Mike Johnson of Louisiana is elected Speaker. Let’s discuss what he represents and the political realities of what he faces.
New Speaker Mike Johnson Made His Name as Cultural Conservative
The Wall Street Journal reports New Speaker Mike Johnson Made His Name as Cultural Conservative
After 22 days without a speaker, House Republicans came together to elect Johnson for the post Wednesday after three other better-known nominees failed to unite the fractured conference.
“Mike Johnson is a person who I think everybody respects, he’s a very principled human being,” said Rep. Mario Diaz Balart (R., Fla.). Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R., Mo.) said Johnson “represents all of us, not just a particular group within the conference.”
In a letter to his colleagues, Johnson proposed advancing a temporary spending measure until either Jan. 15 or April 15—depending on what the conference would support, while working to advance the eight individual appropriations bills that haven’t yet cleared the House. Without a stopgap measure, the government is set to run out of money next month.
For next year, he proposed passing a fiscal 2025 budget resolution by April and keeping the House in session during August if the House hadn’t passed all of its fiscal 2025 appropriations bills by that time.
On paper, Johnson will mark a break from the prior House Republican leadership team. McCarthy, along with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R., Minn.) all voted for the stopgap measure that is keeping the government funded through Nov. 17. All three also voted for $40 billion in aid to Ukraine in 2022, and again this year for about $300 million toward the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Johnson voted against those measures.
Johnson has played a key role pushing Trump’s false claims of election fraud. In 2020, Johnson organized an amicus brief signed by 126 House Republicans supporting a lawsuit filed by Texas’ attorney general arguing that Texas could challenge the election results in four swing states won by President Biden. The conservative Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit.
Johnson also joined with 146 other Republicans in voting against certification of the 2020 election results.
The push to overturn Biden’s victory has led to legal peril for the former president. Johnson’s selection as the party nominee took place the same day that one of Trump’s lawyers, Jenna Ellis, became the third legal adviser to plead guilty in the Georgia racketeering case involving Trump’s 2020 efforts.
Johnson will have a long way to go on the fundraising front to match McCarthy, who by the time he was ousted had already pulled in tens of millions of dollars for the 2024 election on behalf of House Republicans, including for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Newly-Elected House Speaker Mike Johnson Addresses Lawmakers
Losing Issues
- Stop the Steal
- Abortion Ban
- Revenge
Stop the Steal and an abortion ban are both very losing issues for Republicans.
Democrats love the idea of running against that trifecta. The winning issues for Republicans are inflation, education, immigration, and sexual identity.
Independents and suburban women, not the core, will again decide the election.
Republicans lost the Senate due to abortion and stop the steal silliness. They nearly lost the House on the same issues.
Instead of looking forward, Republicans look back. And it will not change anything.
Nor will Johnson get his agenda through Congress. All Republicans can do pass is choose between a government shutdown and continuing resolutions until the cows come home.
For now, Johnson appears to be marching down the continuing resolution path. But the moment Johnson veers towards more money for military spending without offering anything in return, the path derails.
But here we are.
I forgot to ask, are we taking odds on how long he lasts? I’d like less than 6 months please…
Stop the steal is a losing issue the same way seeking justice after being raped is. I’m absolutely against the idea that we should just move on.
And, btw, other “losing issues” include the “vaccine”, the corruption of the Bidens, the Russia-Trump thingy etc.
It is a bullshit issue that appeals to the Core TDS Type II idiots who actually think Trump won.
They will vote for Trump anyway, It is a turn off for independents who will decide the election.
PERIOD
Insulting the people you disagree with is a sure sign you’re winning the argument.
Regarding those independents – were they agreeing that it’s a good idea to put the rainbow flag in schools, or that the men should compete in women’s sports, or that doctors should mutilate kids and teens without parental consent, or that banning gas stoves and incandescent light bulbs and lots of other things is a good idea? Go back 10-15-20 years – why did the ideologues of the left pressed for these “losing” ideas, completely unpopular and exotic back then, relentlessly?
You seem to have a reading comprehension issue, or more likely you just stopped reading when I said something you did not like.
I stated, in agreement with you regarding independents “The winning issues for Republicans are inflation, education, immigration, and sexual identity.”
Yes, gas stoves too.
As pointed out the Republicans have some valid issues but seem to focus on religion and flag waving. Watching Fox News I’m disturbed by the Republican proxies screaming for a slaughter in Gaza. A couple, Watters and baby Bush’s female mouthpiece, even wanted to bring back the draft.
