threw a stream of accusations at Wheeler, complaining that the FCC had cut off Internet providers’ ability to find new ways of making money.
“Before the FCC came in, everybody could explore new business models,” Gohmert said. “You’re playing God with the Internet … That’s not your job.
“Congress wasn’t asking you to take over the Internet,” he added, referring to the FCC’s congressional charter…
And for all that energy expended, I’ve yet to see so much as a mocking .gif of Gohmert’s tantrum.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In one of may accidental moments as a Fox viewer, I caught Goehmert on Hannity. Hannity calls him “Judge Goehmert”. Apparently this nitwit was a fairly high-ranking judge in Texas. That’s more than a little frightening.
zippity
Sorry for the ot post right away, but it is an open thread. I barely use twitter, mostly just read my home feed. Tonight I clicked on a Flotus tweet, and the first response was some woman with my photo as her avatar. What the?? Is this common?
And-seriously-I don’t think a clown bus is going to be big enough.
Tree With Water
Harry Truman told of presiding over the senate one day when Huey Long harangued an empty senate floor. Walking home after the session, Long asked Truman what he thought of his speech. Truman said he replied, “Hell, Huey, I had to sit there and listen to it”. He added that Long (who was not long for the world) never forgave him.
Feebog
I think we are now up to a clown train.
mai naem mobile
Okay, now the GOP is just putting out a huge Thanksgiving buffet, Easter Spread, Champagne Brunch and Christmas Dinner all wrapped in one so that the Dems gorge and drop dead from a heart attack. C’mon Goober Gohmert? There are only so many radio talk shows and tv shows they can be slotted into.
mdblanche
@efgoldman: I’m pretty sure every Republican in the country is going to run. The primaries will be a tie with each candidate stuck at one vote apiece.
Waldo
Optimum number of GOP presidential debates is now -7.
Chet
Not so fast. A Gohmert POTUS campaign was too good to be true, apparently.
gf120581
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He was, which is why I’m glad he’s now in the House, where he’s basically a gadfly who yells a lot and makes a horse’s ass of himself on a daily basis, but can’t cause any real damage. As a judge, he could do a LOT. I could not imagine anyone accused of a crime who had to face justice with that imbecile presiding over his or her case.
cmorenc
Gohmert’s committee would begin its explorations in the bat caves around Nacogdoches, Texas in his congressional district, and go from there.
Trentrunner
So far:
Bush
Walker
Christie
Paul
Perry
Cruz
Jindal
Fiorina
Carson
Santorum
Trump
Whatever else this is going to be, it is going to be FUN.
mdblanche
Dear GOP,
There too many candidates these days. Please eliminate a million and three.
PS: I am not a crackpot.
mdblanche
@efgoldman: All of them.
burnspbesq
Not even Louie Gohmert can upset me when I’m listening to Garland Jeffreys’ Ghost Writer.
askew
At least the GOP nomination will be entertaining. Not sure we’ll get the same on the Dem side.
Since this is an open thread, I am having a shitty day and was looking forward to getting my package from Amazon with a gift for my nephew. I open it to find that the toy that was sold as new on their website was a dirty, used toy. Supposed to give it to him on Sunday. More than a little pissed about it.
Culture of Truth
GOHMERT 1816
Adam
@Waldo:
I, for one, can’t think of a more entertaining way to give myself brain damage. (Besides the obvious)
Misterpuff
@Culture of Truth: Gohmert gives away the game:
His voice rising to a shout, Gohmert threw a stream of accusations at Wheeler, complaining that the FCC had cut off Internet providers’ ability to find new ways of making money.
They are not even trying to hide the fact that they exist to exult the 1%.
max
@efgoldman: I know the addition of klowns to the klown kar is a source of great fun and amusement to folks of the rational persuasion. But the more klowns, the more they split the krazy klown vote, and the less chance that the klown kaukus will koalesce around just one of the RWNJ klowns. All the easier for a “non-krazy”, but just as konservative a kandidate to kruise to the nomination without letting his freak flag fly during the nomination process. Which would be too bad.
