Louie! On Steroids!
Louie Gohmert is leading the fight to have Vice President Mike Pence throw out the election results and declare Trump the winner.
His lawsuit to make this happen was thrown out of court because … well, for starters it’s just silly to think the vice president can name the next president. The decision was announced by a Trump appointee.
So, Louie appeals it to the Fifth Circuit. Lemme tell you about the Fifth Circuit Court. It is two miles right of conservative, plus it has a bunch of Trump appointees on it. Now, pardon me for smirking here, but the Fifth Circuit did not required the other side to file a brief nor did they even require a hearing before they rejected the suit within minutes of it being filed.
Gohmert fast-footed it over to NewsMax and hollered …
“Bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this, you have no remedy,’” Gohmert said. “Basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you’ve got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM.”
It’s odd to me that those advocating violence will be locked inside the capitol building with heavy police protection.
I’ve started using Gohmert as a pejorative, i.e. “My brother is such a Gohmert.”
1I think the phrase is
2“Dumb as Gohmert “.
How is it even legal for anyone, even someone as foolish as Gohmert, or conniving as Cruz, to advocate violence against the government? Louie has already jeopardized Congress by showing up when he had Covid, wasn’t that enough. January 6th is just going to be painful to watch.
3You would think Louie should have a better understanding of how a court works in America, as a former judge. If his recent filings are any indication that he might have played fast and footloose with the rules, somebody should look into the trials he formerly adjudicated.
4There’s at least 140 gohmerts in the house and more than a dozen croozers in the senate, and likely more. I don’t mean to offend Texan patrons of WMDBS because you’re as disgusted as all of us, but maybe there is a part of Texas that could secede and take these guys with it. And several other Texas embarrassments. And invite the ron johnsons and like minded repugnanticans to move there. Trumpf could be president and pence could be vp. And then build a big beautiful wall around it.
5We in DC are getting more than a little antsy about what might happen this week. As in people are wondering if they should keep their kids home from daycare, which is located a little too close to downtown. And, I usually take the bus and subway to the Tuesday farmers market on the other side of the Capitol. Should I just skip it this week and avoid downtown altogether? The head of BLM in DC has asked everybody to stay away and not counter-protest. Sounds like a plan to me.
We still haven’t heard from the Mayor or the new Chief of Police about any of this.
6I am old enough to remember when the 5th Circuit was praised for its civil rights record and for helping lead the South out of Jim Crow. Interesting how a panel of judges can evolve into its opposite over a generation or so.
Also an interesting lesson: If you are planning to rely on courts for political victories, do not impugn and insult the judges.
7Just checked fox’s site for this story. Crickets.
8There’s always been an element of “translating” an opponent’s statements in politics. That on decades worth of steroids is the basis for current repugnantcan power, and our 2 different realities. And the judge louie’s translating is a trump appointee from louie’s hometown. Even trump just calls for supporters to show up for a wild time. But louie claiming a federal judge is advocating political violence?
That’s not foxplaining. That’s Sedition.
Heard the DC Mayor on MSNBC this morning and she is urging everyone to just stay home and stay safe! I wonder if the National Guard will be called out to try to keep the peace … if that’s even possible with the gathering idiots!
9Gohmert … his asparagus has more brains then he has!
What was it like to appear before this loon when he was a trial judge. After 48 years, I’m something of a connoisseur of trial judges. I can only imagine it must have been terrifying.
10The Louie Gohmerts and Marsha Blackburns are the result of 40 years of GOP lunacy.
11A lot of us are worried about both this week and at and immediately after the Inauguration. But there are a couple of things to say about responses to right-wing violence in today’s world.
1. Local law enforcement has strict limits on where it can operate even as militarized as it is in some areas. Unfortunately, local LEOrganizations have been heavily infiltrated with right-wing activists in many areas, from sheriffs in love with the posse comitatus arguments to police unions that might as well be a branch of the KKK or American Nazis. On the whole, cannot be trusted to “support and defend the Constitution” or “serve and protect” any part of a local population they don’t like (typically persons of color.)
2. National Guard. Thanks to a combination of its claimed history (descendant of colonial militias), the complicated series of laws over time used to make these militias useful to the national regular military (plus the natural ability of humans to create logical impossibilities) the position and use of National Guards is complicate–and in the case of Washington, D.C., which is not a state and thus has no governor–makes the internal use of National Guard troops in D.C. highly problematical. The D.C. National Guard reports only to the President and is under his control. Other National Guard units have a dual identity–as a state military unit, and as a federalized unit under the Defense Department and President. These identities have different allowed activities. A state guard mobilized by the governor–acting as a unit of the state–can perform law enforcement tasks in an emergency, as part of the state’s own law-enforcement/military. A federalized unit mobilized by the President in an insurrection, riot, etc. cannot. The National Guard was put under the control of the Defense Department with regard to foreign deployment as part of the Total Force Policy, post-Vietnam War, and can thus be deployed by a President outside the state but not as a police force. With this President still in office, any National Guard units deployed by him will be used…badly, let’s say. For instance, since D.C. is not a state, and a unit mobilized directly by the President is considered to be operating as pure military not as state-militia-military, it isn’t legal for it to perform law enforcement duties (including traffic control)…but do any of you think Trump would pay attention to that?
3. Other federal law enforcement personnel have been used in D.C. (as in the hot mess involving Trump’s desire for a photo op with a Bible)…these persons are usually under the control of the Attorney General in some capacity–again, nothing you want around in D.C. when the President wants to overturn an election.
4. Military. Just to get this out of the way, the National Guard’s oath of service/office is not the same as the regular military’s, and thus my understanding is that National Guard officers have no positive duty to disobey unlawful/unConstitutional orders. (Hence Kent State, Abu Ghraib, and other hot messes involving the National Guard.)
Military officers’ commissioning oaths do NOT require an oath to obey orders from the President or any particular rank elsewhere along their chain of command. The oath is strictly to support and defend the Constitution of the United States–not the flag, not the President, not Congress, not any person(s) or thing(s) other than the foundation of our laws. This was a clear intention of the founders, a concern because the laws they were most familiar with all demanded loyalty and obedience to persons, not legal systems.
There is no “king/queen and country”…there is the Constitution for principle and the UCMJ for determining whether the order was illegal.
So probably the only persons who would stop Trump from marching military troops through D.C. to protect the Proud Boys, KKK, and American Nazis are those military officers who have the guts to tell him NO. He’s already been told that once by at least two flag officers in the “Bible-photo-op” event. Are their right-wing fanatics in the military? Sure, but even some of them have a binding commitment to the military’s demands. I am sure exactly this kind of discussion has been going on since the election if not before, at all levels of the officer corps in all branches.
12Steve from Beaverton: Any suggestion that some part of the country “just secede” is inflammatory (even here) and unwise, whether joking or serious.
13There is a new op ed, signed by EVERY living former Defense Secretary, saying the military has no role in political determinations. Astonishing that such a message needs to be stated at all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html
“Given these factors, particularly at a time when U.S. forces are engaged in active operations around the world, it is all the more imperative that the transition at the Defense Department be carried out fully, cooperatively and transparently. Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates — political appointees, officers and civil servants — are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.”
“We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them….”
14One of his new colleagues has indicated that she intends to carry arms into the chamber to protect herself. And the current House rules do not prohibit such an act.
The Caning of Sumner in 1856 was an event that signaled the complete polarization of political factions in the US leading to the civil war.
The conditions in the House seems to be inching to the same situation. 2021 promises to be an interesting year.
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