TWGB: *Whom* the Law Binds, Now?*

 

Peter Navarro was tremblingly aggrieved today to find that the act of dodging a lawfully issued subpoena caused him to be treated like a common criminal. Who in the world did they, the Department of Justice, think they were dealing with? It's not like in the time he was working diligently for the public that anyone who mattered thought he was the unethical toady of a vicious moneyed would-be tyrant. (I mean, except for the people who did. But did they matter?) They intercepted him at the airport for crying out loud! As if they were watching him! (Do you think!?)

It's getting so conservatives can't even lie to Congress or the Feds, noted legal mind Louie Gohmert opined. If you're a conservative, of course. He's thinking of how Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman was acquitted of lying to the FBI because it wasn't actually proven, and how Michael Flynn, who plead guilty to lying to the FBI (and apparently, was unmasked quite innocently in a scandal that wasn't, thank you so much), was absolutely railroaded by having his sentence shortened by Trump AG Bill Barr before being pardoned by Trump himself. It's the damnedest thing when Republicans can nearly be held accountable for stuff they did and you can hardly hold Democrats responsible for stuff you want them to be punished for. 

Amusingly, or not, Navarro was just telling the world how when Trump was back in power all the people would pay. That's a lot of moxie for a guy who was pretty open about how he and Steve Bannon were staging the Green Bay Sweep. Next, they are going to be saying trying to steal an election is a bad thing--even if you're a Republican. It's a god-damned upside-down world. 

Now, about that stealing elections thing--I know I'm going to come across as some kind of stickler, but with each bit of material gleaned from the Trumpers (especially Mark Meadows, MVP, whose texts are a source of abundant context), it sure does look that it was they, not anyone else, who were fixing to steal an election, and apparently detailed what they were going to do in assorted memoranda. (Insert jokes regarding taking notes on a criminal conspiracy here. I'm too tired.)  It didn't even entirely occur to them that subverting the will of millions of voters would even matter in the end so why not be a little aggressive about it? (I mean, better to ask forgiveness than gain permission and all that? Or even coerce forgiveness in the form of compliance by way of martial law. You know. Strongman shit.) 

And did the 81 million Biden voters really matter? Particularly the ones whose votes could just be thrown away?  Probably ones in dodgy areas like the Philly metro area--I wonder if that was something Mark Meadows discussed with Scott Perry before those notes went up in smoke. Why Republicans think heavily Democratic-voting areas are rife with fraud is certainly a puzzlement is it not?  (Looking at which voters the Republicans will choose to intimidate in the future and insert it in the very real context of who has gotten to vote in this country historically, it certainly is not.) 

In order for democracy to work, it is necessary that even Republicans be bound by the law. But upon hearing they might be so bound, they sure are fit to be tied. 

UPDATE: AS an entire afterthought--isn't the least bit problematic that the former president wanted a mob to kill the former VP? Because I know the former VP is all like, "bygones", but in the real world, that kind of depraved indifference is basically murderous. (Sorry, l wasn't paying much more attention than the former VP seems to be feeling about that. But he totally could have died and Trump would have been okay with it. ) 

*We acknowledge the valuable contribution of our internet sages at Strangely Blogged.

Anyone Who Had a Heart

Gohmert fires back at Democrats on gun debate: "You think we don’t have hearts?" https://t.co/AbZhcO3ktD pic.twitter.com/UdlpX80nve

— The Hill (@thehill) June 3, 2022

Yes, Louie Gohmert has a heart--it's the thing that pumps the blood into his face when he acts indignant that he is being called complicit with the mass shooters. It's alwys been his brain that I've been agnostic about--maybe if he showed more eidence of it? But as it stands, if he and his Republican colleagues did actually care about the gun violence situation in this country, they would actually know more about how lax gun laws have worked to put guns in the hands of the wrong people instead of giving the same old NRA-derived talking points. I get that this agitated display was for the base, but it doesn't persuade anyone for sensible gun control of much. The only thing Republicans really seem to be working on is their acting skills.

TWGB: A Little Help From His Friends?

