That line caught the attention of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a historian who specializes in evangelical Christianity and politics. The idea that America is founded on a creed is a common one among evangelicals, and it was a sign to her that Johnson adheres to a worldview that can be described as Christian nationalist.
Finally Friday Reads: A Tale of Two Judges and an “Excitable Boy”
Posted: November 3, 2023 Filed under: Trump Trials and Tribulations, U.S. Politics | Tags: #CW Trump and Trumperz violent, and his little weener, head just like a pumpkin, Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Arthur F. Engoron, Judge Tanya Chutkan, justice, Little Donald Dumpkins, misogynistic actions and words, neener, racist, Special Counsel Jack Smith 9 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
There is a distinct difference between what’s been happening in two Trump Cases. The one about mishandling and stealing National Security Documents is being handled in Florida by Judge Ailen Cannon. The case in DC is being handled by Judge Tanya Chutkan. This is the case where Trump is indicted for illegally conspiring to overturn his loss to President Biden in the election. Both are the result of work done by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Both cases have also had ongoing issues with Trump harassing court officials and possibly committing witness tampering. The Prosecution has been arguing that Trump has been undermining confidence in the Judicial System and scaring off potential jurors.
The contrast between the demeanor, decisions, knowledge, and temperament of the two Judges is obvious. Judge Cannon is slowing things down in her court in keeping with Trump’s desire to not do any of these trials before the next Presidential election in the hopes of being able to control the destiny of all federal cases and the DOJ. As reported in The New Republic, “Judge Chutkan: Full Steam Ahead With Speedy Trump Trial. Judge Tanya Chutkan has set a date for jury selection in Donald Trump’s D.C. trial.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is chugging along with jury selection in Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case, despite attempts to delay the proceedings by the former president’s legal team.
On Thursday, Chutkan endorsed a set of jury procedures that note prospective jurors will fill out a preliminary questionnaire on February 9, just over three months away. (As a reminder, Trump’s trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, one day before Super Tuesday.)
Certain language in the court order also hints that Chutkan is getting wise to Trump’s antics.
After slapping Trump with a gag order in the D.C. trial for leveraging his platform on social media and at speaking arrangements to lambaste prosecutors and office clerks associated with the case, Chutkan’s legal outline reads more like a warning to his defense to keep the former president from trash-talking his own jury.
“The parties must ensure that anyone permitted access to sensitive juror information understands that he cannot publicly disclose the information, and no party may provide jurors’ identifying information to any other entity (e.g., the defendant’s campaign) that is not part of the defense team or Government team assisting with jury selection,” Chutkan wrote.
The date, just three months from now, breezes past concerns over other possible Trump-induced delays in the trial. In October, Trump’s legal team claimed presidential immunity in the D.C. case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, in an attempt to argue that Trump’s actions fell within his White House responsibilities.
Trump is indeed introducing similar cases that caused Judge Aileen Cannon to slow the process way down. Former Federal Prosecutor and Law Professor Joyce Vance has this analysis of the recent decisions.
Three developments from today that are important:
First, on Thursday, Judge Chutkan gave us some idea of what the schedule in D.C., where Trump is scheduled to go to trial in March, looks like. She has ordered the lawyers to confer in advance of January 9 and submit proposed jury questions to her by that date. She will resolve any conflicts (there are bound to be quite a few) between the parties about what questions should be asked, and on February 9, she will begin the process of selecting a jury.
Hundreds of District of Columbia residents will be summoned to the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on February 9 to fill out the jury questionnaire the judge finalizes. That leaves plenty of time to select a jury in advance of the March 4 start date for Trump’s trial. In D.C., Trump will stand trial alone, although the indictment includes mention of conduct by unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators. We still don’t know if any of them will be testifying as cooperating witnesses for the government, including those like Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro who previously pled guilty in Fulton County, Georgia.
Second: late Thursday evening, Trump appealed the gag order—readers of Civil Discourse know that it’s actually a (very) limited restraining order—to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. And, he asked that court to suspend the gag order for as long as the appeal takes, something Judge Chutkan had previously declined to do.
Trump is actually asking the court to take several steps. He wants the court to enter a stay, which would mean the gag order won’t be in place during the the appeal. That could be take a while since Trump indicates his intent to appeal to the Supreme Court if he loses in the court of appeals. He asks the court to rule on his request by November 10, just over a week away. Finally, while the court decides whether to enter that stay, Trump wants them to enter a brief administrative stay immediately, so that he can get out from under the gag order pronto.
Of course, they hate the gag order. Trump cannot control his flagrant, abusive outbursts on all things related to every case. The restrictions imposed by Chutkan and Judge Engoran in the New York Trump Fraud Case have been nearly tailored to ensure Trump does not harass potential jurors, witnesses, or court employees. Trump harassment usually leads to the need for protection and arrests of crazed Trump fans. You may read about the specifics of the gag orders and Trump’s legal team’s argument at Vance’s Substance. Let’s return to the third reason, which dovetails into the decisions made by Judge Cannon in the other case.
The real question is, how long it will take the appellate courts to sort this out? The clock is ticking, and Trump is increasingly transparent about his desperation to delay his criminal trials until after the election. While the appeal of the gag order shouldn’t slow things down, what’s coming behind it are the four motions to dismiss Trump has filed (presidential immunity plus three others, which we will take up next week), some of which he can appeal before trial if he loses. With the gag order, Trump has asked the court to decide a motion in a week. It’s certain that if he returns to the appellate court seeking rulings on some of those motions, he’ll be content to see the courts take up as much time as possible, and preferably until after election day in 2024, to render their decision and return the case for trial. Delay when it helps him, speed when it harms him. Certainly the courts can see through that?
That’s the question raised by tonight’s third development. In the Mar-a-Lago case, the Special Counsel’s office filed a pleading entitled “Notice of Defendant’s Motion To Stay Proceedings In The District Of Columbia.” Interesting that they felt they needed to give Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida insight into what Trump was doing in the D.C. case.
The pleading referenced a hearing Judge Cannon held the previous day. In that hearing, Trump’s lawyers argued that the May trial date for the Mar-a-Lago case was too soon. Part of their argument was that because of the March 4, 2024, date in D.C., if the Mar-a-Lago case went to trial as scheduled on May 20, 2024, Trump would be required to be in two places at once.
Leave aside for the moment the Special Counsel’s estimate the trial in the District of Columbia will take four to six weeks, which would give Trump and his lawyers at least a five-week grace period in between the two trials. Here’s what the Special Counsel’s office wanted to make sure Judge Cannon was aware of: Trump’s lawyers failed to disclose to her that shortly after her hearing concluded, Trump asked Judge Chutkan in D.C. to delay his trial there for as long as it took the courts to decide his motion to dismiss that indictment on presidential immunity grounds. (If you need a refresher on Trump’s presidential immunity motion, here.)
The timing of Trump’s motion to delay the D.C. trial meant it had been in the planning stages for at least several days—lawyers don’t produce legal briefs like that in the space of an hour without advance planning. Most lawyers, consistent with the obligation to be candid to the court, would have alerted Judge Cannon that they were about to file a motion to delay the D.C. case. That didn’t happen here.
That raised eyebrows in the Special Counsel’s office, so lead Mar-a-Lago prosecutor Jay Bratt filed the notice to ensure that the record in the Mar-a-Lago case includes what many judges would view as a disingenuous, if not deceitful, strategy by the Trump camp. Bratt took it straight to the Judge in no uncertain terms, urging her not “to be manipulated in this fashion.” We’ll see if Cannon, who has spent the lion’s share of her orders lately criticizing the Special Counsel’s office, has any criticism to spare for Trump’s lawyers. Read the Special Counsel’s pleading here.
Vance’s explanations and rationale are always helpful on all things related to Trump and his Federal Court cases. Maggie Haberman and “Two Judges, Two Approaches. He avoids criticizing one. Another draws attacks.”
As the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump make their way toward trial, they are bringing into focus a tale of two judges.
In the case taking place in Washington, D.C., where Trump is accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former public defender appointed by Barack Obama, is taking a tough line with the former president and his legal team.
Trump, in turn, is assailing her.
In another courtroom in Fort Pierce, Fla., where Trump is under indictment for mishandling classified documents after leaving office and obstructing efforts to retrieve them, Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor named by Trump, has been more of a cipher but has been sympathetic at times to arguments from the former president’s lawyers.
Trump has pointedly avoided aiming any of his fire at her.
The contrast has been especially apparent in recent days.
The examples provided are startling but not unexpected.
When Judge Cannon asked Bratt if he was aware of any other situation in which a criminal defendant was confronting trials in multiple jurisdictions and could encounter the “unavoidable reality that the schedules might collide,” he sidestepped the question.
