johnson, mike Rep la 2%
SEE MAGA MIKE spkr 2 crashes search? see mike johnson 3
merri ok
no text 7/18
omg
Louisiana, District 4
Phone: 202-225-2777
2022 Score 0%
Lifetime Score 2%
Mike Johnson | League of Conservation Voters Scorecard
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https://www.alternet.org/johnson-border/
an 1 24
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....}:
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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."
READ MORE:New House Speaker Mike Johnson is quietly frightening
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.
READ MORE:Mike Johnson's 'Christian nationalism' is 'a greater threat to America than al-Qaida': strategist
*Watch the video below or at this link.
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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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an 11 23 joe conason
House Speaker Mike Johnson, lately elevated to one of the most important posts in the federal government, is nothing if not a fervent culture warrior. If Johnson had his way, not only would abortion and homosexuality be absolutely outlawed, with severe criminal penalties as punishment for any infraction, but so would contraception and what he calls "no-fault" divorce.
It even seems likely that he would require everyone's children to pray to his deity in schools, where the teaching of evolution also might no longer be permitted, since Johnson says he believes that actual science leads people to devalue life and commit mass shootings. Both his extreme policy views and his absurd ideas about dinosaurs on Noah's Ark and other such superstitions have become notorious since his GOP colleagues unanimously chose him as their leader.
The hermetic world of far-right religion where Johnson has prospered is a very strange place, not well known to most Americans. It is a world where the homosexual behavior he considers "deviant" has often been concealed and protected, even or especially when that conduct involves the exploitation of minors -- just so long as the perpetrators are powerful white men. And there is no doubt that Johnson knows all about this sinister sanctimony.
We know that he knows because the new speaker's resume, which traces his rapid ascent from obscurity on a legislative backbench in Louisiana to the pinnacle of congressional leadership, omits a certain telling episode: his brief service as the dean of a scandal-ridden "Christian law school" that never opened. Envisioned as a competitor to the highly successful (and profitable) Liberty University law school, the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law at Louisiana College was named for a reactionary Texas jurist and far-right activist in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Its first dean was Mike Johnson, then a young lawyer pursuing the culture war in lawsuits against gay rights and marriage equality. He reportedly had been selected for the job with the approval of Pressler himself, who assisted Johnson in raising money for the law school.
Before it could enroll a single student, however, the law school disintegrated under murky circumstances that reportedly involved financial mismanagement, possible corruption, and failure to win accreditation. The college president was fired and Johnson resigned, going on to win election to the state legislature and then, only two years later, a safe Republican seat in Congress.
That was not the end of the Paul Pressler saga, however. In 2017, Pressler was sued in Texas courts in a civil case that eventually came to include allegations of rape and abuse by several men who say he repeatedly assaulted them, with some of the allegations dating back to their childhood. Subsequent revelations in court documents and press reports showed that the allegations against Pressler had emerged as early as 1978, when he was expelled from a Houston church for sexual misconduct. What also emerged was that Pressler's law partner, a Houston attorney who led the Harris County Republican Party for 12 years, had known of harassment and assault allegations against Pressler since 2004 -- and had lied publicly to cover up the scandal.
After all, Pressler was not only an eminent figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, where he served as national vice president, but in Texas Republican circles and in the secretive Council for National Policy, which has long functioned as a kind of central committee for the American far right. In other words, he was too important to expose -- even after he paid an enormous financial settlement to silence one of his accusers.
As Southern Baptists learned to their dismay a few years ago, during an investigation long resisted by its leaders, the kind of abuse that Pressler inflicted on young members of their congregation, both male and female, was far more widespread than anyone had suspected. It grew from the hierarchical, authoritarian, and hypocritical culture at the highest levels of their faith.
The most disturbing aspect of the scandals that have afflicted both the right-wing church and the Republican right is how little Mike Johnson and his ilk have learned from them. They might spend less effort persecuting Americans whose ideas about life and faith differ from theirs, and more time considering what the words of Christ really mean.
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Raj Shah, Fox exec exposed in Dominion lawsuit, to lead House GOP comms | Media Matters for America
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an 11 23
far-right Evangelical firebrand William Wolfe — who also served as a senior Trump administration official — recently gave a speech suggesting his fellow fundamentalist Christians should prepare for war.
According to Right Wing Watch, Wolfe delivered the remarks at an event in Syracuse, New York entitled "Jesus & Politics Conference IV: Hail to Jesus." The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Director of Legislative Affairs at Trump's State Department bolstered his remarks by repeatedly quoting from a 1758 sermon delivered by Virginian pastor Samuel Davies. That sermon, delivered in the midst of the French and Indian War, was dubbed "the Curse of Cowardice," and Davies warned Christians that they were "in danger by the loss of our religion." Wolfe
that "the art of war becomes a part of our religion."
"If we have ever lived in a point in time in American history since then that we could argue that now is the time to arms again, I think we are getting close," Wolfe said. "Even though as Christians we seek peace, when the enemy is pressed upon us, if we fail to heed the call to arms, then we are acting as cowards."
"To be ruled by cowards in a time of war is a curse, because God hates cowards," Wolfe added.
Wolfe has previously embraced the term "Christian nationalist," which is the term used to describe adherents to an ideology that American society should be restructured in a hierarchy where Christians — predominantly white and male Christians — are at the top, and believers in other faith traditions are forced to conform to Christian standards and beliefs. Typical Christian nationalist policies are bans on abortion without exception, making gay marriage illegal again, and state-sanctioned persecution of the LGBTQ+ community.
"God is not God of just your heart; God is God of the public square," Wolfe said during an appearance on alt-right streamer Stew Peters' Rumble channel. "And I would say that even if a judge or a dog catcher or a president is not a Christian, what they need to recognize most fundamentally is that all authority in God’s creation is derivative from the Creator, and He tells everybody in authority how they should use it."
"[O]ur call as Christian nationalists is twofold: yes, we want more unapologetic Christians leading in the public square as Christians, but we’re calling on all leaders who exercise authority — whether they’re Christian or not — to recognize that they will answer to the one supreme authority and they need to learn how to exercise that authority rightly according to his good commands and precepts today," he added.
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11 23an
ahead of President Joe Biden's goal to "win back rural voters" in 2024, according to a Thursday Politico report, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), "is a proponent of more hardline GOP efforts to overhaul the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the country's largest anti-hunger program that serves 41 million low-income Americans," farmers and rural Americans.
Per Politico, Johnson has referred to SNAP, formerly called "food stamps," as "our nation's most broken and bloated welfare program."
As a result, "Many Democrats are alarmed that Johnson's rise to speaker will embolden GOP hardliners who are eager to target nutrition spending in the farm bill," the report notes.
"I can't imagine the Mike Johnson that we know would pass up the opportunity to secure as many conservative wins as possible in this farm bill," a Republican aide told Politico. "And that means serious SNAP reforms."
The news outlet notes the new speaker "is still assembling his team," and "has yet to dive into detailed planning for the next farm bill."
