Rep. Thad McCotter, Michigan’s goofiest congressman, has resigned from his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after failing to qualify for the ballot this November. And his statement about resigning gives you some idea of how he talks all the time:
“After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family,” McCotter said.
“As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave. The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must ‘strike another match, go start anew’ by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.”
Who the hell talks like that?
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Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle
July 11, 2012 at 10:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Someone desperately trying to hide whatever their real reasoning is.
ronstrong
July 11, 2012 at 10:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Who the hell talks like that?”
Thad McCotter, apparently.
eric
July 11, 2012 at 10:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Translation: the incompetence shown in my reelection campaign is so embarrasing, not even my family wants me to finish out my term.
Reginald Selkirk
July 11, 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Sovereign citizen” – I think the IRS should keep tabs on him.
Reginald Selkirk
July 11, 2012 at 10:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That article doesn’t even mention the bit about the photocopied signature issue.
raven
July 11, 2012 at 10:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
One needs a gibberish to English translator to figure out what all that means.
He seems to be claiming it is for the good of his family. I don’t see why though and why resigning is going to do anything to fix any familial problems. Probably his wife and kids think he is an idiot for failing to get the signatures to stay on the ballot.
And it was pretty dumb.
conway
July 11, 2012 at 10:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Who the hell talks like that?”
Tennessee Williams on an absynthe bender.
petermountain
July 11, 2012 at 10:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It sounds as if he’s trying to do his best Ulysses Everett McGill from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Gregory in Seattle
July 11, 2012 at 10:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So… he didn’t make it to the play-offs, and he is taking his bat and going home in a snit?
flex
July 11, 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not only is he not going to serve the last 2 months of his term, by doing so he is forcing a special election for that period, at a huge cost to the municipalities in his district.
raven
July 11, 2012 at 10:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This early resigning is usually a political move.
1. Lame duck office holder resigns.
2. Governor of the same party appoints the party’s candidate to the office.
3. The party’s candidate is now the incumbent and gets a lot of free publicity as an office holder.
4. It helps the party keep the legislative seat.
It’s done a lot by both Democrats and GOP.
McCotter seems loony enough, that if he claimed it was the Space Reptiles, no one would be surprised. More likely though, the Tea Party/GOP offered him a bribe to resign early. This would be something like appointed to some meaningless position, the commission on state monuments or superintendent of pothole repair, so he has a job and money after he leaves office.
Mr Ed
July 11, 2012 at 10:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Who the hell talks like that?
Yoda, Goggle Translate
baal
July 11, 2012 at 10:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“sovereign citizen”
As likeable as Thadeus Mccotter is (charming blather?); the sovereign citizen movement is, at its best, goofy. For example; they hold that YOUR NAME in all caps is an entity distinct and different from Your Name (normal caps) and the two different entities have different rights and responsibility. YOUR NAME has to pay taxes while Your Name is sovereign and does not. For similar reasons, they tend not to pay their mortgages, car loans and other debts. They then wind up in court making these bizarre assertions on who has to pay what and why. As a side note, they revere notary republics.
The degree of delusion in the group is up there with black/white hat lizard people or the most looney cults.
Did you know that the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was based on a real plant and town that used to be in the Everglades? The plant would grow rhizomes into your brain in you fell asleep on the ground. The movie totally over hyped the phenoma. The infected people merely became excessively violent until the rhizome growth interfered with breathing and heart rate control. Victims of the violence (usually family members and pets) would then be immobile. This then allowed the plant to infect more people. Rinse and repeat, viola! no town anymore. This is why you should always use a tarp or other ground cover in Florida.
flex
July 11, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is no talk of any appointment.
At this point the estimate is that his resignation will cost about $650,000 to the districts he represented.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120711/POLITICS02/207110365/McCotter-exit-costs-taxpayers-650K?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE
eric
July 11, 2012 at 10:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Raven, I think you’re thinking of filling empty Senate seats. States decide their own rules for that and a lot of them allow the governor to appoint someone.
For House seats, flex is right, it must be filled by election.
Raging Bee
July 11, 2012 at 10:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He’s promoting himself to sovereign cop-killer? +1 to the suggestion that he be tracked by the Feds.
raven
July 11, 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
OK, I didn’t know about the House rules.