“I’m having a hard time seeing, realistically, how this work can be accomplished in this compressed period of time,” she told Bratt.
Twisting the knife a little further, she went on: “I’m not quite seeing in your position a level of understanding of our realities.”
On his social media site, Trump has been silent about Judge Cannon, sparing her from the vitriol he directs constantly at other judges, prosecutors and potential witnesses in the cases against him.
By contrast, after Judge Chutkan reimposed the gag order on him on Sunday night, Trump went after her once again, calling her a “very biased, Trump hating judge” and questioning the constitutionality of her decision.
The news is that Trump is trying to stall both prosecutions. Judge Cannon complied. This is from Marcie at her blog emptywheel. “HOURS AFTER AILEEN CANNON SUGGESTS SHE’LL STALL FLORIDA PROSECUTION, TRUMP MOVES TO STALL DC ONE.” This establishes the possibility of conflicting decisions by the two Courts of Appeals.
Judge Aileen Cannon has not yet released a ruling describing how much she’ll bow to Trump’s manufactured claims of classified discovery delays in the stolen documents case, but she made clear that she will delay the trial somewhat. As reported, at least, that delay will come because of the competing schedule in DC.
Trump’s lawyers argued that they need a delay in the documents case because preparations for it will clash with the federal election case, which is slated to go to trial on March 4 and could last several months.
Trump’s indictment in the election case — which came days after Cannon set her initial timeline for the document case — “completely disrupted everything about the schedule your honor set,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Cannon.
Another Trump lawyer, Chris Kise, personified the crunch the former president’s attorneys are facing, phoning into the hearing from a New York courthouse where Trump is undergoing a civil trial targeting his business empire.
“It’s very difficult to be trying to work with a client in one trial and simultaneously try to prepare that client for another trial,” Kise said. “This has been a struggle and a challenge.”
Note: as DOJ pointed out, Kise’s NY trial schedule was already baked into Cannon’s schedule.
Having secured that delay, Trump turned to delaying his DC trial, with a motion to stay all other DC proceedings until his absolute immunity claim is decided, a 3-page motion Trump could have but did not submit when he was asking for a delay before submitting his other motions. Everything he points to in that 3-page motion, the completed briefing on the absolute immunity bid, was already in place on October 26. But he waited until he first got Cannon to move her trial schedule.
As I laid out the other day, Trump is not making legal arguments sufficient to win this case — certainly not yet. He is making a tactical argument, attempting to run out the clock so he can pardon himself.
Update: LOL. Trump filed the DC motion too soon, giving DOJ a chance to notice the cynical ploy in DC before Aileen Cannon issues her order.
“Cynical ploy’ is an excellent description of this checkers-level move. But again, it’s just another delay tactic so Trump can argue his case in the Public Arena and dance around gag orders.
Glenn Kirschner also brings the skills and analysis of a career spent prosecuting cases in varying courts. He suggests that a motion to recuse Judge Cannon may be in order. What will Jack Smith decide?
Trump is totally Looney Tunes in his responses to the decisions of all the relevant Judges but Cannon. You would think she would be embarrassed.
This article in Newsweek is about the analysis of Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann gave on the Cannon decision on who could access the documents. “Aileen Cannon’s ‘Snarky’ Trump Ruling Called Out by Former Prosecutor.”
The judge overseeing Donald Trump‘s classified documents case has been criticized by a former prosecutor after she ruled in favor of the former president’s co-defendants in the case.
Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann was reacting to the ruling from Judge Aileen Cannon that two people charged alongside Trump in the federal investigation—aide and valet driver Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira—should be allowed to review some of the classified evidence provided to the defense under discovery, which forms the center of the case.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges over allegations he illegally retained top secret and sensitive materials after he left the White House in January 2021, and then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them. Nauta and de Oliveira have also denied allegations they sought to conspire with the former president to obstruct the investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
While sharing Wednesday’s ruling which criticized arguments from Special Counsel Jack’s Smith’s team on X, formerly Twitter, Weissmann said the decision “goes straight for the capillaries” while condemning the language used by the judge.
“Almost pointless discussion, when so many real issue are left undecided,” Weissmann wrote. “And her language is far too snarky for a federal judge.”
The ruling from Cannon hit out at the federal prosecutor’s attempts to restrict Nauta and de Oliveira from reviewing the classified discovery while citing section 3 of the Classified Information Procedures Act [CIPA]. The section requires Cannon court to issue an order to protect against the disclosure of any classified information disclosed by the government “to any defendant in any criminal case.”
The ruling from Cannon hit out at the federal prosecutor’s attempts to restrict Nauta and de Oliveira from reviewing the classified discovery while citing section 3 of the Classified Information Procedures Act [CIPA]. The section requires Cannon court to issue an order to protect against the disclosure of any classified information disclosed by the government “to any defendant in any criminal case.”
“So again, we are left with the [special counsel’s] broad and unconvincing theory, which is that the Court must change the meaning of the word ‘defendant’ to mean, essentially, ‘defense attorney to the exclusion of defendant.’ The Court declines to do so,” Cannon wrote.
“‘Defendant’ means what it says—defendant—and although providing discovery to a defendant reasonably contemplates the defendant’s retained or appointed agent reviewing the information too, it does not support the very different proposition that ‘defendant’ means ‘not defendant.’
Cannon also said in her ruling that Smith’s office “[lacks] merit,” and reaffirmed the protective orders regarding classified information that were previously issued in the case.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to blurt out things on his Truth Social page that really should disturb all the Judges in all the Court Cases that involve him. This is from Liz Dye at Public Notice. “Trump’s Truth Social page is a riot of witness intimidation. Even his lawyers can’t really defend it.” Trigger Warning Obscene, Racist, and Violent Language.
On August 6, Alabama man Arthur Ray Hanson, II, left a voicemail threatening Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with violence if she charged Donald Trump with interference in the 2020 election.
“I would be very afraid if I were you because you can’t be around people all the time that are going to protect you,” he said on the recorded call. “When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you’re alone, be looking over your shoulder … What you put out there, bitch, comes back at you ten times harder, and don’t ever forget it.”
That same day, Hanson left a similar message for Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat:
If you think you gonna take a mugshot of my President Donald Trump and it’s gonna be ok, you gonna find out that after you take that mugshot, some bad shit’s probably gonna happen to you … I’m warning you right now before you fuck up your life and get hurt real bad … whether you got a fucking badge or not ain’t gonna help you none … you gonna get fucked up you keep fucking with my president.
The threats didn’t work, and on August 24, Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail. Trump raised $7.1 million off his mugshot, but Hanson fared much worse. This week he was indicted for using interstate communications to threaten to kidnap or injure a person.
The day before Hanson’s calls to officials in Georgia, a Texas woman named Abigail Jo Shry left a voicemail for federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s election interference case in DC.
“Hey you stupid slave n—– …. You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” she said. “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you. So tread lightly, bitch … You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”
Shry was indicted in September and, like Hanson, was charged with making threats via interstate communication. But while Hanson and Shry were exceptionally careless about covering their tracks, they certainly weren’t alone in menacing the targets of Trump’s ire. Judges and prosecutors in every one of Trump’s cases have been subjected to threats and harassment for simply doing their jobs.
Dye follows with rationale, showing how Trump lawyers cannot possibly explain away the impact his posts have on his crazy followers. Judge Chutkan has been assigned extra security. The barrage at his former attorney, Michael Cohen, is incredible, too. He refers to himself in the third person, which is always weird to read, and calls Cohen a “sleazebag.” This was during Cohen’s testimony last month in the Trump Family Fraud Trial in New York City. You may recall BB provided an article that showed how Trump’s rhetoric is getting more violent and fascist. You can see it in these examples.
Trump’s escalation of hate is only going to get worse. What is also evident is the misogyny and racism in the taunts. This only further encourages his crazies. These trials need to start now and roll over him before we get any nearer to Election Day. The only Judge who doesn’t get this is Judge Cannon. Someone needs to do a deep dive into what is driving her evident special treatment of this particular alleged criminal.
I guess he’s just an ‘excitable boy’.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: When the Devil Wears a Disguise
Posted: October 30, 2023 Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: Ayatollah Mike Johnson, Holy Rollers, MAGA, White Christian Nationalism 11 Comments
@Repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Journalists are surely doing their due diligence with the extreme and dangerous Speaker of the House, Ayatollah Mike. BB did some deep diving on a supposedly adopted young black man with a search that showed a lot of embellishments on a story that can’t be verified by anyone. Get ready to hold your nose as I go further down the Maga Mike rabbit hole.
I always like a good literary reference, so I’ll start with this one from Vox Ben Jacobs. ‘“Lord of the Flies”: New House Speaker Mike Johnson faces a chaotic opening era. New House Speaker Mike Johnson faces a long to-do list and a caucus with short patience for compromise.’ He’s even awakened the Kraken in Mitch McConnell with his pro-Putin stand on Ukraine. This should be interesting and painful.