Politico reports, "House Republicans are essentially guaranteed to need Democratic votes to pass the next farm bill, given the GOP's narrow majority and opposition within the House GOP over the topline spending. Even some House Republicans, like Dusty Johnson, say the task ahead is significant, given there are 'a number of hardliners who struggle to get to 'yes' on anything."
Johnson told the news outlet, "At the same time, you've got some pragmatic farm-state members who get frustrated with the political gamesmanship."
Still, "as a senior member of the conservative-leaning Republican Study Committee," Politico emphasizes, Johnson's history includes supporting "proposals to roll back food aid expansions under Biden and block states from exempting some work requirements for SNAP."
READ MORE:House GOP unveils budget with trillions in cuts to medicaid, food benefits and more
According to the report, far-right "Republicans are pressing to include similar measures in the next farm bill. Such a move would upend the fragile bipartisan coalition needed to pass the legislation — a blow to House Republicans who represent the majority of rural and farm districts, including Johnson, as well as more centrist GOP members who will be fighting for their political lives in 2024.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) told the news outlet the speaker is "100 percent wrong on SNAP," which he believes is "one of the most impactful tools we have to fight poverty."
The Democratic lawmaker added, "Anyone who thinks the solution is more cuts is living in an alternate reality."
Politico's full report is available at this link.
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mma 11 23
Several major national news outlets are promoting House Republicans’ deceptive spin as the party seeks to leverage emergency funding for Israel to enact its top priority of protecting wealthy tax cheats.
President Joe Biden requested $105 billion in emergency supplemental funding earlier this month. His proposed package includes military aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan; money to enhance U.S. border security; and humanitarian aid for Palestinian, Israeli, and Ukrainian civilians.
But in a Fox interview last week, newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he planned to split up the package and pass stand-alone Israel funds that would be offset by what he called “pay-fors in the budget.” Johnson explained, “We’re not just printing money to send it overseas. We’re going to find the cuts elsewhere to do that.” House Republicans released their bill on Monday, which pairs $14.3 billion for Israel with $14.3 billion in cuts from the enhanced funding for the Internal Revenue Service passed in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Crucially, this is neither a pay-for nor an offset in any real way but would actually lead to an increase in the deficit: The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the IRA’s $80 billion for the IRS over 10 years, which includes a boost to enforcement spending, would “yield $180 billion in additional revenue for a net savings of $100 billion.” Just last week, the IRS reported that the IRA funds had allowed it to launch a crackdown on wealthy tax cheats that had already brought it $160 million in back taxes.
But the right is violently opposed to the government forcing wealthy taxpayers to pay what they owe. Right-wing propagandists have been screaming about that provision since it was proposed, describing increased funding for the IRS as, among other things, a dystopian plot to “hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers.” Republicans, meanwhile, made overturning those funds their top priority.
Johnson’s proposal uses the Israel aid package as an opportunity to achieve the Republican goal of protecting wealthy tax cheats. He’s counting on journalists to fail to explain this to their audiences — and in many cases thus far, that bet has worked out for him.
Some major news outlets promoted the GOP’s spin that the IRS funding cuts “offset” or “pay for” the Israel spending, while providing no information to their readers indicating that those cuts will likely increase the deficit.
The influential Punchbowl AM newsletter reported that the Johnson bill’s Israel funding “would be paid for by cutting an equal amount from the Inflation Reduction Act’s IRS enforcement,” adding that “the House GOP leadership team considered a host of bipartisan pay-fors, but opted to cut IRS money with hopes of dividing Democrats and solidifying GOP support” and “a standalone Israel bill with offsets is a no-go for the Democratic-led Senate.”
Reuters reported that the House GOP legislation would “provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel by cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service.”
And CBS News’ write-up claimed that “House Republicans want to pay for emergency aid to Israel by cutting funding to the IRS” and the bill would “would pay for aid to Israel by cutting the same amount in funding that was allocated to the IRS under the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Other outlets similarly privileged the House GOP’s false “offset” framing, but either acknowledged later in their report that the IRS cuts would increase the deficit or at least cited critics making that point.
The Washington Post’s article initially described the Republican bill as “a proposal to pay for emergency aid for Israel’s war against Hamas by cutting IRS funds aimed at cracking down on rich tax cheats and improving taxpayer service.” But the Post went on to provide a detailed accounting of what the IRS funding goes toward, and noted: “Using the IRS funding to offset the Israel aid might not actually save money: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had estimated in 2022 that the $80 billion IRS expansion would cut the deficit by more than $100 billion by improving collections and enforcement.”
NBC News’ article featured the subheadline “The newly minted Republican speaker is seeking to pay for aid to Israel by slashing $14.3 billion from IRS funds in the Democratic president's signature law.” But the body of the piece instead accurately described the bill as only “rescinding the same amount of IRS funding” as it included in Israel aid, and noted that “the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that the funds will ‘increase revenues by approximately $200 billion’ over a decade.”
CNN’s write-up claimed in its second and third paragraphs that “the GOP-led bill includes the same amount in spending cuts, rescinding $14.3 billion that had been allocated to the IRS as part of the Inflation Reduction Act,” and that “Democrats are warning that the bill’s offsets could cost it passage in the House.” In paragraph 10, it cited Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-WA) statement that “the cuts House Republicans are proposing would actually increase the deficit by curbing the IRS’ ability to go after billionaire tax cheats.”
And Semafor’s Principals newsletter led with the news that House Republicans had “unveiled a bill that would pay for $14.3 billion in assistance to Israel by slashing funding from the IRS” and that Johnson had “argued that emergency funding should be balanced by cuts elsewhere in the budget,” but later cited Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) statement opposing “reducing our tax collections by shrinking the IRS.”
It’s not impossible for outlets to get it right. Some reporters pointed out to their audiences that the GOP’s spin is deceptive rather than echoing it.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the House Republican’s bill “purports to pay for itself by rescinding $14.3 billion of the $80 billion that Congress gave to the Internal Revenue Service last year to improve the agency’s technology and enforcement,” then immediately added, “Cutting the IRS enforcement budget, in fact, would increase budget deficits by making it harder for the agency to catch tax cheats.”
Politico Playbook likewise reported that the Republican bill “not only seeks to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere but taps Democrats’ signature domestic policy legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, to do it,” but then immediately debunked that language.
“As a policy matter, reversing the bill’s IRS plus-up doesn’t make a lot of sense. Cutting the agency’s planned enforcement surge against tax evaders would have the perverse effect of increasing budget deficits, not trimming them,” it stated. “But as a political matter, the logic is impeccable: The libs, after all, were owned.”
Johnson’s first major move as speaker was to try to deceive the press (and through it, the public) in order to achieve one of his party’s long-sought objectives. His success in getting credulous reporters to adopt his spin is an ominous sign for the months ahead.
