The willingness to destroy the American Republic has become a litmus test for Republican leadership. Sinclair Lewis was spot-on when he said, "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" I have seen few politicians so boldly demanding their sense of Christian privilege be written into law. If there is an upside here, it is knowing Johnson is absurdly out of step with where the American public is on just about every issue. Like a lot of religious nut cases, he appears convinced a top-down, authoritarian approach to the culture wars they lost a long time ago, will carry the day. Johnson comes across as a fast-talking televangelist intent on picking the pockets of his flock.
Being totally out of step with most Americans won't matter diddly if "most Americans" (that is, the sane ones) are segregated into electoral-district ghettoes by gerrymandering. And anyone expecting our current Subprime Court to stand up for democracy and rule against gerrymandering might as well be waiting for the Blue Fairy to do it.
How did Mike Johnson escape scrutiny? First of all, he is Donald Trump's fair-haired boy (even with black hair!). He's an election denier and a wall-to-wall born-again evangelical, which speaks directly to Trump's base. Insofar as House Republicans are concerned, he hardly needed to be vetted, because he is essentially Jim Jordan, without the baggage.
Johnson has a problem, though. Almost from the moment his name was put forward, he was being examined by practically every news organization in the US, particularly MSNBC, which had his number before the vote was taken. His attitudes will be under scrutiny by them, by the FFRF, and by any person or organization which values State / Church separation.
Yeah, he's in the driver's seat ... but he would do well to check his rear view mirror.
In 2022 he (re)won an uncontested seat in a district of Louisiana so red that it has voted GOP for the last 23+ years and lately with a 10-point margin. The dude has nobody in his rear view mirror. No matter how extremist he is, I doubt the Dems will run anyone serious against him in 2024, just due to the district's political demographics.
Now, will he be reelected head of the GOP faction? Well if the GOP acts conventionally the answer will be "yes to Speaker in the case where the GOP retains control of the House; no to minority leader if they lose it." But who knows; that's really just a guess.
I fervently hope that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris never go within 5 miles of each other for the remainder of their term, lest some stochastic terrorist take them both out at once.
How? It's the President of the Senate (i.e. the VP, in this case Kamala Harris) that counts and certifies the electoral college vote. That's why Pence did it last time. And while "The House" has to be present when it's done, nowhere in the Constitution or amendments does it say that the Speaker has to be there or has some part in the counting process.
The Secret Service had better be 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭 going forward. With the rhetoric that's been coming out of the GQP, their propaganda outlets, and their base, I would 𝘯𝘰𝘵 rule out the possibility of someone taking a swing at Biden and Harris to try and get their pet fascist into the Oval Office.
I suspect the principal red flag for such an attempt would be the frequency with which right-wing media mentions the Speaker's place in the line of succession.
Unless they get the results disallowed and Johnson tries to claim that since there is no legitimate winner, he should be president until a new election can be held.
Louisiana 4th is probably one of the 'safestly red' districts in the country. To lose his seat he'd have to (as the saying goes) get caught with a dead girl or live boy in his bed.
There's no Louisiana Senate seat up for election either, so he can't even exit by failing upward.
I like the part where the idiot voters of Lousyana voted in a governor more concerned with degrading education, pushing christianity, curtailing the rights of women, LGBT citizens and other non-essential red-meat talking points than... oh, say, the salt water pushing its way up the ol' Mississippi river to degrade people's drinking water, climate shift and storms, hurricanes, and floods. He's got his priorities, and they are typical of right wing extremists.
After the first two candidates for speaker were rejected, them being such outrageous options, Mike Johnson seems like a reasonable choice. The fact that he’s just as outrageous as the others, minus the circus-like attention seeking, will fly under the radar for the average Joe Murican. The base knows him, they love him.
His worldview and policy positions are completely par for the Louisiana course, though. I doubt anyone is surprised by any of the listed shit he’s done.
