Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Remember that the seditious conspiracy that Donald Trump formulated in order to overturn President Biden's election didn't just involve white supremacist domestic terrorism groups like the Proud Boys, it involved still-sitting GOP members of Congress that should be tossed from office and into prison. One of those members is GOP Rep Jim Jordan of Ohio.

Rioters who smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, succeeded — at least temporarily — in delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s election to the White House.

Hours before, Rep. Jim Jordan had been trying to achieve the same thing.

Texting with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a close ally and friend, at nearly midnight on Jan. 5, Jordan offered a legal rationale for what President Donald Trump was publicly demanding — that Vice President Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role presiding over the electoral count, somehow assert the authority to reject electors from Biden-won states.

Pence “should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” Jordan wrote.

“I have pushed for this,” Meadows replied. “Not sure it is going to happen.”

The text exchange, in an April 22 court filing from the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot, is in a batch of startling evidence that shows the deep involvement of some House Republicans in Trump’s desperate attempt to stay in power. A review of the evidence finds new details about how, long before the attack on the Capitol unfolded, several GOP lawmakers were participating directly in Trump’s campaign to reverse the results of a free and fair election.

It’s a connection that members of the House Jan. 6 committee are making explicit as they prepare to launch public hearings in June. The Republicans plotting with Trump and the rioters who attacked the Capitol were aligned in their goals, if not the mob’s violent tactics, creating a convergence that nearly upended the nation’s peaceful transfer of power.

“It appears that a significant number of House members and a few senators had more than just a passing role in what went on,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, told The Associated Press last week.

Since launching its investigation last summer, the Jan. 6 panel has been slowly gaining new details about what lawmakers said and did in the weeks before the insurrection. Members have asked three GOP lawmakers — Jordan of Ohio, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California — to testify voluntarily. All have refused. Other lawmakers could be called in the coming days.

So far, the Jan. 6 committee has refrained from issuing subpoenas to lawmakers, fearing the repercussions of such an extraordinary step. But the lack of cooperation from lawmakers hasn’t prevented the panel from obtaining new information about their actions.

The latest court document, submitted in response to a lawsuit from Meadows, contained excerpts from just a handful of the more than 930 interviews the Jan. 6 panel has conducted. It includes information on several high-level meetings nearly a dozen House Republicans attended where Trump’s allies flirted with ways to give him another term.

Among the ideas: naming fake slates of electors in seven swing states, declaring martial law and seizing voting machines.

The efforts started in the weeks after The Associated Press declared Biden president-elect.

In early December 2020, several lawmakers attended a meeting in the White House counsel’s office where attorneys for the president advised them that a plan to put up an alternate slate of electors declaring Trump the winner was not “legally sound.” One lawmaker, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, pushed back on that position. So did GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Louie Gohmert of Texas, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant in the Trump White House.

Despite the warning from the counsel’s office, Trump’s allies moved forward. On Dec. 14, 2020, as rightly chosen Democratic electors in seven states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — met at their seat of state government to cast their votes, the fake electors gathered as well.

They declared themselves the rightful electors and submitted false Electoral College certificates declaring Trump the true winner of the presidential election in their states.

Those certificates from the “alternate electors” were then sent to Congress, where they were ignored.

The majority of the lawmakers have since denied their involvement in these efforts.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia testified in a hearing in April that she does not recall conversations she had with the White House or the texts she sent to Meadows about Trump invoking martial law.

Gohmert told AP he also does not recall being involved and that he is not sure he could be helpful to the committee’s investigation. Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia played down his actions, saying it is routine for members of the president’s party to be going in and out of the White House to speak about a number of topics. Hice is now running for secretary of state in Georgia, a position responsible for the state’s elections.

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona didn’t deny his public efforts to challenge the election results but called recent reports about his deep involvement untrue.

In a statement Saturday, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona reiterated his “serious” concerns about the 2020 election. “Discussions about the Electoral Count Act were appropriate, necessary and warranted,” he added.

Requests for comment from the other lawmakers were not immediately returned.

 

Understand that these fraudulent electors were in violation of the law, and understand that multiple GOP lawmakers were in contact with these crooks in a conspiracy to use their fraudulent slate of electors to elect Trump.

