He could have lived a healthy, covid-free life if not for those meddling CDC guidelines forcing him to wear.a disease-riddled mask, apparently?
Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert is isolating for the next 10 days after testing positive for covid-19. Gohmert received a rapid test in preparation for a scheduled trip with President Trump to West Texas. White House officials reportedly administered another test in case the result was a false-positive, but the second test confirmed that Gothemert contracted covid-19.
Gohmert says he’s asymptomatic, and he has quite the theory as to how he ended up with the virus, which has killed 152,000 Americans and over 6,500 Texans.
“It’s really ironic because, you know, a lot of people have really made a big deal out of my not wearing a mask a whole lot, but in the last week or two I have worn a mask more than I have in the last four months,” Gohmert said during an interview with KETK News. “I can’t help but wonder if by keeping a mask on and keeping it in place, if I might have put some germs, some of the virus onto the mask and breathed it in.”
Sure, improper mask usage can potentially cause someone to contract covid-19. But Gohmert is acting as if the state of covid-19 in Texas was the same four months ago as it is now. Since June, Texas has seen a massive spike in covid-19 cases. Nevertheless, many counties in Texas are not enforcing the governer’s mask mandate, and Gohmert often neglected to wear his as well, even around his peers in D.C. According to KETK, Gohmert “has been seen multiple times around Capitol Hill not wearing a mask since the pandemic began.”
And yet, he thinks it’s the mask’s fault. Okay, bro.
Would you be surprised to hear that the Republicans still don’t have their shit together when it comes to their covid-19 stimulus proposal? Politico reports that Republicans are beefing with each other about just how much they want to fuck over the American people:
On the other side of the Capitol, GOP senators rattled off several concerns with the $1 trillion package in public remarks and during a private lunch with senior Trump administration officials on Tuesday. Their gripes with the bill ran the gamut, from frustrations at the price tag to the process by which the bill was written and released. There were even objections over an unrelated provision the White House sought that allocates nearly $2 billion in funding for the construction of a new FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
To get an idea of where they’re at, why not hear it from the pricks themselves:
“I think if Mitch can get half the conference, that’d be quite an accomplishment,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.
“We have unity in disagreement,” added Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who complained during the GOP lunch about not knowing the bill’s content, according to GOP sources.
“I’m not going to vote for a bill in the name of unity when I don’t know what’s in the damn thing,” Kennedy later said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) emerged from the closed-door lunch with a blunt assessment: “It’s a mess. I can’t figure out what this bill is about. I don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish with it.”
And let’s give it up for Sen. Rand Paul, who really made sure to let his constituents know where his priorities lie in the middle of an unprecedented health and financial crisis:
“It’s just very frustrating to me because it’s people who go home and say we’re fiscally conservative, [and] are now in a bidding contest with the Democrats to see how much money they can spend,” Paul said. He later called out in particular his fellow Republicans who are up for re-election this year, accusing them of pushing for new spending to aid their reelection bids.
It’s worth pointing out that Paul is not up for re-election this year, so he can yap all he wants about fiscal responsibility with little consequence.
Democrats think the Republican plan is garbage and aren’t budging on key elements of their own: They want to maintain the extra $600 for those receiving weekly federal unemployment benefits and an extra $915 billion for state and local aid. According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrats are willing to negotiate on the latter, but not the former.
But Republicans really can’t get their shit together, so it looks like we’re in for an unnecessarily bumpy ride.
- Look at Joe Biden’s notes and tell me he’s not going to throw Sen. Kamala Harris onto his ticket. [AP]
- California might start its own $600 weekly unemployment perk. [LA Times]
- Pelosi endorsed Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is facing a tough Democratic primary. Hey, Mama Bear loves some incumbents. [Washington Post]
- Here’s White House trade advisor Peter Navarro being a smug little worm:
- President Trump is a big ol’ NIMBY, but it probably won’t help him in the polls.