Donald Trump is railing against Judge Arthur Engoron, apparently referring to the judge’s summary judgment ruling in September that found the company and individual defendants broadly committed fraud.
Mostly Monday Reads: Disorder in the House, the Senate, the Courtroom … you name it!
Posted: November 6, 2023 Filed under: The Right Wing, The Trump Family Crime Syndicate | Tags: @repeat1968, Are all Republicans Corrupt? Asking for a friend., Ayatollah Mike Johnson, crazy right wing republicans, White Christian Nationalism 14 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s too bad we can’t get a camera in the New York State Courtroom today. Trump’s testimony is as bad as you would imagine. Plus, how do you get a payroll check from the U.S. Government and not have a bank account? Tommy Tuberville is still holding up hundreds of military promotions despite a showing of contempt and song by fellow Republicans. The leader and members of the Chaos Party do their thang!
Let’s go with the Trump Trial first. The Washington Post has live updates if you’re not up to TV coverage that describes the craziness. “Donald Trump testifying in New York civil fraud trial.” I’m listening to Brahams because what goes better with Trump drama than a music style described as both “difficult” and “too cosy.” Or, as I liked to tell my buddy who played classical like me in high school, “Stop pounding the keys so damned much.”
This is one of the major dramatic moments where Trump kept pounding the keys. “Trump sticks to his guns on Mar-a-Lago value, despite evidence. Lawyers for the attorney general’s office questioned former president Donald Trump on Monday about the values he has claimed for Mar-a-Lago, one of his most prominent properties but one of minor importance to his business.”
“He ruled against me without knowing anything about me! He ruled against me and said I was a fraud before he knew anything about me!” Trump said, raising his voice on the witness stand. “The fraud is on the court, not on me.”
Alrighty, then! Oh, there’s much, much more! This is from CNN. “Trump testifies in New York civil fraud trial. Trump: “Everybody” within Trump Organization is responsible for identifying internal fraud.” Is this dank comedy or what?
Donald Trump testified that ultimately “everybody” within the Trump Organization is responsible for identifying internal fraud, following questions from New York’s assistant attorney general.
“I would say everybody,” Trump responded to questioning.
In the years before he became president of the United States, employees would bring issues to him or other management executives to be resolved.
He recalled instances where building managers may have been illegally renting apartments to pocket the money themselves.
When it came to the financial statements, he said he figured Mazars USA, the accounting firm that Trump and his businesses used, would flag any issues. “I would assume Mazars would come and recommend something and we’d amend that procedure,” Trump said.
Just prior to the lunch break, Kevin Wallace from the New York attorney general’s office told the former president, “We’ll get through this particular document much more quickly if you say, ‘I don’t know,” while questioning him about a document addressing the cash flow for one of Trump’s buildings that shows a financial loss.
Trump then responded, “I don’t know.”
The property in question was 40 Wall St., one of the properties that is part of the lawsuit.
My music has now switched to Strauss as every court reporter describes Trump waltzing around the facts, evidence, and reality.
I keep wondering how anyone in that room can keep a straight face. So, let’s see how things are faring with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who keeps track of his own and his son’s porn intake and insists that he doesn’t have a bank account. How much stupidity and arrogance can one party handle? This is from The New Republic. “Mike Johnson and His Son Monitoring Each Other’s Porn Intake Is Worse Than You Think. The House speaker admitted to a wild new detail about his personal life. And it’s a bigger deal than it seems.” Many are arguing that this is a National Security Threat, which seems to be just par for the course for every Republican these days. They’re all National Security Threats from the top down. They are all also quite creepy.
This comes with a background of Mendelssohn’s Waldschloss or Forest Castle. “Surrounded by carnations in bloom, The lovely forest women sit, Singing their songs in the wind.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s unusual porn habits could have ramifications for the entire country.
In a newly resurfaced video from 2022, the newly minted speaker admitted that he and his son monitor each other’s porn intake using a third-party subscription software called Covenant Eyes that watches all their electronic devices. For $16.99 a month, the app drafts a habit report and shares it with an “accountability partner,” which in Johnson’s case is his teenage son Jack.
“What it does, real simply, is it has an algorithm and a software—it’s way above my head how it works, but—it scans, you obviously opt into it, but it scans all the activity on your phone or your devices, your laptop, what have you. We do all of it. Then it sends a report to your accountability partner,” Johnson said.
“My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice,” Johnson explained.
“I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate,” he added.
How many of you want to bet Jack has a friend with a phone that doesn’t include spying parents? Plus, magazines are still around at your local truck stop and there are a hell of lot of those in Shreveport/Bossier City.
Aside from the weirdness of having your son watch your porn intake—and vice versa—the implications of having one of the most prominent leaders in government under the watchful eye of an intrusive software have not been lost on some, who believe the app could pose a national security risk.
“A US Congressman is allowing a 3rd Party tech company to scan ALL of his electronic devices daily and then uploading reports to his son about what he’s watching or not watching…. I mean, who else is accessing that data?” tweeted the user Receipt Maven, who first resurfaced the video.