 

Understand this only failed because VP Mike Pence wouldn't go along with it.  If Pence had chosen to cooperate, we'd still have a Constitutional crisis on our hands, but Trump would still be in the WHite House most likely.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Another court filing by the January 6th Committee has revealed more devastating evidence against sitting GOP members of Congress and their role in participating in the conspiracy to overthrow the American government.

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.

Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee — part of an effort to force former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear for an interview — suggest that some of Trump’s top allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where a handful of strategies to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election.

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.

“They felt that he had the authority to — pardon me if my phrasing isn’t correct on this, but — send votes back to the States or the electors back to the States,” Hutchinson recalled.

The disclosure came as part of a Friday evening court filing by the select panel asking a federal court to throw out Meadows’ lawsuit against the committee. In the filing, the select committee revealed that Meadows turned over 2,319 text messages during a brief period of cooperation but withheld more than 1,000, citing various privileges.

“[H]e was not acting as anything like a typical White House Chief of Staff advising the President on official matters of government policy,” House General Counsel Doug Letter wrote. “Mr. Meadows was playing a campaign role, attempting to facilitate a strategy that would have reversed the certified results of the 2020 election.”

The committee indicated that Meadows told Jordan in a text message that he supported efforts to convince Pence to send the election back to the states.

“I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen,” Meadows texted Jordan early in the morning on Jan. 6.

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 conspiracy to defraud the United State and overthrow the government, sedition, is right there in the open, folks. We know it happened because it's still happening. These same people are trying to remove Biden and all Democrats from power. 

The question remains what we choose to do about it. Because if the answer is "nothing" then the days of MAGA bloodshed and violence will only get exponentially worse.

A man was arrested this week for threatening violence over the dictionary definition of “female,” the latest indication of where things are headed in this moment of homophobic and transphobic hate.

According to the Department of Justice, 34-year-old Californian Jeremy David Hanson sent threatening messages to Springfield, Massachusetts-based Merrimack-Webster through the dictionary’s online contact form.

“[Your] headquarters should be shot up and bombed,” Hanson wrote. ”It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive.”

There’s good reason to take threats like Hanson’s seriously. Street violence against the LGBTQ community is increasing at a time when attempts to marginalize and dehumanize them at the legislative level are snowballing.

In Morrisville, Vermont earlier this month, a trans woman named Fern Feather was stabbed to death; the killing came after escalated anti-trans rhetoric from state GOP leaders (who have since blamed the killing on “defund the police”).

A Florida family beat the boyfriend of their youngest son nearly to death and blinded him—teachers in the state are banned from telling children about the very existence of gay and trans people. The state’s Health Department issued guidance recommending against people under the age of 18 transitioning, even socially; a bill in Missouri (one of a series of laws proposed around the country) would make giving gender-affirming treatment punishable by law.

What Republican want is power, and the ability to used armed force against those out of power to keep them there forever. We're getting closer to that breaking point every day.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

It was only a matter of time before GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Republicans made their post-Trump move towards being the party of Whites official with the formation of the America First caucus, complete with a focus on "Anglo-Saxon political traditions".

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) are starting a right-wing caucus in Congress that seeks to “follow in President Trump’s footsteps,” which could prove yet another thorn in the side of Republican leaders already struggling to unite a bitterly divided party.

According to a seven-page policy platform published by Punchbowl News, the group wants members to display “a certain intellectual boldness” and be willing to “step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows” – in other words, break with the GOP on some issues.

Among the group’s positions are a belief in unfounded claims of widespread election fraud and support for voting restrictions, as well as an effort to roll back all coronavirus safety measures and “make sure we do not overreact to a pandemic in this same way again.”

A lengthy passage on immigration says the U.S. is “a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions,” which is “threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse.”

Under “infrastructure,” the platform promotes “architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture,” echoing Trump’s now-revoked executive order banning many modern architectural styles for federal government buildings.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who Punchbowl reported had “agreed to join,” told Forbes he is “looking” at joining the America First Caucus but said he “hadn’t seen” the language about immigration, claiming the group is “not supposed to be about race at all.”

