"Sphincter Politicians on Parade”

[andydp]

With the many and varied morons out there, I thought it would be a good idea to start their own unique thread.

This week's month's sphincter is undoubtedly Matt Gaetz (R, FLotsam).  BUT... feel free to nominate anyone you feel is "worthy" to be highlighted.  My question is can I edit the title as we can to on the other board ?

Anyway, here's more on the Gaetz Peccadillos of Prurience 

When did Matt Gaetz know?

Hours after the New York Times first reported that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) was under investigation by the Justice Department, he appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program to defend himself.


www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/when-did-matt-gaetz-know/ar-BB1fomAQ?ocid=msedgntp

[andydp]

Do they ever stop ?  Do they ever relize people have proof ?  I readily acknowledge Liberals do this kind of crap also.  (Andrew Cuomo)  But remember: this is the party of "Family Values".

Here's a new one from Alabama:

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill admits affair, won’t run for U.S. Senate: ‘There’s no excuse’

In an interview with AL.com on Wednesday morning, Merrill denied having had an affair and accused Cesaire McPherson of “stalking” and “harassing” him.

McPherson provided Al.com with a recording of an October 2020 conversation between her and Merrill, who is a Republican. In the 17-minute recording, Merrill and McPherson discuss various sexual acts they performed during dozens of romantic encounters that McPherson says took place between November 2017 and November 2020. During the conversation, Merrill seems to try to end his relationship with McPherson, who was reluctant to break off the affair. He told her they had met for the last time and that he was seeking help from the Lord to stay away from her.

(Now for the oops ! I got caught !! part)

After being played a portion of the recording Wednesday, Merrill, who is married with two children, told AL.com “there’s no excuse” for his extramarital relationship.

www.al.com/news/2021/04/alabama-secretary-of-state-john-merrill-admits-affair-wont-run-for-us-senate-theres-no-excuse.html?fbclid=IwAR0--mvGOHSylkhv_d6J86rpLeNa1VhF4yZjBlgG25rdS90RjNPo3-mjosw

[LFC]

So he didn't blame her, didn't blame the librul media, and didn't wail about his "disease" and how he's now facing it with the help of God(tm)? He just lied about it and falsely accused the woman involved of harassment? That's actually quite the step up for a Republican.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 8, 2021 14:37:50 GMT LFC said:

So he didn't blame her, didn't blame the librul media, and didn't wail about his "disease" and how he's now facing it with the help of God(tm)? He just lied about it and falsely accused the woman involved of harassment? That's actually quite the step up for a Republican.

The only remarkable thing about it is that he withdrew from the Senate race.  The rest is out of the playbook for politicians who were caught with their pants down. It seems increasingly easy to find them with their pants down...modern technology.  

[LFC]

The operator of a pier that handles cruise ships in Florida just donated a million dollars to DeSantis's PAC. Yeah, nothing unusual or suspect going on here.

The operator of a Florida pier that gets most of Key West's cruise ship traffic has donated nearly $1 million to the political committee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, The Miami Herald reports. According to the Herald, the donation from Delray Beach-based businessman Mark Walsh is notable because legislation seeking to overturn a voter-approved referendum to limit cruise traffic may soon find itself on DeSantis' desk.

Walsh gave $995,000 to Friends of Ron DeSantis, the political committee operated by the governor, according to data uncovered by the Herald's investigation.

"Walsh leases the state-owned terminal on Key West Harbor in front of the Margaritaville Resort, which his family owns along with dozens of other hotels," the Herald reports. "His company helped finance the opposition to the three referendums approved by Key West voters by wide margins in November. The effort involved a disinformation campaign, funded in party by a 'dark money' scheme that included contributions from the cruise industry, which publicly stayed out of the campaign."

Three new ordinances, which were hugely popular with voters in November, ban cruise ships with over 1,300 passengers from docking at the city port and limit the total number of cruise that leave the area each day to 1,500. One of the ordinances gives preference to cruise ships with favorable environmental records.

"After the measures passed, legislation emerged by Sen. Jim Boyd, a Bradenton Republican and Rep. Spencer Roach, a North Fort Myers Republican, to cancel out their vote to limit cruise ship traffic in the Florida Keys," the Herald's Mary Ellen Klas writes.