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judd
Wednesday, Republicans selected Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the next Speaker of the House. Johnson is the most radical member ever selected as Speaker, championing a host of far-right causes. Some experts describe Johnson's views as emblematic of Christian nationalism, "a cultural framework that advocates for a particular expression of Christianity to be fused with American civic life, with the government vigorously promoting and preserving this version of Christianity."
Here are some highlights of Johnson's views:
1. Johnson believes same-sex relationships should be a crime. Johnson has railed against the existence of LGBTQ relationships, calling such relationships "inherently unnatural" and "harmful and costly to everyone." He opposed the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a law criminalizing private sexual activity between two people of the same sex. "States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse," Johnson wrote. "By closing these bedroom doors, they have opened a Pandora’s box." According to Johnson, "if someone's trapped in a homosexual lifestyle, it's dangerous." Johnson also opposes the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that required states to recognize same-sex marriages. He described same-sex marriages as "counterfeit legal arrangements." In 2022, as a member of Congress, Johnson introduced the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, which would prohibit the use of federal funds for any instruction to children under 10 that mentions LGBTQ people. It is effectively a national version of the "Don't Say Gay" law championed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R).
2. Johnson believes abortion should be outlawed nationwide.In 2021, Johnson told a legislative committee in Texas that "when a woman is pregnant, science tells us that the new life she carries is a completely separate and full new human being from the moment of fertilization.” (That is not a statement supported by science.) In January 2023, Johnson co-sponsored the "Life at Conception Act," which would effectively ban all abortions. The bill would grant every "preborn human person" equal rights under the 14th Amendment from "the moment of fertilization." He has also co-sponsored legislation that would ban abortion nationwide after the so-called "fetal heartbeat" is detected, usually after about six weeks. The only exception would be for "an abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother."
3. Johnson aggressively promoted the lie that Trump won the 2020 election.Johnson played a key role in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Johnson recruited House Republicans to sign an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit urging the Supreme Court to invalidate the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Johnson “sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for” the brief, stating that Trump “specifically asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join on to our brief.” Johnson posted on Twitter, now called X, that “President Trump called me this morning to let me know how much he appreciates the amicus brief we are filing on behalf of Members of Congress. Indeed, ‘this is the big one!’”
As the new House Speaker, Johnson will be expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican's Super PAC. The purpose of the money is to keep Republicans in power and give Johnson an opportunity to advance his agenda. The two groups raised a combined $550 million last cycle.
According to Politico, Jeff Miller, a corporate lobbyist close to former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-LA), will begin fundraising for Johnson. There is reportedly "a mad dash of K Street denizens elbowing to get close to the new speaker." But will corporations that publicly claim they support LGBTQ rights and reproductive healthcare — and opposed the efforts to overturn the 2020 election — bankroll Johnson's efforts to stay in power?
That remains to be seen. But, despite Johnson's radical views, several prominent corporations backed Johnson before his ascension to power.
Walmart backs Mike Johnson
Walmart publicly presents itself as a champion of LGBTQ rights. In a 2022 posting on its corporate website, "Pride Every Day: Supporting LGBTQ+ Associates and the Communities We Serve," Walmart Chief People Officer Donna Morris emphasized the centrality of LGBTQ inclusion to its business:
Everything we do at Walmart is through the lens of Respect, Service, Excellence and Integrity. It is essential that our LBGTQ+ community is represented and treated through the lens of our values. We take pride in the steps we are taking to ensure everyone is included and belongs at Walmart. Because belonging begins with us.
Walmart also sells and promotes products, many featuring rainbows, from LGBTQ-founded brands.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Walmart took steps to preserve abortion access for its employees. It announced that it would expand coverage of abortions in its healthcare plans and "assist in covering travel expenses for employees seeking healthcare services that were not available within 100 miles of their homes." The move recognized abortion coverage as part of comprehensive healthcare for women.
And after January 6, Walmart made this announcement: "In light of last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, Walmart’s political action committee is indefinitely suspending contributions to those members of Congress who voted against the lawful certification of state electoral college votes."
None of that, however, has stopped Walmart from financially backing Johnson. Since 2017, Walmart's corporate PAC has donated $9,000 to support Johnson's campaigns, including $4,000 after January 6, 2021.
AT&T backs Johnson
Like Walmart, AT&T also responded to the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe by announcing it would reimburse employees for abortion-related travel. "The health of our employees and their families is important to our company," the company said, acknowledging that abortion rights are a critical part of health care.
Support for LGBTQ rights is also a central part of AT&T's corporate identity. AT&T’s website states that it is “committed to standing behind the LBGTQ+ community” and that it “support[s] organizations and projects that strengthen the LGBTQ+ community.”
After January 6, 2021, AT&T said, "our Federal PAC Board convened a call today and decided to suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of Electoral College votes this week."
Yet, since 2017, AT&T's corporate PAC has donated $21,000 to Johnson, including $5,000 after January 6, 2021.
Meta backs Johnson
After January 6, 2021, Meta, then known as Facebook, said: "Following last week’s awful violence in D.C., we are pausing all of our PAC contributions." The company said that the freeze would last "for at least the current quarter" to facilitate a review of its policies around political donations.
Meta has also embraced LGBTQ rights. In October 2022, for example, the company stated on its primary Facebook page, which has 182 million followers, that LGBTQ History Month was a reminder of "the generations of queer people all around the world who fought for equality and acceptance."
https://www.facebook.com/facebook/posts/10161747130116729
And after the overturning of Roe, Meta said it would support employees who needed to travel to obtain an abortion. "We intend to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the extent permitted by law, for employees who will need them to access out-of-state health care and reproductive services," a Meta spokesperson said.
But Meta has donated $4,000 to Johnson's campaigns, including a $2,000 donation on September 23, 2023.
Microsoft backs Johnson
Microsoft enthusiastically backs LGBTQ rights. "Our efforts to support and advocate for LGBTQIA+ people do not start or end at Pride," the company said in a June 1, 2023 press release. "By supporting our employees through global advocacy, charitable giving and better workplace practices, we hope to make a difference for LGBTQIA+ communities and beyond, as our drive for positive global impact continues."
In anticipation of the overturning of Roe, the company announced in May 2022 that it would pay for employee travel for abortion or gender-affirming medical care, both of which Microsoft described as examples of "critical health care."
The company also forcefully rejected the legislators who voted to overturn the 2020 election. Microsoft said it would "suspend contributions for the duration of the 2022 election cycle to all members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of electors." Further, the company pledged to "promote and join a conversation with other businesses and organizations that want to strengthen democracy."
Nevertheless, Microsoft has donated $8,500 to Johnson's campaigns, including a $2,500 donation on June 28, 2023.
Other major corporate backers of Johnson
Other corporate backers of Johnson include Boeing ($10,000), Capitol One ($1,000), Charter ($20,000), Chevron ($21,500), Cox Enterprises ($22,000), Koch Industries ($30,500), National Association of Realtors ($19,000), and Verizon ($4,000).