“We’re stronger, you know, as diversified,” Gohmert said when asked about the incendiary language in the platform, adding “there’s some things that helped make us strong – slavery nearly destroyed us, it was a horrendous thing.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who is under federal investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, tweeted he is “proud” to be joining the caucus, which he said will “end wars, stop illegal immigration & promote trade that is fair to American workers.”

A spokesperson for Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), denied Punchbowl’s reporting that he joined the group: "He will not agree to join any caucus until he’s had an opportunity to research their platform."

Nick Dyer, a spokesperson for Greene, confirmed the existence of the group to Forbes in a statement that said to “be on the look out for a public release for the America First Caucus platform when it’s released publicly very soon.”

Forbes has reached out to Gosar’s office for comment.

The term “Anglo-Saxon” has become increasingly controversial, particularly in academia, due to the adoption of the term and its symbology by white supremacists. A medieval studies group originally called the International Society of Anglo Saxonists even changed its name in 2019 after a member alleged it emboldens white supremacy.

“We’re taught, when we get on an airliner, before you help somebody else, you put your own mask on first, so that you are capable of helping somebody else,” Gohmert said of the caucus’ philosophy. “If we let our country go without taking care of America, making sure we’re viable for the future, then we’re not going to be in a position to help the other countries,” he added.

 

House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is in full panic mode over this, because he knows exactly what this means for GOP chances in any 2021/2022 race where the electorate isn't at least 80% white. 

 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Friday that the Republican Party is not the party of "nativist dog whistles" in an apparent response to a new right-wing caucus that explicitly calls for promoting "Anglo-Saxon political traditions."

McCarthy issued a tweet that does not explicitly reference the new "America First Caucus" — established by GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — but came hours after its policy platform began leaking to the media.

"America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and success is earned through honest, hard work. It isn’t built on identity, race, or religion," McCarthy wrote.

"The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln & the party of more opportunity for all Americans — not nativist dog whistles," he added.

 

Except of course here we have Republicans explicitly stating that the GOP is absolutely the party of racist, nativist dog whistles and that those who are not White and of European descent are unwelcome in the party and unwelcome in America.  Even McCarthy realizes that's a political death sentence for the GOP in a state like his own California, and increasingly in states like NC, Georgia, Michigan and Arizona, and deservedly so.

The larger issue of course is that the GOP is dispensing with the appetizer and salad course and going straight to the, well, white meat dish. There's no longer any pretending that the GOP isn't the party of Whites First, and anyone remaining in the party at this point, well.

No real doubt as to their loyalties, huh?

Last Call For The Dumbest Man In Congress

And of course the first major GOP idiot to run afoul of the new metal detector rules in the House is Louie Gohmert of Texas.

“This fine has nothing to do with following the rules and everything to do with furthering the Democrats’ never ending scheme to demonize and punish their political opponents,” Gohmert said in a statement Friday night. 

A senior Democratic aide had relayed news of the violation after the House voted in favor of a Democratic-led measure to impose fines that would deduct $5,000 from the salaries of members of Congress who refuse screening by metal detectors outside some doors of the House chamber.

Repeated attempts to circumvent security screening could yield fines of $10,000. Gohmert and Rep. Andrew Clyde (GA) appear to be the first lawmakers to be assessed for the fines following approval of the new rule earlier this week.

In the Friday statement Gohmert vowed to appeal after being slapped with the fine, saying he had first complied with the screening, but after leaving the House floor to use the restroom declined being “wanded” upon re-entry. 

“Unlike in the movie The Godfather, there are no toilets with tanks where one could hide a gun, so my reentry onto the House floor should have been a non-issue,” Gohmert wrote, adding: “I will be appealing the fine and taking whatever action is necessary, especially considering this policy is unconstitutional.”

Gohmert’s fury comes as House Republicans have increasingly pushed back on reinforced safety measures in the wake of the deadly Capitol riot last month.

On Friday, Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) joined by 41 House Republicans, issued a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urging for the removal of fencing around the Capitol that was installed in preparation for President Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20. Reports have indicated that the fencing could be permanent, but Budd and his group of GOP colleagues have pushed back on the measure which they say will turn the Capitol into a “permanent fortress.”