Do not get me started on his misogyny. Like, he’s the Dean of a college that refused to allow birth control in their insurance plans, that never even opened its doors. What is that? School shootings are because women can now leave abusive husbands, oh sorry “no-fault divorce”. And no abortions or birth control. I’d guarantee that he’d vote for repealing the 19th amendment in a heartbeat. Fuck him.
Rather than call people like Johnson "Christian Nationalists" I find it more convenient to call them "Nationalist Christians" because that word order abbreviates to "Nat-Cs".
All this optimism. 'The Senate Will Stop anything awful' Democrats don't really control the Senate. Manchin and Sinema (an Independent now, BTW) do. King and Sanders are Independents though Sanders usually sides with the Democrats. With 3 Independents, there are actually more Republicans than Democrats in the Senate.
The Senate may stop the most egregious items, but that doesn't mean a lot of awful isn't going to get through. I consider an anti-trans bill a not an unlikely win for Johnson. Not enough support to be a 'hill to die on'.
And that doesn't even address what they're doing at the state level, which a state's rights court is almost certainly going to uphold. Many of them have a blind spot when it comes to the 9th Amendment.
Look what Texas did this week:
Makes driving an undocumented family member to the doctor, to church, or to school a “human smuggling” offense carrying a 10-year mandatory prison sentence;
Allows Texas authorities to separate children from their parents at the border — just as Trump did in 2018;
Encourages police to unconstitutionally imprison and deport migrants, even those with valid asylum claims;
Subjects Latino Texans to racial profiling by law enforcement; and
Spends $1.5 billion to continue Trump’s ineffective border wall
I'm scared and I think so many people are walking around saying 'It can't happen' that it is and will.
Sinema is about as pro LGBTQ+ as they get. I really don't think think you need to worry much about an anti-trans bill getting her vote to make it 51. If some bill like that does land up on Biden's desk, it seems pretty determined what happens to it there.
You are correct about the States. Mike Johnson's need to work with a Dem senate to get federal legislation passed provides zero brake on what conservative states may do. But then again, Mike Johnson's elevation to Speaker didn't *add* anything to that either. They are two completely separate issues.
Sinema campaigned on raising the minimum wage and theatrically voted against a wage bill the very first opportunity she got. She claims bisexuality, which she very well may be, I believe her when she says so, but her record isn’t the best when it comes to voting to support the policies she campaigns on. She also refuses to speak to her constituents and has had shady dealings with influential lobby groups. I don’t trust she will be as pro LGBTQ+ as you think she is.
I trust Sinema to defend my rights about as much as I trust scummy drainage pond water not to breed mosquitos. Wave a fat stack of donor cash under her nose, and she'd feed every last LGBTQ person in this country not named Kyrsten Sinema to the leopards without a single moment's hesitation.
It's not like Abbott and Patrick have anything else. They have no ideas on improving the state and ignore those presented to them, like maybe updating our energy grid so it can handle a fucking Texas summer without ERCOT constantly threatening rolling blackouts. That doesn't even address doing something so it doesn't have a catastrophic failure due to, granted unusual, weather events.
I'd certainly like to leave. Of course, I think it's going to get so bad, I not only want to leave Texas, I want to leave the U.S. I feel like maybe I'm the proverbial frog in the pot.
One has to wonder where did he and all other creationists like him ever get such an idiotic unfounded idea about people evolving from slime, besides the fact that they made the whole thing up out of thin air?
Come to think of it, I think I've just answered my own question.
> "idiotic unfounded idea about people evolving from slime"
D.A. gets puzzled look on face... checks back 2,473,804,361 generations on family tree... yep, slime. Now what that has to do with killing people with an assault style rifle I can't quite figure out.
I went to the World Renown American museum of Natural History in NYC in July of 1995 and I never took a gun and kill someone afterwords. None of the visitors ended up taking a gun and going out and kill someone after they visited the museum. Just comes to show what Jokeson, Dumb Idiot Ham, and the other creationists have made are all baseless, unfounded claims they entirely made up.