“LADIES! GENTLEMEN! We have a SHOCKING surprise entry in the Republican Klown Kar Demolition Derby 2016! Ladies and gentlemen, a true honor, a King among pinheads! A Pinhead among Kings! LOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE GGGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOO MMMMMEEEEERRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!
{crowd goes bezerk}
AND! — Can you believe it, ladies and gentlemen! — Louie will be the first entrant driving a motorized barstool! Jesus Christ Hisownself could not have picked a better vehicle!
{crowd cheers)
OH MY! The Pinanity! He’s going to do it …. WITHOUT A HELMET!
{crowd starts foaming}
O my stars and garter, I never thought I would live to this kind of derby!….I can stop crying! Tears of joy!”
max
[‘Jesus does truly loves us, ladies and gentlemen! Will you join me in bowing your heads and giving thanks to the Creator for this gift?’]
Steeplejack (phone)
@zippity:
Can you remember the origin of the photo, where the person might have gotten it? My first thought is it’s a troll who wants to pose as a woman and thought a photo would help.
Villago Delenda Est
The ignorance, the stupidity…it’s appalling.
This fuckstick has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. It’s all wingnut cant.
jl
Bwahahahah!
heh heh heh… yeesss. I said there would be 50 GOPer candidates on the stage at the first debate, and they all laughed at me. yes, they did… they all laughed. Well, who is laughing now. ha ha ha?
More more more, I want more GOPers in the race. I want to see that deep bench of complete lunacy. Yes!
Fifty loon GOPers or fight! If Gohmert enters, the dam will burst open. Ha ha! They’ll ALL run!
fuckwit
The beltway-media-wurlitzer-grifter complex will eat itself. And I will watch and enjoy every minute of it.
NotMax
Texas: It’s a whole ‘nother
countrydimension.max
I haven’t seen this many exploratory committees since I last saw an Emmanuel movie.
max
[‘Take my SkineFox… PLEASE.’]
Mike in NC
I spent just enough time in Texas to understand what a horribly fucked up place it is and why it sends the worst politicians to DC.
About one out of four eligible voters there even bother to go to the polls, so we get shitbirds like Delay, Armey, Bush, Perry, Gramm, and the rest of these fuckers doing their best to ruin all our lives.
danielx
Oh please please please….I was mystified for a while as to how it is that so many can look in the mirror and see presidential timber staring back, but then I figured it out. As with so many things, it’s thanks to Dubya – “if that fuckin’ moron could get two terms, I’ll be preznit for life!”
The Republic of Stupidity
Meanwhile, somewhere else Dunning & Kruger are laughing so hard they can’t get off the floor…
fuckwit
@Mike in NC: Umm, how are those turnout numbers any worse than the country at large, i.e. look at the disaster that was 2014.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I have to say, I find “How It’s Made” fascinating in part because you see how many parts of manufacturing jobs still have to be done by hand.
Ruckus
That R behind their names should be FR.
As in Fucking Ridiculous
wasabi gasp
Everyone gets a trophy.
PurpleGirl
I guess Gohmert has no idea what DARPA and DARPANET are and what part they played in the development of the internet. I guess he doesn’t know that when various scientists talked about alternative communications mechanisms at private companies, the companies didn’t want to hear about it, didn’t want to support research, basically didn’t want to have anything to do with computers. (AT&T Longlines especially didn’t want to hear or think about alternatives to telephones.) The scientists at colleges, certain other companies and the military did want to think about communications alternatives and so Congress gave them the support they needed. Considering the amount of public money that went into the development of DARPANET, I don’t believe that companies that wanted nothing to do with communications research should not get to take advantage of the mechanisms in a way that they (companies) get to make a profit on something my tax dollars supported the development of.