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yes only buff
2022540Establishing National Heritage AreasPublic Lands/Forests, Environmental Justice, Other
2022513Protecting Marriage EqualityJustice and Democracy
2022449Improving Certification of Presidential Election ResultsJustice and Democracy
2022420Transformational Climate Investments (Inflation Reduction Act) (2X Score)Climate Change, Clean Energy, Clean Air, Environmental Justice
2022420Transformational Climate Investments (Inflation Reduction Act)Climate Change, Clean Energy, Clean Air, Environmental Justice
2022417Undermining Environmental Review for Data CentersEnvironmental Justice, Lands/Forests, Clean Air and Clean Water, Other
2022383Pro-Environment Funding PackageClimate Change; Other, Clean Energy, Clean Air and Clean Water, Environmental Justice
2022371Attacking Environmental Programs and Funding PrioritiesClimate Change; Other, Clean Energy, Clean Air and Clean Water, Environmental Justice
2022367Slashing Environmental FundingClimate Change; Other, Clean Energy, Clean Air and Clean Water, Environmental Justice
2022360Restoring the Right to Abortion AccessJustice and Democracy
2022346Protecting Public Lands and Waters Across the WestPublic Lands/Forests, Environmental Justice
2022345Protecting the Grand Canyon and Colorado’s Public LandsPublic Lands/Forests, Dirty Energy, Environmental Justice
2022337Establishing a White House Office of Climate ResilienceClimate Change
2022330Protecting People from Toxic IncinerationClean Air and Clean Water, Toxics/Public Right to Know
2022267Recovering America’s WildlifeLands/Forests, Wildlife
2022232Cracking Down on Oil Industry Price GougingDirty Energy, Drilling
202231Investing in Science and Domestic Clean Energy ManufacturingClean Energy, Climate Change
202227Attacking International Climate CollaborationClimate Change
20229Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy
2021427Supporting Tribal Management of BisonWildlife, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests
2021385Transformative Climate, Jobs, and Justice Investments (2x Score)Climate Change, Air, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice, Transportation, Public Lands/Forests, Water, Other
2021385Transformative Climate, Jobs, and Justice InvestmentsClimate Change, Air, Clean Energy, Drilling, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests, Transportation, Water, Other
2021379Censuring Paul GosarJustice and Democracy
2021272Taking Action on PFAS ContaminationToxics/Public Right to Know
2021260Restoring the Voting Rights ActJustice and Democracy
2021247Pro-Environment Funding PackageOther, Climate Change, Clean Energy, Clean Air, Clean Water, Environmental Justice
2021217Protecting People from PFASToxics/Public Right to Know; Water
2021208Investing in Transportation and Water InfrastructureClimate Change, Transportation, Water, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice
2021206Building Climate-resilient Wastewater InfrastructureWater, Climate Change
2021201Investing in Climate-Smart and Pro-Wildlife InfrastructureTransportation, Climate Change,
:{:{---}:
October 30, 2023 5:01 pm
- David Corn @ Mother Jones: Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a “Christian Nation.”
- Spencer Macnaughton @ Rolling Stone: Inside the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Anti-LGBTQ Org Where Mike Johnson Spent Almost a Decade.
- Jennifer Bendery @ HuffPost: Mike Johnson’s Wife Runs Counseling Service That Compares Being Gay To Bestiality, Incest.
- Matthew D. Taylor @ The Bulwark: Mike Johnson, Polite Extremist.
- David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: News Why Did Mike Johnson Scrub 69 Podcasts From His Website?
- Eric Hananoki @ Media Matters: Rumble host and X influencer Stew Peters calls for shooting Catholic Charities workers.
- Robert Downen @ The Texas Tribune: Texas GOP chair stays silent on allies’ connections to antisemitic extremists.
- Bob Smietana @ Religion News Service: Mike Bickle, leader of IHOP movement, accused of sexual abuse.
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Charlie Kirk endorses "patriot" Rep. Mike Johnson for House Speaker | Media Matters for America
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an 10 23
a British journalist and academic is warning that because the Republican Party and its members are cementing belief in Trump's big lie about the 2020 election in its national identity, democracy is at risk.
In an essay for the Guardian, Peter Pomerantsev — a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University — opined that the recent election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) as the next Speaker of the House is a sign that the GOP is embracing election denialism as part of its core identity. Pomerantsev added that adherence to lies is a typical tactic of some of the world's most authoritarian governments.
"Agreeing to Trump’s claims about the rigged election is the absurdity you have to pledge allegiance to in order to show you belong to the tribe. It ensures your fealty by making you complicit," Pomeratnsev wrote. "For anyone who has lived in authoritarian regimes, it’s a familiar sight."
To illustrate this point, Pomerantsev noted that even though Johnson had unanimous support from his caucus in the speaker's race, many Republicans "have admitted both publicly and privately that the elections were, in fact, not falsified."
"Yet when journalists faced a gaggle of Republican congressmen and questioned Johnson’s record on this blatant lie, his colleagues jeered and he mockingly said: “Next question” – as if the facts were irrelevant here," Pomerantsev wrote. "And in a sense, they are."
Pomerantsev's essay elaborated that because Republicans have to believe in a claim they privately know is false in order to maintain power, right-wing media must follow suit in order to sate the tribalist nature of their audience. Because of this, he argues, "it will be hard to fact check our way out of this situation."
"The issue can’t simply be resolved by “trusted” sources, even those on the far right, who can communicate the truth about the election to Trump supporters. Instead, sources only become trusted if they agree to the lie," he wrote. "Pledging loyalty to the 'big lie' is more about identity than knowledge – and to fight it entails understanding the need for belonging and meaning it fulfills."
READ MORE:'Extraordinarily deplorable': Analyst slams GOP over 'Kraken level Big Lie' speaker choice*
"Authoritarian propaganda can give the illusion of status and at its extremes a sense of supremacy to compensate for the lack of real agency," he added.
Click here to read Pomerantsev's essay in full.
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[Why did Mike Johnson scrub 69 podcasts from his website? - Alternet.orgWhy did Mike Johnson scrub 69 podcasts from his website? - Alternet.orgWhy did Mike Johnson scrub 69 podcasts from his website? - Alternet.org](https://www.alternet.org/mike-johnson-2666100043/)
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an 10 23
after Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was confirmed as House speaker, countless pundits noted that he has a much different temperament from Rep. Jim Jordan — the Ohio Republican, far-right firebrand and speaker nominee who had lost three votes in a row. Jordan is flamboyant, theatrical, performative and in-your-face; Johnson, in contrast, is much more reserved.
Yet from a policy standpoint, Jordan and Johnson aren't far apart. Johnson is a far-right Christian fundamentalist known for his-gay and anti-abortion views as well as his efforts to help former President Donald Trump stay in office despite losing the 2020 presidential election to now-President Joe Biden.
In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on October 30, religious scholar Matthew D. Taylor emphasizes that Johnson's politeness doesn't make him any less extreme.