Johnson insisted that “we’re not going to abandon [Ukraine,] but we have a responsibility, a stewardship responsibility over the precious treasure of the American people, and we have to make sure that the White House is providing the people with some accountability for the dollars.”
Already, he seemed to be getting slightly more breathing room from Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who was the leader of the effort to oust McCarthy and has been an implacable opponent of aid to Ukraine. Gaetz left some wiggle room about whether it should receive a vote, saying, “They should definitely be separate questions. We have a lot of members who want to vote for Ukraine funding. And so that may be a vote that they are able to bring to bear through regular order.”
However, Gaetz cautioned that because a recent amendment on Ukraine aid did not receive the support of a majority of House Republicans, future legislation on aid to the Eastern European country should not receive any consideration in the House because it violated the Hastert Rule, the recent tradition among House Republicans that all legislation should have the support of “a majority of the majority.” He noted that “the last time Ukraine funding was on the floor of the House … [a] majority of the majority voted against it. That usually ends a measure’s prospects for consideration.”
Yet despite the drama around Ukraine, the fight over government funding is likely to be far less dramatic than past ones. McCarthy’s ouster was the result of his efforts to avoid a government shutdown by simply continuing current funding levels for the next six weeks at the beginning of October. Not only is Johnson enjoying a honeymoon period among his colleagues after the weeks of internecine warfare among House Republicans, he also starts off with fresh credibility among those who were most opposed to McCarthy to keep the government open for at least a few more months.
As Gaetz, the leader of the hard-right bloc that was opposed to the former speaker, put it, “Kevin McCarthy wanted to govern by continuing resolution to get us to the next continuing resolution. I think Mike Johnson has a lot more credibility [as a] … bridge to single-subject spending bills, not a bridge to just the old ways of Washington.”
But, for whatever criticism that there was of the “old ways of Washington,” at least everyone knew what they were. Everyone was working from the same playbook, and there was at least a basic set of agreed-upon norms. All of that has frayed after the last few chaotic weeks, and the challenges have only grown more complex. It’s a recipe for more weirdness to come.
I’d look for Putin to start making moves on Ukraine with this discussion coming out of the House. More research is revealing a lot about Johnson’s wife, too. Despite the rush to cleanse the internet of all references to their propensity to act like medieval-times demon dispensers, many folks have already put their weird history in files. So, I’m sure our local Dr. BB will have something to say on this one. It’s from the Business Insider. ‘”Kelly Johnson, who is married to House Speaker Mike Johnson, practices an ancient form of Christian counseling that classifies people into ‘choleric,’ ‘phlegmatic,’ and other personality types purportedly ordained by God.” I don’t recall reading this in my King James version back in the day, but who knows what I may have missed being a Presbyterian. I don’t call this “deeply religious,” I call it deeply disturbed.
Kelly Johnson, the wife of the newly elected House speaker, ran a Christian counseling service that is affiliated with an organization that advocates against abortion and homosexuality and whose practices are built on the teachings of the Greek physician Hippocrates.
It is not clear if Kelly Johnson will continue her practice. Not long after Rep. Mike Johnson became House speaker last week, Kelly Johnson’s website became inaccessible. Johnson, her husband of more than 24 years, rose overnight from a virtually obscure House lawmaker to the position that is second in line to the presidency. The couple is deeply religious; both Kelly and Mike Johnson previously worked with religious organizations and causes the religious right advocates for. Along with her counseling, Johnson is also listed as an advisor to the Louisiana Right for Life, an anti-abortion organization.
Kelly Johnson’s website listed a specialty in Temperament counseling, a specialty that she received training for from an organization founded in the 1980s by a Christian couple. According to the materials the organization provides, the National Christian Counselor’s Association is adamant that its offerings take place outside of more traditional state-licensed settings so that counselors and clients can be fully engaged through their faith.
“The state licensed professional counselor in certain states is forbidden to pray, read or refer to the Holy Scriptures, counsel against things such as homosexuality, abortion, etc,” a catalog of the organization’s offerings states. “Initiating such counsel could be considered unethical by the state.”
The temperament-based approach breaks people down into five types: Melancholy, Choleric, Sanguine, Supine, and Phlegmatic. Richard and Phyllis Arno, who established a test to identify people’s temperament, founded the National Christian Counselors Association in the early 1980s. They and their advocates prefer the term temperament over personalities as the term personality is characterized as a “mask” while temperaments are “inborn” and thus inherent to each individual regardless of outside influences such as parenting. Their work is largely based on Hippocrates’ view that there were four temperaments.
Tim LaHaye, a controversial and influential figure on the evangelical right, pointed to Hippocrates’ beliefs when he began his own work in the 60s and 70s. The Arnos cited LaHaye in one of their books. LaHaye was vehemently opposed to LGBTQ people, writing an entire book on why he believed gay people were depressed because homosexuality was immoral and antithetical to the Bible. According to The New York Times, LaHaye’s anti-Catholic and antisemitic writings led him to step down from an honorary position leading Congressman Jack Kemp’s 1988 GOP primary campaign. LaHaye later pushed President George W. Bush’s election in 2000 and worked with then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the 2008 presidential primaries. LeHaye became enormously popular and wealthy later in his life after he penned a series of apocalyptic novels.
One post for an affiliated counselor on the organization’s website describes a deliverance ministry in addition to temperament testing. Using this approach to drive demons out of a client makes sure the person is “better able to receive and act upon godly counsel, including recommendations from the APS profiles.” (APS profiles are the abbreviation for the couple’s temperament testing system.)
This sounds like some form of torture to me.
Public Notice has found a treasure trove of stuff like this. Be afraid! Be very afraid! This is by Noah Berlatsky. “The Christofascism of Mike Johnson. The new House speaker is an opposition researcher’s goldmine.” Derp Trigger Warning!
It took Mike Johnson just a couple days last week to rise from a relatively obscure Louisiana congressman to House speaker. Suffice it to say his background and policy positions did not hold up well under their first exposure to national attention.
Johnson is an opposition researcher’s goldmine. Even over the weekend, news reports and video clips steadily trickled out exposing the new speaker for embracing views that are far out of step with mainstream America.
In particular, Johnson is deep in the Christofascist derp. And if you didn’t know that already, it became clear last Thursday during his first big TV interview as speaker, a spot on Sean Hannity’s show where he explained that his position on any issue comes straight from the Bible.
“Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview; that’s what I believe,” Johnson told on Hannity, with a proud little head tilt.
Johnson’s statement is difficult to credit. The Bible is a heterogenous document with a long, complicated interpretive tradition, and lots of odd little injunctions tucked away. Johnson has not, as far as I know, come out strongly against mixing fabrics.
But it might be more comforting if he had. Because what Johnson means when he says that his worldview is that of the Bible is not that he’s going to make a good faith (as it were) effort to follow biblical prescriptions. Rather, it means he’s certain that his own particular white evangelical Christian nationalist tradition is sanctioned by God, and that, therefore, whatever smug and barmy thing comes out of his mouth is divinely inspired.
And much of what has come out of Johnson’s has been barmy indeed — not to mention smug, and often terrifyingly cruel. Based on his stated supposedly biblical positions, the Bible in Johnson’s head is a silly, vicious farrago of ignorance and bigotry, and a blueprint for Christofascist tyranny.
There’s a long list of his views and actions there if you can stand reading it. Here’s one Democratic Congresswoman’s take on her exchange with Ayatollah Mike on the Trump false election accusations. This is from HuffPo and reported by Josephine Harvey. ‘Chilling’: Dem Lawmaker Says She Had Election-Denying Exchange With Mike Johnson. Rep. Madeleine Dean said Johnson managed to become House speaker because “very few people knew him or knew what he stands for.”
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) described new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as an “extremist MAGA Republican” and remembered a telling exchange she says she had with him after the violent Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
“The secret to the success of Mike Johnson ascending to the speakership, after about a 24-hour run, is that very few people knew him or knew what he stands for,” she told MSNBC legal analyst Charles Coleman Jr. on Sunday.
Dean recalled that during the House floor vote to elect Johnson, a Democratic colleague asked her: “Do you know anything about this guy?”
Dean said that in fact, she did, because she serves with Johnson on the House judiciary committee.
She looked back on a conversation she said she had with Johnson shortly after the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Johnson “tried to defend to me, and to others on my side of the aisle, why he was such an architect of the election-denying scheme,” and “tried to argue his legal case about it,” she said.“And when I said to him: ‘But after all, there was an attempted insurrection. You were here for it. That didn’t change your sights at all?’ No, it did not,” she said.
She also noted that Johnson wouldn’t answer questions about whether the election was legitimate as recently as last week.