Those will be real winners as issues, draft your 18 year old for service in a foreign hell hole supported by the right and slam religion down our throats.
My guess is Biden will be reelected because independents can’t stand the Republicans.
BTW-CNN has better war coverage, Fox is way too biased.
But they did such a wonderful job covering the voting machine scandal….
Politics may be steered by emotion, but its engine is economics.
The reasons why immigration will work, is fear of loss of property, opportunity, and safety, all very fundamental things that the state is there to protect for the citizenry.
There is no inflation, there is deflation; the price rises are due to policy such as netzero, sanctions, and lockdowns. Those are all straightforward policies that the Republicans can fix, and they dovetail nicely with the growing craving for turtling into isolationism (which is difficult for America to do, given it’s reserve currency status).
Education is probably mostly about higher education student debt, it’s not really right-wing territory, but they could undermine the left’s propensity for dishing out loaves and fishes, by giving corporations tax breaks for vocational training and work experience placements (i.e.: internships, as you call them).
The main education opportunity for Republicans is stomping out the cultural pollution of American primary and secondary schools; but to do that, they have to find financial incentives for non-left-wingers to go into that profession; otherwise it’s going to remain a divide between left-wing state schools and right-wing private schools. It’s not enough to just clamp down on the woke cult or BLM cult agendas; the Republicans have to provide a unifying nationalist-conservative agenda to replace it – the culture war starts in schools from the youngest pupils upwards.
The economic context of the tranny movement is not clear; they are a tiny segment, and culture producing companies seem to persistently fail to generate revenue going down this route (i.e.: “go woke, go broke”), removing privileges from Disney was a good move, and removing privileges from all media organisations is essential; and facilitating space and protection for “alternative media” can have a strong case made for it for good old fashioned market capitalist competition… get CNN out of airports and hotels etc… cut the cord.
At least this time it took far fewer rounds of voting. That is quite the improvement.
Mish, you should stick to reading and reporting on economic matters. There, you’re credible. In this, you are so full of shite…
Might be the readers too, though.
I mentioned Ackman covering his short treasury bet yesterday, got 3 down votes, no up.
Starting to lose sight of why I read this blog, to be honest.
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Hope he has what it takes.
This position requires unscrupulous levels of sociopathic greed, McCarthy flopped miserably.
In a nutshell, the ability to keep a straight face while convincing the public that enacting policies at the behest of the wealthiest campaign donors that will only increase a now near impossible debt to pay down is somehow good for them.
Reagan, as an award winning Hollywood actor, was probably the best at this role America has ever seen.
Perhaps this new contender can find a way to convince disabled or retiring Americans that suicide is a great, cost effective way to show their pride for America and reduce expenses, help the deficit, to help reduce the likelihood that taxes go back up on the wealthy, something like that might outdo his predecessors.
Time will tell.
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Your losing issues are among my winning issues:
-Stop the Steal (2020 election was definitely stolen)(What’s wrong with voter ID?)
-Abortion Ban (I’m for a national ban after the first 16 weeks which is basically Roe vs Wade only with the blessing of Congress)
-Revenge(Damn right I want revenge after the way they treated Trump and the majority of the Jan 6 protestors)
-Securing the southern border (you left that one out Mish)
-No more add for Ukraine the war needs to end.
-If we don’t give Israel money for bombs to blow up Gaza we won’t need to give Palestinians humanitarian aid to survive the bombing.
-No Palestinian refugees in America
Stop the steal is an idiotic issue.
Anyone who believes Trump won the vote count
1. Has mush for brains
2. Will vote for Trump 100% certain anyway
Mish you apparently are unaware and have not seen Dsouza’s movie
“2000 Mules”, on how the ballot box stuffing stole the election.
The DemoRats placed a few hundred ballot boxers around the country and thus the ballots were stuffed easily and handily. He has the box stuffing on nearby video cameras, so it is quite undeniable.
The corruption of the six or so states necessary was quite easy. When the polls closed at 10 PM, very easy to just simply switch the names for the count. Say Trump had 60,000 the Demented Fool had 40,000 just switch the names.
Only the true criminal masterminds like Obama and Soros could have engineered the crime of the century.