"Hot-off-the-presses profiles of Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House, contain a seeming paradox," explains Taylor, a prominent figure at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies. "Some emphasize that he is a 'mild-mannered,' 'soft-spoken,' and temperamentally courteous individual. They similarly describe him as a 'Christian conservative' and a 'deeply evangelical Christian.' But many of the same profilers have also highlighted Johnson's troubling activity surrounding the 2020 election and Trump's attempt to overturn the American people's verdict. Johnson’s involvement was substantial enough that he has even been labeled the 'mastermind of the January 6 plot' and “a threat to democracy.'"
Taylor continues, "So, which is he: an anti-democratic politician and an insurrectionist, or a mild-mannered Christian? Part of the problem is that we have come to imagine that a person cannot be both at the same time. Mike Johnson shows that you can."
The religious scholar notes that he has "spent nearly three years researching the Christian theologies and Christian leaders that drove the January 6th insurrection," emphasizing that "many of them are mild-mannered, conservative, deeply evangelical."
"There are principled, conservative Christians with heartfelt moral views on abortion, LGBTQ-rights, and a host of other cultural issues who value democracy and pluralism and recognize their preferred policies won't always win the day," Taylor argues. "Think Russell Moore and David French. And there are politically extreme conservative Christians who might hold the exact same views on the same issues as Moore and French, but who are also willing to upend democracy to see their agendas realized, which Moore and French simply are not."
READ MORE:Mike Johnson once agreed to speak at 'Kill the Gays' pastor’s conference*
Taylor continues, "Politically extreme conservative Christians were some of the foremost leaders who bought into and bolstered Trump's 2020 election lies, who used theology to justify their own authoritarianism, and who have brought their extremist theologies into the heart of right-wing politics. Mike Johnson can be located in this group."
Taylor goes on to point out that the "key Christian instigators of January 6th" who he has "tracked" are "part of an amorphous, nondenominational network called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)."
"They believe and propagate extreme theologies that provide a mandate for Christians to take over society, and they have become increasingly influential in Republican politics in the past eight years," Taylor observes. "Several New Apostolic Reformation leaders — they usually call their leaders either apostles or prophets — were influential evangelical advisers to Donald Trump. Presumably, some of them still are."
The religious scholar adds, "While he is not formally attached to the NAR movement, Mike Johnson, a Southern Baptist, has spent years hanging around with NAR leaders, looking to them as mentors and friends, and pursuing their agenda."
READ MORE:GOP's Big Lie about 2020 is 'more about identity than evidence': expert*
*Read Matthew D. Taylor's full article for The Bulwark at this link.
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many arts 10 23
CNN anchor calls new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson a "blank slate" | Media Matters for America
John Knefel wrote earlier today about how mainstream news outlets are downplaying or outright ignoring the extremist history of the new speaker of the house, Rep. Mike Johnson:
Johnson is a four-term representative and constitutional lawyer who worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election by leading an amicus brief in a Texas lawsuit that would have delayed the electoral vote in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He also voted not to certify the election results in Congress.
Johnson has a long history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion extremism, including working as senior legal counsel for the extreme anti-LGBTQ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. (The group was formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund.)
Since entering Congress, Johnson has introduced a federal version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which would eliminate federal funding for libraries, schools, and other organizations that discussed aspects of gay and trans identities. In July, he argued against parents having access to gender-affirming care for their children, falsely claiming it constituted “abuse and physical harm.” As a member of the Louisiana legislature, he introduced a bill that could have permitted de facto discrimination against gay couples, including allowing landlords to deny rental applications or employers to fire someone in a same-sex relationship. A recent CNN report reveals that Johnson wrote op-eds in which he called homosexuality a “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle,” and called for the criminalization of gay sex.
Johnson has also co-sponsored a bill that would ban abortion nationwide and sued Kentucky for religious discrimination on behalf of Ark Encounter, a creationist theme park. But major U.S. news outlets largely ignored Johnson’s record of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion positions following his nomination as the GOP House speaker-designate.
:{:{Video}:
CitationFrom CNN coverage on October 25, 2023
DANA BASH (CNN ANCHOR): But just starting out again, because we're going to be learning a lot about this man who is heading towards not only getting the gavel, but being second in line for the president of the United States, because this is obviously a constitutional position. The fact that he didn't have baggage in this climate was the plus –
REP. KEN BUCK (R-CO): I think it was really –
BASH: Personal baggage.
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John Knefel wrote earlier today about how mainstream news outlets are downplaying or outright ignoring the extremist history of the new speaker of the house, Rep. Mike Johnson:
Johnson is a four-term representative and constitutional lawyer who worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election by leading an amicus brief in a Texas lawsuit that would have delayed the electoral vote in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He also voted not to certify the election results in Congress.
Johnson has a long history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion extremism, including working as senior legal counsel for the extreme anti-LGBTQ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. (The group was formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund.)
Since entering Congress, Johnson has introduced a federal version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which would eliminate federal funding for libraries, schools, and other organizations that discussed aspects of gay and trans identities. In July, he argued against parents having access to gender-affirming care for their children, falsely claiming it constituted “abuse and physical harm.” As a member of the Louisiana legislature, he introduced a bill that could have permitted de facto discrimination against gay couples, including allowing landlords to deny rental applications or employers to fire someone in a same-sex relationship. A recent CNN report reveals that Johnson wrote op-eds in which he called homosexuality a “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle,” and called for the criminalization of gay sex.
Johnson has also co-sponsored a bill that would ban abortion nationwide and sued Kentucky for religious discrimination on behalf of Ark Encounter, a creationist theme park. But major U.S. news outlets largely ignored Johnson’s record of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion positions following his nomination as the GOP House speaker-designate.
:{:{Video}:
CitationFrom CNN coverage on October 25, 2023
JOHN KING (CNN ANCHOR): Out of three weeks of chaos comes very important history. A man even many Republican senators knew nothing about this morning. And I would believe most Americans knew nothing about this moming.
He's about to be third in line to the presidency once he is sworn in as speaker of the House. Mike Johnson will be third in line to the presidency of the United States after the president and the vice president. He'll now be the leader of a very fractious Republican conference.
And we were talking earlier, the Democrats believe they can use him and Trump to run in the 2024 campaign. That will be a challenge. That's a huge difference between him and the Democrats.
But we're going to see the president in the Rose Garden in a few minutes. He's never negotiated with Joe Biden. He's going to have to now negotiate with the president of the United States. He's also never negotiated with Mitch McConnell.
This will also exacerbate because of the wing of the party he comes from. The differences we have seen play out in the last couple of years between House Republicans and Senate Republicans.
So it's a new face. It's a new leader. He's a blank slate. That is an enormous opportunity. The challenges are so many for a person who has zero experience at this level – doesn't mean he can't do it, but he has zero experience at what he inherits in just a matter of minutes, they'll tally the votes. He'll be sworn in as speaker. He will get the gavel and then, wow, we move into a next very big chapter.