There are times I honestly wish I could make some of these people live under the kinds of laws they want to create. Seems like they've enjoyed the benefits of being at the top too much for entirely too long and now they think nobody else deserves the same considerations they do. The smug superiority is nauseating.
I listened to some of Johnson's speech when he got elected. It didn't take five minutes to understand why he'd been selected and what was likely to happen so long as he was in office. The guy is still a religious extremist, he's just figured out how to be quiet and charismatic enough about it most people don't really notice. Expect more of the same from him as Speaker of the House, because it's not going to get any better with this guy in power.
I've said it before- it's the quiet ones we really need to watch out for. The screamers can work a crowd, but they also galvanize opposition from the otherwise apathetic center; the quiet ones can slide right into less prominent but still critical positions of power before any but the most attentive even know they exist. As dangerous as shitheads like Cheetolini and DeSeptic are, people like Johnson are whole other level of threat, and having him two heartbeats away from the White House is fucking terrifying.
Johnson. Another word for dick. How appropriate in his case.
I've pretty much made my feelings known about this cross-swinger (see previous FA article). Fortunately, he faces the same challenges as the guy that got ousted. Here's hoping we can all soon quote Yoda:
"At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was."
At least one reporter tried to get Johnson to say whether he was going to get the new rule that got McCarthy ousted changed back to the way it used to be and he avoided answering.
I heard him say the “motion to vacate” would be lifted. He’s no fool. An intelligent, belligerent (attacking Mayorkas on YouTube video re: Homeland Security, he was loud and brutal) wannabe on the stage of the biggest pulpit in America.
That shows the importance of up and coming elections. It is only vaguely Dems or Republicans. It is a choice of sanity, true morality and democratic values which as a former Evangelical they have little or none of these.
This is why I vote Democrat. The actual left is all third parties, with no real chance without some serious electoral reform. That males the center right Democrats the best choice over the far right Republicans.
It is high time to write off the entirety of the GQP as beyond any hope of redemption. Any Democrat who reaches across the aisle after this should expect to get back a bloody stump; no compromise with these people will ever be repaid in kind. They caved to the extremists, and became them.
There is no saving any of them, anymore. They've made their choice.
There are no moderate Republicans. Their views have always been abhorrent. There are only quiet and loud Republicans, and the degrees to which they are willing to vocally commit to one of their abhorrent views. Some know to lie, and some prefer to say it boldly. But, they all share the same agenda.
Johnson is a true believer, and that certainly makes it more efficient for Republicans to push their agenda without squabbling over nuances. But, for now, the Senate will block everything they have the authority to.
The willingness to destroy the American Republic has become a litmus test for Republican leadership. Sinclair Lewis was spot-on when he said, "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" I have seen few politicians so boldly demanding their sense of Christian privilege be written into law. If there is an upside here, it is knowing Johnson is absurdly out of step with where the American public is on just about every issue. Like a lot of religious nut cases, he appears convinced a top-down, authoritarian approach to the culture wars they lost a long time ago, will carry the day. Johnson comes across as a fast-talking televangelist intent on picking the pockets of his flock.
Being totally out of step with most Americans won't matter diddly if "most Americans" (that is, the sane ones) are segregated into electoral-district ghettoes by gerrymandering. And anyone expecting our current Subprime Court to stand up for democracy and rule against gerrymandering might as well be waiting for the Blue Fairy to do it.
Well said
How did Mike Johnson escape scrutiny? First of all, he is Donald Trump's fair-haired boy (even with black hair!). He's an election denier and a wall-to-wall born-again evangelical, which speaks directly to Trump's base. Insofar as House Republicans are concerned, he hardly needed to be vetted, because he is essentially Jim Jordan, without the baggage.
Johnson has a problem, though. Almost from the moment his name was put forward, he was being examined by practically every news organization in the US, particularly MSNBC, which had his number before the vote was taken. His attitudes will be under scrutiny by them, by the FFRF, and by any person or organization which values State / Church separation.