In a statement after Tuesday’s vote to approve the hefty fines for skipping the detectors, Pelosi chastised GOP colleagues who she said “began disrespecting our heroes by refusing to adhere to basic precautions keeping members of our Congressional community safe — including by dodging metal detectors, physically pushing past police, and even attempting to bring firearms into the chamber.”

“It is beyond comprehension why any Member would refuse to adhere to these simple, common-sense steps to keep this body safe,” Pelosi said at the time.

Like Trump, Gohmert is expecting the Roberts Court to magically remove the House's Constitutional abilities to set its own rules. Somehow, I bet he's going to end up owing tens of thousands of dollars.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

We've known for some time now that the White House knows full well who the whistleblower is in the Ukraine/Giuliani affair and has known for months.  All the Trump and GOP posturing to "unmask" the whistleblower is just that, posturing.  We know this because that's all Republicans in the depositions over the last several weeks have been asking about, in an effort to discredit them.

Republican lawmakers have used the congressional impeachment inquiry to gather information on a CIA employee who filed a whistleblower complaint, press witnesses on their loyalty to President Trump and advance conspiratorial claims that Ukraine was involved in the 2016 election, according to current and former officials involved in the proceedings.

GOP members and staffers have repeatedly raised the name of a person suspected of filing the whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations into his political adversaries, officials said.

The Republicans have refrained during hearings from explicitly accusing the individual of filing the explosive complaint with the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general two months ago, officials said.

But the questions have been interpreted as an attempt “to unmask the whistleblower,” whose identity is shielded under federal law, said several officials with direct knowledge of the depositions. Republicans appear to be seeking ways to discredit the whistleblower as well as other witnesses “by trying to dredge up any information they can,” one official said.

Admitting they know they person's identity is illegal, hence the word games and ridiculous gymnastics, but they know full well who the person is and have for some time.  What they are doing is making it clear to Democrats that the person's identity is compromised, and that it will be revealed sooner or later.  It's witness intimidation.

A Republican staffer disputed assertions that Trump allies are seeking to unmask the whistleblower, arguing that those involved in the impeachment inquiry do not know the person’s identity but have suspicions. A separate senior GOP aide argued that exploring the political leanings of the whistleblower and others testifying before impeachment investigators is a legitimate line of questioning, as their political preferences could taint testimony and findings.

“This is an utterly unfair characterization of how Republicans are using their time in the depositions and advances erroneous facts to benefit Adam Schiff’s partisan effort,” the senior GOP official said in a statement, referring to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.). “Our questions have resulted in the unearthing of material that Democrats want to ignore because they run counter to their impeachment quest.”

The first Republican official also argued that Democrats have been asking leading questions and that GOP members feel it is important to highlight facts they believe will be exculpatory for Trump — particularly regarding suggestions that Trump used U.S. aid to Ukraine as an enticement to obtain a political favor. 

As a result, Democrats contend that Republicans are not using the inquiry to uncover facts about the administration’s interactions with Ukraine. “There’s been zero interest [among the GOP] in actually getting to the conduct of the president,” a Democratic lawmaker said. “It’s not the subject of their questioning at all.”

The GOP laying the groundwork now for the screw-job later is important when the hearings move to the televised stage, perhaps as early as next month.  It's why Democrats are moving away from the whistleblower's testimony being vital in the wake of the recent depositions.  After all, if the dumbest Republican Congressman knows who the person is, it's definitely the worst-kept secret in DC.

But trashing the whistleblower as part of the "Deep State conspiracy" against Dear Leader was always going to be the plan and still is.

Deportation Nation, Con't

The party of separating refugee kids from their parents and keeping them in cages in detention camps seems to think that martial law on the southern border is going to be a political winner for them in a couple weeks.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) suggested that President Donald Trump might have to declare martial law along the southern border of the United States to prevent a large group of Central American refugees and migrants from entering the country.

Gohmert appeared Tuesday on the “Todd Starnes Radio Show,” a Fox News program, to discuss the so-called migrant caravan, a group of thousands of migrants currently en route to the United States to seek asylum or residence.