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10 23 mma
fox News interviewed a shaken but unapologetic Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) live from an undisclosed secure location in the House complex as a violent mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, delaying the certification of the 2020 presidential election. During the interview, Johnson, whom the House Republican caucus elected its speaker-designate on Tuesday night, defended his effort to toss the results in multiple states as “presenting our thoughtful arguments and thoughts about this whole process.”
Johnson, who made 50 appearances on weekday Fox programs (14 in prime time) between August 2017 and his run for speaker, came to prominence for his key role in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. He “led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 House Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the 2020 election results in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” Johnson drummed up signatures for that brief in part by telling his colleagues that Trump had personally asked him to request members sign it. The lawsuit, which was heavily touted by pro-Trump media outlets like Fox, was ultimately rejected unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court.
After Trump’s efforts to reverse the 2020 election through legal action failed, he and his associates sought to have Congress and Vice President Mike Pence throw out the electoral votes of key states on January 6, 2021. He also summoned thousands of supporters to Washington, D.C.
Johnson expressed solidarity with the protestors that morning and promised to take their efforts to Congress later in the day. “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today,” he posted on social media.
Then in a speech outside the White House, Trump urged the crowd to march on the U.S. Capitol, where the joint session had assembled to certify the results. They did, assaulting scores of law enforcement officers, breaching the building, and sending members of Congress into hiding.
Fox’s Bill Hemmer spoke with Johnson by phone as the mob occupied the Capitol, shortly after 3 p.m. ET. Johnson would not identify his location, saying only that he was “with a number of members, House members” in a “secure location.”
:{:{Video}:
CitationFrom the January 6, 2021, edition of Fox News' Bill Hemmer Reports.
“Well, I was in the middle of the proceedings in the House chamber down at the table. We were presenting our thoughtful arguments and thoughts about this whole process, the Electoral College, as you mentioned,” Johnson explained. “It’s a very important process for our nation. Happens every four years. And we’re going through the methodical steps. This is nothing unusual what was happening today. There have been many objections over the years. You know, we’re going through the process, and then they begin the lockdown. There’s chaos on the floor, and members get a bit alarmed. And we get multiple orders by the Capitol Police and ultimately they evacuate the chamber. It’s just a really, really sad thing.”
Hemmer then asked Johnson, “Our nation’s capitol gets massive rallies every year, all the time. How did this happen?”
“You know, it’s a great question,” he said. “The whole nation is a tinderbox right now of emotion, you know, of vitriol.”
Johnson did not blame Trump or Republican members like himself for causing that vitriol with false claims of election fraud. Instead, he said, “I’m here as one of the advocates on the Republican side, stating our concerns about this election, the allegations of fraud and the irregularity and all that.”
He continued, “But I don’t see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle making the other argument as an enemy.” He argued that the public needs to remember “the things that unite us” and that “we’re all one family in this country. And if we forget that, we lose that value, our republic is in peril.”
Johnson went on to explain that the members with him were feeling “a lot of sadness.”
“We feel like we’ve crossed a Rubicon in some way,” he said. “It’s bigger than our politics; it’s the culture itself. And we got to get back, again, to those things that unite us. If we don’t, we’re in trouble.”
Hemmer then mentioned that after a long silence while the crowd stormed the building, Trump had posted on social media that the crowd should “stay peaceful.” He asked Johnson, “Does he need to say more?”
“That’s a good start,” Johnson replied. “But I do believe, you know, I’m a supporter of the president. But this is a time for the commander-in-chief, the leader of the country — he still is that — to step up and call for calm.”
“We have to get back to basics,” Johnson concluded. “And I hope in the days and weeks, months to come — no matter the outcome of this presidential election, or any political outcome — that we can get back to these foundational ideals. Because if we don’t, again, you know, we’re going to see a lot more of this in the days ahead.”
At a news conference Tuesday night after Johnson became the fourth speaker-designate selected by his peers since a handful of Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month, a reporter tried to ask him about his role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election. Other members of the caucus shouted her down as Johnson smirked, shook his head, and said, “Next question.”
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Far Right Holds House Hostage; Pro-MAGA, Anti-Freedom Mike Johnson Nominated For Speaker
[Peter Montgomery | October 25, 2023
The House Republican caucus voted to make Rep. Tom Emmer its choice for Speaker Tuesday afternoon, but Emmer faced ferocious opposition from the party’s far-right flank and from former President Donald Trump, leading Emmer to pull out of the race just hours after rising to the top of the candidate pool. The caucus then turned to Rep. Mike Johnson, a hard-right Trump supporter who led congressional efforts to overturn the 2020 election, backs a national abortion ban, and opposes LGBTQ equality.
Johnson is a former lawyer and spokesperson for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious-right legal powerhouse that, despite its name, advocates for restricting Americans’ freedom and equality in alignment with its religious-right worldview.
Johnson has defended legislation banning abortion without exceptions for victims of rape and incest and is a promoter of the extreme anti-choice “personhood” movement, which seeks to have fertilized eggs treated as full persons under the law and U.S. Constitution from the moment of conception, which would require a national ban on abortions and some forms of birth control.
Last year, Johnson introduced a national version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would impose sweeping anti-LGBTQ censorship on public libraries, schools, military bases, and hospitals.
Earlier this year, Johnson participated in a religious-right rally at the Museum of the Bible featuring Christian nationalist and dominionist speakers.
Christian nationalist pastor and political activist Rick Scarborough calls Johnson a friend and in 2019 celebrated that “God just elevated him to be head of the Republican Study Committee.” Johnson had announced and promoted his 2018 bid for that post on Family Research Council President Tony Perkin’s “Washington Watch” radio show, saying the RSC’s mission was to steer the GOP to the right.
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10 23 an
in a now-viral video, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) — the fourth speaker designate from the House Republican Conference since the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) — declined to answer a question about his refusal to certify the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. Perhaps more alarmingly, his Republican colleagues booed the reporter who asked the question and even told her to "shut up."
"Mr. Johnson, you helped lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election," the reporter said before being drowned out by the House Republican Conference's boos and jeers. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), who himself dropped out of the speaker's race after failing to capture 217 Republican votes, can be seen saying "next question."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) yelled at the reporter.
According to NBC News, staffers for former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) on Tuesday circulated a New York Times article about Johnson's role as "the most important architect of the Electoral College objections." The article described Johnson as not only one of the 139 members of the House of Representatives who voted against certifying the results of the election, but as someone who created an argument that allowed Trump loyalists to cloak their objection to Biden's victory in legal pedantry.
"On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, [Johnson] presented colleagues with what he called a 'third option.' He faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional, without supporting the outlandish claims of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters," the article read. "His Republican critics called it a Trojan horse that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president while hiding behind a more defensible case."
Johnson's refusal to answer the reporter's question about his objection to the 2020 election, and his colleagues' shouting down of the question, prompted disgust from prominent journalists on X (formerly Twitter).
"This clip should haunt your dreams," USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke tweeted. "It's a political party gleefully hitting rock bottom without the slightest regard for democracy."
