Attorney general mocks Louie Gohmert at hearing: ‘Good luck with your asparagus’

By Travis Gettys/Raw Story

Attorney General Eric Holder got the last laugh Tuesday when Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) tried to outfox him.

The Tea Party lawmaker tried to lure Holder into a trap during a House Judiciary Committee with a series of questions on same-sex marriage.

The attorney general said he did not believe a person who held the personal belief that marriage was between a man and a woman had violated the civil rights of same sex couple.

“How about if they have a business and they believe that?” Gohmert said, and Holder acted confused and asked if he meant the business itself held that belief.

“If it’s a private business, and the owners of the private business believe marriage is between a man and a woman, are they violating a same-sex couple’s civil rights, in your opinion?” Gohmert said.

But Holder declined to take the bait, saying he did not wish to comment on a matter currently pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It is your opinion that matters on whether you tell attorneys general how to act in the states or how you approach businesses or individuals that have this biblical view that the president had when he was a senator in 2008, so I thought it was rather important,” Gohmert said.

The lawmaker tried to ask one more question, but his time expired and his adversary fired off a parting zinger as the chairman introduced the next speaker.

“Good luck with your asparagus,” Holder said, briefly stopping the proceedings.

When last the two tangled, Gohmert complained in colorful but baffling language that the attorney general had challenged his character.

“The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus!” Gohmert said.

Watch the exchange posted online by Fox News:

Tea Party Congressman Compares African American Civil Rights To Snail Darters

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) compared the civil rights of African Americans and other minorities to the rights of animals during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, sparking outrage from lawmakers.

Gohmert made the remarks as the panel considered a bill that could “prevent federal regulatory actions from being implemented.” Currently, the federal government relies on consent decrees to settle lawsuits from advocacy organizations challenging agencies for failing to take regulatory action or missing statutory deadlines. The GOP-backed bill would allow anyone whose rights are affected by the decree to intervene in the settlement, significantly delaying the action.

Democrats offered an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), that would have prohibited third parties from intervening in any regulatory action that prevents or is intended to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or other protected characteristic. Consent decrees had been pivotal to enforcing civil rights laws, Cohen and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) argued, and noted that advocates used the consent decree process to protect minority communities from police misconduct and brutality.

But Gohmert objected to the amendment and insisted that the bill had nothing to do with the civil rights and would primary impact rules and regulations that pertain to fish, wildlife, and the environment. He then proceeded to mock Democrats’ concerns about minorities by joking that they were interested in protecting the liberties of snails and other animals:

GOHMERT: There is nobody in this chamber who is more appreciative than I am for the gentleman from Tennessee and my friend from Michigan standing up for the rights of race, religion, national religion of the Delta Smelt, the snail darter, various lizards, the lesser prairie chicken, the greater sage grouts and so many other insects who would want someone standing for their religion, their race, their national origin and I think that’s wonderful.

Watch it:

The bill, however, is actually written in general terms and would therefore impact the consent decrees adopted by the Department of Justice and other offices responsible for civil rights, committee staff confirmed to ThinkProgress. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) blasted Gohmert’s comments, noting that “this is not a snail darter’s amendment, it is not an environmental amendment, it is a civil rights amendment, and we’re talking about the civil rights of people — the civil rights of people that have been violated egregiously for generations in this country.”

The amendment failed in a vote of 13 to 16, with Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) joining Democrats in voting for it. The underlining bill passed the Judiciary Committee along party lines. A similar measure passed the House last year and is not expected to advance in the Senate.

Colbert: How dare you cast aspersions on Louie Gohmert’s asparagus!

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

Thursday night on “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert replayed one of the stranger moments from Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday. At the end of a heated exchange with holder, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) accused the AG of attempting to “cast aspersions on my asparagus.”

“Folks, I hope you know,” he began, “for Obama watchdogs like me, the last week of scandals has been like Christmas morning.”

President Barack Obama, said Colbert, has been in “full damage-control” mode over Benghazi, the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups and Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to seize months of phone records from AP reporters in a leak probe.

Colbert played video of news anchors describing Holder’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday as a “grilling,” as the AG was “peppered with questions.”

“Mmmm,” said the host. “Grilled and peppered. That would explain why Darryl Issa was wearing that ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron.”

Holder appeared to be holding his own, said Colbert, until he sparred with congressman and “magical talking cantaloupe” Rep. Louis Gohmert. Gohmert insisted that the FBI under Holder’s direction had dropped the ball in tracking Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers blamed for the bombing of the Boston marathon.

Holder pushed back against Gohmert’s accusations, saying that, unless someone in the FBI leaked confidential information to the congressman, Gohmert could not possibly know what he was talking about.

“You don’t know what the FBI did,” said Holder. “You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough, or taken exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That is all.”

Gohmert got flustered in the back and forth with Holder and the committee chair and accused the AG of “trying to cast aspersions on my asparagus.”

“How dare you cast aspersion on that man’s asparagus!” bellowed Colbert. “What is next, sir? Libeling his lettuce? Questioning his quinoa? Arguing with his arugula? Repudiating his rutabaga?! Vilifying his vinaigrette before drizzling it on his scandal salad?”

“Clearly, America,” he said, “we are going to need a lot more hearings on Asparagus-gate, because the more I digest this, the worse it smells.”

