Why is Louie Gohmert challenging Boehner for Speaker of the House?

Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) announced Sunday that he planned to challenge House Speaker John Boehner for the top spot in Congress. Hot on the heels of his announcement, Louie joined Glenn on radio to talk about why he was running and the risks he faces if he loses.

Louie explained that there were many representatives telling their constituents that they had to vote for Boehner because there was no other option.

"I was persuaded. I'll be the sacrificial lamb. I will get out there. But it's not just me. There are others. But people have got a choice now. And those people that have been telling their constituents in the past, 'Well, gee, I would not have voted for Boehner, but nobody ran against him.' Well, now somebody is. And if we get 29 votes or more, then there will be a second ballot. And we will have a chance to change our leadership," Louie explained.

Louie explained he didn't run back in November because Boehner said all the right things after the election.

"Our speaker went out and said, 'We're gonna fight tooth and nail against the president's illegal amnesty.' He said all the right things. And you know, you want to believe somebody wouldn't go out that boldly if they didn't intend to follow that," Louie said.

Louie pointed to the CROmnibus as a major factor in his decision to run as well.

"I want you to call your congressman and you hold their feet to the fire. Do not vote for John Boehner," Glenn said. "It is time. You have a chance. I need to you hear me carefully. You think that you have lost. You feel beaten up. You feel like you can't make a difference. You have a chance. There are these sign posts that come up from time to time. This is one of them. Let's nail this one. Call 202-224-3121. Talk to your Congressman. Tell them to vote for Louie Gohmert. More importantly, tell them that if they vote for John Boehner, you're done with them. 202-224-3121."

Below is a rough transcript of this segment:

GLENN: Welcome to the program. Louie Gohmert, Congressman who is now running for Speaker of the House, against John Boehner. How are you doing, sir?

GOHMERT: As far as I know, I'm okay, Glenn, thank you.

GLENN: I would -- I know you didn't take this on lightly because we've asked you, you know, if you would do this in the past. And you have said no.

GOHMERT: Well, it was other members saying, Louie, you are the only one that can really do this and get the outside groups going. And I -- I was saying, guys, you've heard me chastised our members. I just -- you know, you saw the results of the RSC race and they said, this is a different race. We've got to get 29-plus, and anyway, I was persuaded, okay. I'll be the sacrificial lamb. I will get out there and -- but it's not just me. There are others. But people have got a choice now. And those people that have been faith telling their constituents in the past, well, gee, I would not have voted for Boehner, but nobody ran against him. Well, now somebody is. And if we get 29 votes or more, then there will be a second ballot. And we will have a chance to change our leadership. But Glenn, you know, some people have said, well, why didn't somebody run, why didn't you run back in November? Well, we had just had a massive election. And our speaker went out and said, we're gonna fight tooth and nail against the president's illegal amnesty. He said all the right things. And you know, you want to believe somebody wouldn't go out that boldly if they didn't intend to follow that. But now -- oh, and we're -- we promised we would fight against ObamaCare. Glenn, we just funded ObamaCare with the navigators, more IRS, all of that. We've already funded that through this whole year. That was in the CROmnibus. No wonder Obama was willing to make our calls and get people lobbied up to vote for a Boehner deal. It was a bad deal. And then of course the promise, oh, yeah, but we kept the budget for DHS, Homeland Security, that is, held that out for leverage. That's the one hostage that the president wouldn't mind us shooting. Can you -- I don't see how this plays out. Our speaker says, okay, Mr. President, if you don't stop your illegal amnesty, we're not going to fund the border patrol and the border will be wide open. Okay. I mean, that's -- we gave away the leverage of everything the president cares about in the CROmnibus and that's why so many Republicans simply could not vote for it.

GLENN: Okay. So tell me how this process works. Because do you even have a shot, is there a chance that somebody worse than John Boehner -- Nancy Pelosi, I mean, tell me how this works.

GOHMERT: Thank you for asking that. That is a piece of misinformation that people have used saying, well, anybody that does not vote for Boehner is going to give the gavel to Nancy Pelosi. Glenn, that cannot happen unless 59 Republicans vote present. Only if 59 Republicans vote present can Nancy Pelosi have a chance at all. So anybody that votes present, they're helping Boehner and Pelosi by lowering the number that you have to get to get a majority. But the rules of the house, going back to Thomas Jefferson's rules of the house, they are very clear. A candidate must get a majority of all of those on the House floor voting for a person. It doesn't have to be a member of Congress, but it does need to be an American citizen and adult. Anybody is eligible that is. And so you don't have to be nominated for your vote to count. But as long as the Republican members vote for a person, even if it's not me or Ted Yo-ho, some are saying they'd like Dan Webster. I said I could vote for Dan. But as long as they vote for a person, then Pelosi can never become Speaker because she's got 188 votes max. She can't overcome the necessary 218 to win.

GLENN: Here's the scary thing. I know your system well enough to know -- I mean, you're toast. If you don't win, you're toast. And that's exactly what they're going to be saying. That's what Boehner is saying to everybody right now. Listen, you don't vote for me. You don't play ball with me now. You're not getting on any committee. You're not going to --

GOHMERT: Yes.

GLENN: You're not going to be heard from again. How do you make sure that those who tend to lack essentials in their underpants actually step to the plate here and do the right thing?