READ MORE:House Republicans so frustrated with lack of leadership that some are threatening to quit
"They're mad at the journalist for asking because they know the answer makes them look bad," tweeted Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast.
"Boos and jeers don't make questions suddenly disappear," CBS News' Robert Costa said.
"Great time capsule stuff," tweeted Politico columnist Jonathan Martin.
Watch the video below, or via this link.
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10 23 rww
When Rep. Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the House earlier this week, Christian nationalist religious-right activist Rick Green was “literally in tears” because, he said, Johnson “is one of our guys.”
Johnson himself confirmed as much back in 2021 when he spoke at a WallBuilders Pro-Family Legislators conference where he heaped praise on Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, saying that Barton’s work “has had such a profound influence on me and my work and my life.”
Green and Barton produce a daily “WallBuilders Live” radio program together, and on Thursday, they were downright giddy about Johnson’s elevation to the speakership, declaring that Johnson “sounds like a WallBuilders speaker” and proclaiming that “this is literally the kind of guy that we have been praying for.”
Johnson certainly does “sound like a WallBuilders speaker” and given that Right Wing Watch has covered Barton and WallBuilders for decades, it is worth taking a look at just what that means.
David Barton has built an entire career out of misusing, misrepresenting, and outright falsifying history, the Bible, and current events and doing so to promote his Christian nationalist political agenda. He has been highly influential not only within Republican politics, where he has many fans among current and former GOP legislators, but also internationally. On top of that, Barton’s Christian nationalist pseudo-history is shaping both Christian and secular educational institutions across the country.
Barton, who has repeatedly misrepresented his academic credentials and personal history, had his book on Thomas Jefferson pulled by his own publisher in 2012 after it concluded that “basic truths just were not there.”
Undaunted, Barton has soldiered on, repeatedly declaring that Christians who share his far-right worldview are supposed to be choosing our elected leaders and ruling the world because everything must operate according to biblical principles.
Barton falsely insists that our Constitution and entire system of government are based on the Bible and thus asserts that everything from the minimum wage to the income tax to the teaching of evolution are unconstitutional because they supposedly violate Biblical teachings. Barton also believes that there should be literally no limits on the Second Amendment, meaning that average citizens are entitled to own tanks, fighter jets, and even nuclear weapons.
Predictably, Barton takes a far-right position on issues like abortion—going so far as to proclaim that life actually begins *before* conception—and on LGBTQ issues, asserting repeatedly that AIDS is God’s punishment for sin and therefore a cure will never be found.
On Thursday, Barton appeared on the “Victory News” program, where he declared that he has “been friends for years” with Johnson, whom he praised for having not only a proper “biblical worldview” but also a corresponding Christian nationalist understanding of the founding and history of the United States.
“This is a God guy, and we thank God for putting a God guy in at this time in our history,” Barton celebrated. “It’s a really good thing.”
David Barton is almost single-handedly responsible for creating the Christian nationalist myths that the far-right uses to justify its push to enact harmful public policies that weaken the separation of church and state, undermine women’s rights, and deny legal equality to LGBTQ Americans. The fact that Rep. Mike Johnson, who is now Speaker of the House and second in line for the presidency, is an acolyte of Barton and his teachings ought to be alarming to all Americans.
October 26, 2023
- Jack Jenkins @ Religion News Service: Mike Johnson, pedigreed evangelical, suggests his election as House speaker ordained by God.
- Jennifer Bendery @ HuffPost: New Speaker Mike Johnson’s Long History With The Religious Right.
- J.D. Wolf @ MeidasTouch: New Speaker Mike Johnson Blamed School Shootings on the Teaching of Evolution.
- Isaac Schorr @ Mediaite: Speaker Mike Johnson Condemned by Far-Right for Comments on His Black Son and George Floyd: ‘Undercover Democrat?’
- Tim Dickinson @ Rolling Stone: MAGA Messianic Rabbi Blames Hamas Violence on Israeli Indifference to Jesus.
- Amanda Moore @ The Turtle Diaries: Groypers in the GOP.
- Eric Hananoki @ Media Matters: Moms for Liberty chair who pushed for removal of an Anne Frank book went on network that attacks “seditious Jews.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/house-republicans-paint-a-labor-vision-thats-straight-out-of-the-19th-century-robber-barons-era/
dcj dcr
Ten House Republicans who fashion themselves policy wonks are out with their diagnosis of what ails the American worker. Their proposed cure is a future that would be brutish, nasty and short.
The Hobbesian, dog-eat-dog policies the Republican Study Group proposes would enhance the power of those born to privilege, just so long as nothing knocks them off their comfortable perch.
The report proposes:
- No forgiveness of student loanseven though our federal government authorized students to borrow huge sums to attend worthless commercial schools that went bankrupt, leaving them with no degree, just debt. The Republican plan lacks even the mercy provisions for debtors written into Hammurabi's Code almost 4,000 years ago, which wiped away debts when storms, war or corruption ruined a borrower's finances.
- A turn away from comprehensive higher education, especially liberal arts, to focus on technical skills and employability.Forget about developing the rigorous and thoughtful minds that enable young people to become informed citizens.
- Throughout, the report makes recommendations that would require a larger federal government workforce to police workers, students, poor people and immigrants.
- Empower workers by further weakening, if not eliminating, unions. TheRepublican Study Group report calls for workers to have more freedom to negotiate directly with their employers, a solution in search of a problem. "Our approach would unleash the full potential of the American people by refocusing labor policy to provide workers more control over their own future," [SEE CA PROP 22 BS ADS I HAVE TIME/FREEDONM TO TAKE CARE OF MY AA GPA]the report states. Given that individual workers are mostly commodities, that's the equivalent of urging that each grain of wheat in a silo be free to negotiate whether it goes into the grist mill first or last.
- Get tough on the poor and immigrants, who are portrayed as greedy thieves who shirk work, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. The poor and hungry get the blame for high levels of what the report artfully calls "improper payments" despite evidence that mostly these are screwups by federal agencies, not applicants. Not a word, by the way, is said about thieving defense contractors, farmers and other business operators even though a link in the report is full of examples where such businesses benefit from fraud, waste and abuse.
The 66-page report, Reclaiming the American Dream: Proposals to Empower the Workers of Today and Tomorrow, is amazingly slipshod. Frankly, the study group, lead byRep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) and its staff should be ashamed that they published such low-quality work.
Many hypertext links in the End Notes don't work, including the first. Others point to web pages that generate a "404" page missing response. While some End Notes refer to official data, many point to ideological marketing organizations like the Heritage Foundation and polemics based on *a priori*assumptions.
Anti-Unions Claim
Bizarrely, the report characterizes unions as holding down the compensation of members. That's absurd since the whole point of collective bargaining is to ensure that workers get fairly paid for their contribution to their employer's financial success.
Consider this lie on Page 32: "Under current law, union contracts set both a wage floor and a wage ceiling. As a result, individual workers cannot be given raises, including performance-based raises, by their employer."