Ayatollan Mike doesn’t need an App to be a threat to the entire nation. But still, where’s your damned bank accounts Bubba? This is from The Daily Beast. “House Speaker Mike Johnson Skirts Question on Personal Bank Account.” Oh, Mozart is perfect for this one. It makes your brain function nicely. I’m sure no one in Shreveport believes this. “The newfound Speaker said he was a “man of modest means” in a Fox interview.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) responded on Sunday to a report by The Daily Beast that highlighted his apparent lack of a bank account on his financial disclosure.
The response, however, did not actually answer whether he had one.
Fox News Sundaymoderator Shannon Bream pressed Johnson on whether he had a bank account, citing a Vanity Fairwrite-up of The Daily Beast’s report and noting that “there’s been so much made about it.”
“Can you clear that up for us?” Bream asked.
Johnson did not.
“Look, I’m a man of modest means,” Johnson said. “I was a lawyer, but I did constitutional law, and most of my career has been in the nonprofit sector. We have four kids, five now, that are very active. And I have kids in graduate school, law school, undergraduate. We have a lot of expenses, but I can relate to everybody else. My father was a firefighter, right? I didn’t grow up with great means. But I think that helps us to be a better leader because we can relate to every hard-working American family. That’s who we are. And I think it governs and helps govern my decisions and how I lead.”
Okay, he’s a government employee, They all get their checks deposited into a bank account automatically. This is fishy as fuck.
The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday that Johnson had not disclosed a personal bank account or one of his family members in his seven years in Congress, a trait that’s likely due to a modest, paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle. Experts told The Daily Beast that the lack of disclosure raised questions about his financial health, particularly since Johnson has taken out a mortgage and personal loans.
“He owes hundreds of thousands of dollars between a mortgage, personal loan, and home equity line of credit, so where did that money go?” Jason Libowitz, the communications director for the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast. “If he truly has no bank account and no assets, it raises questions about his personal financial wellbeing.”
Then, there’s the Senator Tommy Tuberville. The military is watching you dude. This is from Military.COM “Senate Finally Confirms 3 Top Military Officers After Fellow Republicans Erupt in Anger over Tuberville Blockade.”
Chiefs of the Navy and Air Force, as well as the second-in-command at the Marine Corps, were confirmed Thursday by the Senate after a wild week that saw the leader of the Marines hospitalized and Republican senators unleash fury at the member of their party responsible for blocking the promotions of nearly 380 generals and admirals.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm Adm. Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations, making her the first woman to sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Allvin as chief of staff of the Air Force. The chamber also unanimously approved Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to get a fourth star and be the assistant commandant of the Marines, allowing him to step in as acting commandant while Gen. Eric Smith remains hospitalized for an undisclosed medical emergency.
I wonder if it’s possible to get past all this attention-grabbing right wing drama in time to pass a budget and not close down the Government?
Just one more about these creeps and then I may go back for a nap. These people are exhausting! This is from Salon. It’s written by Chaucey DeVega. “”Apocalypticism”: Polling expert reveals the root of “panic among conservative White Christians”. “That core belief explains so much of the extremism and the proclivity toward violence on the political right.”
This year’s American Values Survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) with the Brookings Institution, shows that the American people are very conflicted and increasingly do not possess a shared set of beliefs or values across a wide range of political issues. Key findings include a growingly disproportionate amount of support for political violence, a willingness to ignore the rule of law to win political power, and a belief in untrue conspiracy theories amongst Republicans as compared to Democrats. Antidemocratic beliefs are even more acute, the survey found, among white evangelical Protestants who yearn for a return to “traditional American values” in a country they believe “is moving in the wrong direction.”
How can the American people and their leaders solve the many problems facing the country if they cannot even agree on what they are – or on basic facts and the nature of reality and the truth more generally?
I asked Robert P. Jones, founder and president of PRRI, to help make sense of the survey results that show a divided American public, the enduring power and growing dangers of Trumpism and the role of White Christian nationalism in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s swift ascendence. Jones is the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future.”
…
The new survey’s findings about the rise in support for political violence are particularly troubling. We found that the numbers of Americans who say that “Things have gotten so far off track that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country” has gone up over the last few years, from 15% to 23%. Those feelings are disproportionately on the right. One in three Republicans believe that as compared to only 13% of Democrats. We also found troubling links between white Christian nationalism and political violence. Among those who believe that America was intended by God to be a promised land for European Christians, nearly four in ten believe they may have to resort to violence to save the country.
Okay, I’m going back to my usual playlist. Y’all have a very good week. I wish I could tell you to avoid the TV but we have an election coming up and it’s a big one. Remember that Ayatollah Mike told us the next two years would be important to America. We should be worried about that. If you really want to get depressed read about the Florida Friday Summit Appearance where booing every one but Trump was a state sport on display. This is from the New York Times. “DeSantis and Trump Bring Their Campaign Battle Home to Florida. At a state party summit, Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald J. Trump both argued that Florida was their turf. For the crowd, Mr. Trump’s assertion seemed to ring truer.”
But the crowd at the summit was clearly in no mood to hear any digs at the former president, and candidates who criticized Mr. Trump were heckled. When former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said that he believed Mr. Trump would probably be found guilty in one of the criminal cases he was facing, the boos were ferocious.
And Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who has become an outspoken Trump critic, was jeered immediately after he took the stage.
Mr. Christie was not dissuaded, firing back at the crowd, “Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.”
Be very afraid. This song’s for Ayatollah Mike.
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 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.
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.
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