 

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because he was incompetent at everything, including rigging an election in favor of himself. He tried to damage his opponent's reputation with a spurious investigation in Ukraine even before the man had even won his primary (and because Trump is Trump, he was lousy at that, too, got caught and was impeached). The basis of the investigation didn't have to be real--the appearance of a problem would have been enough for Trump, and he would have been getting people to say "Lock him up!" at rallies. 

I mean, the more or less mundane Wikileaks drops from hacked Democrat emails were enough to get people chanting "Lock her up!" about Hillary Clinton, and who knows what he could have done if he actually got hold of her own emails? (Notwithstanding that too, was kind of stupid, since he ended up with the Mueller investigation.)

So why wouldn't asking the DOJ to declare that the election was corrupted have the same effect? Tell the Big Lie, have some official cover for the Big Lie, and let the fun and games begin for politicians like himself and the "R.Congressmen" referred to in the notes kept by deputy AG Richard Donoghue.

After all, it's not like his little fan club wasn't prepped to believe that there would be voter fraud--he told them so every chance he could, and his campaign even deputized the little devils to think of themselves as his "Army" of poll watchers (and freelance voter intimidation thugs). He certainly railed against the mail-in ballots enough. (Although it is strange, isn't it, that having been certain that things were going to be rigged against himself since before the 2016 election, he never worked with congress to do anything concrete about election security?)

TWGB: Suspicious Behavior

 

I usually center TrumpWorld Grab Bags on Trump himself and his immediate circle, so I'll kick this one off with Trump, the desperate one-term wonder who for some reason was practically stalking his acting AG with concerns over imagined "voter fraud".  From the piece:

Trump’s calls to Rosen show the degree to which the president was personally involved in such efforts, however, and the ways in which Justice Department officials walked a tightrope of listening to the president while not taking any concrete actions they considered unethical or partisan. 

The conversations also offer new clues into the president’s mind-set in early January, when he entertained a plan to replace Rosen with a different senior lawyer at the department — Jeffrey Clark — who was more amenable to pursuing Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud. That possibility nearly touched off a crisis at the highest levels of federal law enforcement, people familiar with the matter have previously said.

It really sounds to me like Trump was pretty desperate to hold onto the presidency and was going to use any kind of power he had to try and hold onto it. Maybe that was because once stripped of some of the protections of office, he's back to being legally culpable for his own bullshit, like his and his family's endorsement of MLM products and the possible Trump Org skim from the Presidential Inauguration.  Or who knows what other things (like the still being litigated E. Jean Carroll defamation suit) that the office of the presidency sort of shielded him from. Having the White House Counsel as his taypayer-funded support system must have felt great while it lasted, since he hates paying lawyers.  (I wonder--did Giuliani miss a memo? Because Trump not paying for shit isn't new.)

But this grab-bag is going to focus on Trump allies and why House GOP are seriously wigging out right now, and I think it's because they are so culpable. Take Margarine Tater Grease--I don't know that she's the pipebomber, but she certainly thinks people should have known the bombs were there on January 5th. Now, why would she think that? 

Then there's the case of Kevin McCarthy, who wants us to know he did talk to Trump during the insurrection, but only to talk about ensuring that resources would come to where he was hunkered down ASAP--so old Kev is basically copping to knowing it was Trump, not Pelosi, who was supposed to deploy the DC National Guard. We knew that. 

See Who The GOP is Siding With

 

Sgt. Gonell, who is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and a naturalized U.S. citizen, says that one of the Capitol rioters "saw my skin color and said you’re not even an American." pic.twitter.com/NpI2L8N1fP

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 27, 2021

Sgt. Gonell was a professional law enforcement officer doing his job against a criminal, domestic terrorist mob that day, and Trump's little violent fan club did not see him as a fellow American. They also called him a "traitor" and a disgrace" for doing his job that day, because they apparently had no idea that they, that day, were the barbarians at the gate. They called his fellow officer Harry Dunn racial slurs, looking past his uniform and only seeing him as a man of color and a Biden supporter. Michael Fanone was also called a "traitor", and had to plead that he had a family for fear that these people might kill him with his own firearm. Officer Daniel Hodges recounts being asked if he was their "brother" by the domestic terrorists, because they didn't understand why a white police officer wasn't on their side.