Yeah, he's in the driver's seat ... but he would do well to check his rear view mirror.
In 2022 he (re)won an uncontested seat in a district of Louisiana so red that it has voted GOP for the last 23+ years and lately with a 10-point margin. The dude has nobody in his rear view mirror. No matter how extremist he is, I doubt the Dems will run anyone serious against him in 2024, just due to the district's political demographics.
Now, will he be reelected head of the GOP faction? Well if the GOP acts conventionally the answer will be "yes to Speaker in the case where the GOP retains control of the House; no to minority leader if they lose it." But who knows; that's really just a guess.
“We need to unshackle the voice of the church again.”
As if white Evangelicals have ever shut up in the last 400 years.
The voice that has silenced so many other voices over the millennia.
We have to unshackle the voice of the church again because I’m tired of hearing about how awful it is. And I don’t like to hear the voices of wimmin.
With a little luck and a high voter turnout next year, he won't hold the position long enough to do major damage.
He could be in a position to disallow the results of the 2024 election.
This is such a major concern. Not to mention he is now third in line for the presidency.
I fervently hope that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris never go within 5 miles of each other for the remainder of their term, lest some stochastic terrorist take them both out at once.
He's second in line for the Presidency.
Ope. Well I tried to push him further away from the presidency...
We wish he was third. He's second which is frightening.
Maybe we'll get lucky and COVID will destroy him?
Not with the Democrats in charge of the Senate.
How? It's the President of the Senate (i.e. the VP, in this case Kamala Harris) that counts and certifies the electoral college vote. That's why Pence did it last time. And while "The House" has to be present when it's done, nowhere in the Constitution or amendments does it say that the Speaker has to be there or has some part in the counting process.
It depends on how far they are willing to go. A Republican extremist is two lives from the presidency. They've got the Supreme Court.
The Secret Service had better be 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭 going forward. With the rhetoric that's been coming out of the GQP, their propaganda outlets, and their base, I would 𝘯𝘰𝘵 rule out the possibility of someone taking a swing at Biden and Harris to try and get their pet fascist into the Oval Office.
I suspect the principal red flag for such an attempt would be the frequency with which right-wing media mentions the Speaker's place in the line of succession.
We must put our trust in the Praetorian Guard. That hasn't worked out well in the past. All's it takes is on religious zealot in the right place.
And now you see why sobriety has become my least favorite state of mind.
If he could disallow the results, that would leave either Biden still in place or Jeffries if the Democrats retake the House.
The problem is, there is about a six week overlap between the election and the seating of the new Congress. That's when the damage could be done.
Unless they get the results disallowed and Johnson tries to claim that since there is no legitimate winner, he should be president until a new election can be held.
Louisiana 4th is probably one of the 'safestly red' districts in the country. To lose his seat he'd have to (as the saying goes) get caught with a dead girl or live boy in his bed.
There's no Louisiana Senate seat up for election either, so he can't even exit by failing upward.
I like the part where the idiot voters of Lousyana voted in a governor more concerned with degrading education, pushing christianity, curtailing the rights of women, LGBT citizens and other non-essential red-meat talking points than... oh, say, the salt water pushing its way up the ol' Mississippi river to degrade people's drinking water, climate shift and storms, hurricanes, and floods. He's got his priorities, and they are typical of right wing extremists.
After the first two candidates for speaker were rejected, them being such outrageous options, Mike Johnson seems like a reasonable choice. The fact that he’s just as outrageous as the others, minus the circus-like attention seeking, will fly under the radar for the average Joe Murican. The base knows him, they love him.
His worldview and policy positions are completely par for the Louisiana course, though. I doubt anyone is surprised by any of the listed shit he’s done.
Do not get me started on his misogyny. Like, he’s the Dean of a college that refused to allow birth control in their insurance plans, that never even opened its doors. What is that? School shootings are because women can now leave abusive husbands, oh sorry “no-fault divorce”. And no abortions or birth control. I’d guarantee that he’d vote for repealing the 19th amendment in a heartbeat. Fuck him.