2000 Mules highlighted True The Vote which paid millions for Geo Tracking. What’s Geo Tracking? It’s your cell phone tracking your every movement which then sells your data. TTV tracked anyone caught stuffing at least 3 different ballot drop boxes. Geo tracking showed they went to NGO’s where they collected pre-filled out ballots and probably also their payment in cash then drove to at least 3 different drop boxes stuffing multiple ballots in each box.
Who you going to believe Mish who claims you have “mush for brains” or your lying eye’s? I come here for my economic reports because I find them more trust worthy and thorough than what I can find from mainstream media reports. I guess that also means I have mush for brains.
2000 Mules help explain the many statically anomalies in the 2020 election. Like Bribem doubling Hillary and Obama’s vote totals but just in the major cities of those six swing states but under performing both H&O in every other major city in non swing states. That is just one of over a dozen other anomalies. Just remember if you explore these statistical inconstancy’s and reasonably question you must have “mush for brains” whatever that means. Or, if you’re Catherine and Philip of True The Vote, you get arrested, jailed and sued for proving it. This is America circa 2020 and beyond.
Post voting (18 to 7) indicates it is popular to have “mush for brains”…
and that 3 Trump attorneys pleading guilty in GA is meaningless.
The $787.5 Million judgement against Fox apparently too little, too late…
and the 1st casualty of the Republican war against Democracy: the facts.
That’s what happens when you weaponize the DOJ. I don’t care how Left you are you have to admit the law has been weaponized. Go ahead and say it or just lie to yourself.
The one election question that I still have an issue with, was there ballot harvesting that swung the election? I believe the votes were tallied correctly but were the votes a result of ballot harvesting? I believe that may be hard to prove one way or the other. I have not heard of any investigations regarding this. Since there is widespread election corruption in cities like Chicago and Detroit it puts doubt in peoples minds about national elections also.
Mish, ask yourself what would it take for you to change your opinion. If the answer is nothing that means you’re operating irrationally, sir.
Change my minds about what?
About Trump losing? Nothing he lost
About anything good coming from all the Republican bickering? OK when something good comes from it, better than was going to happen under McCarthy.
McCarthy opted for a continuing resolution and got booted. Now guess what. Mike Johnson is opting for a continuing resolution.
Nothing wrong with the idea of voter ID. I 100% support that.
But revisiting Stop the Steal is about as relevant as revisiting Obama’s birth certificate. They are dead issues and it no longer matters what happened with either one because even if somehow, some way something new came to light on either one it would change exactly nothing going forward. You win elections based on what you are doing to do, not dwelling in the past (It’s also why revenge is a bad idea too).
Correct.
We just may be in for a nice surprise with Mr. Johnson! If he stays staunchly conservative, and doesn’t budge on Ukraine, we just my have a Real True Republican Speaker in place!!!
The Republican Nominee likes him, the Country will love him, and He seems up for the job! Can he handle the lopsided MSM and the goons they refer to as journalists? I think he may be able to discount them quite handily, but we shall soon see!
Go MJ!!!
When first quick reading this post, the paragraph: “Independents and suburban women, not the core, will again decide the election.”
My brain read it as: Independents and suborn women, not the core, will again decide the election.”
I had to agree 😂😂
I ruined the punch line it should be stubborn.
Stubborn, stupid, silly are all synonyms for most suburban women ( and too many men).
Voting should only be a right for those paying taxes and most women and many men don’t meet the standard of No Representation Without Taxation ( and it’s partner of no taxation without representation).
Unfortunately those on government largesse (disproportionally women) get to decide who gets elected and most western countries are in that mess
So does it really matter who is the Speaker?
I’m guessing this is a guy more interested in guaranteeing prayer in school than in reigning in federal spending. I would really like to be surprised.
The abortion issue is already settled by the Supreme Court. There is nothing there to run on for either party unless one or both of the Presidential candidates announce they want a Federal Abortion law in order to overrule the individual States. So far not a single peep from Biden or the Democrats about doing that so it basically is going to remain at the state level.
In addition to inflation, education and sexual identity you forgot illegal immigration issues. The Democrats have made such a mess that it’s resulted in bus loads of people going to sanctuary cities in Democratic states. That’s definitely going to be a hot button issue in the Federal election now that it affects more than just the border states.
I did forget to mention it here. I did mention it on Twitter.
Adding to my post
Thanks
“The Democrats have made such a mess that it’s resulted in bus loads of people going to sanctuary cities in Democratic states.”
