Mike Johnson is Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

I wrote about Why the Republicans Chose Mike Johnson (unpaywalled friend link on Medium).

New Speaker Mike Johnson’s Long History With The Religious Right
Come for the Noah's Ark theme park, stay for the relentless efforts to strip women's and LGBTQ+ rights.
Jennifer Bendery
HuffPost
Oct 25, 2023

"'...what we read in the Bible are actual historical events,' Johnson said in a 2021 interview with Ark Encounter founder Ken Ham while guest-hosting the radio show of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an evangelical activist group."
New House Speaker Thinks Creationist Museum Is 'Pointing People To The Truth' An ark replica with dinosaurs "is one way to bring people to this recognition ... that what we read in the Bible are actual historical events,” Mike Johnson said.
Liz Skalka and Paul Blumenthal
HuffPost
Oct 26, 2023

New House Speaker Tells Hannity, ‘Go Pick Up a Bible Off Your Shelf and Read It – That’s My Worldview’
Michael Luciano
Mediaite
Oct 26, 2023

New House speaker's views on LGBTQ issues come under fresh scrutiny Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has called same-sex marriage a “dark harbinger of chaos” and suggested it could lead to people wedding their pets. Matt Lavietes, NBC News, October 26, 2023

“House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana hometown guided by faith and family.” Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Washington Post, October 29, 2023

"Johnson spoke about the lawsuit at his church, the Airline Drive Church of Christ in Shreveport, before taking on the case. He warned the congregation what was at stake with cases like the Jewish family suing to keep Christian activities out of a public school.

'The ultimate goal of the enemy is silencing the gospel,' said Johnson, according to an April 2004 story in the Shreveport Times about the lawsuit. 'This is spiritual warfare.'"

— House Speaker Mike Johnson Spent Years Defending Christian Speech In Public Schools “The ultimate goal of the enemy is silencing the Gospel," the Republican said in 2004 after Jewish parents sued a school for pushing Christianity on their kids. Jennifer Bendery, HuffPost, Nov 24, 2023

Thomas Zimmer on Substack called this article "ostensibly an investigation into Johnson’s roots, written by a Post reporter whose beat is described as 'Red states.' Yet the final product is indistinguishable from a political ad campaign for the politician at the center of the 'reporting' – or from a sympathetic home story for a reality TV contestant. This is a rather bizarre kind of political journalism: It is 'reporting' in the sense that a reporter goes to a place and collects impressions and interviews. But the result is a tendentious collage that entirely obscures that which it supposedly set out to illuminate." For example, one individual quoted in the article says "People here are rugged individualists who want to make their own decisions." "Well," Zimmer points out, "and also the freedom to impose their decisions, their faith, their ideas on the rest of the country – after all, the new Speaker is co-sponsoring a national 'Don’t Say Gay' bill, and he is rather all in on mobilizing the coercive powers of the state to criminalize all those whose behaviors he deems 'deviant.' But sure, 'rugged individualists.'" As another example, while the reporter quotes two people described as "Democratic," one of them voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and the other simply expresses unfounded optimism that Johnson will "help all those back home."

'Fox & Friends' Simply Cannot Separate Church And State In Gush Over Mike Johnson
Kayleigh McEnany and Ainsley Earhardt served up an awkward slice of piety in promoting an interview with the new speaker of the House.
Ron Dicker, HuffPost, Oct 31, 2023

"Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group," Andrew Kaczynski, CNN, November 1, 2023

"Does New Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Have a Bank Account?" Speaker Mike Johnson has never listed a bank account on his financial disclosure. In fact, on his newest disclosure he doesn’t list a single asset at all. Roger Sollenberger, Daily Beast, Nov 01, 2023

The New York Times explains covenant marriage, November 3, 2023

"The Supreme Court Shot Down Mike Johnson’s Argument Against Certifying The 2020 Election." In 2023’s Moore v. Harper, the court rejected the independent state legislature theory that Johnson used to try to justify voting to steal the 2020 election. Paul Blumenthal, HuffPost, Nov 4, 2023

Mike Johnson Admits He and His Son Monitor Each Other’s Porn Intake in Resurfaced Video
"I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate," Speaker of the House says of his "accountability partner"
Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone, November 5, 2023

"He not only hates LGBQT people and finds them the source of all evil, he actually ran a gay conversion clinic several years ago. And he bragged that his wife had spent the last three weeks on her knees praying for something or other.

Being a good wife, in other words.