Nineteenth Amendment? I'm getting the impression he'd repeal the 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘩, given half a chance.
Will he starts or finish with the First ?
Rather than call people like Johnson "Christian Nationalists" I find it more convenient to call them "Nationalist Christians" because that word order abbreviates to "Nat-Cs".
All this optimism. 'The Senate Will Stop anything awful' Democrats don't really control the Senate. Manchin and Sinema (an Independent now, BTW) do. King and Sanders are Independents though Sanders usually sides with the Democrats. With 3 Independents, there are actually more Republicans than Democrats in the Senate.
The Senate may stop the most egregious items, but that doesn't mean a lot of awful isn't going to get through. I consider an anti-trans bill a not an unlikely win for Johnson. Not enough support to be a 'hill to die on'.
And that doesn't even address what they're doing at the state level, which a state's rights court is almost certainly going to uphold. Many of them have a blind spot when it comes to the 9th Amendment.
Look what Texas did this week:
Makes driving an undocumented family member to the doctor, to church, or to school a “human smuggling” offense carrying a 10-year mandatory prison sentence;
Allows Texas authorities to separate children from their parents at the border — just as Trump did in 2018;
Encourages police to unconstitutionally imprison and deport migrants, even those with valid asylum claims;
Subjects Latino Texans to racial profiling by law enforcement; and
Spends $1.5 billion to continue Trump’s ineffective border wall
I'm scared and I think so many people are walking around saying 'It can't happen' that it is and will.
Sinema is about as pro LGBTQ+ as they get. I really don't think think you need to worry much about an anti-trans bill getting her vote to make it 51. If some bill like that does land up on Biden's desk, it seems pretty determined what happens to it there.
You are correct about the States. Mike Johnson's need to work with a Dem senate to get federal legislation passed provides zero brake on what conservative states may do. But then again, Mike Johnson's elevation to Speaker didn't *add* anything to that either. They are two completely separate issues.
Sinema campaigned on raising the minimum wage and theatrically voted against a wage bill the very first opportunity she got. She claims bisexuality, which she very well may be, I believe her when she says so, but her record isn’t the best when it comes to voting to support the policies she campaigns on. She also refuses to speak to her constituents and has had shady dealings with influential lobby groups. I don’t trust she will be as pro LGBTQ+ as you think she is.
I trust Sinema to defend my rights about as much as I trust scummy drainage pond water not to breed mosquitos. Wave a fat stack of donor cash under her nose, and she'd feed every last LGBTQ person in this country not named Kyrsten Sinema to the leopards without a single moment's hesitation.
It's not like Abbott and Patrick have anything else. They have no ideas on improving the state and ignore those presented to them, like maybe updating our energy grid so it can handle a fucking Texas summer without ERCOT constantly threatening rolling blackouts. That doesn't even address doing something so it doesn't have a catastrophic failure due to, granted unusual, weather events.
I really miss Ann Richards.
I'd certainly like to leave. Of course, I think it's going to get so bad, I not only want to leave Texas, I want to leave the U.S. I feel like maybe I'm the proverbial frog in the pot.
One has to wonder where did he and all other creationists like him ever get such an idiotic unfounded idea about people evolving from slime, besides the fact that they made the whole thing up out of thin air?
Come to think of it, I think I've just answered my own question.
> "idiotic unfounded idea about people evolving from slime"
D.A. gets puzzled look on face... checks back 2,473,804,361 generations on family tree... yep, slime. Now what that has to do with killing people with an assault style rifle I can't quite figure out.
The first time DM took me to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle I was about 5 years old. Either of is have yet to pick up a gun to kill someone.
I went to the World Renown American museum of Natural History in NYC in July of 1995 and I never took a gun and kill someone afterwords. None of the visitors ended up taking a gun and going out and kill someone after they visited the museum. Just comes to show what Jokeson, Dumb Idiot Ham, and the other creationists have made are all baseless, unfounded claims they entirely made up.
