Maga Mike Spkr 2

EST 11 23

see mike johnson 3

see biden impeach BS see border BS 2 24

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this crashes? not indexed?

merri ok

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trump said 86 immigration bill

https://www.alternet.org/johnson-border/

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alternet- no lnx

Home | Trumpsters who want a civil war hope they can create enough chaos to fulfill their fantasies

How to reverse 'democracies being taken over by far-right ideologies and conspiracy thinking': author

Thom Hartmann

February 21, 2024

America is under assault, and, in the 9th year since Trump burst on the political scene, it’s happening so often now that it’s becoming normalized. This is a very real danger to the survival of our republic.

And they’re getting more brazen: this past weekend a group of mask-clad Nazis marched through downtown Nashville complete with swastikas and racist chants. The media treated it like “just another day.”

Republicans who run Texas are in open defiance of the US Supreme Court and the federal government over who has legal responsibility for enforcing our immigration laws and protecting our borders. It’s the most significant challenge to federal authority since the Nullification Crisis of 1832 that led us straight toward the Civil War.

And, indeed, it’s stirring up pro-new-civil war rhetoric among the racist base of the GOP. Televangelist Andrew Wommack, a big Republican supporter who called COVID a hoax “hyped by liberals as an opportunity to come against Trump,” on his Truth & Liberty podcast recently promoted the idea, along with replacing the US Constitution with the Christian Bible:

“I’ve actually had people say that if Trump was to be elected if we got a conservative Congress, that they fear that we would have another civil war,” Wommack told a caller. “And you know what? I don’t want a civil war, I don’t know anybody that does, but would it be worth it? To turn this nation back? I believe it would.”

Having been caught in the middle of a civil war years ago in Uganda (and having had one of my colleagues killed in it by stray gunfire into our refugee camp), I can say with a pretty high level of certainty that anybody who’s pushing civil war here in America has never experienced one.

Nikki Haley has been swatted twice, been physically attacked on stage, and is now being stalked at campaign events by Putin-loving Trump followers who are outraged that she’s calling for more military aid for Ukraine.

Jacob Ware, author of Guns, God, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in Americaand a consultant to the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC):

“I think intent to commit violence is high across the political spectrum, but especially on the far right. And in the United States, we always have the capability to conduct violence because of our gun laws. There’s a very poisonous mix being brewed with the great potential for violence in 2024 and beyond.”

Just days after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled that Trump had committed sedition and therefore couldn’t be on that state’s ballot, she was swatted at home. Judges Tanya Chutkin and Arthur Engoron have also been targeted by fascist Trump followers.

A Trump devotee armed with a hammer broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and tried to beat her husband, Paul Pelosi, to death; on the campaign trail, Trump regularly refers to the incident as if it was some sort of victory for him and his people, joking about it in a way that some interpret as encouragement for future similar attacks on Democrats.

Another apparent Trump follower, just last month, murdered and decapitated his own father because he was a federal employee and, therefore, part of the “deep state” that Trump has repeatedly called on to be destroyed.

An October survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that fully 23 percent of Americans agree with the statement that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.” The Institute’s CEO, Melissa Deckman, told the CBC:

“You have political leaders like Donald Trump who are not willing to ratchet down that rhetoric — in fact, they're doing the very opposite. In that context, I’m not surprised to see that Nikki Haley is asking for more security.”

When The Washington Post looked into the problem, they found that people running for Congress increased their spending on security by over 500 percent between the time Trump lost in 2020 and last November’s midterms.

The Brennan Center for Justice questioned over 1,700 state and local elected officials in all 50 states and found that fully 40 percent reported being threatened or physically attacked in the three years since Trump lost. Ninety percent said they’d been “harassed, intimidated, or stalked,” and one in ten state legislators reported that a person with a weapon had tried to intimidate them on one or more occasion.

Fascist Republicans are apparently getting what they want out of these intimidation tactics: one-in-five state officials, and almost half of local elected officials report that because of the threats they’re less willing to involve themselves in any way with “controversial” issues like abortion, immigration, or gun control.

Last year, Republican anti-abortion extremist Philip Buyno loaded his car with a hatchet, flares, matches, and bottles and cans filled with gasoline, then drove to the offices of an Illinois reproductive care clinic, Affirmative Care Solutions.

He repeatedly rammed his car into the front entrance of the building, destroying the main entrance and damaging the building’s foundation, and told police that when he got out of jail he was going to “finish the job.”

Buyno told police he was a member of a “rescue group” along with Matt Trewhella and Dan Holman; Trewhella signed the “Justifiable Homicide Statement” supporting people who murder abortion doctors, while Holman has defended using murder as a way to stop abortion.

Last week an openly Nazi group marched in front of the home of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. In Idaho, a group of 31 hateful white supremacists had the case against them dismissed because FBI agents and local prosecutors had “accidentally” bungled evidence and interrogations.

Last week, a Tennessee man was arrested for trying to participate in a plot with two Texas men to visit the southern border and murder Border Patrol agents along with any immigrants they could find. One of them was in possession of six semiautomatic firearms, over 20 magazines, and around 1,800 rounds of ammunition.

The border has been inundated with immigrants ever since Speaker “Moscow Mike” Johnson held a press conference to inform people in South and Central America that “the US border is wide open.” NPR reported on it, noting in their headline, “The border crisis is helping to mainstream a dangerous conspiracy theory.”

Johnson has openly promoted that hateful and antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory” that says wealthy Jews are funding the entrance of millions of Hispanics into our country so they can illegally vote for Democrats.

“If you’re scratching your head,” Johnson told his followers, “you’ve seen the video, you see droves of people, 2.4 million people coming over the border illegally, the president allowing it, the Democrats in charge of Congress are allowing it. The deal is they're going to turn them into voters.”

The Great Replacement Theory, a warmed-over reboot of Hitler’s theories about Jews and Gypsies, now has a huge following in the Republican Party and among Trump supporters.

Recently a “convoy” of armed white supremacists calling themselves “God’s Army” made its way to the southern border, echoing Trump’s (and Hitler’s) rhetoric that dark-skinned immigrants “poison the blood” of a country and intend to “replace” white men in the workplace and bedroom.

The FBI had to evacuate the Border Patrol processing center in Eagle Pass because of threats; a few days later Paul Faye Sr., identified as a “militia sniper,” was arrested for planning to murder Border Patrol agents. His hope was it would cause what he called a “domino effect” in which white men all over the country would take out their weapons and begin a mass slaughter of federal employees, much like the scenario from the novel Turner Diaries that inspired Tim McVeigh.

Faye credited the Great Replacement Theory as his main inspiration, as did the Trump followers and racists who murdered Jews in Pittsburgh, Black shoppers in Buffalo, and Hispanics in El Paso. The Theory was also the basis for Republicans’ impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a detail rarely mentioned in our media.

As the pro-democracy, pro-immigration group America’s Voice noted last month:

“Speaker Johnson, who was an instrumental supporter of Trump’s attempted coup, is far from alone as a Member of Congress promoting the conspiracy meant to undermine the faith in the democratic process.

“America’s Voice has identified 120 Members of Congress who amplified the replacement and invasion conspiracy in their official capacity just this last year.

“We identified over 1,040 times top GOP candidates, officials, or outfits that pushed the bigoted fiction in just the last year. We also identified this disturbing practice more than 700 times in 2022.