“It’s chilling to me that he is now third in line to the presidency,” she said.
This reporting is also from HuffPo. Ron Dicker has the lede. “NRA Proudly Shares Clip Of Mike Johnson Opposing Gun Laws After Maine Shooting. The NRA resurfaced a video of the new speaker of the House promoting the controversial group and criticizing Democratic gun control measures.” Gosh, he is soooo Pro-life!
Just days after a mass shooting in Maine killed 18 people, the National Rifle Association on Sunday shared an old clip of new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) pledging to oppose gun safety measures.
The 2019 video shows Johnson promoting the organization of which he is a member and disparaging Democratic attempts at firearm reform.
“As NRA members, we understand the Second Amendment is grounded in fundamental freedoms,” says Johnson, whose declaration is used in the headline on X (formerly Twitter). “We make the point on the Hill all the time when these gun bills come up and when Democrats try to push their agenda on the people. We remind them that the Second Amendment is grounded in those fundamental freedoms ― those inalienable rights we have to personal liberty and personal security and private property.
“We can’t lose sight of that,” he continued. “So when they’re pushing a bill for universal background checks or trying to delay the amount of time that it takes for law-abiding citizens to obtain a firearm for self-defense, we have to remind them that what’s really at stake is that fundamental right that we have.”
While the right-wing Johnson’s message isn’t surprising, it was attention-grabbing that the NRA posted it days after Maine’s biggest mass shooting. It’s not clear what Johnson initially shot the video for. The NRA did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the lawmaker’s office on whether he approved of the video being posted now.
Who exactly backs this guy? I mean, other than holy rollers. Jude Legume has found a few of them. ” Walmart, Meta, AT&T, and Microsoft are among his most prominent corporate sponsors.
Other corporate backers of Johnson include Boeing ($10,000), Capital 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).
Here’s more of our history from his antics from Mother Jones’s David Corn. “Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a “Christian Nation.” The new House speaker called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.”
Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected Republican House speaker, used to conduct a seminar in churches premised on the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation.” This ministry, as he has referred to it, is yet more evidence that Johnson is committed to a hardcore Christian fundamentalism that shapes his views of politics and government.
The seminar, titled “Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity,” was organized by Onward Christian Education Services, Inc., a company owned by his wife, Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor and anti-abortion activist who calls herself a “leader in the pro-family movement.” The website for her counseling service—which was taken down shortly after Johnson became speaker—described the seminar, which featured both her and Johnson, as exploring several questions, such as, “What is happening in America and how do we fix it?” The list includes this query: “Can our heritage as a Christian nation be preserved?” There were different versions of the seminar running from two-hour-long lectures to retreats lasting two days.
Mike and Kelly Johnson, each a fundamentalist Christian and culture war battler who advocates adhering to what they call a “Biblical worldview,” launched this initiative in 2019. After one such presentation on February 24, 2019, at the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they are members—an event that also featured Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council—a local television news show reported that the seminar’s goal was to “keep God in Government.” Johnson posted the article on his congressional website.
According to a Louisiana Baptist newsletter,the Johnsons intended to first pitch their seminars to Baptist churches in the Pelican State before expanding to other states. The publication reported that the couple’s goal was “to equip churches to take a stand against the cultural attacks now being directed at people of faith, the traditional family and basic freedoms embedded in the U.S. Constitution.” It noted that Johnson said he was compelled to create this new ministry while serving in the US House because he was concerned “that too many believers today feel ill-informed to provide substantive answers to fake arguments.” It quoted Johnson: “Our nation is entering one of the most challenging seasons in its history and there is an urgent need for God’s people to be armed and ready with the Truth.” He was referring to what fundamentalists call “Biblical truth.”
A promotion blurb for the seminar described it this way: “As polls show that Christianity is in rapid decline in America, and the culture is growing more secularized and more coarsened, many believers feel ill-informed and ill-prepared to do anything to reverse these trends. Scripture is clear that we have an obligation to provide substantive answers… But HOW?”
Well, I can tell you exactly why none of my family are Republican or Christian anymore. It has much to do with the demeanor of people like the Johnsons. Who would want to be like that? I remember when 8-year-old Dr. Daughter walked out of her last Sunday School session at our local Methodist Church. She asked if she really had to go back there. I asked why. She told me that her teachers had told her that her best friend–who was and still is Jewish–was going to hell. I said of course not. That’s the age kids really develop a sense of right and wrong. Shortly after that, I gave up on all that, too, and found some love, peace, and understanding in my current Buddhist practice, where telling people they’re on the wrong spiritual path is about the worst action you can take.
So, this guy freaks me out to no end. I know what it’s like to be stalked and threatened by these people. I’ve seen it in my neighborhood in Omaha, and they always show up to harass people at any Gay event. So, I googled what percentage of pedophiles prey on people in their churches. This is a peer-reviewed article that shows the offender levels in Protestant churches. Its focus is due to the massive number of studies on offenders in the Catholic churches. It’s not shocking at all.
Well, that’s the dank rabbit hole for this week. Hopefully, the end of the week will bring some news we could use and rejoice in.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Testing the Limits of our Constitutional Democracy
Posted: October 27, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: Ayatollah Mike Johnson, Ivanka Trump, Trump rallies, US bombs Syria 8 Comments
Autumn Symphony, 1947, Birger Sandzén
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s been a lousy news season since Orange Caligula rode that elevator down to infamy. Whenever there’s something nice, religious fundamentalists and their feckless leaders come along to ruin it. I remember not being able to even buy creme de menthe in Omaha on a Sunday when I was just in need of some to make a grasshopper pie for my mother-in-law. I had to find a bootlegger friend who just happened to have one. Now, there are all kinds of things you won’t find in many states because of these fundamentalist buzzkills. I’m thinking I may move to Colorado to set up a “camping ground” for young southern women who need to get away. I hope to get someone to build a venue for Wayward Drag Queens and a library for banned books. Perhaps an inclusive wedding venue and weed store would be appropriate, too. There’s even a Buddhist university–Naropa–in Boulder, so other than having to avoid using grocery stores because of mass-murdering shooters, I’m set with that. Oh, wait. I also must avoid movie theaters, planned parenthood, and wherever Boebert hangs. I still have to admit I’ve been in love with the state since I was a kid, and there’s nowhere to hide from deranged white men and their military-grade weapons going on hate-filled shooting sprees.
Birger Sandzén, Glimpse of Rocky Mountain National Park, 1919. Swedish-born Sandzén first visited the Rockies in 1908. He returned every summer for 15 years, creating landscapes using thick paint in bold, bright color combinations.
Just how the fuck did we arrive at this place? I have an idea. I think the same folks giving death threats to Representative Bacon and his wife from Lincoln, Nebraska, are the same folks that threatened my toddler–the one who is now safe in Colorado–in 1992. It’s a combination of the Southern Strategy and Reagan and Pat Robertson dragging fundies into the party and letting them run amok. They’ve just evolved into much more dangerous and well-armed hooligans due to the various movements united by drinking orange Kool-Aid.
I’m slipping in some wisdom from Chamtral Rinpoche on Karma this morning.
No matter how manipulative, clever, quick, evasive, and secretive that somebody is, it is impossible for them to cheat, run, and hide from their negative karma. If they do not purify the negative karma that they have built up, sooner or later it will ripen into suffering for them.
As Padmasambhava said, “The eagle that is flying high in the sky should not forget that it will come down one day to see its shadow.”
So please, I urge you, think before you act with your body, speech, and mind, no matter how small and insignificant that you think the action is.
Thankfully, Karma is catching up with the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. The rest is a work in process. Deep Breath Time, Sky Dancers! We may see a Speaker of the House indicted eventually. Some things take longer than others to sort out.
Let’s start with that karma. Newsweek’s Nick Mordowanec analyzes the court’s decision to force Ivanka to Testify in the New York State Trump fraud case. “Ivanka Trump Has Fifth Amendment Problem.” This should be interesting.
What Ivanka Trump could say or not say if called as a witness against her father and brothers may add some weight to the state’s civil fraud case while potentially implicating herself.
Last week, her lawyers filed a motion requesting the New York Attorney General’s office to quash a subpoena that forces her to testify, arguing that she was dismissed from the lawsuit initially filed by Attorney General Letitia James. The suit accuses Donald Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization, of inflating assets by up to $2.2 billion to boost net worth and get favorable bank and business deals in return.
The claims of the suit, of which Ivanka was dismissed in June due to a statute of limitations, have been refuted and denied by the former president and others. Trump, the current 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner who has routinely been present in the courtroom, has claimed the case is politically motivated and intended to damage his reputation.
Ivanka Trump’s lawyer, Bennet Moskowitz, wrote in a motion filed October 19 that she should not have to take the stand for multiple reasons. One is that she was never deposed, and another is that she has not been part of the Trump Organization since 2016 and has not legally been a New York resident for nearly seven years.