(Sorry no cites but this is based on personal knowledge gained from friends who were doing some of that DARPA research and using DARPANET.)
David Koch
On the 7th day, God took one of Adam’s ribs and created the intertubes.
Groucho48
So, Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rogers, on her Facebook page, asked folks to post their horror stories about their experiences with Obamacare. Well, she didn’t get quite the response she was hoping for. This is her page. Scroll down a bit to the Obamacare entry and dig in. Some wonderful encouraging comments on what Obamacare has meant to lots and lots of people.
https://www.facebook.com/mcmorrisrodgers?fref=photo
David Koch
@Groucho48: kind of sad how the blogosphere was on the wrong side of history.
SWMBO
@David Koch: No. No. No. It was on the 8th day when baby Jeebus was trying for a science fair project and accidentally made it happen.
NotMax
@David Koch
Oughtn’t that be the 0111th day?
Calouste
@The Republic of Stupidity: Apropos of Dunning-Kruger, the other day I saw someone name Bitcoin as the Dunning-KrugerRand. Of course, Dunning-KrugerRand could also be used for the gold coins that Glenn Beck et al. are flogging to the rubes on their shows.
Calouste
@Groucho48: McMorris Rodgers, one of the many reasons why we should donate Washington east of the ski slopes to Idaho.
jonas
When did Republicans decide that they would go to the mat for Verizon and Time Warner on the net neutrality thing — especially since basically all of Silicon Valley and the rest of the business world except for a couple of the big cable providers are ardently in support of NN? It’s like going all in for some big construction firm that builds freeways while pissing off the entire automotive industry.
opiejeanne
@zippity: I have spotted photos of my grandfather in the blogs of strangers, simply because it was a picture of a bunch of guys at a Hollywood studio in the early 20s. They didn’t know that the big guy in the middle was Jack Dempsey, nor care that the tiniest guy in the shot was my grandpa. He was a still photographer for the studios in the teens and twenties.
Calouste
@jonas: First, there’s Cleek’s Law. Obama was for it, so the Republicans are against it. Second, the major cable companies are arrogant, rude, incompetent, monopolistic bastards, who want to rake in the money without actually doing any work for it. In other words, exactly the same as a Republican Congresscritter.
Baud
@jonas:
Who is the last Republican to lose for being too friendly to business?
Zinsky
Let the GOP run human sewage like Gohmert. It provides a very stark contrast to the intelligent human beings on the other side. The man is dumb as a stump!
Hal
Gohmert is right. Look at how terrible internet is in much of Europe and Asia. Far faster speeds for far less money? No thanks.
brantl
@danielx:
It started with Rayguns, the Alzheimer’s president.
Betty
As Chet pointed out at # 10, Gohmert retracted this “announcement”. Said he was only kidding. What a funny guy!
LanceThruster
Klown Karnivale Konvoy.
David Bader
“pitiful little state” you are sounding like King and Goehmert – I will defend my pitiful little state knowing that each state is filled with morans and good people
Epicurus
Just a small correction, Ms. Laurie; that’s “Padishah Emperor For Life Of The Crazy People ” I will have to go look that first word up; Mr. Pierce has a vocabulary as impressive as his wit. And a quick trip to the Font of All Knowledge tells me it’s of Persian derivation, along the lines of “Master” + “King.” Yup, about sums up ole Louie, Louie. He makes Michelle Bachmann look intelligent!
boatboy_srq
@Groucho48: Somehow I wound up on some wingnut Teahadist’s email list. He’s out of state, and apparently I can neither email for removal nor call his office to complain (because being out of state I’m not a constituent). He just published a poll to find out how his constituents HATE Obummercare. I freeped it happily. Anyone else who wants to join in will be welcome.
boatboy_srq
@jonas:
Your answer right there. Silicon Valley is home to the Intertubes’ Hotbed of DFH Soshulism. See Enron, the Downfall of Gray Davis and the Rise of the Governator.