“In 2023 the Republican House majority also brought 13 witnesses to Congressional hearings who had promoted replacement and invasion conspiracies and even one witness who participated in Jan. 6 was asked by the Republicans to serve as a witness on one of their anti-immigrant hearings.”

Even candidates for the Senate are getting into the act, as American Journal News noted with their headline about the man who wants to take on Bob Casey for the US Senate this November:

“Republican David McCormick invests millions in website that platforms Holocaust denial.”

The Michigan House of Representatives just stripped Republican Representative Josh Schriver of his committee assignments for publicly promoting the Replacement Theory. Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist, a regular guest on my radio program, said:

“Rep. Schriver’s peddling of the racist ‘replacement theory’ is a deplorable demonstration of his fear of a dynamic and diverse Michigan future where all of our people in every community can succeed.”

Rolling Stone has discovered that fascist street gangs (“militias”) are embracing a new tactic, showing up on the scene of mass shootings and other mass casualty events to do their recruiting. Trace reporter Sonny Sone lays it out:

“According to geolocated footage reviewed by the magazine, members of a right-wing militia called Patriots for America — whose volunteers patrol the southern border with long guns and regularly espouse conspiracy theories targeting migrants — were on the scene, and spent almost 10 minutes beyond the police line, while law enforcement responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022.

“Last fall, armed neo-Nazis responded to the mass-casualty gun rampage in Lewiston, Maine, and gained access to the shooter’s registered address.”

The highly publicized mass shooting at Joel Ornsteen’s megachurch last week was allegedly committed by a woman steeped in antisemitic writings. That same week, the FBI arrested a Minnesota man who was a member of the Aryan Freedom Network, an openly Nazi group of Trump supporters, for conspiring to modify semiautomatic weapons into full automatic mode for the “coming race war.”

Two weeks ago, police in Massachusetts arrested a second man in connection with four fires set at Jewish community centers and Jewish-owned businesses. Rabbi Avi Bukiet, one of the victims of the attacks, said the fires were, “a domestic terror attack fueled by antisemitic motivations.”

In Maine, a man and his son were arrested last week for painting swastikas on public street corners. In Dallas, a Jewish city councilwoman’s home was defaced with antisemitic and anti-abortion graffiti. Two days later the Hillel Center for Jewish students at Brown University in Rhode Island was on the receiving end of threats of violence. White supremacy stickers popped up on street signs in Stillwater, MN.

In Cheyenne, Wyoming, residents woke up to find White Lives Matter flyers in their mailboxes. The hateful screeds quoted America First leader Charles Lindbergh and mentioned an “anti-white trend” that “will continue to increase unless White people come together to Defend and support their common interests.”

The screed demands, the Rocket Miner newspaper reports:

“[T]hat white people ‘band together to preserve their European blood’ and ‘guard against dilution by foreign races’ because ‘harmonious coalescence is virtually impossible. America’s founding population has gradually been overtaken by a wave of immigration from all around the world which share no connection with American heritage, culture and history.”

In Ashville, NC a white supremacist shut off the power to a local restaurant and left racist material for people stumbling out to find on the front porch, provoking County Commissioner Al Whitesides to say:

“What concerns me is not just what’s alleged here but what you see in America going on all over the country. If you’re African-American, if you’re Jewish, we’re living in an environment in 2024 that I didn’t think in the ‘60s that I would see today.”

In Austin, Texas last week a white supremacist named Bert James Baker stabbed a victim because of the color of his skin or his national origin. Mustafaa Carroll, the interim executive director for CAIR, told reporters:

“Baker repeatedly screamed the N-word and other obscenities, opened a passenger door, pulled one of the victims out of the car and physically attacked him.”

The father of the victim told reporters: “We came into the U.S. after the American dream. And my dream, and our dream, was not a big house or a big car. We want to live in peace and tranquility. We want to be able to cast our opinion without being jeopardized of being killed or shot or even harassed.”

Meanwhile, here in Portland, Oregon a man tried to set several people of color on fire, screaming racial epithets at them.

Almost everything in this article is from the past two weeks or thereabouts: the racist Trump followers who want a second civil war call this an “acceleration,” and hope they can create enough chaos that they can finally fulfill their adolescent fantasies about fighting in a “noble” civil war.

Will they get the conflict they so desperately want (and thought they were getting on January 6th)? I’m skeptical: to paraphrase President Eisenhower, their numbers are small and they are stupid.

Nonetheless, we must be vigilant if America is to survive as a pluralistic, multiracial society…

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an 2 24

maga mike said no ukr $ w/o border, got border lankford sinema, than trump said kill bill i want issue so 180; kpfa maga mike $ from 2 russian olig

In response, Cornyn quote-tweeted Paxton's post (https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1757412800488407479), writing, "Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending longstanding felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges."

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95k$ aipac 2 24 ymail

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January 31, 2024 5:02 pm

Roger Sollenberger @ The Daily Beast: The ‘Profound Influence’ of Christian Extremists on Mike Johnson.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s spiritual journey reveals ties to Christian fundamentalists who support slavery. Johnson’s office won’t say where he stands on that issue.

Tom Winter, Valeriya Antonshchuk, Patrick Smith and Caroline Radnofsky @ NBC News: Pennsylvania man arrested after allegedly killing his father and displaying his decapitated head on YouTube.

In the video, which has since been removed, Justin Mohn says his father was a federal employee and refers to him as a traitor while voicing right-wing conspiracy theories.

Angry White Men: Stew Peters: Somalis Are ‘Filthy Cockroaches That’ve Infested’ Minneapolis.

On the Jan. 30, 2024 episode of his Rumble show, white nationalist and Holocaust denier Stew Peters went on a vile, racist rant about Somali immigrants. While interviewing British Neo-Nazi Mark Collett, Peters called Somalis “gross,” “low IQ” “parasites” and “filthy cockroaches” who “infested the city of Minneapolis” and “hate white people.”

Kiera Butler @ Mother Jones: Anti-Vax Influencer Stew Peters Has a New Fixation: “The Jews.”

He says he’s not sure whether Hitler was a bad guy, because of all the “propaganda.”

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Mike Johnson invited a Christian nationalist media figure to serve as the House of Representatives’ guest chaplain | Media Matters for America

hibbs 2 24

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fight = obstruction / shutdown? l g says best deal possible on border, even under trump

an 1 24 no lnx

as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) approaches his 100th day in the role, Republican House members are criticizing the conservative Louisiana lawmaker for failing to secure any "policy wins," The Messenger reports.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who played a major role in ousting Johnson's predecessor — Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) — from the speakership in September, has also been a staunch critic of Johnson's.

"He hasn't really picked his big fight yet. His definitional spear in the ground has not been thrown," the Florida congressman told the news outlet. "If we don't fight for something before the election, we're incredibly likely to lose it."

However, per the report, "The Messenger talked to nearly two dozen House Republicans — a tenth of the 219-member conference — about Johnson’s performance to date ahead of his 3-month anniversary as speaker on Thursday. While the reviews are 'mixed,' as one member put it, Johnson still has support from the overwhelming majority of Republicans."

Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) argues "Johnson's measure of success is 'mitigating' the mess of unfinished legislative business he inherited after taking over for McCarthy."

He added, "I've not seen many people turn rotten tomatoes into lemonade. I'm not saying it's sweet lemonade; it's still a little bitter, but it's not rotten tomatoes. I give him credit for that."

