Rep. Louis Gohmert's mind is devolving into something for which there is no diagnosis. I mean we can give it the usual label of insanity and despicable behavior, but he's sinking deep into the well of madness as every day passes. I imagine he enjoys being as disgusting as he can, but ladies and gentle people, there are repercussions to this type of recurring behavior.

Right Wing Watch:

Earlier this year, Rick Scarborough of Vision America launched a new organization called Tea Party Unity, which seeks to become a "unique clearinghouse and town hall forum where various existing Tea Party leaders can communicate and exchange ideas to help all Tea Parties become more effective."Scarborough is a notoriously vociferous anti-gay activist, the sort who insists on referring to gay people as "sodomites" and proclaiming that AIDS is God's punishment ... so, of course, one of the first people to participate in a conference callpromoting Scarborough's new effort was none other than Rep. Louie Gohmert.

During the course of the call, Gohmert was asked about his opposition to any gun control legislation, which he explained by bizarrely linking the topic to gay marriage and bestiality:

In fact, I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said "surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn't you? How would that be problematic?"...

And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What's wrong with nine? Or eleven? 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 any more, 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.

Earlier in the discussion, Gohmert called on Christians to take a more active role in politics ... because otherwise their churches are going to be forced to hire cross-dressing Satan-worshipers.

Do you understand the logic that says if we limit the number of rounds a magazine can have then we'll be also legalizing bestiality, too? WTF? I wouldn't be surprised if behind the scenes his private life resembles something close to Lane Rees, the 61-year-old GOP committeeman for Walton County, Fla who's in a world of trouble.

I'm just saying. it wouldn't shock me one bit.

This stuff just writes itself, which is, of course, what Louie Gohmert hopes for.

While Democrats run out the clock in order to force Republicans to act like grownups, the House of Representatives is busy, busy, busy doing the people's business. Today's agenda? Vote on a Senate bill to remove the word "lunatic" from Federal Law. I note for the record that they did not also vote to remove the word "idiot", which is probably a good thing.

According to The Hill, the bill passed almost unanimously. Gohmert's "no" vote was the only vote against it. Only a lunatic could defend keeping the word lunatic in federal law, right?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) was unapologetic for his lone Wednesday vote against a bill striking the word "lunatic" from U.S. law, and said the word should be used more often to describe many of the people in Washington, D.C.

"I don't have a problem with 'lunatic' being used in the federal law, and apparently I was the only one here on the floor," he said shortly after the House approved the bill.

"In fact, it occurred to me that not only should we not ... eliminate the term 'lunatic' at a time when we are facing national bankruptcy if we don't get serious about our issues, but we should also use the term to identify those who want to continue doing business as usual around this town," he added. "It's time we got serious."

Maybe Gohmert thought he would be excluded from coverage under federal law if they quit using that word and struck it from existing law. Someone should have told him he'd still fall under the idiot designation.

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Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is one of the stupidest members of the House of Representatives, and here he proves it again by touting George W. Bush's awesome management of the war in Afghanistan.

To Gohmert, it's all Obama's fault that George W. Bush failed to achieve victory in Afghanistan after seven years (twice as long as World War Two!). And forget those those Republicans in Congress who voted to send more troops to Afghanistan after Bush's failure. Nevermind. The negro isn't cleaning up Bush's mess fast enough.

Look, there are legitimate criticisms of Obama's surge in Afghanistan. But "George Bush did it better" isn't one of them. And Since Obama's such an obvious bumbler who shouldn't be sending our troops to Disneyland, let alone a battle field, why did Gohmert vote against bringing the troops in Afghanistan home?

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Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is one of the most reliably crazy members of the Republican Caucus in the House and also one of the most reliably stupid. So it makes perfect sense why Faux News would want him to comment on Texas' effort to disenfranchise brown people challenge the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

You can really see the Faux News "interview" MO in full force here, as Shannon Bream just lets Gohmert babble talking points spout lies uninterrupted. And look what happens when she lobs him what should be a softball.

BREAM: Congressman, let me ask, because folks on the other side of this will say those are all scare tactics and there aren't real cases of fraud you can point to in Texas.

GOHMERT: Well there, well there have been, and you can go back to Duval County and Lyndon Johnson days when he told his, his ah, supposedly his campaign manager, "No, this man in this grave has every bit as much to vote as all the other people in this cemetery." I mean, those things have been going on. But when you don't have a requirement for a photo ID, it's hard to identify the fraud.

