Given the importance of the position of House Speaker, reporters have been digging up some more juicy details on Mike Johnson. It is inevitable that when you step into the spotlight then everything will be dug up. Here now is a brief tour of some of those insights from the past week.
Andrew Kaczynski @ CNN: (Nov 1) Explains that before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group …
In print, radio and on television, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, frequently disparaged homosexuality, according to KFile’s review. He advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and went so far as to partially blame it for the fall of the Roman Empire.
Kevin Kruse @ Campaign Trails: (Nov 1) Titled “Of Little Faith”, Kevin explains the big Johnson lie …
In the interview, Johnson does a very familiar routine, cherry-picking a few select quotations from the Founders to imply that they basically wanted a theocratic government, and ignoring the many other quotations from them making clear that these Enlightenment figures absolutely did not want that.
It’s also wild that Johnson claimed in the clip below this past week that it is “impossible to hate“. To reveal that lie, just ask the gay community, or anybody who interacts with Conservative Christians. As for his claim that he does not want to establish Christianity as the national religion, he literally ran Seminars Promoting the false claim that the US was established as a “Christian Nation” …
Tessa Stuart @ Rolling Stone (Oct 30): revealed that House Speaker Mike Johnson has also had a Long Crusade Against Birth Control …
Johnson is known for being among the most anti-abortion lawmakers in Congress, and for railing against the use of “abortion as a form of birth control” before he was in office. But his statements and actions suggest he does not see much difference between abortion as a form of birth control and birth control as a form of birth control.
One of the truly weirdest insights from the past week is that the guy who has a rather large salary has no bank accounts and no other assets … or to be a tad more precise, since 2016 he has failed to disclose any …(as reported by The Daily Beast) …
Over the course of seven years, Johnson has never reported a checking or savings account in his name, nor in the name of his wife or any of his children, disclosures show. In fact, he doesn’t appear to have money stashed in any investments, with his latest filing—covering 2022—showing no assets whatsoever.
... Johnson’s household income puts him in the top 12 percent of earners in the United States. And it’s extraordinarily rare for members of Congress to not list a qualifying bank account—let alone zero assets whatsoever.…
“It’s strange to see Speaker Johnson disclose no assets,” Libowitz told The Daily Beast. “He made over $200,000 last year, and his wife took home salary from two employers as well, so why isn’t there a bank account or any form of savings listed?”
To be clear, while deeply weird, the above is not a suggestion that there is something nefarious going on, but rather that the guy has lots of debts and uses his rather high income to service them all. The unspoken question is this – if he has managed to end up with his own personal finances in a bit of a mess, then how exactly can we ever trust him to successfully handle the national budget?
We also learned via Jennifer Bendery @ HuffPost (Oct 30) that Mike Johnson’s Wife took Down a Website That Compared Being Gay To Bestiality, Incest …
It specifically puts gay, bisexual and transgender people in the same category as people who have sex with animals or family members, citing all of them as examples of “sexual immorality.”
Some are of course vigorously rallying behind him. Below is a rebuttal from those that do get it, and I should add that the guy who supposedly “Loves the constitution” according to Tim also tried to overthrow the 2020 election …
The observation that we now have a house speaker who is anti-gay, anti-abortion with no exceptions, anti-birth-control, and holds many other weird and quirky beliefs, does indeed mean that we now live in “interesting” times. In other words, to resurrect the old phrase; God help us.
Moving on, below you will once again find my usual selection of some of the other truly bizarre and extreme claims that have popped up during the last 7 days. Each is as usual laced with my snarky commentary.
With my usual hat tip to my various sources, let’s once again dive into this very murky pool of absurdity and stupidity.
Christian Nationalism
- The constitution promptly enters stage left to announce … “er… hang on a moment ….“
- Some example of “Really” Understanding the bible: … Beat your Slaves- Exodus 21:21 … Silence women – 1 Cor 14:34 … Marry your Rapist – Deut 22:28-29, etc… and there is plenty more where that all comes from, so just ignore everything we have learned in the past 2,000 years.
- General rule of thumb – Whenever anyone is suggesting you pick up arms, they mean those listening should do so because they personally have no plans on being at the front. Such people always hide behind those stupid enough to actually listen to them.
- “‘Thou shalt beat thy plowshares into AR-15s.’” … just like Jesus said within the sermon on the mount … right?
- Later after the above last week, Wolf then proceeded to throw a hiss fit for being accurately quoted, so yes, it was the usual, “How dare you quote my exact words in context that I said in public, that was very despicable of you“.
Charlie Kirk is apparently never going to stop asserting that Deuteronomy was the book quoted most frequently by the Founding Fathers.
- Best response is to never stop pointing out that he is lying.