The picture these officers relate is certainly not one of a patriotic love-in that seems to exist only in the delusional mind of the loser of the 2020 presidential election. It was a largely white/Christian supremacist violent insurrection, which certainly did include people who were armed that day, or who made weapons of whatever object fell to hand. 

Republicans (other than Cheney and Kinzinger) wanted to distract from all of this. They wanted to blame Nancy Pelosi for things that had nothing to do with her, like Rep. Elise Stefanik claiming that somehow she was responsible for the security situation that day. For one thing, the Speaker of the House doesn't control the DC National Guard, the President does. (From the website: "This authority to activate the D.C. National Guard has been delegated, by the President, to the Secretary of Defense and further delegated to the Secretary of the Army.  The D.C. National Guard is the only National Guard unit, out of all of the 54 states and territories, which reports only to the President. " )

What Stefanik is doing is basically the Benghazi "stand down" ruse--claiming something must have happened that almost certainly under the circumstances makes no sense within the timing or for any plausible motivation, but might sound plausible to people who really fucking hate liberal politicians. Why in the world would Nancy Pelosi, certainly a target of the mob, not want her workplace and her very own ass defended? That's just stupid, and while Stefanik is probably not an actual idiot, she should be very definitely upbraided for promoting such a stupid easily debunked lie for no other reason than cynical politics. 

But she is not alone in being a signifying distraction. 

Louie Gohmert is Speaking "Jive"

 

ORBITS: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) asks whether the Forest Service or the BLM can alter the orbit of the moon or the Earth in order to fight climate change during a House Natural Resources hearing pic.twitter.com/yYiOyi2cMZ

— Forbes (@Forbes) June 8, 2021

I'm seeing a lot of liberals assume that the gibberish that Rep. Gohmert is spouting here is ignorance or signs that he's nuttier than chipmunk turds, but actually, I understood what he was getting at because he isn't talking liberal language. He's talking a very specific kind of climate denialist "jive"--and I get it. I'm by no means fluent in it, but just to cut through the "Can we change the orbit of the moon?" bullshit--

 

He's being disingenuous. It's usually a kind of Christian climate denialist cop-out I think of as the "God is God" gambit. Climate change can't be anthropogenic because we're not powerful enough, and even if we were, nothing happens that isn't God's will, and since you can't change the moon's orbit or solar flares, well then! There's nothing to be done, so sorry. Nice run, old Planet Earth, but we've a place way up yonder.

(Often, it goes along with "God promised he would not kill us with a flood again", which is just--also bizarre and not right.)

It's not supposed to be connected to any science. He mentions the orbit of the earth and moon and the solar flares thing as a distraction. Scientists largely agree that climate change is mostly caused by humans. The slight changes in either the moon's orbit or Earth's around the sun are happening a a rate we wouldn't really notice. Solar flares cause barely a ripple. But the dismissiveness is the point. 

See Marjorie Taylor Green on the "so-called science" of evolution. The coronavirus had to be created in a lab because it didn't evolve you guys. That's just silly heathen science. Demons invented it in the labs with alien DNA and baby parts. That's the only thing that makes sense. Use your brain, morans!

If you wanted to question, well, how then, did anyone learn to engineer a virus except by observation of biological changes in organisms over time? Well, the moran is you, because nothing about her statement is intended to invite a debate or even a real conversation.  It signifies to people who agree with her that she's with them--it doesn't have a thing to do with the objective reality we want to talk about.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the both of them are dumb as hell, and it's just as well. They aren't conveying anything of any sense to people who want a meaningful conversation, anyway. So maybe they deserve the Twitter outcry--it's just, they are probably wearing it as an "owning the libs" moment because they got the pointless display they wanted. 

Win Stupid Prizes

Rep. Louie Gohmert thinks that it’s possible that wearing a mask gave him COVID. pic.twitter.com/kucy119Pcv

— Charlie Gile (@CharlieGileNBC) July 29, 2020

Rep. Louie Gohmert wants to blame the mask because he wasn't comfortable wearing it and kept re-adjusting his with his own dirty hands. So...that would be a personal problem then, wouldn't it? Apparently, he's a bit of a schmoozy so-and-so, so I can only imagine the folks (mostly GOP folks, right?) that he's been having face-to-face chats with, and I dunno, he looks like a frother. Word is that he told his staff he tested positive in person, so he's clearly being not at all careful.