Referring to Johnson, Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) said, "The poor guy is drinking from a fire hydrant, but he's kept his cool and he hasn't changed. He's still just as level headed as he was going in, so I think he's done a really good job."

READ MORE: 'Worse than we thought': House GOP 'threatening the career' of Mike Johnson over budget deal

Rutherford emphasized, "What I consider a victory and what some of these knuckleheads that want to shut down the government, what they want, are two different things."

The Messenger's full report is here.

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WALSH KIRK BLAZE?

Right-wing media escalate civil war rhetoric after Supreme Court rules against Texas in razor wire case | Media Matters for America

In response to a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing Border Patrol agents to cut razor wire Texas laid along the border with Mexico, right-wing pundits are claiming the Biden administration has sparked a second American Civil War. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, two members of the court’s conservative block, sided with the three liberal justices in ruling for the federal government.

The issue stems from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to stretch razor wire over dozens of miles along the state’s southern border, a cruel policy that has failed in its stated objective of deterring unauthorized border crossings. The Biden administration opposes the measures, and has ordered the Border Patrol to remove the barriers. The stand-off between Border Patrol and the Texas National Guard escalated earlier this month, with federal officials blaming Abbott for the deaths of a mother and her two children who drowned in the Rio Grande. (Texas authorities dispute this version of events.)

For his part, Gov. Abbott pledged that Texas will “continue to deploy this razor wire to repel illegal immigration.” Although it may appear that Abbott is in direct defiance of the Supreme Court, the American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick explained that the ruling overturned an “order saying Border Patrol COULDN’T remove Texas razor wire to process migrants. It didn’t affirmatively rule that the Border Patrol COULD remove Texas razor wire.” Or, as the New Republic's Matt Ford put it, the Supreme Court “lifted an injunction” on the Department of Homeland Security, so there's “nothing in this case for Texas to obey or defy at the moment.”

This simmering confrontation is the new backdrop for an old story. During election years, conservative media outlets generally ramp up their attacks on immigrants. Separately, over the last year, conservatives have become increasingly comfortable calling for, threatening, or warning about a coming civil war in the country. Responses to the recent court ruling have married these two trends.

As the news broke on January 22, conservative YouTube streamer Tim Pool said it “looks like a Fort Sumter-esque type scenario,” referencing the first battle of the Civil War, adding that “it does feel like it could be escalating to this federal versus state conflict.”

That evening, former Fox News star Tucker Carlson posted on X (formerly Twitter), asking: “Where are the men of Texas? Why aren’t they protecting their state and the nation?”

The same night, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) wrote that “the feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground.”

Then on January 23, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon appeared to favorably reference that post, saying “as Clay Higgins said” there is “kind of a civil war between the federal government and the state of Texas.”

Hours later, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk fantasized about Gov. Abbott openly defying the court’s ruling at the barrel of a gun.

Video CitationFrom the January 23, 2024, edition of Salem Media Group's The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

“So someone says right here, ‘Charlie, what would happen if Texas ignores the ruling? Will the government go to war with Texas?’” he asked.

“The federal government would come in, and some people would say, ‘Well, that's the seeds of a civil war.’ Is that what you want? Where does this end?” Kirk added moments later. “By the way, I'm all on board.”

“If we had an actual governor of Texas that was willing — 100% defy this,” Kirk continued, before advising Abbott on the logistics.

“If you're going to defy, here's how it works: press conference flanked by your most loyal Texas Rangers. ‘I am ignoring the Supreme Court's decision,’” Kirk said, adopting Abbott’s point of view. “‘I will enforce the border of Texas. If you're going to arrest me, you have to go through the Texas Rangers.’”

“If we had more governors on the border, it would be even more powerful,” he added, implicitly invoking the Confederacy. “Get every red state on board. Fly in every Republican governor.”

On Wednesday afternoon Abbott issued a statement invoking “Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” which he claimed is “the supreme law of the land.” Throughout the day, at least nine governors backed Abbott on X, even if they fell short of Kirk’s demand that they travel to the border. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp all posted their support for Texas, as did Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

In the same episode, Kirk told his audience that they had “better buy weapons,” and “have a lot of guns at your disposal.”

That afternoon, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh echoed Kirk. “Red state governors will need to ignore the Supreme Court and do what needs to be done to protect their citizens and the border,” Walsh said. He later added, “The last civil war was unimaginable until it wasn't.”

In the early evening, Bannon returned to the topic with guest Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). “That Supreme Court decision that was made has now put the federal government at war with the state of Texas,” Greene said.

“If they fund a war in Ukraine when Zelensky is raising the white flag, asking for peace talks in Switzerland, and they weaken our border policy while the federal government is at war with Texas, that is truly, possibly the start of a civil war in this country,” she added.

Blaze TV’s Steve Deace also invoked the memory of the Civil War. “Basically, the Supreme Court has told Texas your choices are: be invaded or secede,” Deace said.

Video

CitationFrom the January 23, 2024, edition of BlazeTV's The Steve Deace Show

On January 25, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade adopted the same framing on Fox & Friends.

Video

CitationFrom the January 25, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

“It feels like almost like a soft civil war,” Kilmeade said. “You’ve got all the Republicans saying, ‘Can we secure our borders?’ the Democrats saying, ‘I want this to go away’ and blaming Republicans, the President against the governor of Texas — the most independent state in the union. I mean, this is getting a little crazy.”

Fox News sounded little different than the fringe. “This is a constitutional crisis,” said conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in a video titled: “Supreme Court Decision Provokes Civil War in Texas.”

The story was the same in the right-wing blogosphere, too, with conservative news site PJ Media asking, “Is Joe Biden Mounting a Civil War at the Border?”

Conservative influencer Jordan Peterson posted: “So is it the case that@TheDemocrats are truly ready to go to war with Texas?”

While right-wing media figures fantasize about a new civil war, their rhetoric has real implications for immigration policy. They are stoking xenophobia and nativism, and endorsing cruel policies that are already injuring and killing some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

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the exodus of House Republicans is continuing unabated, adding to Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) woes as he struggles to keep the gavel after the 2024 election.

On Tuesday, Rep. Greg Pence (R-Indiana) — the brother of former Vice President Mike Pence — announced that he was not seeking reelection after serving for six years in the House of Representatives.

"After three terms, I've made the decision to not file for reelection," Pence said in a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter). "To the voters in Indiana's 6th District — it is a privilege and honor to represent you in our Nation's capital."

According to Ballotpedia's tally, Pence's retirement makes him the 21st incumbent member of the House retiring from public office, and the 11th Republican. On Friday, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) announced his decision to not seek another term, meaning all Republican-held districts in the Centennial State are now officially open. Additionally, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) issued his retirement announcement early last week after agreeing to become the next president of Youngstown State University. His exit will be on January 21, which comes before a critical February government funding deadline.

Republicans in particular have been fleeing the House of Representatives at a breakneck pace: The same day Lamborn announced his retirement from Congress, the Atlantic's Russell Berman reported on how House Republicans are "quitting in droves," noting the sudden exits of high-profile Republicans like former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-South Carolina), the House Financial Services Committee chairman who presided over the chamber while the House Republican Conference bickered for the better part of a month over who should lead their majority.

"After the House spent much of October fighting over whom to elect as speaker, November saw more retirement announcements than any single month in more than a decade," Berman wrote. "Some members aren't even waiting for their term to end."