- Actual Founding Father Quote: “I leave those..Theologians who expect the Apocalyptic Reign, to enjoy their transporting hopes; provided always that they will not engage Us in Crusades and French Revolutions, nor burn Us for doubting” Adams letter to Jefferson 1816. Here is the actual letter via the national Archives, the quote is about 2/3 of the way into the letter. If time permits, the full later is worth a read. For context, Adams and Jefferson spent about three years writing to each other reviewing the events of the Revolution, and ranging over a variety of political and philosophical issues, not to inform each other, but in the knowledge that those letters would become a historical record. If you ever wanted a deep insight into their thinking then this is where you start.
- Reminder: The bible “standard” is that beating your slave is just fine as long as the slave is still alive a few days after your beating. #BiblicalStandards #WeAreFarBetterThanThat
The supposed “real” cause of Shootings + Hitler
Christian nationalist commentator Eric Metaxas asserts that “demonic activity” is to blame for mass shootings, not guns: “Obviously, something has happened in America that has nothing to do with guns and has everything to do with the spiritual state of the nation.”
- It’s deeply weird how all the other nations on the planet that have gun regulations appear to keep all those demons in check. Did a priest perhaps bless the gun regulations with holy water to keep the demons suppressed?
- He literally claimed that the shootings have … quote … “nothing to do with guns“. For a supposed Christian Intellectual, the man is indeed deeply stupid.
- Let’s supposed demons actually existed (they don’t), and also let’s suppose they were very active – if all that was actually true, then why the f**k would we want to make it so easy for these supposed demons to obtain guns?
Also this past week, Eric Metaxas says that the only difference between President Joe Biden and Adolf Hitler is that “Hitler was elected; Biden had to steal the election.”
- History enters stage left … “Er, excuse me …” (Facts matter).
- If you now attempted to satirise Eric then you literally couldn’t because he is this ridiculous now.
- Reminder: Neither Eric, nor Trump, nor anybody else has provided one single jot of credible evidence that the election was stolen – this is the big lie that they are using to manipulate people with. The 2020 election was certified in all 50 states by all 50 governors, lieutenant governors, secretaries of state, and election officials of every kind. Metaxas is claiming that they all were corrupt liars, and remember that many of them were Republicans.
- I don’t know about you, but personally my contempt for people like Metaxas is almost limitless. This lying religious grifter represents the worst of humanity.
Homophobia
So this (See tweet below) happened …
- Number of people who woke up and discovered that they had been transformed from straight into gay because of some tree paintings – Yep, exactly Zero.
- And remember this is the exact same state that claims “Live Free or Die”.
Actions such as dishing out hatred really does have consequences … the tweet below encapsulates the harvest …
- Local media report on what happened … here.
- The outing was done by 1819 News
Palestine
The promotion of claims like the following are exactly why 6-year old Palestinian-American Wadea Al Fayoume was murdered by being stabbed 26 times …
The Conspiracy Cult
QAnon conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin declares that “we are getting very close” to seeing the arrests of “some big fish who are involved in the rape, torture, and trafficking of children.”
- Her claim is that we will soon see … “over twenty thousand people who will be charged and convicted“
- She has literally been promising this since 2018 .. and here we are 5 years later … nothing.
- Like End-times rapture predictions and failed prophecies by self-appointed “prophets” … it’s always, “never mind all the previous failed predictions and promises, this specific time my prediction will be right” … except I can, as can you, successfully “predict” using exactly zero supernatural ability that it will not happen. (Hint: Past experience is a rather strong predictor of future outcomes)
- Next Thursday. If not then, the Tuesday after. Or the Friday after that. Definitely before New Year’s. Or maybe Valentine’s Day. Yeah, definitely by then. Is this a cue for Charlie Brown, Lucy, and a football?
Halloween Traditions
One new Halloween tradition is for the deeply religious to hold a book burning.
We can happily laugh at the stupidity of it, so just imagine how freaked out they would be if we all held bible burning sessions. As pointed out by a Christian Comedian criticising it … “If Hitler did it, maybe we shouldn’t be.”. What is also rather scary is the observation made by Heinrich Heine, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings” (Almansor: A Tragedy (1823))
This however is 2023, so how exactly do they burn digital copies?
Also, Greg Locke is into this as well …
Racists-R-Us
White nationalist Dalton Clodfelter has some simple advice: “Blacks need to learn how to be white.”
- So yes, perhaps best to simple mutter “WTF” and then move on for this one.
A hockey player died after being cut in the neck by a skate in a freak accident. The player who died is white while the player whose skate cut him is black, which has caused white nationalist Lauren Witzke and her boss Stew Peters to go full mask off about their own racism.
- As is their usual operational mode, HalfWitzke and her conspiracy spewing Nazi buddy will of course spin tragic stuff like this to fit their racist agenda.
- I do also have a minor quibble regarding the observation that they have gone “masks off” on this, I’m not convinced they ever had a mask on; they have always been like this.
- Reminder: Lauren Witzke has stated that she believe the earth is flat. Being wrong about absolutely everything appears to be her thing. As for her buddy Stew Peters, he is the guy who claimed that dinosaurs are fake, so he is clearly striving to demonstrate that he is an “intellectual” just like she is.