Ol' Louie is a special case, naturally. But it would be reaaallly great if this raised other House members' sense of alarm. Yes, the very contagious disease is very contagious. Take it seriously.

UPDATE: Gohmert isn't the only House member who takes stupid risks with other peoples' health:

-- FROM AN AIDE TO A REPUBLICAN MEMBER WHO HAD COVID: “I’m obviously not allowed to speak on behalf of anyone but it may be worth looking into how many Republican offices are also requiring all staff and interns to come in to work while taking no precautions. Ridiculing people for wearing masks is also not uncommon. I think you’d find a lot of offices in the anti-mask brigade are forcing staff to report to work even if they have legitimate concerns about their health. I’m sure you also [could] find some are having staff … travel to districts in high risk areas and then not providing for quarantine afterwards.

Simply inexcusable. And very, very stupid.

Everybody's a Theater Critic

"Did your investigation find that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from one of the candidates winning?"

Robert Mueller: "Yes."

"And which candidate would that be?"

Mueller: "Well, it would be Trump. The president." https://t.co/4TAVylX3T9 #MuellerHearings pic.twitter.com/6GJYndrEF4

— ABC News (@ABC) July 25, 2019

I didn't watch the Mueller hearing because I was at work like a an awful lot of Americans were, and for what it's worth, I already read the report and have been following the story of Russia's involvement in the 2016 election since 2016, so I didn't really feel like it would be "must see tv" for me. I also don't really have faith in the idea that what folks really need is for the Mueller Report to be brought to life through the magic of color television--it's kind of quaint. See, this isn't the olden days were everyone is watching the same thing and shares the same set of media gatekeepers who minimally shepherd us through the details with a maximum of restraint and professional dispatch. At worst, we have fabulists who will just rewrite what people just saw through a partisan lens (yes, I mean Fox News). And at second worst, we've apparently got theater critics.

"How were the questioners using their time?" "Did Mueller seem awfully monosyllabic? Is he okay?" "Is this 'moving the needle'?" Blah, blah, blah. Instead of concentrating on the overarching message (yes, Russia interfered, and yes, Trump and associates lied and blocked attempts to investigate, and yes, the next election is also ripe for interference, and no one seems to be doing bugger-all about it), media-hours are being filled with reviews of the spectacle, and we've lost the plot.

Robert Mueller is not an actor. Neither are the congressmembers who queried him--although some are doubtless more tv-friendly than others. I hate to go all "Medium is the message", but I wonder if viewing in this format doesn't prime people for expecting a very particular kind of drama, where appreciating actually serious details, like the admission that Trump lied in his written responses to the Mueller team, lack that theatrical whatever that a "Perry Mason"-style confession creates. Another issue is that just because people aren't actors doesn't mean they aren't playing a role--and in this case, the GOP members (Gohmert, Nunes, Gaetz) basically used their own version of theater to pull the proceedings off narrative. It isn't that the conspiracy theories introduced made sense--it's that they were produced at all, that bogged down the narrative.

I don't know what House Dems wanted from Mueller, but when he seemed disinclined to provide it, they should have taken the very large hint that it's up to them to hold Trump accountable, if anyone is to do it. My thinking has been that, if House Dems build a case, eventually public opinion will follow it. (Wasn't it the esteemed statesman Wayne Gretsky who said "You lose 100% of the cases you don't make?" I'm struggling with Speaker Pelosi's strategy, or possible lack of one, in this respect. As with her distancing attitude towards "the Squad" a few weeks ago, before Trump's racist attacks inadvertently created some cohesion, it's possible that she worries about maintaining cover for the members of her caucus in redder districts and doesn't want them maneuvered into a difficult, electorally-damaging choice--but I'm not thrilled about the reasoning there, because the alternative is doing nothing.

That's not a good alternative. It lets Trump off and it lets the entirety of the GOP who have been giving him cover off. It seems like there's an electoral benefit in using that. This Mueller thing has ended on an anticlimax--but the big dramatic payoff waiting for us thrashed about on the White House lawn after the hearing calling reporters "fake news".