Just waiting for those Dems to figure that they can hand ’em temp work visa’s & resolve a big chunk of the labor shortage problem.
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Exactly, why is that not happening?
1) London, the crown Jewel of the British Empire, was taken over by immigrants
from Bangladesh. They put shame on the British empire that robbed the world for 300Y and starved them.
2) Paris was taken over by people from Africa, Marocco and Algeria. They put shame
on French colonialism.
3) Belgium’s reverse colonialism is worse.
4) DC is run by black people who put shame on white people b/c slavery.
5) There is a systemic change.
…and it’s a path towards civil war and worse, the lessons of history regarding sudden economic stress, and sudden inundations of fractious foreigners are well reported in Aristotle’s “Politics” in 4th century BC, particularly Book III and Book V; have a read…
1) The new speaker of the house agenda is a systemic change.
2) Hakeem 0:4 Matt.
3) If Biden goes for it he might win the Nov 2024 election, after a light weight
correction early next year.
4) Hakeem the regime change will be sandwich between Biden & Johnson. Hakeem will be re-educated.
If the Republicans take the HOR in 2024 there is a good chance that if Biden legitimately wins re-election, that a Speaker Mike Johnson would lead an effort in the House to overturn those results once again. He was already a leader of the legal case doing so in 2020, so it is not a stretch of the imagination that he would act the very same for 2024. Such a path would shred what’s left of our Constitution and install Trump as a dictator.
We had to elect some idiot…he’ll do.
Well said (of course) – I totally agree.
It’s maybe even worse than that. Coming from the ADF, he represents a religious point of view that seeks to eliminate the separation of church & state. ADF has always been part of what theologians call the “dominionist” movement – the idea that God should control every sphere including government. Dominionists are a kinder Taliban in that sense. It used to be part of what we called “alt-right” but is now becoming standard GOP fare. And it’s 2 steps removed from the White House.
If you’re secular, and even if you’re conservative and secular, you should find this discomfiting.
Shorter: MAGA Mike really wants a Christian nation governed by Christian laws.
Democrats – Eliminate Gas Grills, Gas power lawn equipment, eliminate Internal combustion engines. Public Schools pushed to indoctrinate 1619 and gender fluidity. Massive unlimited borrowing. Police defunding, race baiting, and shoplifting is celebrated with no cash bail. Borders are eliminated and anyone can just walk in. Taxes on net worth. No free speech on campuses for conservatives. “Sanctuary Cities” (until Illegal immigrants show up). No charter schools, etc. There’s more but you get the drift.
and you use “Taliban” with this new Republican House speakers name. Wake up we already are under your so called “soft Taliban” regime in the White House and progressive movement.
Well said Ward!
This guy hates gays which means he’s probably into it a little. Idk how any libertarian (I’m not saying you Mish) could support someone who’s so focused on the private behind closed door affairs of law abiding (unless it becomes illegal) citizens. Doesn’t true progress happen when people are allowed to pursue happiness provided that it doesn’t infringe on the same pursuit of others? Politicians are awful. Americans let it be so. Marriage to a woman and 3 kids together made sense to me…but why should anyone else need that to be their template? Cheers!
The problem is both the gays and the trannies want to shove their lifestyle in your face and make it part of elementary school criculum. Where have you been, living in a box?
“Idk how any libertarian (I’m not saying you Mish) could support someone who’s so focused on the private behind closed door affairs of law abiding (unless it becomes illegal) citizens.”
People labeling themselves as libertarian may not be libertarian. (same holds true with Christian, conservative, anti-war, and every other label)
If you were to paid attention over the past few years, there has been A LOT of talk and some action from all corners about compelling/forcing people to do (or not do) things. That is the society you live in and crosses all political boundaries. Individuals have so little control over their own affairs that they are increasingly prone to wanting to control others’ affairs.
It’s always disappointing to see the Beltway get what it wants. At least we had 22 days where the media propaganda apparatus had to complain bitterly about “dysfunction” because the welfare-warfare uniparty had a hiccup.
Now the true dysfunction can begin in earnest!
let the debt spending continue – sorry about the 22 day delay
1st order of business is weapons for our TERRORIST friends
what is $20,000,000,000 per DAY in new debt – drop in bucket
weapons for ukraine/israel = just 6 days of debt
Suburban women are great – hopefully Abbott sends thousands of buses their way. The bus stop signs are already in place – “In This House…”