After the expulsion of disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-New York) and McCarthy's December 2023 exit, Johnson can now afford only two defections from his own party assuming full attendance, making it even more difficult to pass legislation without Democratic votes. Johnson agreed late last year to fund the government with a "laddered" approach, meaning one deadline is approaching on January 19, with another deadline on February 2.

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the exodus of House Republicans is continuing unabated, adding to Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) woes as he struggles to keep the gavel after the 2024 election.

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AN 1 24 CARL GIBSON?

A new report shows that former President Donald Trump is far from the only Republican decision-maker who could significantly harm democracy this year.

While the ex-president has openly suggested that he would terminate parts of the US Constitution, rule as a dictator "on day one" and staff government agencies with tens of thousands of political loyalists, he is still currently just a private citizen. Rather, a report from the nonpartisan organization States United suggests another major looming threat to democracy comes from current Republican members of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.

"[T]he most misunderstood threat comes from Congress," wrote States United CEO Joanna Lydgate in an MSNBC op-ed with former House Judiciary Committee impeachment counsel Norman Eisen. "Inside the very building where our democracy came under attack three years ago, scores of election deniers still hold power."

According to States United, 171 current members of the House and Senate — approximately a full third of Congress — has trafficked in election denial conspiracy theories, with 152 election deniers in the House and 19 in the Senate. 128 sitting members of Congress voted to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. These members represent 36 states, and more than 100 of them signed now-Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) amicus brief seeking to throw out election results in four swing states President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020.

Both Lydgate and Eisen noted that in the wake of the deadly January 6 insurrection, Congress passed a law raising the threshold to challenging a state's electoral votes to one-fifth of both the House and Senate. However, they noted that depending on how various Congressional elections turn out in November, that higher threshold may still be within reach. And they both warned that election deniers in Congress have plenty of other tools at their disposal to "cause trouble in many other ways."

"They could use budget powers to defund Jan. 6 prosecutions. Congress, which has a history of erratic election funding, could starve federal agencies that help protect elections. Election deniers could gin up baseless investigations and haul election administrators to Capitol Hill to berate them for doing their jobs in 2024," they wrote. "The Senate could refuse to confirm judges or executive branch officials who don’t give lip service to the 'big lie.' And election deniers with a congressional platform could further poison public trust in elections with more lies."

"Elections are administered by state and local officials, but Americans understand that Congress has substantial influence," they added. "In new polling from States United, 59% of people said Congress has a significant amount of power when it comes to elections. What they say — and do — about our elections really matters."

Click here to read Lydgate and Eisen's op-ed in full.

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CNN host debunks Mike Johnson’s false hundreds of 'known terrorists' claim in real time - Alternet.org

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in recent years, more college graduates — especially college-educated women — have been favoring Democrats over Republicans.

Far-right House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) discussed this trend during a conversation with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), claiming that college students are being "indoctrinated" by liberals and progressives. But social media users have been pushing back against Johnson's argument, many of them responding that the GOP's extreme policies — not indoctrination — are driving college-educated voters away.

Johnson told Crenshaw, "The reasons that…. the Republican Party is attracting, less and less, more highly educated voters is because they spent so much time in the academy. And the universities are run…. usually by liberals almost entirely. And sometimes, by radical liberals, socialists and others. And so, these students are being indoctrinated instead of educated."

After The Intellectualist retweeted a video of the conversation on X, formerly Twitter, on Christmas Day 2023, many users shot down Johnson's argument.

Former CIA analyst Gail Helt tweeted, "So people who have voted Republican in multiple elections, who finished college decades ago, are just now falling prey to alleged brainwashing? I don't think so."

Deborah Kay, a former Republican, posted, "Wrong.. I'm college educated but that has absolutely nothing to do with me leaving the Republican Party. I left mentally in 2015 when Trump came down that escalator, then the October 2016 recording with Billy Bush pushed me further away, then J6 is what made me leave completely."

Kay also tweeted, "I refused to vote for anyone in the Tea Party but I definitely felt I was seeing the future of the Republican Party, even then. And it's turned out much worse. I was always more middle of the road and voted both sides of the aisle but I've voted straight Democrat since 2016."

Journalist Bette Dangerous posted, "I'm sure this Putinist with the loud closet bones failed to mention Turning Point is the fastest growing group on college campuses — that truth would get in the way of his Russian propaganda."

Pundit Jeri Walker wrote, "My experience in college was one of discovery. I chose my required subjects carefully & based on my personal curiosity. I chose my electives based on my personal curiosity. I chose to expand my knowledge so I could understand my world more. NO ONE ever tried to indoctrinate me."

Another X user, Gayle Dourn Plantz, tweeted, "There's a positive correlation between education levels & being a Democrat or independent. There's a negative correlation between education levels & religion So yeah, more educated folks tend to be less into religion and more into actually improving the lives of average citizens."

Activist Kitty Ann Swink told Johnson, "Actually Mike, they educate them.

*Watch the video below or at this link.

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'Erode the 1st Amendment': Religious scholars expose Mike Johnson’s 'malignant' Christian nationalism - Alternet.org

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when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) was ousted as speaker, some liberal and progressive pundits feared that House Republicans would pick someone even more to the right. And that's exactly what happened.

After three weeks of chaos, House Republicans unanimously voted to confirmed Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) as speaker. Johnson, a far-right Christian nationalist, was among the MAGA Republicans who favored overturning the 2020 presidential election results and keeping Donald Trump in the White House despite the fact that he lost to now-President Joe Biden.

The fact that Johnson is a practicing Christian isn't the thing that troubles his Democratic critics. President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) both consider themselves devout Catholics; the Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) is a Protestant minister, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg isn't shy about being a churchgoing Episcopalian.

Rather, it's the type of Christianity Johnson embraces that worries his critics. Johnson has been up front in his view that the United States should be governed according to a severe and extreme form of Christian nationalist fundamentalism.

In an article published on December 20, The New Republic's Melissa Gira Grant describes Johnson as "the most disturbing and influential Christian nationalist of 2023." And the "salient question" about the speaker, she argues, is, "How did so many people — including myself, to be honest — not see Mike Johnson coming?"

"The answer is that Johnson went this long passing as yet another Republican because many of us didn't pay enough attention to the warnings from those who track the rise of Christian nationalism and who have been deeply troubled by it for a long time," Grant writes. "Johnson has not moderated his Christian nationalism with his political ascent…. Johnson is not the only member of Congress who seeks to rule the United States according to 'biblical values,' but he is the one most clearly groomed for this role by the Christian Right."

Grant elaborates, "He spent years moving in secretive circles. He found mentors and future supporters among those on the right who have been pushing the mainstream conservative movement, urging its members to unleash their most extreme tendencies. Johnson was made by those groups and networks; now, they have a powerful ally third in the line of presidential succession. They made him powerful, and he owes them."

*Melissa Gira Grant's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.

Highlights From The National Association of Christian Lawmakers Gala

frank Pavone, an anti-abortion hardliner who was kicked out of the priesthood by Pope Francis this year, says that banning abortion was “front and center throughout the day” during the recent meeting of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, the gathering at which Speaker of the House Mike Johnson declared that God had prepared him to be a “Moses” leading America in this “Red Sea Moment.” Pavone, who reported on the conference in an article posted at Gateway Pundit and LifeNews.com, praised Johnson and other speakers at the event’s gala for highlighting efforts to ban abortion.