Starnes called the group of mostly Honduran nationals a “mob.”

“If, in fact, this mob heads towards California, what’s gonna happen then?” Starnes asked Gohmert. “Because [Democratic governor] Jerry Brown will welcome them. You know it’s a sanctuary state. Do you think the president will allow that to happen?”

“I don’t think the president will allow that to happen,” Gohmert replied, suggesting that Trump could send troops to the borders over Brown’s objections and that the California governor would be committing treason by aiding the migrants.

“This has got to be so massive, I mean, you might have to declare martial law along the border,” Gohmert said. “And the Democrats have been to stupid to realize that encouraging this caravan they may actually empower the president to do things they never wanted.”

When Starnes asked Gohmert what “martial law” would look like, the congressman responded that it would mean “federal troops coming in and being at the border, and if anyone tried to stop them, they could be dealt with.”

“You would probably need federal law enforcement to be there to arrest any Americans who might try to stop it,” he elaborated. “The military needs to have their weapons pointed towards Mexico and not toward the American people, but it may be that we have to have enough federal law enforcement, and maybe we have to have the National Guard if Jerry Brown is going to force the issue ― but I hope and pray he won’t be so stupid as to try to stop the U.S. government from enforcing our border because then we’re talking treasonous-type acts.”

I know picking on Louie Gohmert, arguably the most ignorant and brutish oaf in Congress (and that's really saying something in 2018) is the definition of low-hanging fruit, but Gohmert seems to be in the midst of an ecstasy of going the full Kent State on The Scary Brown Horde™ and that's, you know, crimes against humanity and what not.

But note the Gohmert makes no distinction between the fate of the convoy and that of the need for "weapons pointed towards the American people" because they're traitors in his eyes, and especially note that Gohmert considers this an excuse to use the full coercive power of violence reserved for the state against its political internal enemies to remove them from the earth.

As I keep saying, right now America is at hard six headed towards seven on the Ten Stages of Genocide, but Gohmert is ambitiously thinking we need to skip the whole "internment, removal and property theft" mass deportation phase of seven and go straight to the trial massacre part of eight where a whole lot of people end up dead.  I mean, China's moved quickly down this chart into seven with ethnic Uighur Muslims and Beijing is definitely in the concentration camp phase of that particular operation currently, eight is probably already underway.

Gohmert's just letting us know that the Trump regime plan is to blame Democrats when something similar becomes "necessary" here very, very soon.  They want that shooting war, they want that crackdown, and they want to finally purge America of those people so badly they can taste it.

Will anyone take a sitting Congressman to task for his call for martial law, mass roundups and even deadly force to be used on US citizens? Not Gohmert's Texas constituents.  Five Thirty Eight figures he'll get 70% of the vote anyway, at he does pretty much every two years.

Like I keep telling you guys, this is America.  This is who we are and always have been.

Last Call For Maximum Gohmert

You knew GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert wasn't going to be able to resist the awesomeness that is the US military's Jade Helm 15 exercises in Texas and the Southwest.

Tea party darling Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Tuesday demanded that the U.S. military alter a planned training exercise that some conspiracy theorists believe is cover for a possible takeover of the Lone Star state.

Gohmert said in a statement that he understands Texans' concerns that the exercise, dubbed "Jade Helm 15," may be a precursor for martial law. He directed his criticism specifically at what has been reported to be a map of the training exercise, which labels Texas, among other states, as "hostile" territory.




"Once I observed the map depicting ‘hostile,’ ‘permissive,’ and ‘uncertain’ states and locations, I was rather appalled that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority, ‘cling to their guns and religion,’ and believe in the sanctity of the United States Constitution," Gohmert said in the statement.

"Such labeling by a government that is normally not allowed to use military force against its own citizens is an affront to the residents of that particular state considered as 'hostile,' as if the government is trying to provoke a fight with them," he later added.

The congressman urged the military to alter the tone of the training exercise and draw up a new map so as to dispel any notion that the federal government is "intentionally practicing war" against particular states.

