Is it that time of year again for the semi-regular insurrection against Orange Julius that ultimately goes nowhere?
Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) said Sunday that he will challenge John Boehner (R-Ohio) as Speaker in the new Congress.
“I’m putting my name out there today to be another candidate for Speaker,” Gohmert said on “Fox and Friends.”
Gohmert said that after “years of broken promises, it’s time for a change.”
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) on Saturday announced that he would not support Boehner for Speaker.
“This is not a personal attack against Mr. Boehner, however, the people desire and deserve a choice,” Yoho said in a Facebook post. “In November, they resoundingly rejected the status quo.”
“Eventually, the goal is second, third, fourth round, we have enough people that say ‘you know what, it really is time for a change,’ ” Gohmert said Sunday. “’You deceived us when you went to Obama and Pelosi to get your votes for the cromnibus. You said you’d fight amnesty tooth an nail. You didn’t, you funded it.’ ”
Gohmert said, if elected, he would ”fight amnesty tooth and nail. We’ll use the powers of the purse. We’ll have better oversight. We’ll fight to defund ObamaCare.”
Seems my House Rep. Rand Paul Jr. Tom Massie is in on the deal too, the precious little twerp. Well, there will be lots of screaming and yelling and whatnot and in the end Orange Julius will still be in charge of the entire nut factory, because nobody else really wants the job (except for Captain Insaneo up there, and he also thinks Obama is taking advice from his “Muslim brothers” not to bomb ISIS and stuff).
Should be fun to watch, though.
OzarkHillbilly
As long as Louie is around, there is no need to go the full Gohmert.
Yatsuno
As was noted last night, the FSM doesn’t love us enough. And I think Gohmert just wants the title. I highly doubt he even knows what the Speaker puts up with, never mind having to grovel to Nancy to get stuff passed.
debbie
I’m listening to Glenn Beck interviewing him now. Too funny.
Betty Cracker
It’s all kabuki. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Boehner hands out dispensations to vote against him to select reps so they can burnish their cred with the SoCons in patriot drag back home while allowing Boehner to play the sane bulwark against the crazy tide with the establishment pundits.
gene108
If Boehner had done his job and impeached President Obama already, Gohmert would have no cause to oppose him.
If the House can pass through some variation of Repealing the Job-Killing Healthcare Law Act, 50 times since 2011 but cannot even hold one vote to impeach President Obama, I think it shows how totally screwed up Boehner’s priorities are vis-a-vis the Republican base’s expectations, hopes, dreams and desires.
debbie
Ha! Glenn can’t even get a word in.
Amir Khalid
I’m sure there’s a sane reason to want to be Speaker. Even with that completely mental Republican House caucus. There must be some grift that Gohmert’s working, right?
Howard Beale IV
Who can ever forget Gohmert’s “casting asperions on my aspargus”.
Comrade Dread
If there is a God with a sense of humor, every single Democrat will vote for Gohmert.
Yatsuno
@Comrade Dread: I think Nancy should tell her caucus to NOT bail out Böhner this time & vote for her as Speaker. And stick with that. Let them figure out their own shit & get this clown car rolling properly.
Mike in NC
After numerous fits and starts, we really have finally ended up with the worst Congress money can buy, filled with the most Republicans in 84 years. USA! USA!
MomSense
@Howard Beale IV:
I was thinking that Gohmert with the Speaker’s gavel does present a lot of opportunities for some clever photoshopping.
Yatsuno
@Mike in NC: Even if Böhner does get the gavel back, no more bailout votes. Nancy can let them run things by themselves and snipe from the sidelines. They got their majority, now let’s see how they handle it. And oh yeah I will LAUGH if the Turtle gets challenged too.
PaulW
there is a reason – not a sane one, but there is one – for the challenge.
Pure ego. Gohmert probably feels he is qualified and “ready” to lead a more conservative GOP-controlled House.
It might be possible, if a lot of the incoming freshmen GOP congresscritters who don’t owe Boehner a wooden nickel would back an openly anti-Obama fearmonger like Gohmert (just look at how the other chatty Tea Party types who wanted a shutdown in 2013 like Yoho are popping up with a No Confidence vote). They’ve talked the talk about impeachment and shutdowns and drowning government in Norquist’s bathtub, now they wanna walk the walk and actually do it.
