Mostly Monday Reads: When the Devil Wears a Disguise

@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?