ME: “Mueller said you could be criminally charged after leaving office?”
TRUMP: Denies Mueller said this and then when I challenge him on facts, calls me “the worst.” #MuellerDay #MuellerHearing pic.twitter.com/1v66aApQKJ

— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) July 24, 2019

Forget Mueller, you guys--there is an ACTOR! Put him on the stage. It isn't as if he hates attention (unless we're talking about his tax returns, his business dealings, his grades, his bone spurs....)

See what I mean? Drama!

Louie Gohmert Is Copying Mike Huckabee

East Texas' very own Village Idiot Louie Gohmert has opined on North Carolina's anti-LGBT law by confessing that he would have completely dragged it up to watch little girls pee:

“When it comes to this current legislation where — in most of the world, in most of the religions, the major religions, you have men and you have women, and there are some abnormalities but for heaven’s sake, I was as good a kid as you can have growing up, I never drank alcohol till I was legal, never to, still, use an illegal drug, but in the seventh grade if the law had been that all I had to do was say, ‘I’m a girl,’ and I got to go into the girls’ restroom, I don’t know if I could’ve withstood the temptation just to get educated back in those days,” he said.

Huh, really? Gohmert would have announced he was trans and then--asserted different pronouns, or a new first name, or taken a beating or a dozen for being a girl in the wrong skin? No, I guess Louie Gohmert pretty obviously doesn't get that being trans isn't about just alleging to have a given gender identity, but you know what? I'm so old, I remember when Mike Huckabee said the exact same thing:

Huckabee continued saying saying he wished someone told him in high school he “could have felt like a woman” and shower with the girls.

“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” said Huckabee. “I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’ You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

Except, of course, that was being a teenager in high school and showering with other teenage girls. Being twelve and watching little girls pee seems a little odder. Girls' rooms don't have open stalls. Girls don't take off our shirts to pee. Sitting down, you can't really see anything, even if you were in an adjacent stall and for some weird reason, got up to look over the stall by standing on the toilet seat or whatever.

And that is just weird as hell. That's not an argument against being trans. It's like saying he has a pee fetish about little girls. And if Louie Gohmert has a pee fetish about little girls, he's a fine one to start shit about anyone else.

So there.

The Speaker of Nothing Will Most Likely Abide

You know, deep down, I want to believe that the Congress, as currently constituted, still understands that Rep. Ted Yoho is a dunce and Rep. Louie Gohmert is floridly delusional.  And I mean, floridly.  They are both avid batshit peddlers, and in their way, could each advance aspects of conservatism as it now exists in ways we would be frankly astounded by, as if yokels at a freakshow. (Did I mention the Speaker of the House is third in line for Chief executive in the ultimate emergency where the top two are disposed of?)

Still and all, I think batshittery will give way to experience, and despite the regular dunking of the only adult in the GOP  Kiddie pool, Boehner  will continue his tenure of pulling snouts out of the water. It seems thankless. I bet it is.

And maybe there's an off-chance the GOP lottery will draw a non-House GOP
stalwart, like Ted Cruz (I know they like him, anyway--at least he isn't dipstick dumb and batshit cray, amirite?)  Also Ted Cruz is way down with the House GOP.

Not sure what it means when I am wishing Cruz for a leadership position, but OMG--I know Boehner is dysfunctional, but Yoho and Gohmert are not capable persons. Anything but one of them.

This right here is our current Immigration Crisis.

This kid is talking with a border agent because he knows US authorities aren't mean.

He doesn't know about our congresspeople who are a little mean. Like Rep. Louie Gohmert, who still probably thinks "terror babies" are a thing.   Gohmert is scared that  these kids will become citizens and vote democrat, even though Obama is deporting them as fast as he can .

There are exactly zero reasons why any migrant kid would vote for the party of Louie Gohmert, providing one ever got to be a citizen. Making Louie Gohmert the self-fulfilling prophecy of his party's demise?

Or something. I'm not pretending this is actually sensible. I'm just saying some Republicans seem to think this.

