Louie Gohmert announced on Sunday that he would challenge John Boehner for the position of Speaker of the House, telling Fox and Friends “I’m putting my name out there today to be another candidate for Speaker.” Gohmert added that after “years of broken promises, it’s time for a change.”
After picking myself off the floor, I started thinking the entertainment value of having Gohmert serve as Speaker as well as the possibilities it would provide for Democrats to sweep the 2016 elections.
Below are 8 reasons Gohmert might just turn out to be the most amusing House speaker in history.
1. Speaking of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell“: In 2014 Gohmert alleged that the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will make the U.S. more “vulnerable to terrorism” because gay soldiers will take after the ancient Greeks in bringing their lovers to the front lines so they can “give them massages before they go into battle.”
I’ve had people say, ‘Hey, you know, there’s nothing wrong with gays in the military. Look at the Greeks. Well, you know, they did have people come along who they loved that was the same sex and would give them massages before they went into battle. But you know what, it’s a different kind of fighting, it’s a different kind of war and if you’re sitting around getting massages all day ready to go into a big, planned battle, then you’re not going to last very long. It’s guerrilla fighting. You are going to be ultimately vulnerable to terrorism and if that’s what you start doing in the military like the Greeks did … as people have said, ‘Louie, you have got to understand, you don’t even know your history.’ Oh yes I do. I know exactly. It’s not a good idea.
2. Speaking out on the trans-Alaskan pipeline: In a 2012 meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee, Gohmert stated his strong support of a trans-Alaskan pipeline, as a means for caribou to have more sex. According to Gohmert,
So when [caribou] want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline. … So my real concern now [is] if oil stops running through the pipeline … do we need a study to see how adversely the caribou would be affected if that warm oil ever quit flowing?
3. Speaking about the 2012 massacre in Aurora, Colorado: Gohmert claimed that the cause of James Holmes’s rampage was that he didn’t have the appropriate fear of a vengeful, unforgiving God:
You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place. … We’ve threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God’s name, they’re going to be jailed … I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don’t want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present.
4. Nominating Florida Rep. Allen West as Speaker of the House: Paul Broun (R-GA) and Gohmert nominated former Rep. Allen West of Florida, “prompting Democrats to respond with laughter on the other side of the aisle” considering that West narrowly lost his bid for re-election in November 2012, and was no longer a member of Congress. [West conceded the election on Nov. 20th]
5. Speaking about gun ammo magazine limits: During a conference call in February 2013 Gohmert said,
And I pointed out, well, once you make it 10, then why would you draw the line at 10? What’s wrong with nine? Or 11? And the problem is once you draw that limit — it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman anymore, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal? There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage, and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.
6. Comparing the Second Amendment to Shariah law: In a February 2013 radio interview, Gohmert connected his support for the Second Amendment to Shariah law.
[The Second Amendment] is for our protection — and the founders’ quotes make that very, very clear — including against a government that would run amok. We’ve got some people who think Shariah law oughta be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there, the Second Amendment is there, to make sure all of the rest of the amendments are followed.
7. Speaking out after Congress passed the “The Great Cat and Rare Canids Act”: Speaking out against the act which helps preserve animals like wild African dogs and snow leopards, Gohmert stated:
There is no assurance that if we did that we wouldn’t end up with moo goo dog pan or moo goo cat pan. There is no way to assure that money will not be wasted when it’s sent to foreign countries.
8. Suggesting Obama’s allegiances are to “Islamic States”: Speaking on the House floor in June 2011, Gohmert charged that the Obama administration had been ‘complicit in helping people who want to destroy our country’ and speculated that a mistake then-Senator Obama made on the campaign trail in 2008 might have been an admission that the president’s loyalties are actually with the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
And I know the president made the mistake one day of saying he had visited all 57 states, and I’m well aware that there are not 57 states in this country, although there are 57 members of OIC, the Islamic states in the world. Perhaps there was some confusion whether he’d been to all 57 Islamic states as opposed to all 50 U.S. states. But nonetheless, we have an obligation to the 50 American states, not the 57 Muslim, Islamic states. Our oath we took is in this body, in this House. And it’s to the people of America. And it’s not to the Muslim Brotherhood, who may very well take over Egypt and once they do, they are bent upon setting up a caliphate around the world, including the United States. And this administration will been [sic] complicit in helping people who wants [sic] to destroy our country.
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