States attacking other states?  Boy, he must have really hated the Confederacy actually doing that 150 years ago.

Seriously, Gohmert's going to be howling about this for months, might as well let him exhaust himself with a tantrum or sixteen now.

It's not a precursor for martial law, but it's not like Gohmert is, you know, sane.  PS, if this was under Bush's watch, noooobody would have cared.

The Ultimate Sanction

Reeling from a massive defeat in the polls over the shutdown debacle that they caused, Republicans are now making open threats that if President Obama doesn't meet their demands and the GOP then fails to raise the debt ceiling, the resulting default will be an impeachable offense...for President Obama.

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."

Moose Lady picked up on this theme last weekend as well.

President Barack Obama is risking “impeachable” offenses with the way he is handling the debt limit debate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said in a post on her Facebook page Monday. 

“Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense,” Palin wrote.

The threat is pretty explicit here:  unless the President gives in to the GOP's extortion, they will force the nation to default, blame the President, and begin impeachment proceedings.  They will also impeach if the President tries to go around Congress and raises the debt limit by executive order through the 14th Amendment, which President Obama has said multiple times he will not do.

But of course if the options are "default and be impeached" and "raise the debt limit by fiat and be impeached" the remaining option Republicans leave is a deal to raise it on their terms.  Hell, some of most rabid Tea Party Republicans say they will never raise the debt ceiling now, so you can see where this is going.

Will the debt ceiling battle become an impeachment fight?  I'm thinking there's more than a few wingers who want to see that fight play out, and are already using the threat as leverage to wreck any possible deal that comes out of the Senate.

Once again, Obama Derangement Syndrome threatens to destroy the country.

So Three Schmucks Head To Egypt...

...and I wish I had a really great joke to go along with that opening, but sadly that's the headline to this story of GOP dipsticks Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, and Steve King actually going to Egypt.  To have a press conference.  Where they announced their plans to undermine US foreign policy for all the entire world to see last weekend.

Tea party-backed Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) on Saturday held a press conference in Egypt to thank the country’s military for overthrowing the elected government, and at one point even seemed to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood had been behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

“Together, we’ve gone through suffering. Together, the United States and Egypt, have dealt with the same enemy,” Bachmann explained. “It’s a common enemy, and it’s an enemy called terrorism.”

“We want to make sure that you have the Apache helicopters, the F-16s, the equipment that you have so bravely used to capture terrorists and to take care of this menace that’s on your border,” she continued. “Many of you have asked, do we understand who the enemy is? We can speak for ourselves. We do.”

“We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed here for the people in Egypt. We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against this great evil. We are not for them. We remember who caused 9/11 in America. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans. We have not forgotten.”

So yes, if you're keeping score, these three clowns 1) went to a foreign capital in order to criticize the President, 2) promised the Egyptian military an increase in military aid after staging a coup, the exact opposite of stated US policy,  and 3) blamed Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood for 9/11.

This is actually breathtakingly awful, it should be illegal, and it should get all three of these jackasses tossed from the House.  But hey, they're Republicans attacking the President, so nobody will care.

Last Call For Tinfoil Louie

As pathetically funny as Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert is, we are reminded from time to time that people of TX-1 (East Texas, specifically Lufkin and points north along the border with northwestern Louisiana) have elected this clown show five times now, and he's never gotten less than 61% of the vote.  He will continue to be elected, he will continue to be a national embarrassment, and the people of TX-1 will continue not to give a damn and do it anyway.

And he will continue to spout idiocy like this as he compares the battle to civil rights for minorities to the rights for endangered species.  Because apparently, both annoy him.  Referring to Democrats Steve Cohen and John Conyers:

GOHMERT: There is nobody in this chamber who is more appreciative than I am for the gentleman from Tennessee and my friend from Michigan standing up for the rights of race, religion, national religion of the Delta Smelt, the snail darter, various lizards, the lesser prairie chicken, the greater sage grouts and so many other insects who would want someone standing for their religion, their race, their national origin and I think that’s wonderful.

And yes, thanks to the magic of gerrymandering, he'll be able to say stuff like this for at least the rest of this decade and most likely the next.  Awesome prospect, right?