Jarrin Jackson also decided to chip in about the Hockey accident and declares the media is not covering it because “the black guy killed the white guy.”
- What is bizarre is that his claim is literally not true (which to be frank is the case for almost anything he claims). He knows about this accident because it was reported via the media. You can easily find it on major news outlets such as CNN, and the BBC, etc…
Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin reacted to a recent Senate hearing featuring Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin by fuming “that not one single member of the Senate threw a banana at this ni**er while he was testifying.”
- Trolling is basically his thing. It’s all he has, and so he will pop up on a regular basis with statements like the above to trigger people, and thus feel relevant when there is pushback.
Whacky Weirdness
Milo Yiannopoulos proclaims that Jews shouldn’t even be allowed to “lecture their white liberators” about anything: “I really don’t enjoy hearing anything but submissive gratitude to Christendom.”
- Because of course Christian History is just full of Christians always being deeply loving and kind towards the Jewish community … right?
- If you are not too sure about that, then it is best if you perhaps brush up on a bit of history on that topic … see the Wikipedia page on it all here.
Ali Alexander asserts that America’s foreign policy should require Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity.
- Apparently his big “Crusade” idea is that the US should demand all the Palestinians and Israelis convert to Christianity because that worked out ever so well during the Crusades in the middle ages.
- It’s just what two groups of fanatically religious people need … more religion.
This past week, an armed man took his own life before a potential mass shooting at a Colorado amusement park. Christian conspiracy theorist Steve Shultz reacted by suggesting that it was likely the result of a “little old lady” who prayed and took authority over the matter.
- You get that Shultz simply made that claim up.
- “likely“? … seriously no, he might as well claim that invisible pink unicorns or magic invisible dragons intervened, because the level of evidence for that is exactly the same as the “evidence” for the actual Shultz claim.
- Little old church ladies out there praying that young folks would commit suicide is a twist I honestly wasn’t expecting.
- If supernatural intervention was real, they why this outcome, why not motivate him to just not do it at all.
Self-Appointed “Prophet” Rick Joyner doesn’t believe the sexual abuse allegations levelled against Mike Bickle, predicting that they will be revealed “to be a nothing-burger” once all the facts are known.
- So basically what Rick Joyner is claiming is that when the House of Prayer leadership announced that they checked and found that Bickle had indeed been grooming and sexually manipulating multiple women, and that allegations going back decades were all true … that these people in leadership were all lying?
- This of course is the same Rick Joyner who has five kids … and all of them vigorously disagree with his stances on almost everything.
Fraudsters
Over the weekend, Christian scamvangelist Kenneth Copeland told an audience, “When you don’t tithe, you’ve got a ticking time bomb in your pocket.”
- “tithe” … because Copeland needs a new home extension, or a new Jet, and so they will open their wallets and enrich this rather greedy individual even more.
- His grift is set to level 11 … permanently.
- Tithing to this guy is literally a stupidity tax.
Jim Bakker proclaims that “there’s going to be civil war in this country within this year.”
- Baker, who is a rapist and also a convicted fraudster, has been vigorously hammering the doom and disaster drum for years. He is motivated by greed; he wants his audience to buy his overpriced survival food buckets.
- He even has a Christmas Variety food bucket of slop … yours for just $119. Honestly, if you are falling back on this as your only source of food because society has gone off-line, then I’d suggest celebrating Christmas is not exactly going to be top of your “To-Do” list.
The False Profit$
Self-Appointed “Prophet” Hank Kunneman rants that celebrating Halloween is Baal worship: “That day is evil!”
- It’s literally a traditional Christian Holiday – All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve. If he really dislikes it and wants to blame the people who started it, then he needs to go have a chat with … (check notes) … Christians.
- Side Note: If you are wondering how to pronounce his last name, it is “Con-Man”
Meanwhile here is a second Hank Kunneman item from this past week. He insists God told prophets like him about an impending war in Israel several months ago. “Just because you didn’t hear it [doesn’t] mean that God didn’t speak it…“
- Fake Prophecy 101: Pick something notable, and then proceed to claim that you previously predicted it … no actual evidence needed because the gullible will just believe you.
- This is what is known as the Grift of Prophecy
One Positive Item
There really are problem solver out there, we just need to elect them …
Meanwhile …
This crazy flat earth guy motivated Jason to break character during an interview …
- Here is a scary additional thought, that guy most probably votes
Also, some Evangelicals really do need a sexual innuendo quality control manager…or … perhaps this is her OnlyFans site …
- Well yes, it is perhaps a cue for her blog being all about her devotion to taking a missionary position
- Does it also involve threesome interactions? (Trinity)
- Will she also help by releasing the fountains of love
- (Oh come now, these jokes write themselves)
… and least you wonder, yes her blog really does exist, it’s not just a parody tweet.
Finally … won’t anyone think of the privileged kids!? What has this world come to? …