Congressman Who Feared Guam Might 'Capsize' Recites Police Brutality Poem on House Floor

Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia is no stranger to making strange, off-the-wall comments. He demanded that Rep. Joe Wilson be censured for calling out “You lie” to Obama during his health care speech before Congress in 2009, saying, “We will have people with white hoods running through the countryside again,” unless Wilson was severely punished.

And who can forget his bewildered comment about overpopulation on Guam:

“My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”

Johnson joined about a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus in their “hands up don’t shoot” demonstration earlier this week on the House floor. Today, Johnson used his one minute speech to recite a little poem that was both incoherent and incomprehensible, using Eric Garner’s “I can’t breathe” as a refrain of sorts:

Black men and boys killed by police.

I can’t breathe.

Impunity for the killers – no justice, no peace.

I can’t breathe.

Militarized police met peaceful protesters on their knees.

I can’t breathe.

Weapons of war – a show of force on our streets.

I can’t breathe.

Disenfranchised youth driven to violence as speech.

I can’t breathe.

Cynical media think this makes great TV.

I can’t breathe.

This cowardly Congress afraid of losing our seats.

I can’t breathe.

Half-hearted reform when there’s more that we need.

I can’t breathe.

Just thinking about the despair that this breeds.

I can’t breathe.

Black lives matter. Hear my pleas.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

I’m having a little trouble catching my breath myself after reading that gibberish. This is too juvenile to take seriously enough to dissect in its entirety, but the line ” Disenfranchised youth driven to violence as speech,” is just too objectively nonsensical to let go.

Looting and burning is not speech; it’s thuggery. Shooting at police is not speech; it’s a felony. Any violence committed in Ferguson and elsewhere cannot ever be excused for any reason, and for Johnson to try and justify rioting and mayhem as another way for young black men to express themselves — well, it doesn’t get any worse than that.

Johnson should have stuck with offering his opinion about the nautical dangers of overpopulation on an island. As for the poem…don’t quit your day job, Hank.