Moskowitz, who was contacted by Newsweek via email, also argued that the summary judgment in the case “limited the trial to damages and causes of action for which Ms. Trump’s testimony is unnecessary due to being redundant of matters already in the record or immaterial to the issues still in the case.”
New York-based attorney Andrew Lieb told Newsweek via email that should she be forced to testify, Ivanka can plead the Fifth Amendment if the answer to a question could incriminate her regardless of whether she’s a current defendant in the case and regardless of if criminal charges currently exist against her.
“However, given that she is being called as a witness in a civil trial, taking the Fifth will result in a negative inference where her testimony will be presumed to be averse to [Donald] Trump,” Lieb said. “Therefore, she has minimal options if she is forced to testify and does not want to hurt her father and brothers.
Birger Sandzén, At The Timberline, Pike’s Peak, Colorado
There’s also some Karma-related news about Congressm Santos. “US congressman Santos pleads not guilty to new felony charges.” Let’s see how he fairs in a court of law with all his known shenanigans and falsehoods. This is from Reuters.
U.S. Representative George Santos pleaded not guilty on Friday to a 23-count indictment accusing him of an array of corruption, including 10 felony counts that federal prosecutors added this month.
Santos, 35, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip, New York, on Long Island. A trial is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2024.
The Republican first-term congressman had in May pleaded not guilty to 13 charges, including laundering funds to pay for his personal expenses, illegally receiving unemployment benefits, and lying to the House of Representatives about his assets.
His additional charges included accusations that he charged donors’ credit cards without their consent, and reported a bogus $500,000 campaign loan.
The plea came one day after fellow Long Island Republican congressman Anthony D’Esposito called on the House to expel Santos, saying Santos was “not fit to serve his constituents.”
Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote. Republicans hold a 221-212 majority in the House, and at least several dozen would have to vote against Santos for him to be expelled.
We’ve dropped a few bombs in the current version of the Israel-Palestein conflict. I heard more bombers and fighters flying low over my home on Saturday. I assume more troops are being sent in that direction. This is from ABC News. “US strikes back at Iranian-backed groups that attacked troops in Iraq and Syria: Pentagon. The airstrikes follow more than a dozen attacks on bases in the Middle East.”
U.S. military aircraft have carried out strikes in eastern Syria against facilities associated with Iranian-backed militant groups believed to be responsible for more than a dozen rocket and drone attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria that injured 21 service members, the military said Thursday night.
“Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted self-defense strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a statement.
“These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17,” he said.
“The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” he added.
The retaliatory operations were carried out at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, in the wake of Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and U.S. concerns about preventing that conflict from enveloping the rest of the region.
BIRGER SANDZÉN, ROCKS AND PINES, BOULDER, COLORADO
Just when you thought we were mainly on the sidelines of the two hot wars in the world right now, BOOM! Here’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s Statement on U.S. Military Strikes in Eastern Syria.
Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted self-defense strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17. As a result of these attacks, one U.S. citizen contractor died from a cardiac incident while sheltering in place; 21 U.S. personnel suffered from minor injuries, but all have since returned to duty. The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.
The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop. Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.
These narrowly tailored strikes in self-defense were intended solely to protect and defend U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria. They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict. We continue to urge all state and non-state entities not to take action that would escalate into a broader regional conflict.
Sven Birger Sandzén, Smoky River, ca. 1919
All right, then. At least we have this to be thankful for. “Trump’s Vanishing Act: Why Trump Rallies Are Going Extinct. Trump has been holding about two rallies per month. That’s way down from his previous campaigns, like in 2016 when he held 323 rallies, or 70 rallies during COVID.” This is by Jake Lahut at The Daily Beast.
This time around, Trump’s rally schedule has been significantly diminished, settling at around two per month in the run up to Iowa.
It’s a reduction due to a confluence of factors, ranging from his legal peril and crowded court schedule to the cost savings and messaging upside of keeping the MAGA festivals to a minimum. His events are increasingly billed as speeches instead of rallies, with the next one scheduled for Nov. 8 at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, Florida on the night of the third GOP debate, marking only his seventh major venue rally this year.
“Honestly, given he has legal risk on many fronts, I’d probably do the same just to minimize anything that would fuck up his legal defense,” a former senior Trump adviser told The Daily Beast. “Let everyone else flame out. Then hit the gas.”
Although Trump’s once cash-flush and now cash-strapped “Save America” leadership PAC can cover legal expenses for himself and his allies, that flexibility comes with a major drawback. While candidates can use leadership PACs to pay for pretty much anything, the tradeoff is they can’t use them to pay for their own campaign activity. Once Trump became a candidate again—officially announcing in November 2022, though some legal experts contend he’d already been in the race for a long time—Save America, which had raised more than $140 million, couldn’t pay the bills for his events. Those expenses fell to his new campaign committee, which didn’t have the kind of cash he’d stashed in Save America. He had to start fresh, more or less.
While the rallies have been crucial to Trump’s relationship with the base, they are not cheap. The rallies can run anywhere from the low- to mid-six-figure range—all the way up to $2 million. (The most notable pricy example was his botched Tulsa rally during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, which set his campaign back $2.2 million.)
So, let me end with the idiot from Northwest Louysiana that is now the Speaker of the House because he’s about the worse they could get, which is probably why they went for him. I am going to collect all the shit I can from my Shreveport friends and dump it on Monday. But let me start with some of the folks on top of this. Joy Reid’s show last night was brutal. The Reid Out blog has this insight from Ja’han Johnson. “Speaker Mike Johnson embodies Trump’s media obsession. Former TV host Donald Trump backed former radio host Mike Johnson’s bid for House speaker. The MAGA movement has gone all in with extremist media figures.” Yes, folks. He was a right-wing radio freak not so long ago. He’s actually never had a real job. He’s primarily lurked in extremist organizations incredibly dedicated to getting rid of abortion access and taking out the GLBT community.
A former TV host turned president (who chose a former radio host as his VP) wanted another former radio host to be speaker of the House of Representatives. What could go wrong?
Electorally? A lot, actually.
After Donald Trump gave his approval Wednesday, House Republicans unanimously elected little-known Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to serve as speaker.
Johnson, who is in his fourth term of Congress, is the most junior House member to serve as speaker since the 1800s. But he does have some experience that the former president appears to cherish: As a Trump-aligned lawyer and former right-wing talk radio host, he seems skilled in the art of packaging Trumpian talking points in ways that are relatively polished. What he lacks in legislative experience, he appears to make up for with MAGA moxy, as far as Trump is concerned.
It’s easy to see why Trump could be drawn to Johnson. The Louisiana Republican played a key role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and he served on House Republicans’ pro-Trump defense team during Trump’s first impeachment. But perhaps most importantly to Trump, Johnson is being touted among the MAGA faithful as a skilled communicator of extremely conservative values. (I’ll admit his seemingly quiet demeanor and folksy twang have the feel of an off-brand Paul Harvey.)
And there’s ample evidence that Trump likes to keep media tacticians of this sort in his inner circle.
Back in 2018, John Wagner wrote for The Washington Post about Trump’s tendency to hire people at the White House — like Larry Kudlow and John Bolton — after watching them on TV:
Being a pundit is becoming a tried-and-true pathway into the Trump administration, as a reality-show president seeks to surround himself with people who’ve been auditioning for their jobs on television — whether they realize it or not.
Johnson has embodied the MAGA movement with his press appearances in the past, by sharing views that play well among diehard conservatives but could turn off voters who aren’t as decidedly right-wing. Trump may approve of his politics and his presentation, but the more we learn about the new speaker’s record, the clearer it becomes that the GOP just elevated an extremist to serve as the face of House Republicans.
Within hours of Johnson’s election, disturbing previous comments of his were brought to light — including this clip, in which he suggested the U.S. is not a democracy, but rather a republic founded in line with a “biblical admonition.”
It’s always the mousy ones you have to watch. This is from Brian Beutler. “Make Mike Johnson Famous. If Republicans vote for a medieval insurrectionist, and nobody knows, does it count?” Beutler tries to understand what the media will do with the public face of Mike Johnson. He provides some rather appalling examples of folks who have really missed the biography.
What won’t fade as easily is an indelible caricature. Like Gore the exaggerator again, or Jimmy Carter as the prophet of malaise. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) became a meme when the January 6 Committee released footage of him (daintily, fearfully) fleeing the insurrection he helped inspire. Well here’s Mike Johnson, MAGA Ayatollah, running away from questions about his involvement in the failed coup and support for a national abortion ban.
When Johnson is absent or unavailable for any reason, it must be because he’s hiding from yet more questions about his election lies. Or maybe he’s trying to arrest a gay couple, or a woman who terminated a pregnancy. With him it’s always one or the other.