As voters across the country reject MAGA Republicans’ abortion bans, and GOP strategists fear the issue will hurt their electoral prospects in 2024, Johnson has publicly downplayed the priority of a national abortion ban for congressional Republicans. But, as Pavone’s report makes clear, abolishing abortion is still a priority for the religious-right movement from which Johnson emerged.

Johnson’s own track record is long and brutally anti-choice. As an anti-abortion attorney before his election to Congress, Johnson “helped draft and defend successive Louisiana laws aimed at tightly regulating abortion providers, helping make abortion increasingly inaccessible in the state even as the procedure remained technically legal,” the New York Times reported.

As an attorney at the Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious-right legal group that pushed the Trumpified Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, he represented anti-abortion extremists. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Johnson gleefully celebrated Louisiana’s law, tweeting, “Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K.”

As a member of Congress, Johnson has sponsored multiple federal abortion ban bills, including one that would declare fertilized eggs to be constitutionally protected persons from the moment of conception. Anti-abortion strategist Robert George has argued in a Supreme Court brief that such an interpretation of the Constitution would require states to treat abortion as homicide.

Johnson has cited religious-right leaders and dominionist activists as mentors and major influences. At the NACL gala, Johnson told lawmakers, “What we’re engaged in right now is a battle between worldviews.”

Another scheduled conference speaker was Janet Porter, author of abortion-banning “heartbeat” legislation. In the lead-in to Ohio’s recent vote on a pro-choice constitutional amendment, she and her allies promoted false claims that it would abolish all limitations on abortion and tried to mobilize an anti-trans panic against the amendment. But after voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment, Porter began arguing that it had no authority over the state’s anti-abortion laws. She urged state lawmakers to ignore voters’ wishes and strip state courts of the power to enforce the constitutional amendment. Porter’s recent moves are evidence of what The Nation’s Amy Littlefield described this month as “a variety of anti-democratic schemes to prevent the expansion of abortion access.”

Meanwhile, Johnson ally and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fought successfully in recent days to get the state Supreme Court to overrule a lower court decision allowing a woman carrying a fetus with a fatal diagnosis to get an abortion, even though being forced to carry the doomed pregnancy threatens her health and future fertility. Her lawyer has said she has left the state to get the healthcare she needs.

While religious-right groups would generally be expected to howl in protest at any suggestion that government officials meddle in internal church affairs, Pavone reported that the executive committee of the NACL unanimously passed a resolution calling for the reversal of his dismissal from the priesthood.

December 6, 2023

PFAW: People For the American Way Mourns the Death And Celebrates the Life of Founder Norman Lear.

People For the American Way is mourning the death of its founder Norman Lear, who remained an active board member until his death on Dec. 5, 2023. Lear died at home, surrounded by loved ones, at the age of 101.

Josh Fiallo @ The Daily Beast: Mike Johnson’s Office Walks Back Reason For Blurring Insurrectionists’ Faces.

Just hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declared Tuesday that rioters in the Jan. 6 insurrection would have their faces blurred in security footage so they’d avoid prosecution by the DOJ, a spokesperson walked back the Republican leader’s statement.

Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: Kevin McCarthy Ends Career, Announces Will Retire At the End of The Month.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced on Wednesday he will leave Congress at the end of December.

Douglas Soule @ The Tallahassee Democrat: ‘That’s authoritarianism’: Florida argues school libraries are for government messaging.

Florida’s government is arguing that school districts have a First Amendment right to remove LGBTQ books. Or any book, for that matter.

Mariana Alfaro @ The Washington Post: Trump says he wouldn’t be a dictator ‘except for Day One.’

Former president Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would not be a dictator upon returning to office “except for Day One,” as he largely deflected questions at a televised town hall event about whether he would abuse his powers to seek retribution against his political adversaries.

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Mike Johnson wants Dems to condemn James Carville for comparing 'Christian nationalism' to al-Qaeda - Alternet.org

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House Republican’s bill aims to put LGBTQ children in adoption and foster care at risk - Alternet.org

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[Mike Johnson wants Dems to condemn James Carville for comparing 'Christian nationalism' to al-Qaeda - Alternet.orgMike Johnson wants Dems to condemn James Carville for comparing 'Christian nationalism' to al-Qaeda - Alternet.org

Mike Johnson wants Dems to condemn James Carville for comparing 'Christian nationalism' to al-Qaeda - Alternet.org](https://www.alternet.org/mike-johnson-christian/)

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['Red Sea moment': Johnson likens himself to Moses, tells Christian nationalists God paved his path to speaker - Alternet.org'Red Sea moment': Johnson likens himself to Moses, tells Christian nationalists God paved his path to speaker - Alternet.org'

Red Sea moment': Johnson likens himself to Moses, tells Christian nationalists God paved his path to speaker - Alternet.org](https://www.alternet.org/johnson-likens-himself-moses-christian/)

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semi random rww

December 4, 2023 rww

Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck @ CNN: Speaker Johnson wrote foreword for book filled with conspiracy theories and homophobic insults

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote the foreword and publicly promoted a 2022 book that spread baseless and discredited conspiracy theories and used derogatory homophobic insults.

Tim Alberta @ Politico: The Bogus Historians Who Teach Evangelicals They Live in a Theocracy.

They had come out by the hundreds, decked out in patriotic attire this October evening in 2021, to hear from a man who was introduced to them as “America’s greatest living historian.” They had come for David Barton.

John Fea @ Current: Chad Connelly: Those who criticize David Barton do not possess true Christian wisdom and “hate freedom.”

It reveals the deep-seated anti-intellectualism present among conservative evangelicals. It shows how politics has torn the church apart. As long as Connelly is able to secure funding to travel around the country with David Barton and tell lies about the American past in service to his “Christian” political agenda, the more anti-intellectualism and the political captivity of the evangelical church will persist.

Bob Smietana @ Religion News Service: Warren Throckmorton takes on David Barton and ‘Christian nationalists’ revisionist history.

Despite past controversy, Barton’s influence has found an eager audience with the rise of Christian nationalism in the age of Trump.’

Robert Downen @ The Texas Tribune: Texas GOP executive committee rejects proposed ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers.

Some members of the committee said such a ban, proposed two months after a prominent conservative activist was caught meeting with a famous white supremacist, might be a “slippery slope” or too vague.

Michael Kaplan, Major Garrett, and Sheena Samu @ CBS News: Eligible voters are being swept up in conservative activists’ efforts to purge voter rolls.

Voters eligible to cast ballots are already being swept up in a grassroots effort to purge the nation’s registration rolls ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a CBS News investigation has found.

Joe Jervis: Ex-Employee Says Ousted “Ex-Gay” Church Militant Founder Was Living An “Active Homosexual Lifestyle.”

I don’t think it’s too salacious to come out and say that the accusations against Voris are of a sexual nature.

Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Kirk Cameron wants schools to ditch Scholastic book fairs for a right-wing alternative.

Enter Kirk Cameron, whose entire post-Growing Pains career has centered around trying to replicate his success in the secular world and failing in bigger and bigger ways. His latest gambit is to offer a right-wing alternative to Scholastic book fairs.

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an 12 23

as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his GOP colleagues' efforts to impeach President Joe Biden potentially move forward this week, the Louisiana lawmaker insists the party will prevail in its plans.

However, during a Sunday morning conversation with CNN's Victor Blackwell, Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer insisted House Republicans are "moving forward fast without" any real accusations, evidence, or substance.

