Kansas Crimson

"i don't care who the speaker of the house is"
-96% of the population-

twocoach wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 8:37 am

jfish26 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 7:45 am

Shirley wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 7:32 am

I’m hopeful. Not in the near term.

But I just feel that we’ve crossed a bridge here, and (fueled by the agency felt in the reaction to Dobbs) stuff this like is electoral death.

Depends on where you live. Supporting trans people is electoral death in far too many spots of our nation.

Yes. But, in my opinion, the old math is bad. Dobbs finally flipped the Wisconsin Supreme Court, for example.

In my opinion, mashing the culture wars button - and that now very very very much includes gun-humping, of course along with things I will generally describe as "bodily autonomy rights issues" - is a losing strategy for the right. That's how you turn purple states blue, and red states purple.

And the Rs have almost NO margin for error on that stuff; if they did, they wouldn't have had to try to steal 2020.

it was litigated and investigated…and found to be overwhelmingly irrelevant

the attempt to use logic without following it through to its, uh, logical end, is…illogical?

I wonder if/hope that the fact that this lunatic came out of nowhere helps people understand that the loons are now the majority of the right - it’s not just a small handful.

You don’t say.

https://x.com/meidas_laurena/status/171 ... q_-8Yt1KMA

A group of Russian nationals were able to donate to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson's campaign in 2018 by funneling the money through a U.S. company.

Mike Johnson's Campaign Contributions From Company Tied to Russia

Huh.....

Ahead of his sudden ascension to House speaker late last week, the media had little time to vet Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., thoroughly. And because he sucks in so many ways, it's been hard for his critics to settle on one of his many evil inclinations to focus on. He's a Christian nationalist. He's an election denier. He wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security. He's a fan of neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. As Brian Beutler of Off Message writes, "typecasting an opposition leader" may be tedious, but it's politically necessary. Democrats have benefited from the fact that the most famous Republican villains have one standout trait that defines their personality: Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is a pugnacious bully. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is a loudmouthed Karen. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California is a spineless suck-up.

But so far, no single narrative about Johnson has emerged. Which of the many flavors of "right-wing radical" is best to focus on? As I offered my newsletter Friday, what stands out to me about Johnson — and I suspect will be compelling to most people — is what a sinister little creep he is. The man gives off strong incel energy, and his elevation really showcases how much the politics of bitter sexual obsession have come to dominate the Republican Party.

Journalists and Democratic researchers have been carefully compiling a couple decades worth of quotes from Johnson, who flat-out rejects the First Amendment prohibition against government-imposed religion. Instead, he falsely claims the Founders wished to impose his deeply fundamentalist faith on the public on the grounds that we "depend upon religious and moral virtue" to "prevent political corruption and the abuse of power."

Johnson is lying, of course, as demonstrated by the fact that he helped lead the effort to steal an election for Donald Trump, which was a corrupt abuse of power on behalf of a man lacking all moral virtue. As usual with these right-wing freaks, the Jesus chatter is just a thin cover for the real fixation: Fury at other people for having all the sexy fun times.

Johnson warned that legalized same-sex marriage is "the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic." (If only it were that exciting! Most same-sex marriages, like most straight ones, are harbingers of binge-watching TV from a well-worn couch.) He's repeatedly described homosexuality with terms like "sinful," "destructive," "deviant," and "bizarre." He, like all these bigots, compared same-sex marriage to the right of "a person to marry his pet."

No, he has not backed off these positions. When asked on Fox News about it this week, he said, "Go pick up a Bible." In truth, the Bible is not nearly as interested in policing people's sex lives as Johnson is. (Not that it should matter, since this is not a theocracy.) This level of outrage about the acrobatic sex lives he imagines other people have draws more on the incel-style fantasy than anything in scripture.

In true incel fashion, Johnson is haunted by all the erotic adventures he imagines the straight ladies of America are having when he's not in the room. When New York's Irin Carmon interviewed him in 2015, he blamed legal abortion for school shootings, saying, "When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.” Nor was that a one-off. In 2016, he gave a speech in which he blamed feminism, liberal divorce laws, and the "sexual revolution" for mass shootings.

In this view, Johnson agrees with mass shooters, who claim they were driven to it because of women's sexual freedom. In the year before Johnson blamed male violence on women's sexuality, the incel-identified killer Elliot Rodger went on a shooting spree in California, claiming he was forced to do it to "punish" the "sluts" who had sex with other men while he remained a virgin. Since then, there's been a rash of violent incidents, some quite deadly, conducted by men who employ the same logic: Female sexual autonomy offends them, and must be punished with pain and death.