No law is cited because none exists. And not one example of a contract that prohibits merit pay is cited in the report or in the right-wing newspaper article to which it links. I've negotiated a labor contract and I've read countless such collective bargaining agreements, none of which had prohibition of merit pay or bonuses. It's possible they exist, but the Study Group fails to show any evidence.
How revealing, though, that the Republican Study Group describes its imaginary prohibition on merit pay and bonuses as entirely a problem with unions rather than employers. The incentive to hold down pay lies with companies, not unions.
The report's attacks on labor unions as a detriment to members comes right out of the Donald Trump playbook in which making stuff up or distorting it without any respect for facts is the name of the game. Just make the claim and damn reality.
Contradictory Approach
Throughout, the report makes recommendations that would require a larger federal government workforce to police workers, students, poor people and immigrants. Many more auditors and investigators would be needed to investigate anyone who relies on what remains of America's tattered social safety net.
Implementing the proposed changes also would require massive investments in technology, primarily computers to both operate federal programs and to find people who abuse these benefits.
Neglecting to propose these expansions of investigative staff and computer systems makes the study group report empty rhetoric that reveals its members' mindset, favoring much more top-down power and punishment.
Attacking Working-Class Leisure
The report attacks not working, something a wealthy nation could reasonably aspire to achieve. "Among the civilian labor force, less than half of those who fail to complete high school are participating in the labor force," the report states, accurately.
Heaven forbid that people not work. This is on a theme with Trump, who throughout his 2016 campaign complained that too many Americans were not working.
Of course, there are many reasons people don't work, especially the "poorly educated" whom Trump often says he loves.
Those reasons include staying home to raise children, which Republicans used to hail as a virtue. Then there's caring for elderly parents or a disabled spouse or just enjoying leisure instead of chasing every last buck.
Unmentioned in the report are government policies that have driven down wages for the "poorly educated," an issue examined in my 2014 anthology DIVIDED: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. For the many people whom nature or education made fit only for unskilled work, wages are now so low that it doesn't pay to get a job and can actually make you worse off.
We would have more people working if we moved to the shorter workweeks and mandatory paid vacations found in, say, Germany. That's anathema to the Study Group's perspective.
Tough Luck for Scammed Students
Another bizarre claim is that forgiving the debt of students swindled by corrupt fake colleges "would actually drive up the cost of college tuition and send the message that students who make irresponsible borrowing decisions will ultimately be bailed out by the federal government."
What of the responsibility of Congress, under both Democratic and Republican majorities, and presidents from both parties who enabled fake colleges and who put in place the harsh student loan rules that are also examined in my 2014 anthology DIVIDED. My 2008 bestseller Free Lunch tells of a student loan company that bought a Gulfstream jet to ferry members of Congress around gratis, the kind of institutional bribery that can distort the priorities of lawmakers.
Nowhere does the Republican Study Group propose the most obvious answer to America's higher education affordability issues. To prepare our young for the increasingly complex world of the future, we could simply restore the mid-20th century policies of making public higher education tuition-free or nearly so, an investment of tax dollars to build a prosperous and durable future.
Not everything in the report is without merit. The federal government operates, the study group says, 90 social welfare programs. Consolidating and simplifying those programs is a worthy goal. The report, though, is antagonistic to such programs, making any reader reasonably suspicious of changes the Study Group would seek.
This misunderstanding of the American students' and workers' needs should come as no surprise considering the signatories of this report. Nine are male. All ten are white.
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ctr-attack on gay marriage: religious rights/freedom [hobby lobby]
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-christian-legal-army-behind-masterpiece-cakeshop/
The Christian Legal Army Behind ‘Masterpiece Cakeshop’
A special investigation into the rise of Alliance Defending Freedom.
By Sarah Posner
September,Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Missouri Republican, held a press conference with four of her congressional colleagues to announce their support for Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker. The conservative Christian and “cake artist” had been found in violation of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law when he refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips is now the plaintiff in one of the most closely watched cases on the Supreme Court’s docket this term, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute. Additional research by Eli Clifton, Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Evan Malmgren, and Jake Bittle.
Hartzler had just spent a good part of her summer pressing for a ban on transgender people in the military because she believes they constitute a “domestic threat.” She was one of 86 Republican lawmakers who had just signed onto an amicus brief supporting Phillips’s novel claim that baking and decorating a wedding cake is constitutionally protected artistic expression. Phillips has also argued that he should not be required to deploy his creative talents on behalf of a same-sex couple, because doing so would violate his religious beliefs.
“A government that tells you what you must say and what you must do, and punishes you if you don’t, is frightening,” Hartzler said. “That kind of state power should scare all of us.”
Nearby, Phillips stood quietly with his attorney, Kristen Waggoner of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has mushroomed over the past few years into a Christian-right powerhouse. Founded 24 years ago because, as its longtime president Alan Sears once put it, “the homosexual agenda threatens religious freedom,” ADF now rivals some of the nation’s top private law firms in Supreme Court activity. It has trained thousands of lawyers, many of whom have gone on to government service at the federal, state, and local levels. The organization has helped shape “religious freedom” legislation; provides grants to other Christian-right organizations; and presses school districts to adopt its model policies on issues like transgender facility access. ADF now exerts far more influence than other legal organizations that litigate religious-freedom cases, such as the American Center for Law and Justice, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and Liberty Counsel. As the courts have ruled in favor of marriage equality over the past decade, ADF has positioned itself at the very center of the efforts to curtail LGBTQ rights under the guise of religious freedom.
The preparation of the congressional amicus brief was led by Ted Cruz, the Texas senator and former GOP presidential contender; Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican once rumored to be under consideration by Donald Trump for a Supreme Court seat; andRepresentative Mike Johnson, a freshman Republican from Louisiana and a rising conservative star. Johnson is one of dozens of former ADF attorneys around the country who were trained in the organization’s “Christ-centered” legal principles and now serve in government or the judiciary. As an ADF staff attorney, he led many of its legal fights against marriage equality.
In just one year, Trump has nominated at least four federal judges who have ties to ADF.
The involvement of Cruz, Lee, Johnson, and other congressional leaders is just one mark of ADF’s remarkable ascent. The organization, which once aspired to be merely a Christian antidote to the secular ACLU, has fast become a training ground for future legislators, judges, prosecutors, attorneys general, and other government lawyers—including, notably, in the Trump administration. Noel Francisco, Trump’s solicitor general, is an ADF-allied attorney, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions consulted with ADF when drafting Department of Justice guidance on religious-freedom issues. At the state level, at least 18 ADF-affiliated lawyers now work in 10 attorney-general offices; all of them were appointed or elected in the past five years. And in just one year, Trump has nominated at least four federal judges who have ties to ADF—Amy Coney Barrett, recently confirmed to the Seventh Circuit; Kyle Duncan, nominated to the Fifth Circuit; and Jeff Mateer and Michael Joseph Juneau, both nominated to district courts.
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