Then he proposed a bill to fund Israel but tied it to another provision crippling the IRS’s ability to go after rich tax cheats. That

connection drew the wrath of Mitch McConnell and a bunch of Senate Republicans, who understand something about political reality and why we defend Ukraine (which Johnson doesn’t support).

This bone-headed move tells us everything we need to know about the degree of fanaticism that drives this guy. He is on a mission from God, always a problem in a profession that relies on common sense and compromise."

— "The Witness Chronicles November 8, 2023," Martin Edic, The Grasshopper (Substack)

On November 14, 2023, on CNBC, Johnson said "we need more" religion in American life. "Not an establishment of any national religion, but we need everybody’s vibrant expression of faith because it’s such an important part of who we are as a nation." He said: "The separation of church and state is a misnomer, people misunderstand it." — HuffPost

On December 5, 2023, Johnson told the National Association of Christian Lawmakers’ award gala in Washington, D.C. that God told him to be "the new Moses."

Of Johnson's ascendancy, Sarah Kendzior says: "I'm less worried about the specific seditionist selected to head the House than I am the lack of accountability for a coordinated and violent coup attempt."

That's an ongoing issue. Speaking of that coup attempt, I've also written about The Narrative of the January 6th Committee (unpaywalled friend link on Medium).

Climate Hawks Urge Biden To Reject Latest GOP Demand For Ukraine Aid: An emerging plan from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would condition U.S. aid to Ukraine on more permits for liquefied natural gas exports. Igor Bobic and Jonathan Nicholson, HuffPost, Apr 1, 2024

"Biden’s LNG ‘pause’ threatens Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry: Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), The Hill, April 3, 2024

"It took less than six months for Speaker Mike Johnson to reach his existential moment...Now, as Johnson tries to pass billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — vital to protecting US allies from Russian, Iranian and Chinese totalitarianism and preserving US power and prestige – he’s having to put his own job on the line to confront GOP extremists who accuse him of betraying the party’s base." (Stephen Collinson, CNN, April 18, 2024)

How Johnson came to embrace Ukraine aid and defy his right flank, Annie Grayer, Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju, CNN, April 21, 2024

Mike Johnson and the "homosexual agenda": Trump's ally in Congress has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ hate The Republican House Speaker has for decades lobbied against efforts to extend legal rights to the LGBTQ+ community, Nicholas Liu, June 5, 2024

Mike Johnson: There’s No Rush For Congress To Approve Hurricane Relief “We’ll be back in session immediately after the election,” the House speaker said of waiting until November for Congress to vote on emergency funding. Nina Golgowski, HuffPost, Oct 7, 2024

GOP House speaker struggles to defend Trump’s Arnold Palmer penis rant by Oliver Willis, Daily Kos Staff, Oct 21, 2024

"Johnson was previously a litigator and spokesperson for the anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, a self-described “Christian law firm” whose legal strategy often pits Christians unfairly against LGBTQ+ people in a legal gambit to undermine nondiscrimination laws through claims of “religious freedom.” The strategy implies and asserts that Christianity and LGBTQ+ identity are inherently mutually exclusive. The group also claims credit for helping overturn constitutional protections for abortion and, in 2023, led the legal push to eliminate access to reproductive and LGBTQ+ health care primarily by amplifying pseudoscientific claims about abortion and LGBTQ+ identity. Speaker Johnson’s ascension, despite his association with the hate group and parroting of conspiracy, is testament to the level of influence these theocratic ideologies wield within the Republican Party.

That relationship was perhaps most clearly revealed in 2023 with the release of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project” and its accompanying 900-plus-page “Mandate for Leadership,” a sweeping plan to reshape presidential powers and the federal bureaucracy in the image of dominionism. Since its release, many of Project 2025’s recommendations were adopted or parroted by former President Trump’s election campaign."

— A Year of Preparation Under the Specter of Conspiracy, R.G. Cravens, Alon Milwicki, and Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon, SPLC, June 4, 2024

Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell wants to pretend he opposes Trump now, in an upcoming book The Price of Power...

McConnell says ‘MAGA movement is completely wrong’ and Reagan ‘wouldn’t recognize’ Trump’s GOP, Morgan Rimmer, CNN, October 23, 2024

...but it wasn't 4 years ago that he voted to acquit Trump for inciting an insurrection.

McConnell blames Trump but voted not guilty anyway, Alex Rogers and Manu Raju, CNN, February 13, 2021