GOHMERT: Well, I think you're gonna have a lot of members that hear from their constituents that, hey, we're the ones that elected you, not John Boehner. But I tell you what, Glenn, there is some real intimidation going on. Apparently this morning there was a statement released by Boehner's people saying David Brat was going to vote for him. And I think probably intimidation involves, we're going to get families out there of people who may not vote for us but when we see in print that we're counting on them voting for us, they'll be afraid not to vote for Boehner and unfortunately for Boehner, the David Brat had a piece out this morning saying he's not voting for Boehner. So I don't think the speaker can actually trust his whip count. But Glenn, you and I have talked on the air, off the air enough. We both have our accountability to the same place. And it's not to the Speaker of the House. I know a few years ago, one of our members in a very contested situation said to the speaker, hey, you're our shepherd. We're your sheep. Tell us what we should do. I said, look, I've got two shepherds. One is my heavenly shepard herd and the other is my 700,000 constituents in east Texas and you're not in neither one of those categories. We can look to leadership for guidance, but our ultimate responsibility is to on Maker and those who sent us here.

GLENN: tell me --

GOHMERT: There's a lot at stake if we don't do this. One more thing. They're using intimidation saying 'gee, you're going to cost us the 2016 election by creating controversy.' No, the controversy is there. And in fact he was there last night weighing -- figuring through his numbers the polling data, that they just bid, 25 to 33% of Republicans and independents that voted Republican in 2014 are ready to walk away.

GLENN: Already have. Let me tell you something. I am so sick and tired -- who was it that said, you or Ted Cruz, somebody said, it's always the next time.

GOHMERT: Yeah.

GLENN: It's always next time.

GOHMERT: That's all we hear.

GLENN: We can't do it this time because of the next election. But as soon as that election is over, we'll do it the next time. I've had enough. I've had enough. And I think America has had enough.

GOHMERT: We've been hearing that for nine years.

GLENN: Done House Speaker Boehner was elected majority leader in early 2008. And he said, look, this is perfect. This is only about 10 or 11 months. You vote for me now. You'll find out if I'm the leader you need by November. And on election night in November, we lost the majority. That was -- I'm sorry. That wasn't -- that was '06. And then November of '06 the night of the election, while most of us were sick to our stomachs to think of all the different people, Democrats that would be holding gavels and controlling Congress, one person wasn't thinking about that and that was our current Speaker calling and saying, hey, this wasn't a full two years. You got to give me a full two-year term. And 2008 didn't go all that well for us either. And the only reason they won the majority in 2010 was not because of our leadership. It was because the Democrats made people so mad it's in spite of the leadership. Let me give the number. Call the switchboard. I want you to call your congressman and you hold their feet to the fire. Do not vote for John Boehner. It is time -- you have a chance. I need to you hear me carefully. You think that you have lost. You feel beaten up. You feel like you can't make a difference. You have a chance. There are these sign posts that come up from time to time. This is one of them. Let's nail this one. Call 202-224-3121. Talk to your Congressman. Tell them to vote for Louie Gohmert. More importantly, tell them that if they vote for John Boehner, you're done with them. 202-224-3121. Louie, you're Speaker of the House. Tell me how things change. What do you do?

GOHMERT: We start using, as was promised, every weapon at our disposal to stop the illegal and unconstitutional amnesty. We secure the border. We make it clear to the president, yes, we know, we need immigration reform, but we're not changing anything until you secure the border and here's the money to do it and you're not -- we're defunding your czars, we're defunding everything that means anything to you that America doesn't need. We're defunding all of these things unless you secure the border. And until you secure the border, as confirmed by unanimous border states, we're not doing immigration reform. Then we decentralize the Speaker's power. That's a problem. It's a monopoly. You only getting one vote on the steering committee, not four or five. We get in high gear and we finish all investigations. We hold groups and agencies and departments accountable for wrongdoing. We throw out the current tax code. I want a flat tax. Someone a fair tax, a sales tax. Let's have that debate. We throw out the code. And then we go with whichever wins, fair tax or flat tax. We end the automatic increase every stinking year in every federal department and agency's budget. Nobody else gets that. The government shouldn't either. We stop the government spying on American people. We create some reform in our committee structure. We kind of have a public assistance committee or subcommittee that has every single piece of welfare in it. That's how we've been beat for 40 years, is because if you say, wait, I don't think we ought to fund this program. It's duplicitous. There's too many like it. It's weighs. Then they say you hate children or women or veterans. No, we don't, we love them all but we don't need 87 agencies doing the same thing. We create an energy policy that does not provide any subsidies for any energy. Let's let the market tell us which energy to use. We have competitive groups scoring our bills. We end the CBO monopoly of scores. We get screwed by them virtually every time. We force removal of at least two-thirds of the regulations. Reagan forced Congress to do it and he had a democratic Congress. And this is a biggie. Every two years instead of having -- before we have a speaker's election, the party in power has a vote of confidence or no confidence. And if the speaker get as no confidence vote, he can't run and we get a new speaker. That's the way it ought to be, so that we don't have a dictatorship in Congress.

GLENN: Well, I think those sound like a good start. Louie, I thank you for your service. I thank you for your loyalty to your constituents and to God and the Constitution. I Washington you the best of luck. Thank you so much, Louie.

GOHMERT: Glenn, thanks so much for your friendship.

Front page image courtesy of the AP.

The great switch: Gates trades climate control for digital dominion

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The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

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Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

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The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

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The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.