Blackwell played a clip of Johnson recently explaining to a Fox News host what could happen in the coming days regarding House Republicans' opening a formal impeachment inquiry against Biden.

The speaker said, "So a formal impeachment inquiry vote on the floor will allow us to take it to the next necessary step. I think it's something we have to do at this juncture."

Johnson continued, "I suspect no Democrats will assist in this effort, but they should. The facts are so clear for everyone to see. Just the constitution requires the house to follow the truth where it leads. We have a duty to do this. We can't stop the process."

Referring to Johnson, Blackwell said, "He says he thinks they have the votes for this. Just a couple of days ago he was against the expulsion of [ex-US Rep.] George Santos (R-NY), and 105 members of his conference voted for it. Before we get to the actual content of the impeachment inquiry, what's on the line for him if they do not get to that point of opening it?"

Zelizer replied, "Well, I think many Republicans want this to happen...the former president depends on congressional Republicans. He always has, and I think this impeachment inquiry is being demanded, being sought, in part to muddy the waters, to make the accusations through Congress, through impeachment about President Biden. And so I think there is a lot of pressure on Speaker Johnson. But frankly, I think Speaker Johnson is happy to go along. He is part of the cohort that has been very eager to get this going."

The CNN host commented, "Yeah, there still is not the evidence. There are plenty of questions that Republicans have put forward, but no evidence, and really not even clarity on what the charge they would be focused on here. We have some experience recently, obviously, with three impeachment inquiries in the last 30 years or so. Is there a neat, clean narrative of what this means for the party that pursues the impeachment in the subsequent election?"

Zelizer said, "There is not. But, look, this still is very much more like the 1990s, right, than the last impeachment we went through. That was when Republicans went to impeach a former President Clinton, in the Monica Lewinsky story. Here, though, we don't even know what the accusations are. There's no evidence of anything at this point. And this is quite a contrast with Speaker Pelosi, in 2019, really didn't want to move forward with impeachment. Here they are moving forward fast without anything there. So that tells you the politics of the impeachment is much more important now than the actual substance behind what they are pursuing."

Watch the video below or at this link.

an 11 23

the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is having difficulty focusing its efforts on who to impeach first — President Joe Biden or Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Punchbowl News reported that the House Republican Conference's divisions have come to the surface, as members have accepted that they lack the political capital to conduct two high-profile impeachment hearings in the 118th Congress. While some members want to concentrate on impeaching Biden in relation to his son Hunter's foreign business dealings, other Republicans say targeting Mayorkas over border security is an easier target.

"[Republicans] need to focus on what they can get,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) told Punchbowl. "Mayorkas is easier than impeaching the president of the United States."

While the House Homeland Security Committee has accused Mayorkas of "dereliction of duty" in securing the Southern border, chairman Mark Green (R-Tennessee) didn't confirm whether his committee would ultimately recommend impeachment at the conclusion of its investigation.

"When my committee makes a recommendation, it’ll be substantiated by the evidence," Green said. "That’s the best I can say. I don’t want to create false hope or anything."

Meanwhile, the White House said House Republicans were "wasting time" on the impeachment resolutions and accused the majority of failing to responsibly govern.

"Secretary Mayorkas continues to be laser-focused on the safety and security of our nation,” DHS spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg said. "This baseless attack is completely without merit and a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities."

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) recently stated during a press conference that the Biden impeachment effort is a major point of focus for his caucus, and said House Republicans would continue their work gathering evidence to impeach the 46th president of the United States. However, during a November meeting among the House GOP, members confided to Speaker Johnson that there might not be the political will to impeach Biden given his poll numbers. This prompted MSNBC columnist Ruth Ben-Ghiat to accuse Republicans of "abuse of power."

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Funding for Mike Johnson’s $18,000 Israel visit remains a mystery - Alternet.org

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'Tricky moment' for Speaker Johnson as he makes first visit to 'kiss the ring' of Trump: report - Alternet.org

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Biden to take on Boebert after she attacked 'garbage' bill that brought 'investments, jobs' to Colorado - Alternet.org

'Chutzpah': Biden blasts Johnson 'taking credit' for $30 million project he voted against - Alternet.org

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November 17, 2023 5:12 pm

Tori Otten @ The New Republic: Ex-Trump Lawyer Jenna Ellis Is Publicly Roasting His Entire Family.

Ex–Donald Trump attorney Jenna Ellis lashed out at her former boss, after his allies attacked her for flipping on the former president in the Fulton County case.

Talia Levin @ Rolling Stone: These Evangelicals Are Cheering the Gaza War as the End of the World.

Thousands have died in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Some far-right Christian leaders believe the bloodshed portends the second coming of Christ

Angry White Men: Stew Peters Goes On Homophobic And Antisemitic Rant About The Log Cabin Republicans.

On Rumble, Stew Peters devoted an entire segment of his show to attacking “fake conservatives” who support LGBTQ rights, particularly the Log Cabin Republicans. In an utterly deranged, slur-filled rant, Peters also claimed that donations from “mainly Jewish people” are funding pro-LGBTQ and Zionist candidates.

Alex DeLuca @ The Miami New Times: Moms for Liberty-Backed Candidate Elected Vice Chair of Miami-Dade School Board.

Despite losing big in recent school board elections across several states, the culture war agenda pushed by self-described parental rights group Moms for Liberty appears to be prevailing in the 305.

Alex Kaplan, Noah Dowe & Jack Wheatley @ Media Matters: Far-right figures and white nationalists celebrate Elon Musk’s antisemitic post: “What we were saying in Charlottesville.”

Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), agreed with a paid X Premium user who claimed that Jewish communities push “hatred against whites” and support “hordes of minorities … flooding their country,” calling it “the actual truth.” In response, far-right figures and white nationalists have praised Musk for pushing the antisemitic conspiracy theory, echoing “what we were saying in Charlottesville” and “normalising our ideas.”

Warren Throckmorton: David Barton Still Leading Capitol Tour Deleted by Family Research Council in 2013.

Kelly Shackleford reported that they had met Mike Johnson in the Rotunda of the Capitol and had prayer with him. The night before, David Barton had led the First Liberty group in a tour of the Capitol. In the picture below, you can see Kelly Shackleford, along with David Barton standing next to Speaker Mike Johnson.

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Mike Johnson’s legal views 'openly promote' his 'strain of Christianity above all over faiths': expert - Alternet.org

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an 11 23

following the release of the House Ethics Committee’s damning report detailing the alleged actions of U.S. Rep. George Santos, largely focused on using at least tens of thousands of dollars of campaign cash for personal purchases, the Republican Ethics chair on Friday filed a resolution to expel the freshman New York Republican congressman. It sets up what will become a test of House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team – especially House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who strongly backed Santos from the start – and their desire and ability to put ethics over politics and power.

The stakes for Speaker Johnson are simple: his three-vote majority is already razor-thin. Speaker Kevin McCarthy made clear Santos would be allowed to stay as long as possible. Will Johnson direct his leadership team to actively whip to expel Santos, knowing his majority will slip even further?

“Santos must be held accountable to the highest standards of conduct in order to safeguard the public’s faith in this institution,” the resolution, filed Friday by Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) reads.