Watch the clip, embedded below via Comedy Central:

The Colbert Report
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Eric Holder politely informs Rep. Gohmert he doesn’t know what he is talking about

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder chided Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) for disparaging the FBI without evidence.

Gohmert criticized the FBI over its handling of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The congressman alleged the government was more aggressive towards Christian evangelist Franklin Graham than radical Islamic terrorists, and that Americans were more concerned about “being blown up by terrorists” than religious profiling.

But Holder noted Gohmert had no way of knowing how the FBI handled the situation, since he had no access to the FBI files.

“You don’t know what the FBI did,” he said. “You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough, or taken exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That is all.”

The congressman was not pleased with the rebuke. Repeatedly clashing with the hearing’s chairman, Gohmert accused Holder of challenging his character. The congressman insisted everything he said was true.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:

GOP Congressman: Obama’s ‘Political Correctness’ On Islam Led To Boston Bombings

By Hayes Brown/Think Progress

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggested on Friday that the FBI was unable to ask deceased Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev about Islam during its 2011 interview with him due to President Obama’s “political correctness,” thus allowing the bombing to take place.

Gohmert said on the House floor that the Obama administration has prevented intelligence officials from discussing Islam. “It was in that 9/11 commission report, before this administration took over and implemented political correctness,” he said, arguing the FBI’s training manuals were “systematically purged” in 2011 to conform to Obama’s worldview.

Obama’s whitewashing of Islam, Gohmert hinted, allowed the Tsarnaev brothers to slip through the fingers of the FBI and set off bombs in Boston:

GOHMERT: But what kind of interview must that have been of the guy who was going to blow off arms and legs and kill a child and who had dreams of killing so many more. What kind of interview must that have been when you can’t use the word jihad, you can’t talk about his Muslim faith? Did they even bring up Tamerlan’s Muslim faith in that interview? [...] Is it any wonder that the FBI came away from their interviews and said, ‘We don’t find any problems?’ Well, I guess not. [...] What kind of interviews must those have been when you can’t use the terms that let you get to the bottom of what may be a plot to kill people down the road? There’s no problem in the Justice Department, there is a problem with leadership that will not let them do their job. And it needs to change.

The facts don’t line up with Gohmert’s claims, however. In 2011 it was revealed that FBI’s counterterrorism training courses were full of misleading views about Islam, including thatmainstream Muslims are “violent” and “radical.” In response to the revelation, the FBI purged its training documents of all that mischaracterized all Muslims as being especially prone to terrorism.

When it comes to questioning Tsarnaev, the FSB — Russia’s domestic intelligence service —reached out to the United States in 2011 regarding its fears that he — an ethnic Chechen — was a security threat. In response, the FBI launched a three-month investigation into Tsarnaev, including interviews with him, his family, and his communications and internet usage. Following that review, the FBI determined there wasn’t enough evidence to continue to monitor Tsarnaev’s activities. When the FBI reported that to Russia in Oct. 2011, requesting further information about why the FSB believed Tsarnaev was a threat, Russia reportedly never responded.

Gohmert has proved no stranger to promoting wild theories related to Islam during his time in Congress. At various times, the Texan has stated that wide gun-ownership is needed to protect against Sharia law, that Obama intervened in Libya to allow al Qaeda to spread, and that the president is seeking to take credit for starting a new Ottoman Empire. Interfaith groups have called upon Gohmert in the past to drop his Islamophobia, seemingly to no effect.

Gohmert: ‘Vietnam was winnable,’ but ‘people in Washington decided’ to lose

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Thursday asserted that the U.S. war in “Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!”

“One of the things that we’ve heard over and over again since Vietnam is, you know, we don’t want to get in another un-winnable war like Vietnam,” Gohmert told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I’m not going to debate the merits of whether we should or should not have gone to Vietnam, but what I will tell you is, Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!”

“Folks, when you hear people talk about the lesson of Vietnam, it ought to be this: You don’t send American men or women to to harm’s way unless you’re going to give them the authority and what they need to win and then bring them home!”

The Texas Republican went on to suggest that former President Jimmy Carter should have gone to war with Iran in 1979.

“When our embassy was attacked, it was an act of war in 1979,” he explained. “Nobody really wanted to go, but we had been attacked. We expected the United States to respond.”

“And I still believe today, we have Americans dying for our country because we did not send a message in 1979. You don’t attack American soil, and that’s what an embassy is. We should stand up. There is a time for war! There’s a time for peace. But if you go to war, you better mean it.”

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast March 14, 2013.

 

Congressman Says Americans Need Guns To Protect The Nation From Sharia Law

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Tea Party Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told a conservative radio show on Thursday that the GOP must oppose gun regulations to protect the country from the threat of “Sharia Law.”

Appearing on The Voice of Freedom, Gohmert said he “hoped and prayed” that Congress rejects gun safety legislation, arguing that Americans may need to use the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to avoid succumbing to Muslims:

[The Second Amendment] is for our protection and the founders’ quotes make that very very clear and including against a government that would run amuck.We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed.

Listen:

Gohmert has a long history of Islamaphobic remarks, most recently joining Rep. Michele Bachmannn’s (R-MN) much maligned effort to investigate the alleged infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into various departments of the U.S. government.