[LFC]

Louie Louie, oh no
You gotta go

Aye-yi-yi-yi

Some people spent Memorial Day at parades or BBQing with friends, but not Loonie Louie Gomhert, who was in Dallas speaking at The For God & Country Patriot Roundup hosted by “Q power couple” Amy and John “QAnon John” Sabal.

It was like CPAC meets a flat earther convention, but with more talk of coups and overthrowing the government, including former Trump National Security Adviser Mike “Madman” Flynn calling for a Myanmar-style military coup in America (he later denied saying that, but he said it on camera) and Sidney “Kraken” Powell musing that former President Donald Trump should be “reinstated” and then installed as president with a “new inauguration date.” Powell, of course, is defending herself from a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, which she said rigged the 2020 election on behalf of Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, by arguing that “no reasonable person” would take seriously the things she says.

So Rep. Gohmert maybe wasn’t the craziest guest at this cavalcade of crazy, but he was the only elected member of Congress there, giving a speech under a banner with a QAnon slogan on it. Gohmert didn’t embrace Q on stage, which I guess is better than the alternative, but he did play down the Jan. 6 attacks and say, “I would submit that weaponizing the FBI and the Department of Justice against one administration was an attack on democracy.” After his speech, he hung out with such Q’minaries as Capitol rioter Zak Paine, better known online as redpill78.

You’d think that a sitting United States congressmen would stay away from a cult that FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress “can lead to violence.” But Louie is no fool or, rather, he’s a fool who can read the writing on the wall, which is that QAnon is very popular with the Republican base, which counts on roughly 100 percent of the votes from the “15 percent of Americans (who) say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.” Maybe he’s not crazy but is just trying to meet the base where they are, which is nowhere good.

When the local CBS affiliate asked Gohmert’s office what he was doing there, a member of his staff insisted that he wasn’t there even though he was on camera.

Later, the station’s David Lippman got a long email from Gohmert that said his staff got its days mixed up and wasn’t lying about him being at the event (which organizers had tried to distance from QAnon amid lots of coverage about how it was a QAnon event) and also claiming that he does not even “know who or what QAnon is.”

But I was too stupid to know what the event I spoke at was about isn’t the defense Louie seems to think it is.

I never actually saw pictures of the band before. The lead singer looks disturbingly like a young Boris Johnson in this video.

[Deleted]

Oh good fsm LFC - the only thing worse than today's BoJo is yesterday's ..... but at least the hair looked better in the video!

[LFC]

Louie Gohmert decided he didn't appear dumb enough so he dialed his IQ down even further. I wasn't even sure that was possible in a human and still have them retain the ability to walk and speak.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, suggested at a congressional hearing that climate change could be combatted by altering the orbit of the moon and asked a U.S. Forest Service official whether there was any way the agency could do it.

Gohmert made the comments Tuesday during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on four bills as he was questioning Jennifer Eberlien, an associate deputy chief of the Forest Service.

"I understand, from what's been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM, you want very much to work on the issue of climate change," Gohmert said, referring to the Bureau of Land Management.

"I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they've found that the moon's orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth's orbit around the sun. We know there's been significant solar flare activity," he said. "And so, is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate."

Eberlien responded, smiling, "I would have to follow up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert."

"If you figure out there's a way in the Forest Service you could make that change, I'd like to know," Gohmert said.

[Bact PhD]

If Dear Son had said something like that, I would be 99% sure he was trolling. But he’s a rising HS junior…

[AnBr]

Jun 11, 2021 18:08:22 GMT LFC said:

Louie Gohmert decided he didn't appear dumb enough so he dialed his IQ down even further. I wasn't even sure that was possible in a human and still have them retain the ability to walk and speak.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, suggested at a congressional hearing that climate change could be combatted by altering the orbit of the moon and asked a U.S. Forest Service official whether there was any way the agency could do it.

Gohmert made the comments Tuesday during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on four bills as he was questioning Jennifer Eberlien, an associate deputy chief of the Forest Service.

"I understand, from what's been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM, you want very much to work on the issue of climate change," Gohmert said, referring to the Bureau of Land Management.