To expel Rep. Santos, a two-thirds majority is needed. Assuming all House Democrats are present and vote to expel, 77 Republicans would also have to vote for the expulsion resolution, as The New York Times noted November 1 when an effort to expel Santos “failed decisively…after a group of lawmakers from Mr. Santos’s home state could not persuade nearly enough of their colleagues that his admitted lies and federal indictment were sufficient grounds to oust him.”That vote failed by a 213-179 margin.

But Thursday’s massive, and massively damning Ethics Committee report, has started to convince at least a few Republicans who voted against expelling Santos less than three weeks ago that there is now enough evidence to vote yes.

And while House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s office issued a statement calling the Ethics Committee’s report “troubling,” as Punchbowl News reports, it’s been crickets from the Speaker himself, and even less from his House GOP leadership team, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and most notably, Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who not only strongly endorsed Santos, she reportedly was “laser-focused” on getting him elected and even fundraised for her fellow New York Republican.

But other Republicans, like U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), are “undecided.”

Speaking about the allegations in the Ethics Committee’s report, Rep. Davidson told CNN Thursday, “I haven’t heard them or read them all myself. But I will say primarily this is between George Santos and the people that sent him here. And I imagine there’s probably mixed feelings in his own district.”

The Ethics Committee report painted a picture of man who redirected donor funds from campaign accounts to his personal accounts, spending lavishly on expensive dining and shopping trips to cosmetics retailer Sephora, French high-end fashion house Hermès, and Italian luxury fashion house Ferragamo. Donor cash was reportedly also used at spas and casinos, and to pay for luxury vacations, to pay his rent, to pay for Botox, to pay for parking, to pay his credit card bills, and to pay OnlyFans, a subscription and pay-per-view site that streams videos created by sex workers, musicians, artists, and physical fitness experts.

The New York Times on Thursday detailed what it called Santos’ “post-election shopping spree,” just part of the “tens of thousands of dollars or more” he “siphoned from unknowing donors.”

“Over just a few days last November, Mr. Santos dropped $6,000 at Ferragamo, perhaps some of it on the red designer sneakers he later wore to walk the marble halls of Congress. He withdrew $800 in cash at a casino, where an aide said he liked to play roulette. He paid off his rent, and he pulled out another $1,000 in spending money at an A.T.M. near his apartment in Queens,” The Times’ Nicholas Fandos wrote. “It would have been nothing for the kind of wealthy financier Mr. Santos purported to be on the campaign trail. But that was a ruse. All of it was being illegally funded by Mr. Santos’s congressional campaign, which wired him $20,000 just after Thanksgiving without ever telling campaign donors or the Federal Election Commission."

Speaker Johnson’s spokesperson on Thursday in a statement said, “Speaker Johnson encourages all involved to consider the best interests of the institution as this matter is addressed further.”

But when the House returns after Thanksgiving, and the resolution to expel comes up for a vote, it will be one thing for the Speaker to tell members to “consider the best interests of the institution,” and another to use his power to convince his caucus to expel Santos.

How 'fringe' movements have shaped Mike Johnson’s 'Christian nationalist' ideology: report - Alternet.org

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November 13, 2023

Bradley Onishi and Matthew D. Taylor @ Rolling Stone: The Key to Mike Johnson’s Christian Extremism Hangs Outside His Office.

There is another angle to Johnson’s extremism that has received less scrutiny, and it brings us back to that flag outside his office.

Annika Brockschmidt @ Religion Dispatches: Mike Johnson isn’t Just Your Average Christian Right Avatar — He’s Influenced by Fringe Movements Unfamiliar to Most Political Analysts.

There are however a small handful of political commentators who don’t have to Google Johnson to know who he is and what he stands for: Those who’ve been writing about White Christian nationalism in the U.S. for years.

Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen @ Axios: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab.

Former President Trump’s allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios.

Julianne McShane @ Mother Jones: Trump Campaign Defends Nazi-Era “Vermin” Threat With…Another Incendiary Threat.

Donald Trump is once again comparing his political enemies to animals on the campaign trail—and scholars are sounding the alarm about the fascist roots of his rhetoric.

Frederick Clarkson @ Salon: Cracks on the road to Christian Dominion: Is the shadowy “City Elders” group collapsing?

An examination of the videos and speeches at City Elders events over the past year reveals a group that may be significantly weaker than it claims to be — a possible bellwether for the fortunes of the greater Christian right.

Tess Owen @ Vice News: Oh Great, the QAnon Shaman Is Running for Office Now.

The so-called “QAnon Shaman” has tossed his horned hat into the ring, and is preparing to run for Congress.

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11 23 an

to many liberals and progressives — including those who identify as Catholics or Mainline Protestants — the religious right's views on Israel are a major contradiction.

Far-right white evangelicals consider themselves very pro-Israel and pro-Zionist, but they also believe that Jews will face eternal damnation unless they convert to evangelical fundamentalist Christianity before they die. The left often attacks Christian nationalists as antisemites, yet the evangelical far right believes that according to the New Testament's Book of Revelation, Israel will play a key role in Jesus Christ's return to the Earth.

Much has been written about House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) far-right Christian nationalist views. But in an article published by The New Republic on November 8, journalist Audrey Clare Farley zeros in on a specific aspect of the new speaker's fundamentalism: the radical form of Zionism he embraces.

Johnson, Farley notes, shares the ideology of Christian nationalist Pastor John Hagee, who opposes a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

"Johnson and Hagee appear to be run-of-the-mill Christian Zionists, fueled by fantasies of a cataclysmic war in the Middle East that brings about the second coming of Christ, wherein all Muslims — and Jews, for that matter — either convert or face eternal damnation," Farley warns. "It would be easy to dismiss these evangelicals and their apocalyptic fervor, but that would be a mistake, as their conceptualizations of Judaism and Israel are shared by many who are not so overtly eschatological, nor even Christian."

Farley adds, "In recent days, narratives of Jewish and Israeli exceptionalism have proliferated, as conservatives frame Hamas' October 7 massacre as a blow, more fundamentally, to the West. These narratives go to show, rather paradoxically, the extent to which Jews remain an alien 'other' in the minds of those working so assiduously to retro-fit them into their story of 'Judeo-Christian' civilization.'"

The journalist points out that Hagee and other "Christian Zionists" are vehemently anti-Islam — a view that countless Jews reject.

"Many Jews, for their part, prefer to stand with the people in Palestine," Farley observes. "They realize that their struggles are interlocking, and that they can support safety and liberation for both."

{Audrey Clare Farley'sfull article for The New Republic is availableat this link.}:

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Johnson’s 'symbol of Christian warfare' exposes his ties to aggressive Christian nationalism: report - Alternet.org

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Dems hit swing district House Republicans for supporting Mike Johnson’s far-right wish list - Alternet.org

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thom an 11 23 no lnx

How the GOP became the party of tax cheats

Thom Hartmann

November 06, 2023

Last week, House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson gave his first press conference. The billionaires sure picked the right guy: his performance was flawless. Slick, slimy, and unctuous.

For example, even though every dollar the IRS spends auditing billionaires produces between $6 and $12 in added tax revenue to our government, Johnson insisted with a straight face that we need to cut over $14 billion from the IRS’ budget to “fully pay for” a package of military aid to Israel.

No reporter — as is so often the case when interviewing Republicans — was willing to point out what BS his pitch on behalf of his billionaire owners was. (Nobody wants to be banned from future press conferences or ignored during question time.)