..
Without that kind of ratatat the public will pick up on the din of some other concerted messaging campaign. Mike Johnson’s extremism and corruption, along with his unwillingness to defend either, have to become social knowledge, and repetition is central to that process.
After I sent Wednesday’s newsletter, the drivers of the #GenocideJoe hashtag that’s gone viral on the left mobbed my Twitter feed (as I suspected they would), which is mildly annoying, but ultimately just a symptom of how ideas, even wrongheaded ones, take root in modern polities.
The American progressives who’ve become convinced they’re witnessing a Joe Biden-supported genocide didn’t get that idea from “lived experience” or “material reality” or “Democrats endorsing an unpopular activist idea.” They live here in the U.S., the material reality is that Biden does not support genocide and one is not underway, and the Biden policy is to insist on restraint in a horrible war. No, what happened is some fringe leftists made some memes and engaged in giddy slander on their popular podcasts, and that was enough to make it an unquestioned assumption in whole thought communities, including among people who say they voted for Biden once and will never again. Politics didn’t drive the media; the media drove politics.
The same aphorism applies here. House Republicans won’t pay much of a price for electing Johnson unless Johnson is understood, at a population level, to be a malign actor, where when you say the name “Mike Johnson,” it conjures a predictable image in the mind of whomever you’re talking to.
Sven Birger Sandzén, Sunset”‘n the Mountains, 1’17.
Questioned about comments and actions deemed by many to be homophobic, the new Republican US House speaker, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, told Fox News his worldview was: “Go pick up a Bible.”
Speaking on Thursday, Johnson said he “genuinely love[d] all people regardless of their lifestyle choices.
“This is not about the people themselves. I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘… People are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it – that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe and so I make no apologies for it.”
Johnson added: “That’s my personal worldview.”
Johnson’s rise to the speakership was confirmed on Wednesday, as the fourth candidate since Kevin McCarthy was ejected by the actions of a clutch of far-right representatives in his own congressional conference earlier this month.
The Louisianan, 51, won his final vote without Republican dissent but is a controversial pick nonetheless. Before entering Congress in 2016, he was an attorney for rightwing Christian groups and a state legislator. In both roles he advanced extreme views, particularly against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.
Johnson’s work for the Alliance Defending Freedom has attracted widespread attention. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors far-right activity, calls the ADF a hate group – a label it rejects.
Nonetheless, the SPLC says the ADF has “supported the recriminalisation of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults in the US and criminalisation abroad; defended state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people abroad; contended that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to engage in paedophilia; and claimed that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society”.
Johnson’s host for Thursday’s interview, Sean Hannity, said: “Comments you made both in writing and advocacy for this group about homosexuality, calling it sinful, destructive and not supporting gay marriage, quote, ‘No clear right to sodomy in the constitution.’ You have been getting hammered on this and I … wanna know … where you stand.”
Johnson said: “I don’t even remember some of them. I was a litigator called upon to defend the state marriage amendments.
“If you remember back in the early 2000s, I think there [were] over 35 states … that the people went to the ballot in their respective states and they amended their state constitutions to say marriage is one man and one woman. Well, I was a religious liberty defense and was called to defend those cases in the courts.”
Earlier, CNN unearthed editorials for a newspaper in Shreveport, Louisiana, in which Johnson said homosexuality was “inherently unnatural”, would lead to legalised paedophilia and could destroy “the entire democratic system”.
“Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural,” Johnson wrote in 2004, “and, the studies clearly show, are ultimately harmful and costly for everyone.”
Legalising gay marriage, he said, meant “we will have to do it for every deviant group. Polygamists, polyamorists, paedophiles and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. They already are. There will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet.”
Johnson also called same-sex marriage, which would be made legal across the US in 2015, “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic”.
Here are some more depressing headlines. You may want to follow Robert Mann. He’s got a lot of insight into Lousyana Politics and Ayatollah Mike.
From the New York Times: ‘Could Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker, Undermine the 2024 Election? The Louisiana Republican played a pivotal role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But his elevation to the top post in the House does not give him special powers in the certification process if he tries again.’
From Axios: ‘Speaker Johnson on shootings: “Problem is the human heart, not guns”‘
From Bloomberg: ‘House Speaker Mike Johnson’s First Big Bill Cuts Biden’s Climate Change Funding
- Measure would end rebates for energy-efficient appliances
- Slashes funds for other programs to counter climate change’
From Phillip Bump and the Washington Post: ‘Mike Johnson points to a Biden impeachment, even if the facts do not.’
From Politico: “He Seems to Be Saying His Commitment Is to Minority Rule’. A Q&A with historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez on the Christian nationalist ideas that shaped House Speaker Mike Johnson.’
On Wednesday, when newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson gave his first speech in that role, he quoted British statesman and philosopher GK Chesterton, who once said, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded upon a creed,” and that it is “listed with almost theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”
“That is the creed that has animated our nation since its founding and has made us the great nation that we are,” Johnson said.
That was one reason I reached out to Du Mez, who combed through his long record of statements about his beliefs and influences to help me understand how his faith drives his politics. “As he understands it, this country was founded as a Christian nation,” Du Mez told me. “So really, Christian supremacy and a particular type of conservative Christianity is at the heart of Johnson’s understanding of the Constitution and an understanding of our government.”
Be as afraid as I am of leaving the confines of Orleans Parish. This man is more nutty than Justice Alito, and that’s a hard achievement.
So, you will be reading more of me on this subhuman piece of shit. He job hops a lot and leaves a paper trail. If we’d have had the election maps drawn the way they should’ve, he probably wouldn’t be sitting in the House. They gave him much of the East part of Lousyana that would be better placed in East Texas.
Take care and be careful out there! The country is awash with people who love to hate others and are unafraid to act on it.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Republican Dystopia
Posted: October 23, 2023 Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: batshit crazy Republicans, The Trump Family Crime Syndicate 6 Comments
An April Mood, Charles Burchfield
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s a weird news day today. The most laughable thing I’ve ever read is trending on the X Zone. I was hoping the hashtag on the #DaytheDelusionDied was about how Republicans have finally come to realize Trump sold the country to the highest bidder, even his lawyers are pleading guilty and selling him out, and this was the day that The New York Times had to apologize for printing Hamas propaganda. Instead, some Karen has written something weird about us waking up after the Hamas terrorist attack and becoming interested in owning guns, securing the border, and not voting for rational actors in elections. It was a good thing because the commenters are mostly a running list of who to block on the dead brain/open mouth site. Delusional people with binders full of conspiracy theories don’t get to redefine words in the dictionary.
So, yes, the New York Times apologized for getting the information on the Gaza Hospital attack wrong. I know I fell for it.
On Oct. 17, The New York Times published news of an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City, leading its coverage with claims by Hamas government officials that an Israeli airstrike was the cause and that hundreds of people were dead or injured. The report included a large headline at the top of The Times’s website.
Israel subsequently denied being at fault and blamed an errant rocket launch by the Palestinian faction group Islamic Jihad, which has in turn denied responsibility. American and other international officials have said their evidence indicates that the rocket came from Palestinian fighter positions.
The Times’s initial accounts attributed the claim of Israeli responsibility to Palestinian officials, and noted that the Israeli military said it was investigating the blast. However, the early versions of the coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.
Sultry Moon, Charles Burchfield
It’s part and parcel of their “both sides having the right information” policy. They also don’t get to scream how patriotic they are when their cult leader sells the country’s secrets to please a billionaire from Australia who buys big-ticket items at Mar a Lardo. The 60 Minutes Australia interview of Anthony Pratt should be a cautionary tale to letting this guy get near our democracy again. We’re not a wholesale outlet for Trump. This is from CNN. “Reports: Trump told Mar-a-Lago member about calls with foreign leaders.” The details about our Nuclear subs appear to be just the beginning.
Mar-a-Lago member and Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt said then-President Donald Trump told him about his private calls with the leaders of Ukraine and Iraq, according to reports published Sunday about private recordings of Pratt, a key prosecution witness in Trump’s classified documents case.
The reports from The New York Times and “60 Minutes Australia” revealed previously unknown recordings of Pratt candidly recalling his conversations with Trump – and build on existing allegations that Trump overshared sensitive government material.
In the tapes, Pratt says Trump shared insider details about his phone calls with world leaders during his presidency. Pratt also offers searing critiques of Trump’s personal ethics.
CNN previously reported that Pratt gave an interview to special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with mishandling national security materials by hoarding dozens of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. (Trump pleaded not guilty.) Pratt is also on Smith’s witness list for the trial, which is scheduled for May.
