Tip of the hat to EarlG on democraticunderground.com
https://democraticunderground.com/100218400237

The MAGA Party took advantage of an opening Wednesday to elevate the little known Mike Johnson of Louisiana to the position of Pope – I mean Cardinal – er no – maybe it is Bishop – is it Deacon or maybe Imam – no. no. no – I got it – Spooker – no, no no – Speaker – yeah that’s it – Speaker of the House!

Yeah he’s the Speaker – he’s just going to act as America’s religious leader. He will be leading the efforts to impose Gawd’s will on earth which is strikingly similar to what far right extremist MAGAs want – starving poor kids, taking away social security, banning gay people, banning women’s rights, powering up the Putin, getting weapons of war in every hand in America.

I had twelve years of religious education and never heard this was the basis of belief. Sure seems to be now. Johnson even got the blessing of the Supreme Being after his elevation. The Supreme Being is heavy set guy with yellow hair and orange skin who lives in various court rooms around the country. Mr. Supreme called Johnson “MAGA Mike!” Mr. Supreme knows he owns the Speaker and those who chose the Speaker.

The Spooker’s first official act will be to claim that guns were not involved in the most recent mass murder – it was all mental illness that was the culprit. Easy access to guns and laws that make carrying guns anytime, anywhere legal had nothing to do with it. The NRA has guns to sell, dammit!

Then he will be about the business of taking away Social Security and Medicare and any aid to poor people and ending any access to health care for the poor. Johnson is a Christian after all, Then it will be on to doing his piece in creating lies about President Biden and moving impeachment along. 

While Trump is losing in courts for his part in trying to overthrow our government he is winning in the halls of congress, in the Supreme Court and in state legislatures. The extremist right wing coup continues daily in this country with Trump shoring up power in many areas including and especially Iowa.

Just in case you missed it, Johnson – who will act as a surrogate for Trump as Speaker of the House – nailed down all four Iowa votes like the good puppets they are. Mariannette Miller-Meeks who got much sympathetic press across the country because she received a death threat for veering ever so slightly from the party line last week was right back doing what she is told Wednesday voting for Johnson.

Just in case you wondered who Miller-Meeks represents, it sure ain’t Iowans or sensible people. She no doubt supports Johnson, she also supports what Johnson stands for. And what is that you ask? For those of us who get daily sub stack emails from the likes of Thom Hartmann and Heather Cox Richardson got quite the rundown on just how extreme Johnson is

from democraticunderground.com

I wish I could simply rip and post what each had to say. But we can’t so I will try to pick some good excerpts. If you want to read them in full (and I recommend doing so) click on the link. Both Hartmann and Richardson present an honest and therefore a very scary portrait of a religious extremist who believes he was chosen (!CHOSEN!) by Gawd His own Self!

From Hartmann: 

The election of Louisiana’s Mike Johnson as House Speaker proves the premise that all the GOP has left are Donald Trump and hate.

As Congressman Jamie Raskin told reporters yesterday:

“Donald Trump has cemented his control over the Republican conference in the House of Representatives. He has a stranglehold on the Republican Party. Even as he faces 91 criminal charges and several of his election lawyers have pleaded guilty now to election-related offenses, one of his enablers on January 6 has just become the speaker of the House Representatives.”

Johnson’s hate of Democrats is so deep that he led a Trump-backed effort in the House to get Republicans to back a lawsuit by 18 Republican state attorneys general to overturn Biden’s election as president.

Their lawsuit had no merit and no facts — everybody, including the Republicans involved, knew that Biden had won fair-and-square — but Republican hate of Democrats is now so deep that the idea of Democrats legitimately governing after winning an election is repugnant to them. No matter how big the Democrats’ victory (7 million votes in this case) may be.

And that is just the opening – much more at link. As for Richardson, who has become perhaps America’s most respected historian, we get this picture:

Democrats repeatedly offered to work with Republicans to elect a speaker who accepted the results of the 2020 presidential election and who agreed to bring to the floor for an up-or-down vote legislation that was widely popular in both parties. The Republicans rejected those offers.

Instead, they have elected a pro-Trump extremist as speaker.

Johnson was instrumental in Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Routinely in touch with Trump, he rallied his colleagues to object to counting the electoral votes from states that Democratic candidate Joe Biden won. As Trump’s legal challenges to the results failed, Johnson pushed a Texas lawsuit against the four states that had given Biden the win, calling for the invalidation of millions of his fellow Americans’ ballots, and echoed lies about Venezuelan interference with ballots.

Johnson has also embraced the far right’s culture wars. He is a self-described evangelical Christian who is staunchly anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-union, and anti-immigration. He has close ties to the Israeli right wing, and he opposes further aid to Ukraine, saying such money would be better spent at home, but he has also called for extensive cuts to domestic spending programs.

The Republicans appear to be planning to go before the voters in 2024 with a presidential candidate who is deeply enmeshed in trials over allegedly criminal behavior, whose hastily appointed Supreme Court justices overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion, and who tried to steal the 2020 election. Alongside him, they have now elevated a fervently anti-abortion House speaker who backed the former president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Voters resoundingly rejected both of those positions in 2022.

While Trump looks to be losing in courts, the extremist party he launched is now deeply entrenched inside government. The coup continues and it is succeeding very well. Only we have the power to stop the coup and we do that at the ballot box both next month and next year.