It’s not just US Senate seats though. In some states, it is local statewide offices, attorney general, treasurer, judges and so on.
If there is no political advantage to resigning early, then he is an idiot. Two months to go and they have to have an election which they will have to redo in two months at considerable expense in a broke state.
Those Space Reptiles after him must be closing in rapidly.
d cwilson
July 11, 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Given his fondness for guitar playing, he may be hoping to be made the new Ambassador of Soul.
wherearemybeets
July 11, 2012 at 11:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sounds like Oswald Bates.
The Lorax
July 11, 2012 at 12:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Someone get this man a d20 and a D&D group. With prose like that, he’ll be a killer role player!
dingojack
July 11, 2012 at 12:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Any bets on being caught in a ‘wide stance’ in a bathroom?
Dingo
matty1
July 11, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@13 The Sovereign Citizen movement can be hilarious, among my favourites.
In the 19030′s FDR secretly had the continental United States reclassified as open ocean with courts as ships. A Judge as captain of his ship therefore has authority only in the courtroom.
There is a secret bank account for YOUR NAME that contains enough to pay all the tax for Your Name.
There is a secret ‘real’ Supreme Court that only hears tax protestor cases and can over rule the one everyone has heard of.
Sastra
July 11, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Victorians. Did.
I think this guy is trying to mimic what he imagines to be the stylistic flourishes of the 19th century — or, just as likely, the 18th century vernacular of the Founding Fathers. He probably thinks of himself as a throwback to the great orators of American History, and surreptitiously substitutes “f” for “s” in his personal correspondence, when he thinks he can get away with it.
Ah, if only Bulwer-Lytton were still in fashion!
raven
July 11, 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Timothy McVeigh was a Sovereign Citizen movement member.
They can also be quite dangerous.
Kent Hovind tried that during his tax protester days. It got him 8 1/2 years in prison. They can also be dangerous to themselves.
Cliff Hendroval
July 11, 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m trying to think if there’s some financial advantage for McCotter to abandon his term early. Unless he was offered some sort of highly-paid lobbying position, it doesn’t make sense for him to jump ship like that.
fifthdentist
July 11, 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is there any nonsense the gnuts won’t fall for?
I’m seeing some old high school friends on Facebook recently putting up disclaimers with lots of capitalized shouting informing the FBI and other government agencies that said account holder is a “sovereign citizen” and hereby prohibits any of those agencies from reading or using any information found on said Facebook page.
What’s deliciously ironic is that most of these same people rant about teh homos wanting “special rights.”
But at the flip of the coin, they think that just by writing or mouthing some magic words they can quit paying taxes/avoid purchasing car tags and driver’s licenses/encase their Facebook page in a shroud of invincibility/stockpile fully automatic 50-caliber machine guns.
Jordan Genso
July 11, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m in the process of moving into the district that McCotter represents, and so while I’m glad to see him not up for re-election in November (the seat could actually be won by a Democratic candidate), it’s incredibly frustrating that he wants to muck up the November ballot now by potentially getting the Republican candidate to become the “incumbent” (if that is the reason he is resigning early), all the while causing $650,000 in costs for the September election.
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
July 11, 2012 at 3:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Every so often someone sends out a broadcast over the company email system asking if there’s a notary public in the office. I expect that wouldn’t be necessary if we lived in a notary republic.
mucklededun
July 11, 2012 at 4:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think the next line after
Strike another match, go start anew…
–is
It’s all over now, Baby Blue.
meg
July 11, 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He sounds a bit like when my students take half mu advice and use a thesaurus.
The other half they forget is to double check the meaning of the new word they are using. . .
stace
July 12, 2012 at 7:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Damn, mucklededun beat me to it. Few things more amusing than some dbag politcian quoting Dylan.
jakc
July 12, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The sovereign citizen movement can also be quite sad. I know of a case where a couple, sucked into its vortex, were on the verge of losing their home and other substantial assets because they had used its principles in court. Yes, they were loons, but they weren’t bad people. They had lost a court case they should have won because they had fallen down this particular rabbit hole, and were only coming to understand how badly they had been misled. Using sovereign citizen principles is like treating cancer homeopathically – incredibly stupid and bound to fail. McCotter will do fine I’m sure (I doubt that he really uses SC principles) but not everyone who proclaims sovereign citizen is a rank opportunist.