Concerns about Trump’s freewheeling approach to state secrets are at the center of that case. Past reports from ABC News said Trump discussed potentially sensitive information with Pratt about US nuclear submarines. The new reports Sunday expand what is known about Pratt’s recounting of their conversations to include foreign policy matters.
“It hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today,’” Pratt said in one recording that was made public Sunday, recalling a conversation with Trump.
Pratt then recalled Trump’s description of his December 2019 call with Iraqi President Barham Salih. According to Pratt, Trump said, “The president of Iraq called me up and said, ‘You just leveled my city. … I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’”
The recordings also indicate that Trump spoke with Pratt about his now-infamous September 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump pressured Zelensky to help him win the 2020 election by publicly launching unfounded corruption probes into Joe Biden. That phone call formed the basis of Trump’s first impeachment.
“That was nothing compared to what I usually do,” Trump told Pratt about the Zelensky call, according to the tape. “That’s nothing compared to what we usually talk about.”
Storm at Sunset, 1959 Charles Burchfield
This is the fun part.
The new recordings also shed light on Pratt’s candid, private thoughts about Trump’s behavior. It’s unclear who Pratt was speaking to, but Pratt said in one tape that Trump “says outrageous things nonstop,” and compared his business practices to “the mafia.”
“He knows exactly what to say — and what not to say — so that he avoids jail. But gets so close to it that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law,” Pratt said in one tape.
We all knew that, but what will Jack Smith do with the information? Will Judge Loose Cannon ever let this trial go forward? So, one of the big questions was what Melania thought when Trump asked her to trot around in a bikini? This is from Newsweek. There are audio recordings btw.
According to the audio recordings, one of the conversations Pratt shared about the former president were details surrounding Trump and the former first lady.
In the recordings, Pratt shares that Trump asked Melania to parade around the pool at Mar-a-Lago in a bikini “so all the other guys could get a look at what they were missing.”
In response, according to Pratt’s audio, “Then Melania said back to him, ‘I’ll do that when you walk around with me in your bikini.'”
Autumnal Fantasy, Charles Burchfield
Trump is denying everything, but you know, the recordings!!!
Meanwhile, Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is in a moral quandary. This is from Insider. “Quash my subpoena, Ivanka Trump tells NY judge, in asking not to testify against her father.” What will Daddy’s crash do?
Ivanka Trump is fighting hard against being forced to testify against her father and her brothers in the ongoing Trump civil fraud trial in New York.
On the eve of a Friday deadline, by which she must agree to take the stand as early as later this month, her lawyer made a lengthy objection to her subpoena.
The objection, in court papers filed late Thursday, calls the subpoena from the New York attorney general’s office overly broad.
It also accuses the attorney general’s office of botching how it served Trump with her subpoena, alleging a technical foul her lawyer says should invalidate her obligation to testify.
The technical foul? Copies of the subpoena were sent to three of her corporate addresses but not to her personally, said the lawyer, Bennet J. Moskowitz.
“Each of these three subpoenas listed Ms. Trump’s name only in the ‘to’ line above the LLCs’ names and the names and addresses of their registered agents,” Moskowitz wrote.
“The body of the Subpoenas requested a ‘personal appearance’ ‘to give testimony’ at trial but did not identify any specific employee, officer, or director that the NYAG wanted to appear,” he wrote.
Former President Donald Trump’s elder daughter was originally named as a defendant in the lawsuit from New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, but her name was removed earlier this year.
Wind Blown Asters, Charles E. Burchfield,1951
We’re living in a subpar Soap Opera/Mafia series. So, the House Speaker’s race is still being run like a grade-school student council election. This is from Scott LeMieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money. “If you have nine candidates for Speaker you have no candidates for speaker.”
I would call this the political equivalent of a “let’s remember some guys” blog except that you would have had to ever have known who they were to remember them:
The House GOP’s enormous speaker field is officially set, with nine Republicans seeking to somehow unify their splintered party after almost three weeks without a leader.
It’s the most crowded field since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fall 19 days ago. The latest round of candidates includes current GOP leaders — like Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Vice Chair Mike Johnson (R-La.) — as well as more surprising rank and file members like Reps. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.). Another last-minute addition, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), who serves as GOP policy chair, raised eyebrows on Sunday.
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who had been encouraged to run by fellow Texans, announced Sunday that he won’t. “I’m standing down for this round,” Arrington told POLITICO. “Hope we get there.”
The full GOP conference will hear from all nine members on Monday night for a candidate forum, followed by an internal vote Tuesday morning. And all will be under intense pressure to present a pitch that can bring together an exasperated House GOP that is rife with division.
“This is my tenth term in Congress. This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen,” House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told ABC News on Sunday. “We’re essentially shut down as a government.”
McCarthy, who was stripped of the gavel earlier this month after working with Democrats to avert a shutdown, also called the chaos “embarrassing” for the party and the country, stressing the need to elect Emmer — his No. 3 deputy — next week.
Emmer has thus far avoided getting the ultimate kiss of death — an endorsement from Elise Stefanik — but is still hard to see his candidacy going anywhere, and I have no idea who the runner-up would even be. The aristocrats!
Charles Burchfield : Ancient Maples in August, 1957
Public Notice features Ken Buck today with this odd headline. “The House GOP’s unlikely resistance fighter. Ken Buck is mostly terrible. But amid the speakership crisis, bad actors are taking bold stands.” Oy. We come not to praise Caesar but to bury him?
The ongoing GOP House speakership debacle has been a clownish, humiliating spectacle which has made basically every Republican involved look like a dunderhead unfit to look smug on Sean Hannity’s show, much less govern the country. So it’s all the more surprising that one legislator who has emerged as a figure of resolve is Colorado’s Ken Buck.
Buck has not, up to now, been a figure of integrity, to put it mildly. He’s a radical right Freedom Caucus member who was instrumental in defenestrating former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Buck was in fact one of the eight Republicans who voted with oleaginous self-promoter Matt Gaetz to end McCarthy’s speakership, plunging the caucus into chaos.
And yet, suddenly and unexpectedly, Buck has located a spine and used it to stand up to his colleagues. In the leadership forum following McCarthy’s ouster, Buck demanded that the two leading candidates, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, state clearly that Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, won the 2020 election. When neither would do so, Buck said he wouldn’t vote for either of them. You have to imagine Buck asking his question during the leadership forum and every single Republican in the room doing a spit take, wiping the coffee off their chins, and having flashbacks to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Buck’s newfound concern with election integrity doesn’t make him a good person. It does indicate, though, that the GOP House leadership crisis has, perhaps, opened up space for some bad actors to make better choices. And it’s also a reminder that, if the GOP is going to get to a better place, some pretty awful people will need to decide to be — tactically, perhaps temporarily — less awful.
It sounds like Noah Berlatsky has a future at the New York Times.
February Thaw, Charles Burchfield
And, in the Republican Presidential Primary, there’s a horse race at the bottom of the pack. This is from USA Today. “Exclusive poll: Nikki Haley surges, nearly ties Ron DeSantis as the alternative to Trump. Haley’s support has surged to 11% and DeSantis’ plunged to 12%, the USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll finds. But Trump still dominates.” Who amongst us has found a poll these days we don’t trust? One poll? Several polls? All polls? Uh, check out the MOE on this baby!
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has surged nationally in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, challenging a faltering Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the top alternative to Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.
Haley’s support has risen to 11% of registered voters who plan to vote in GOP primaries or caucuses, up from 4% in the USA TODAY/Suffolk poll taken in June and just one percentage point below DeSantis. His 12% standing was a steep fall from his 23% support four months ago.
Trump continues to dominate the field, backed by 58%, up 10 points.
The survey of 309 Republican and Republican-leaning voters, taken Tuesday through Friday by landline and cell phone, has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.
This party deserves to go the way of the Whig Party. They can’t govern. They can’t get a platform together. They only care about air time on Fox, granting their donors their most fond wishes, destroying our democracy, and hurting women, immigrants, and people of color.
So, that’s enough weirdness for today. I’ve had enough weirdness since the weekend. The reason I’ve chosen the art of Charles E. Burfield is because of his weirdish take on landscape. We’ve got marsh fires down here that stink up the place and have brought us “Super Fog.” Yes, that’s the technical word for it. It’s been an eerie weekend of thick black fog and nasty smells. You may remember me writing this blog from a small university on the other side of the river for a few years. You may also remember me complaining about how extending daylight savings time made the morning commute seem like a midnight funeral. Well, the combination of no sunshine in the morning and Super Fog messed up that morning commute for many folks. Today, it cost some of them their lives.
It figures it’s trending on the dead site.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: These Trump Rats, See How They Flip
Posted: October 20, 2023 Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: Kenneth Chesbrough, Sidney Powell, State's Evidence, Trump Gag Order 4 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Welcome to this week’s adventures at As the Trumperz Turn! This week’s installment is Trump Lawyers Bail. Quick, little rats! The ship is sinking! Who thought I could use this many stale metaphors in such a short time!