The one thing that would have stopped the Tea Party crowd was the possibility the remaining Main-Street (RINO) Republicans in the House would switch sides and give the Dems and Pelosi control of the House. This time there might not be enough Main Streeters left (there’s what, 42 of them?). I’d do a head-count of the “moderates” and the Tea Partiers and see if there’s enough RINOs left that could dare drop out of the GOP and switch over to the Dems to keep the crazies from taking over…
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
Well, being a member of Congress comes with a decent paycheck. Apart from that, Gohmert appears to be the real deal. Real as in really a wacko.
srv
Even the Republican House is not immune to Obama’s weak leadership.
Iowa Old Lady
@Yatsuno: I doubt if Gohmert knows what the Speaker even does. I recall one story about the G-Man in an R caucus calling for them to pass some bill and Boehner having to tell him they’d passed it days ago.
RP
oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please
MattF
I suspect the House leadership is well aware of how loopy Gohmert looks and sounds. Their response to Gohmert is probably something on the order of ‘Oh, sure. Go ahead. Try not to impale yourself on your imaginary gavel.’ If Louie is the only challenge against Boehner, the R’s are doing pretty well.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Nothing like a knife fight with no knives.
Worst thing about Republicans is that they’ve become repetitive and boring.
Yatsuno
@PaulW: Nah. The GOP has the majority now so that makes Republicans the cool kids right now. What will irritate me more is Nancy bailing them out when they can’t pass jack.
Hal
I always read Ted Yoho’s name as Ted Yoohoo. Gives me a little chuckle every time.
Bobby B.
Now Chuck Todd is going to have a raging Gohmert-boner which shall not be slaked until Sunday’s program.
Shakezula
Aww, I want Loogie to rest up for a presidential run.
@srv: [Applause]
Shakezula
p.s. I just noticed Wonkette has replaced Nwzmx feed. For a moment I was HORRIBLY confused.
boatboy_srq
@Comrade Dread: No fair: keyboards and caffeine don’t mix. ,-) To be fair, though, that would be delicious only if there was a “no confidence” vote possibility: otherwise we’d be stuck with Speaker Gohmert for two years – and having that man in that role puts him about 329,999,997 seats closer to the pResidency than I’m comfortable with.
boatboy_srq
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
FTFY.
Belafon
@Comrade Dread: Gohmert claiming to be the bipartisan choice would be hilarious.
rikyrah
For those of you who, like me, need a laugh this morning, I point you to Luvvie:
The 25 Dumbest Tweets of 2014
Luvvie — December 31, 2014
When I did the first ever “Dumbest Tweets” list in 2010, it was with Miss Zindzi, the Matron Saint of Catching Twitter Foolery. That list started something (DumbestTweets.com) so it’s only right that she come back to help do the 5th list.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/12/25-dumbest-tweets-2014.html
The Thin Black Duke
Meanwhile, speaking of GOP lunacy, the voters of Kansas are finding out to their horror that elections do have consequences:
Botsplainer
@Yatsuno:
Gohmert is a Confederate. He’s fine with not passing it and bringing the whole thing down.
sparrow
@Shakezula: I for one will rather miss the Newsmax view of the neo-confederate Id. I mean it was basically xenophobia, fear of change, fear of death, and boner pills.
Roger Moore
@sparrow:
That’s totally unfair. There were way more ways of cheating wingnuts out of their money than just boner pills.
Hal
@The Thin Black Duke: if only there had been a recent election in which the voters could have sent him packing.
catclub
@rikyrah: I liked the synonym rolls.
ixnay
@Comrade Dread: Oh please oh please oh please
Tree With Water
I doubt that no one else in the GOP really wants the Speakers job. But I also doubt that the republican party is prepared to risk antagonizing Ohio voters prior to the ’16 election, so that’s that for the time being.
sparrow
@catclub: For some reason I felt bad for a couple of them… like the guy who wanted “inter lectual” conversations… I prefer to mock people I know to be nasty human beings rather than ignorant bastards that need to go back through K-8. :(
catclub
@sparrow: It was hard to tell, and I agree it is complicated. I suspect I would commit some of those ‘ironically’. So it is hard to tell if someone else did them unironically.
pseudonymous in nc
Well, it’s going to be a good way to put exact names and numbers to the paste-eating wing of the GOP House caucus.