"I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they've found that the moon's orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth's orbit around the sun. We know there's been significant solar flare activity," he said. "And so, is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate."

Eberlien responded, smiling, "I would have to follow up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert."

"If you figure out there's a way in the Forest Service you could make that change, I'd like to know," Gohmert said.

The stupid! It burns!!!!

[LFC]

Gohmert again. He's not just stupid, he's also hateful.

Rep. Louie Gohmert celebrated New Year’s Eve 2020 by dropping several thousand dollars into the coffers of a vitriolically homophobic and antisemitic pastor, federal records indicate. But his office insists the whole thing was just a giant mistake.

Team Gohmert claims it hired a Christian singer named Steve Amerson from Granada HIlls, California, but accidentally reported to the Federal Election Commission that the cash went to the Tempe, Arizona address of the Faithful Word Baptist Church, led by the infamous Pastor Steve Anderson.

Yes, the pastor happens to embrace a more extreme form of Gohmert’s homophobic rhetoric. And yes, the money was earmarked as a “donation.” But it wasn’t meant for Anderson, and wasn’t a donation at all, in Team Gohmert’s telling. They just screwed up the name, purpose, and address of the recipient of their largesse. Oops.

Disclosures to the FEC show that the Louie Gohmert for Congress Committee sent $5,500, to an entity in Tempe called “Anderson Ministries.” There is in fact no organization of this name registered in the Grand Canyon State—but the address in the campaign filing matches that of Anderson’s church.

[LFC]

Cuomo's going to hang on by his fingertips. He may have such hubris that he's thinking it will go away in time to rerun for governor. Who knows, he could be right, but as a Democrat I doubt it. As a Republican? No problemo.

One of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) sexual harassment accusers, an unidentified executive assistant, has filed a criminal complaint against the governor on the allegation that he groped her last year.

The Albany County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to TPM on Friday that it had received the complaint, but declined to comment further.

The staffer’s complaint came days after New York Attorney General Letitia James released her findings in the sexual harassment probe into Cuomo’s alleged misconduct targeting at least 11 women, including the staffer.

The staffer alleged that the governor put his hand up her shirt and cupped her breast while she was at the Executive Mansion.

I've read that there are political fundraising groups that have cut all ties with him.

[Bact PhD]

Aug 9, 2021 18:12:41 GMT LFC said:

Cuomo's going to hang on by his fingertips. He may have such hubris that he's thinking it will go away in time to rerun for governor. Who knows, he could be right, but as a Democrat I doubt it. As a Republican? No problemo.

One of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) sexual harassment accusers, an unidentified executive assistant, has filed a criminal complaint against the governor on the allegation that he groped her last year.

I've read that there are political fundraising groups that have cut all ties with him.

If those financial ties are truly cut, and not merely suspended until all the unpleasantness disappears from the headlines, that may prove to be the final blow.

[goldenvalley]

Bye bye Cuomo…in 2 weeks.

[LFC]

Aug 10, 2021 17:07:19 GMT goldenvalley said:

Bye bye Cuomo…in 2 weeks.

[LFC]

We all know Rand Paul will say anything for attention, no matter how stupid, but now let's add blatant corruption to the list. Note the "convenient" and illegal 16 month delay to avoid the Republican stock dumping scandals of that day. Bold of effectively saying the dog ate his homework mine.

Sen. Rand Paul revealed Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences — which makes an antiviral drug used to treat covid-19 — on Feb. 26, 2020, before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public and before it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

The disclosure, in a filing with the Senate, came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.

Experts in corporate and securities law said the investment, and especially the delayed reporting of it, undermined trust in government and raised questions about whether the Kentucky Republican’s family had sought to profit from nonpublic information about the looming health emergency and plans by the U.S. government to combat it. Several senators sold large amounts of stocks in January or February of last year, prompting a handful of insider-trading probes. Most of those investigations concluded in the spring of 2020, according to notifications from the Justice Department to lawmakers under scrutiny.

“The senator ought to have an explanation for the trade and, more importantly, why it took him almost a year and a half to discover it from his wife,” said James D. Cox, a professor of law at Duke University.

Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, said the senator completed a reporting form for his wife’s investment last year but learned only recently, while preparing an annual disclosure, that the form had not been transmitted. He sought guidance from the Senate Ethics Committee, she said, and filed the supplemental report Wednesday along with the annual disclosure, which was due in May and submitted three months late.

[LFC]

Political strategist vs. politician but still a complete and total scumbag. You understand why QAnon keeps going on about pedophilia. It really is yet another case of the right accusing the other side of what they themselves are doing. This is quickly going from a saying to a law.

Anton Lazzaro, a young Republican strategist and former congressional campaign manager in Minnesota, was arrested on underage sex trafficking charges Thursday morning, according to federal law enforcement.

Lazzaro, a frequent Fox News guest who flaunted his wealthy lifestyle on social media, was indicted on five counts of sex trafficking of a minor, one count of attempting to do so, and three counts of obstruction of justice. The FBI confirmed its agents had arrested Lazzaro in Minneapolis this morning. And the indictment was unsealed in federal court Thursday afternoon during his initial appearance in federal court in St. Paul, Minnesota, which took place over a video conference.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson ordered that Lazzaro remain jailed until a court hearing next week, after prosecutors claimed six victims had asked for additional protection from Lazzaro.

“It’s their strong wish that the United States proceed with a recommendation of detention,” Thorson said of the alleged victims.

The indictment accuses Lazzaro of having “recruited” at least five underage victims for paid sex between May and December last year, and trying to entice a sixth. It also says he “knowingly and intentionally interfered” with the investigation as it closed in on him.

The feds have yet to arrest a second person under investigation, who is mentioned as a co-conspirator in the indictment but not identified.

[AnBr]

Notice how in spite of all the breathless charges of "child sex brothels/camps" that they level at all Dems that all of the busted real pedophiles are Republican?

[jackd]

Unfortunately, the most recent accusation was against a Democrat from Arizona. That issue, as well as sexual assault issues, seems to know no party. Clearly, Republicans should not be throwing stones.

[indy]

Aug 12, 2021 23:28:55 GMT jackd said:

Unfortunately, the most recent accusation was against a Democrat from Arizona. That issue, as well as sexual assault issues, seems to know no party. Clearly, Republicans should not be throwing stones.

True that this reaches into both sides of the isle but there is a vast difference in party reactions to it, both from the rank and file and from the leaders of the parties.

[jackd]

Agreed.

[jackd]

Agreed.

[LFC]

Aug 12, 2021 23:28:55 GMT jackd said:

Unfortunately, the most recent accusation was against a Democrat from Arizona. That issue, as well as sexual assault issues, seems to know no party. Clearly, Republicans should not be throwing stones.

There's one big difference, though. The Democrats tend to leave their offices due to a lack of support from the party. Cuomo and the guy from AZ are perfect examples. Meanwhile Trump is still being wholeheartedly embraced. Gaetz is dug in like a tick. Republicans are much more immune to morality than Dems.

[pnwguy]

Aug 16, 2021 15:40:58 GMT LFC said:

Republicans are much more immune to morality than Dems.

Republicans now define "morality" as whatever it takes to seize and retain power.

[andydp]

In the never ending saga of Rep Devlin, "Trump Puppy", Nunes.  He has filed a defamation lawsuit against Rachel Maddow for reporting facts.  

Devin Nunes Files Another Lawsuit, Sues MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow For Defamation

Nunes has become almost as well known for filing lawsuits as he is for actual legislating. He has sued several media outlets and social media platforms in recent years, including the user behind a Twitter account that parodied Nunes. Three of those cases have already been tossed by judges, and have made him a popular punching bag for Twitter users.

“Congressman Nunes has refused to answer questions about what he received from Andriy Derkach. He has refused to show the contents of the package to other members of the intelligence community," the lawsuit quotes Maddow as saying on her program. "He has refused to hand it over to the FBI which is what you should do if you get something from somebody who is sanctioned by the U.S. as a Russian agent.”

Nunes and his attorneys claim that the network knew that the California lawmaker had told other reporters that he had given the package in question to the FBI and MSNBC failed to ask him for a comment.


www.newsandguts.com/devin-nunes-files-another-lawsuit-sues-msnbcs-rachel-maddow-for-defamation/