Ah, see that? We need photo IDs to prove that there's all this voter fraud we keep talking about, which will also prevent said voter fraud from happening, which is why we need the photo IDs in the first place.

Nice tautology, Louie!

Also, it's awesome that when asked on national television to produce actual evidence of voter fraud in Texas in 2012, Gohmert recycles a decades-old fable (which may or may not be true) from one of Lyndon Johnson's Congressional campaigns in the '30s or '40s.

Doesn't take a genius to see what's going on here. Republicans in Texas know they are going to lose their iron grip on the state because of demographics eventually, but they want to hold onto it as long as possible, and by any means necessary.

(h/t MediaMatters)

Remember that old saying, "Elections have consequences"? Well, apparently, Louis Gohmert (R-obviously, TX) doesn't think that should apply to him or his Senatorial cohorts:

Yesterday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggested another response to the passage of health reform: eliminating the right of American citizens to elect U.S. Senators. According to a press release from Gohmert's office:

Rep. Gohmert stated, "The usurpation of the rights of the states and of the people perpetrated by the U.S. House last night is blatant, arrogant, and cries out for action. A potentially bankrupting 'mother of all unfunded mandates' needs to be stopped. The courts may or may not do it, but the states are not helpless. Article V of our U.S. Constitution anticipates a time when states perceive a looming crisis and provides an avenue for amending the Constitution. It makes clear that if two-thirds of the states are fed up with the federal government's abusive action, then they simply apply for a convention, and the Congress SHALL call such a convention for proposing an amendment."

Ever since the safeguard of State legislatures electing U.S. Senators was removed by the 17th Amendment in 1913, there has been no check or balance on the Federal power grab for the last 97 years. Article V requires a minimum of 34 states to request a Convention which in this case, would be an Amendment Convention for only ONE amendment.

Could he be a bigger whiner? Now, it's true, as originally conceived by the Founding Fathers, senators were appointed by their respective state legislatures to serve, which worked moderately well (with only the occasional accusation of corruption or bribery with which to contend) until the Civil War era. Then the accusations exploded. Per Wikipedia:

After the Civil War, the problems multiplied. In one case in the mid-1860s, the election of Senator John P. Stockton from New Jersey was contested on the grounds that he had been elected by a plurality rather than a majority in the state legislature. Stockton defended himself on the grounds that the exact method for elections was murky and varied from state to state. To keep this from happening again, the Congress passed a law in 1866 regulating how and when Senators were to be elected from each state. This was the first change in the process of senatorial elections. While the law helped, there were still deadlocks in some legislatures and accusations of bribery, corruption, and suspicious dealings in some elections. Nine bribery cases were brought before the Senate between 1866 and 1906, and 45 deadlocks occurred in 20 states between 1891 and 1905, resulting in numerous delays in seating Senators. Beginning in 1899, Delaware did not send a senator to Washington for four years.

Obviously, this was unsustainable, and so after much pushing and pulling and grumbling from muckrakers like Hearst, the 17th Amendment was passed in 1911 and adopted in 1913. There have been a few attempts to repeal it, most notably by Zell Miller, who called it an 'assault on federalism'.

However, I have news for Rep. Gohmert. Repeal of a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress (what are your odds on that, Louie?) and ratification by three-fourths of the states' legislatures. Want to take a look at that electoral map again? Does the phrase "pissing in the wind" have much resonance with you?

Finally, as Media Matters points out, this only undercuts the GOP's crowing of the Scott Brown election:

Remember that conservatives, including Gohmert, argued that the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) signaled the public's rejection of the president's plan. Yet, while Tea Party activists flooded Massachusetts and pushed Brown to victory, Gohmert's proposal would have made that effort impossible. The state's overwhelmingly Democratic legislature could have simply appointed a Democrat.

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The Plum Line: Happy Hour Roundup

No More Mister Nice Blog: Emotionally, it works for him

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Needlenose, True/Slant, American Nihilist, The Daily Background

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), a former NFL quarterback, keeps a sign outside his congressional office noting the federal deficit and the average American’s individual share of the debt. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) wanted to use it as a prop, so he took it. Shuler was not amused.

"On Thursday, during House votes, a very angry Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) had some distinctly non-collegial words for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)," Emily Heil reports for Roll Call's "Heard on the Hill." "The words 'gutless,' 'chickens--t' and 'thief' were flung."

The paper reports, "Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, was spotted towering over a seated Gohmert, wagging a finger in his face during the heated session, spies tell HOH."

Note to Gohmert: don’t mess with Shuler’s stuff.