Tree With Water
Off Topic. Way off… I just read the following: “According to Morelli, back judge Lee Dyer initially called for pass interference. Head linesman Jerry Bergman then convinced the group that the contact was “minimal” and “didn’t warrant pass interference.”
Bergman should be investigated by the FBI. If you disagree, just think how many $billions are gambled on NFL playoff games before scoffing or trying to defend an indefensibly horse-shit call.
Robert
the leader of the Moran Caucus…ol’ Louie never disappoints…
Punchy
@Tree With Water: The interpretation was that the Cowboys player was face-guarding, not a penalty. If that’s what was decided upon, then it was correct to pick up the flag.
You’d have to either be the stupidest man alive or have balls the size of Utah to be a ref making ~$200K simply working ~17 weekends a year and risk all that betting on a game you’re referee’ing. As if the NFL couldn’t smoke that out. No way these refs are that stupid or ballsy.
Liberty60
@The Thin Black Duke: I read the article- Man, the shaden, it is freude.
Meanwhile, here in California our all-Democratic government will run a budget surplus.
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
Give Sam a break.
Maths is hard!
Now lets see 4-2=42. There that’s it. Sam math.
philpm
@Yatsuno: I think Boehner just wanted the title too. It was obvious well before he became speaker that he had no ability to actually do what the job required.
Tree With Water
@Punchy: People are eminently fallible, all of us, including NFL officials. The mentality that a gambling scandal can’t happen “because” is naive in the extreme. Think back a couple of years, when that NBA ref was busted for shaving points. Or the SAC air force general in charge nuclear missiles, who was recently busted as a degenerate gambler. And my balls are way bigger than the state of Utah, and that call ranks as perhaps the biggest horse-shit call I’ve seen in many a moon, perhaps ever. It stank to high heaven.
Calouste
@Tree With Water: Considering that two international cricket captains, people with a way higher income potential than NFL referees, have been caught and convicted of match-fixing, thinking that an NFL ref who has been treated as disposable by his employer wouldn’t be suspected to corruption is laughable.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@philpm: Being Speaker means you can raise boatloads of money. When federal politicians retire, unless I’m mistaken, they can keep any remainder in their campaign accounts.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lurking Canadian
@Yatsuno: Does the Speaker need a majority, or would a plurality of votes be enough? If Boehner and Gohmert split the R votes for Speaker, is there a chance Pelosi can sneak in with 40% or so?
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Lurking Canadian:
It requires a majority of those present and voting (IOW, not counting those who abstain). So if only 100 representatives bothered to vote, you’d need at least 51 of those votes to win the office.
The Gohmert and Boehner wings of the House may genuinely hate each other, but there’s no way enough R’s will spite-vote Nancy into office. I fully expect Orange Julius to stay Speaker.
Heliopause
Depressing. I just googled the whip count and they’re going to need at least a dozen more defectors to bring any drama at all to this thing. Shoot.
brantl
Only problem is, he misspelled it.
SWMBO
In case any of you are on facebook, there is a page Steve Marmel that is public. This is one of his posts from today:
The new Republican congress is coming in this week.
If you’re a Democrat, you’re going to be tempted to blame the electorate for staying home. For not “doing their part.”
But the fact is, for whatever reason, the left didn’t get their message out. Whether it was the message of Obama’s successes, or a message of just how much damage a GOP Senate and House together would do.
And perhaps part of it was a feeling of betrayal – that the Dems didn’t do ENOUGH to fight for progressive values.
But it would be a mistake to blame voters. MOTIVATED VOTERS VOTE.
And that means a message that motivates them.
The Republicans knew what they wanted… and they got it. Their base came out more than the Dems, and now they control both upper chambers and a TON of lower chambers.
It’s going to be a difficult two years.
But a Presidential election is coming. And the way to motivate voters is not to alienate voters.
Stop shaming people for not showing up. They have shown up before. They will show up again.
But that vote needs to be EARNED, not expected.
Buckle up.
========
Give him a look sometime.