There are times I honestly wish I could make some of these people live under the kinds of laws they want to create. Seems like they've enjoyed the benefits of being at the top too much for entirely too long and now they think nobody else deserves the same considerations they do. The smug superiority is nauseating.
I listened to some of Johnson's speech when he got elected. It didn't take five minutes to understand why he'd been selected and what was likely to happen so long as he was in office. The guy is still a religious extremist, he's just figured out how to be quiet and charismatic enough about it most people don't really notice. Expect more of the same from him as Speaker of the House, because it's not going to get any better with this guy in power.
I've said it before- it's the quiet ones we really need to watch out for. The screamers can work a crowd, but they also galvanize opposition from the otherwise apathetic center; the quiet ones can slide right into less prominent but still critical positions of power before any but the most attentive even know they exist. As dangerous as shitheads like Cheetolini and DeSeptic are, people like Johnson are whole other level of threat, and having him two heartbeats away from the White House is fucking terrifying.
Johnson. Another word for dick. How appropriate in his case.
I've pretty much made my feelings known about this cross-swinger (see previous FA article). Fortunately, he faces the same challenges as the guy that got ousted. Here's hoping we can all soon quote Yoda:
"At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was."
At least one reporter tried to get Johnson to say whether he was going to get the new rule that got McCarthy ousted changed back to the way it used to be and he avoided answering.
Too bad for for him that even if he did, it wouldn't make the challenges magically vanish.
I heard him say the “motion to vacate” would be lifted. He’s no fool. An intelligent, belligerent (attacking Mayorkas on YouTube video re: Homeland Security, he was loud and brutal) wannabe on the stage of the biggest pulpit in America.
Why did he go into politics at all? GOD COMPLEX.
Remember, it's the flavor of theocracy...
Since it's not a main ingredient, it can be overlooked.
That shows the importance of up and coming elections. It is only vaguely Dems or Republicans. It is a choice of sanity, true morality and democratic values which as a former Evangelical they have little or none of these.
This is why I vote Democrat. The actual left is all third parties, with no real chance without some serious electoral reform. That males the center right Democrats the best choice over the far right Republicans.
It is high time to write off the entirety of the GQP as beyond any hope of redemption. Any Democrat who reaches across the aisle after this should expect to get back a bloody stump; no compromise with these people will ever be repaid in kind. They caved to the extremists, and became them.
There is no saving any of them, anymore. They've made their choice.
There are no moderate Republicans. Their views have always been abhorrent. There are only quiet and loud Republicans, and the degrees to which they are willing to vocally commit to one of their abhorrent views. Some know to lie, and some prefer to say it boldly. But, they all share the same agenda.
Johnson is a true believer, and that certainly makes it more efficient for Republicans to push their agenda without squabbling over nuances. But, for now, the Senate will block everything they have the authority to.
You're right - the former moderates have now flown the coop to either the Democrats or NPPs. Republicans are left with the dregs.
How did he escape scrutiny? Before he was elected speaker, if you Googled him you wouldn't see him until page three. His parents must be so proud.
But heh, at least he's from a state with interesting food. As Speaker, he's going to deliver gumbo in every pot!/s
I would sacrifice my red beans and rice to show this asshat the door.
I'd give up chocolate*and* Diet Pepsi (I am addicted) if it would get us sane (not even liberal) governance.
Hell, I'd give up Pepsi even if I got nothing in return. 𝘌𝘶𝘨𝘩. :P
If it would get us liberal governance, I'd even consider giving up jerking off.
Whoa!! Let's not go overboard here. Maybe we can find a way to have both.
😱
Give up masturbation? They'd have to pry my dick out of my cold, dead hand.
I'd give up Tteokbokki. NOGODZ 😝
I bet that on all his clothes, the care instruction for washing all say "Give it to your wife - it's her job."