We’ve had two defections in the Georgia Election Fraud this week. Lawyer Sidney Powell and Advisor Kenneth Cheesebro both pled guilty, worked out a deal, and answered many questions that will undoubtedly make Trump’s jail prospects pretty good. This is from the Washington Post. “Trump co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro pleads guilty in Georgia election case. Chesebro became the second former Trump lawyer to plead guilty in as many days, following Sidney Powell on Thursday. This is reported by Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner.
Kenneth Chesebro, a former lawyer for Donald Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty Friday to illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. The plea came in just hours after jury selection began in the highly anticipated case, ahead of an expected trial next month
Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents, and accepted a sentence of three to five years of probation, a $1,000 fine, $5,000 in restitution to the state of Georgia, an apology letter, 100 hours of community service and a promise to testify truthfully against any other co-defendants in the case, should they go to trial.
In his plea deal, Chesebro implicated several of those co-defendants as being part of the conspiracy to file false documents — a charge related to his role organizing slates of pro-Trump electors to meet in seven states where Biden had won. They are Trump, four other lawyers including Rudy Giuliani, and one campaign operative.
Chesebro’s guilty plea made him the second former Trump lawyer to plead guilty in as many days, following a plea from Sidney Powell on Thursday, and the third co-defendant to admit guilt in the sweeping criminal racketeering case alleging Trump and 18 allies broke the Georgia law when they sought to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. In addition to Powell, bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty earlier this month in the conspiracy — with all agreeing to testify against others in the case.
The plea is the latest legal victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), whose office is prosecuting the Georgia case. In addition to flipping one of the key members of the alleged conspiracy, prosecutors now avoid a trial in which they would have had to showcase much of their evidence against Trump and others, which might have offered lawyers for others a legal advantage heading into other trials.
The potential for incriminating testimony from three of Trump’s co-defendants could have far-reaching impact on the former president’s legal fortunes in the case, as well as some of the other high-profile defendants, notably Giuliani, who is alleged to have known about both Powell’s and Chesebro’s efforts to help overturn Trump’s loss.
T
his makes things very interesting. Powell is a pretty good catch. This is from The Rolling Stone. “Team Trump Never Dreamed Sidney Powell Would Flip on Them.’
She was the ultimate MAGA conspiracy theorist. Then, she got charged with being part of a criminal conspiracy, and her tune started to change.
But few, if any, of Trump’s aides and lawyers had predicted that Powell would cut any deal this soon.
The news of Powell’s plea agreement Thursday morning stunned a number of Trump’s top advisers and attorneys, all of whom thought Powell — the truest of all Trump-backing, election-denying true believers — was among the least likely to take a plea deal ahead of trial, the people familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone. Some had even told Trump in recent months that they thought Powell would be (foolishly, in their opinion) fighting the so-called “deep state” in court ‘til the bitter end. She even pushed the idea that Trump could “simply be reinstated” in the middle of President Joe Biden’s term.
In the sprawling RICO prosecution of Trump and others, Powell was charged with, among other counts, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to defraud the state, and conspiracy to commit computer theft. (Powell was implicated in a bizarre plot to access Coffee County voting data, according to prosecutors, to aid their crusade to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election loss.)
Powell has now agreed to plead guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. As part of her agreement with Fulton County prosecutors, Powell agreed to serve six years on probation, pay a $6,000 fine, and write a letter of apology to Georgia residents.
Powell’s plea agreement raises the possibility that she could testify against the former president although the scope of her cooperation in the case remains unclear. Two other sources with knowledge of Powell’s recent moves say that one of the biggest factors in Powell’s decision was simple. The attorney hasn’t lost faith in her conspiracy theories or the anti-democratic lies about the 2020 election being “stolen” from Trump, the sources say. Rather, the sources say, she has privately conveyed that she’s merely beaten down and tired from the legal odyssey her efforts to overturn the election has wrought.
After nearly three years of being at the center of lawsuits and various investigations stemming from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to those with knowledge of her situation, Powell is looking to end her various legal fights. The fact that Trump and most of the Republican elite have essentially abandoned her has also likely sapped Powell’s resolve.
While the Chesebro and Powell Pleans means there will be no October trial, there will be trials later. The Atlantic Journal-Constitution reports that potential jurors have been called in for interviews. Trump is busy up in New York right now.
This is from CNN. “Trump fraud trial judge suggests gag order violation could result in imprisonment.”The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial admonished the former president’s attorneys for a “blatant violation” of a gag order and suggested that violations could result in “imprisonment.”
Judge Arthur Engoron said despite his clear order to take down a social media post attacking his clerk, “I learned that the subject post was never removed from the website.”
“And, in fact, had been on that website for the past 17 days. I understand that it was removed late last night but only in response to an email,” Engoron said.
The post was removed from Truth Social right after the gag order was issued but not from Trump’s campaign website, DonaldJTrump.com.
The judge hinted at serious sanctions for the former president.
“I will now provide defendants an opportunity to explain why this blatant violation of this gag order should not result in serious sanctions including financial penalties… and or possibly imprisonment.”
Trump attorney Chris Kise apologized to Engoron, saying it was “inadvertent” that the post was able to live on what he called a “back page” of Trump’s campaign website.
“It appears no one also took down the ICYMI link that’s in the campaign website in the back pages,” Kise said.
“Truly this appears to be inadvertent,” Kise said, adding, “I certainly apologize on behalf of my clients.”
Meanwhile, Trump Toady Gymbo Jordan lost his third vote for speaker. This is from breaking news from the Washington Post. Why are the diehard Trumperz so socially stupid? He’s not gotten any of the hints suggesting he’s never going to get that position.
House Republicans are huddling behind closed doors Friday after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) failed on a third ballot to be elected House speaker. In their meeting, the Republican conference is voting by secret ballot on whether Jordan should drop out of the race, according to two people familiar with the proceedings who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a closed meeting. Jordan, a conservative firebrand and ally of former president Donald Trump, vowed at a news conference earlier Friday that he would keep fighting for the job.
Politico has interesting coverage about the GOP dysfunction and in-fighting. “House GOP drowning as crisis reaches breaking point. It seems that every day without a speaker brings a new release of pent-up anger from Republicans who see no way out of their self-inflicted pain.”
When Matt Gaetz stepped to the microphones during Thursday’s three-hour private House GOP meeting on the speakership, the speaker he ousted promptly yelled at him to “sit down.”
Kevin McCarthy was not the only Republican to vent fury with Gaetz, the Florida conservative who successfully ousted the House’s leader. The room met Gaetz with booing, profanities and calls to back off, according to multiple lawmakers in the room. When Gaetz refused, Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) stood up and hollered a command at him that one Republican recalled as: “If you don’t sit down, I’ll put you down.”
It seems that every day without a speaker brings a new release of pent-up anger from the House GOP, which is stuck in the bewildering position of technically controlling a chamber of Congress where it can’t even vote on bills. At the moment, their latest pick for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), cannot win the gavel on the floor and yet still won’t end his campaign — preventing a half-dozen or more other ambitious GOP lawmakers from jumping into the race.
Republicans’ inability to elect a new leader is so acute that by Thursday, they squabbled over whether to empower a colleague who they wouldn’t elect to control the floor, only to jettison that idea hours later. Those talks about elevating Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) quickly grew nasty as conservatives accused fellow Republicans of pursuing a power-sharing arrangement with Democrats.
What went unsaid: Those same conservatives are loath to abandon Jordan’s doomed candidacy lest it underscore that their most influential voice couldn’t get the votes.
After 16 days adrift, it was clear by Thursday evening that House Republicans have hit rock bottom. What began as social media sniping over their failed speakership battle has devolved into real fears for the safety of members whose families are receiving personal threats over their decision to oppose Jordan.
There’s some good news from the Gaza/Israel War. Two American hostages will be released by Hamas. This is from CNN.
Two American hostages, a mother and her daughter, are being released by Hamas, according to a person familiar with the negotiations and a diplomatic source.
The two have been handed over to the Red Cross and are “on their way out,” the source familiar with negotiations said.
The two are being released on “humanitarian grounds” because the mother is in poor health, the same source said.
It is unclear whether they will leave Gaza into Egypt or Israel. This is the result of the negotiations between Qatar and Hamas that started after Hamas abducted around 200 people from Israel on October 7.
In a statement, Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida said: “In response to Qatari efforts, Al-Qassam Brigades released two American citizens (a mother and her daughter) for humanitarian reasons, and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless.”
The White House has not commented. The Israeli prime minister’s office has not commented. CNN has reached out to the Red Cross. The United Nations warned on Friday the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law.
At least it’s the weekend.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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