Johnson repeated his “fiscal responsibility” mantra several times, saying that future legislation to keep the government open would similarly contain radical domestic spending cuts rather than asking the morbidly rich to pay their fair share of taxes.

Which raises the question: When and how did the GOP become the party of tax cheats?

A quick history is in order.

When Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn in a president in 1953, the top income tax bracket for the morbidly rich was 92%. Eisenhower was just fine with that. He knew it discouraged wealthy people from strip-mining their businesses for every penny they could find at the expense of their employees: instead, employers paid their workers well and rolled corporate profits into R&D to develop new products. It made America the world’s leader in innovation.

In 1946, at the end of WWII, our national debt was 119% of our nation’s GDP, much like today’s 123%. Truman and Eisenhower knew how to reduce that debt: high taxes on billionaires and massive expenditures on American infrastructure like schools, hospitals, highways, and airports to stimulate the economy. In just the seven short years leading to Ike’s inauguration they’d cut our debt down to 68% of GDP.

Jack Kennedy kept those high tax brackets for morbidly rich people: on every dollar over $400,000 a year ($4 million/year in today’s money), people paid 91 cents in income taxes. And, true to form, the economy was rip-roaring along, the middle class was growing faster than anywhere else in the world, and our debt was under control at 54% of GDP.

After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson gave a tax cut for the morbidly rich in exchange for their going along with his Great Society programs including Medicare and Medicaid: he cut the top rate to 70%, although he closed so many loopholes used by the rich that it actually increased federal revenues.

Republican President Richard Nixon was fine with the 70% top bracket on the morbidly rich, too, and kept it in place throughout his presidency. By the time he left the White House in 1974, our national debt was way down to 31% of GDP and it stayed there (32%) through the four years of Jimmy Carter’s presidency (1977-1981).

And then it happened. During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, five Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized — for the first time in the history of either America or any other developed country in the world — political bribery by billionaires and corporations alike.

It was a subset of Lewis Powell’s infamous Memo about how the very, very rich should rise up and seize control of American politics because they knew best how to run a country and, Powell suggested, all those pesky social programs from the New Deal and Great Society had put America on the road to communism.

Powell himself wrote the 1978 decision in First National Bank v Bellotti that legalized political bribery by giant corporations, as I lay out in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America.

Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981 and immediately set about remaking the GOP’s top priorities away from what was best for America and toward exclusively serving the interests of obscene wealth.

That moment in 1981 was a major turning point in modern American history for two reasons.

First, Reagan’s campaign had committed treason to win the White House, cutting a deal to give the Iranian Mullahs American weapons systems and spare parts in exchange for their holding 52 US hostages long enough to screw Jimmy Carter’s re-election chances.

In doing so, Reagan set a pattern that would become a recurring theme for the GOP: abandon American values and betray our allies if it means wealth and political power.

George W. Bush, exploiting 9/11, lied us into two unnecessary and illegal wars just to save Dick Cheney’s company and insure his own 2004 re-election. Donald Trump enthusiastically accepted help from Vladimir Putin to win the White House in 2016 and his family has since taken over $3 billion from Gulf state governments.

Second, Reagan pursued Jude Wanniski’s Two Santas political strategy with gusto. Wanniski, in 1977, had argued that when Republicans held the White House they should use tax cuts and budget-busting spending to run up the national debt as fast and high as possible, thus injecting money and stimulus to let the good times roll.

This would make people think Republicans knew how to run an economy. (Back during the Reagan presidency, I used to say, “Give me a $2 trillion credit card and I’ll show you good times, too!”)

Republicans got so good at it that today the average billionaire in America pays around 3.2% in income taxes.

When Democrats came into office, Wanniski said, Republicans in Congress should begin to squeal loudly about the national debt (that Republicans had created with their tax cuts), claiming it was a threat to the nation. This, Wanniski said, would force Democrats to “shoot Santa”: vote to gut their own social programs.

Cue MAGA Mike Johnson.

The smarmy little man was so on-message yesterday that he even claimed that people in our military had told him they thought our national debt was a bigger threat to us than Russia or China. Nothing, Johnson argued, was more important than cutting back on the IRS’ ability to audit billionaires while reducing social program spending.

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, housing subsidies, Obamacare, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, the Peace Corps, the GI Bill, federal home loan programs, the National School Lunch Act, Head Start, the Family and Medical Leave Act, dozens of supports for public schools: all these programs and more that benefit average Americans were passed by Democrats over the objection of the majority of Republicans.

The sad reality is that the GOP serves only two masters: giant corporate monopolies and the morbidly rich. They’ll toss a rhetorical bone to racists, misogynists, gun freaks, homophobes, and Nazis, but that’s just to get enough votes to hold political power: their real obsession, their true North Star, is great wealth.

Some Democrats were giddy when Johnson was selected Speaker because they thought his lack of experience and his extremist views on abortion, homosexuality, and religion would alienate him from the American public.

But Johnson has proven himself up to the task, if yesterday’s first press conference is any indication. He’ll go to nearly any length to keep the IRS from collecting from his tax-cheat patrons, all while working to gut the American social safety net and giving Putin whatever he wants.

And now he’s collaborating with Republicans in the Senate to create a secret commission to slash Social Security behind closed doors.

So, get ready for the next 14 months (until the next Congress is sworn in January 2025) to be a nonstop attack on America’s poor, our middle class, and the entire spectrum of racial, gender, and religious minorities who make up the fabric of our nation. After all, somebody’s gotta pay for those massive tax cuts Reagan, Bush, and Trump gave Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk.

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1123an no lnx

'Completely unacceptable': Johnson gavels House out for 3-day weekend to attend far-right event in Paris

Carl Gibson

November 10, 2023

Even though a potential federal government shutdown is just eight days away, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) sent lawmakers home early for a long weekend to tend to a different priority: Catching a flight to Paris.

The New Republic reported Friday that Johnson — who still has yet to present a plan to fund the government before the November 18 deadline — gaveled the House of Representatives out of session on Thursday so he can make it to the Worldwide Freedom Initiative's (WFI) upcoming conference in Paris, France, where he's due to speak Friday night.

"We are just 8 days away from a devastating government shutdown — and instead of working in a bipartisan way to keep the government open, Speaker Johnson sent Congress home early for the weekend," tweeted Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia). "This is completely unacceptable."

According to the New Republic, this weekend's WFI conference features an array of prominent far-right figures. In addition to Johnson, Governor Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota) will also be in attendance, along with her paramour Corey Lewandowski, who was found to have had a years-long affair with Noem earlier this year despite Noem still being legally married to her husband. A spokeswoman for far-right public education activist group Moms for Liberty — an anti-LGBTQ group whose school board candidates suffered multiple staggering losses in five different states Tuesday night — is also speaking. A promotional flyer for the event also teases appearances by Truth Social CEO (and former California Congressman) Devin Nunes, as well as former Trump campaign manager David Bossie.

Johnson will also be joined at the conference by various international far-right activists, including Brexit architect Nigel Farage, French politician Eric Zemmour — who has defended the Nazi Party's French collaborators — and Balázs Orbán, who serves as political director to extremist Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán (no relation).

This weekend isn't Johnson's first introduction to the WFI, with TNR reporting that the newly minted House speaker delivered the keynote speech at the group's launch event earlier on the 4th of July prior to his colleagues giving him the speaker's gavel. Johnson has also been making his rounds with right-wing media since becoming speaker, giving multiple interviews to Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network.

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