All Over Lil' Ol' Obamacare, Too

So, I went looking for what I think is the banner thing--the symbol--the geegollysothatswhatdoneitall failure to communicate that we have here. And I came across this:



Now, that voiceover is the Once and Future Rex Ronaldus Magnus, telling all us heathens about how the Founding Fathers wouldn't have stood for no Medicare, no way, no how. You know, the Medicare that has become so much a way of doing things in this country that the last Republican president actually expanded the pharmaceutical coverage under it and the last Republican candidate for president used a fear that President Obama might cut Medicare as one of his biggest scare lines. Medicare, the thing that some naïve Tea Folk might hope the government keeps its hand the hell off of.

After 41 attempts to defund, repeal, or otherwise fool with Obamacare, for crying in the soup, sore loser Republicans, can we please get past the Louie Gohmert fucking line of deliberate ignorance?

Because it is no longer 2009. This question is for Republicans in the House: You somehow got enough people into the House of Representatives to make a go of expressing your sorry-ass displeasure that the private health insurance that many people get through paying lots of money in premiums for, or otherwise work for as part of their employment package, is now extended to less-funded individuals, rather in the way Heritage designed it and Romneycare first enacted it some time ago. You never did get enough senators to repeal it, though. So what gives?

Why Mascots Don't Call Plays

I'm left with the impression of puppies bred in a nightmarish kennel where they are not only unhealthy, but have, for some unknown reason, been subjected to an experiment where they are rewarded for messing on the floor. After several generations, the result will be dogs good for nothing but producing conspicuous, noxious, ill-timed and centrally-placed messes. And they will, naturally, be conditioned to expect a reward for them.

There Isn't A Penalty for Guys Like Steve King

You know, I am not surprised that Iowa Rep. Steve King is hanging in regarding the jackass comments he made regarding drug mule immigrants with calves like cantaloupes from schlepping as much as 75 lbs of reefer (on foot!) across the desert. This is who he is. This is what he says all the time. He's been a US Representative since 2003 with these very views. He's been a birther. He gets on tv. John Boehner can comment on King's actions, but you know what? He doesn't penalize him by taking away his position on any committees. He doesn't call for a censure.

And Steve King isn't alone. Take Louie Gohmert. He recently went out of his way to compare the civil rights of minorities to that of "snail darters" and other assorted wildlife. This is a guy who rambled on about "terror babies"   He's been a US Representative since 2005. He says crazy shit all the time. Doesn't hurt him any.  If anything, he grows stronger in the Derp side of the Force every day.

People can talk about there being lines you can't cross in our political discourse, and maybe to an extent, they might try and classify racism as being a certain line--but that line isn't in the same place in every region of the country. And these guys kind of show that even if there is a line you don't cross--as such, it can be politically profitable (to them, anyway) to come up to that line, sometimes, and just kick the bejesus out of it.

And I tend to believe that the kind of person who would return a Steve King or a Louie Gohmert to Congress for term after term? Probably is not susceptible to shame over their shenanigans either. I have wondered if these folks are like villagers who just send their idiot to Washington so that they can have a vacation from him, but no. I think they are more like people who have mistakenly become pursuaded that political contests are not about establishing who is a more competent office-holder, but a bid for who might be a more attention-getting mascot.

This is sad, and I am not sure what the corrective would be.

(X-posted at Rumproast.)

This Week Rep. Louie Gohmert Selected Newt Gingrich For Speaker of the House.

I think it salutory, for the purposes of enumerating the symptoms of the Republican party as it currently stands, to occasionally visit with Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, demon-hunter,  terror-baby historian,  and all-around Right-Wing Whackadoodle. This week, he did indeed nominate former House Speaker as well as recent GOP primary candidate for President Newt Gingrich to once again be Speaker of the House. 

This time, however, I entirely get where he's coming from. Newt Gingrich, if you were politically aware in the mid-90's, was the guy who got the government shut down. As the last debt ceiling foo-raw-raw indicated, I think Louie Gohmert would like very much for this to happen.  If current Speaker of the House John Boehner shows continued committment to trying to actually continue this sinful thing called US government by means of negotiating with a Muslim Comsymp like Obama, obviously, true patriots like Gingrich stand in the wings to shut it down like a, a, shut-downable thing.

I think. It's kind of hard to stay in the Gohmert-zone without wanting oxygen and maybe a stuffed toy to cling to.