As David Futrelle, who has tracked incel forums at his blog We Hunted the Mammoth, has detailed over the years, at the center of incel ideology is a simple claim: That women cannot be trusted with the decision of who to be in a sexual relationship with. If women are allowed freedom of choice in their romantic endeavors, incel thinking posits, they'll be too preoccupied with "sleeping around" to settle down. And that women's gallivanting about leaves men, especially "beta males," lonely and frustrated. So women have to be locked down for the good of "society," by which they mean men. Or really, just those men who fear they can't get a wife without coercion.

Johnson has similar views. He wants to lock women down into unhappy marriages with abortion bans. And, in a twist that incels will love, he wants to throw away the key. He's long been outspoken against "no-fault" divorce, which allows someone to leave simply because they no longer want to be married. These laws don't just benefit those in garden-variety unhappy marriages. By lifting the burden to "prove" their suffering in court, abused women have an easier time escaping. That's why liberalized divorce laws led to a 20% decline in female suicides.

Johnson's own marriage was licensed under the "covenant" law in Louisiana. Couples who get married with that license have almost no right to divorce, and can only do so if they prove adultery or physical abuse. Religious conservatives passed covenant marriage laws in the 90s with much fanfare, but almost no couples opted in. And it's no wonder. "If I don't trap you, I know you'll leave" isn't really the marriage proposal of romantic dreams. But it is, of course, the guiding view of incels when it comes to relationships.

Johnson is such a weirdo about sex that it might be hard to get people to believe it. Luckily, there are a lot of clips showing the creepy obsession with controlling women that really drives home the incel vibe Johnson is throwing. Such as "joking" that his wife spends all her time "on her knees."

There are still many in the punditry who are confused about why Christian conservatives like Johnson glommed onto Trump, a thrice-married chronic adulterer who touches the Bible like it will burn him. But, of course, it was never really about Jesus. What Trump and the men who worship him share is anger that any woman would have the right to say no: To a date, to a marriage, to having your baby. It's why Trump has a long history of sexual assault. And it's why men like Johnson embrace a "religion" that is hyper-focused on caging women like they're farm animals. And why they resent gay people for their perceived sexual adventures. It's a coalition of men who fear, often for very good reason, that their repulsive personalities exclude them from a world where sexual expression requires consent. Johnson's now the most powerful Republican in Congress. The incel-ization of the GOP is complete.

No wonder the beta cult boys love these guys.

he’s, perhaps unsurprisingly, a creationist

i haven’t vetted it, but heard yesterday he’s involved in the ark theme park in kentucky

japhy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 10:27 am Huh.....

Ahead of his sudden ascension to House speaker late last week, the media had little time to vet Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., thoroughly. And because he sucks in so many ways, it's been hard for his critics to settle on one of his many evil inclinations to focus on. He's a Christian nationalist. He's an election denier. He wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security. He's a fan of neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. As Brian Beutler of Off Message writes, "typecasting an opposition leader" may be tedious, but it's politically necessary. Democrats have benefited from the fact that the most famous Republican villains have one standout trait that defines their personality: Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is a pugnacious bully. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is a loudmouthed Karen. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California is a spineless suck-up.

But so far, no single narrative about Johnson has emerged. Which of the many flavors of "right-wing radical" is best to focus on? As I offered my newsletter Friday, what stands out to me about Johnson — and I suspect will be compelling to most people — is what a sinister little creep he is. The man gives off strong incel energy, and his elevation really showcases how much the politics of bitter sexual obsession have come to dominate the Republican Party.

Journalists and Democratic researchers have been carefully compiling a couple decades worth of quotes from Johnson, who flat-out rejects the First Amendment prohibition against government-imposed religion. Instead, he falsely claims the Founders wished to impose his deeply fundamentalist faith on the public on the grounds that we "depend upon religious and moral virtue" to "prevent political corruption and the abuse of power."

Johnson is lying, of course, as demonstrated by the fact that he helped lead the effort to steal an election for Donald Trump, which was a corrupt abuse of power on behalf of a man lacking all moral virtue. As usual with these right-wing freaks, the Jesus chatter is just a thin cover for the real fixation: Fury at other people for having all the sexy fun times.

Johnson warned that legalized same-sex marriage is "the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic." (If only it were that exciting! Most same-sex marriages, like most straight ones, are harbingers of binge-watching TV from a well-worn couch.) He's repeatedly described homosexuality with terms like "sinful," "destructive," "deviant," and "bizarre." He, like all these bigots, compared same-sex marriage to the right of "a person to marry his pet."

No, he has not backed off these positions. When asked on Fox News about it this week, he said, "Go pick up a Bible." In truth, the Bible is not nearly as interested in policing people's sex lives as Johnson is. (Not that it should matter, since this is not a theocracy.) This level of outrage about the acrobatic sex lives he imagines other people have draws more on the incel-style fantasy than anything in scripture.

In true incel fashion, Johnson is haunted by all the erotic adventures he imagines the straight ladies of America are having when he's not in the room. When New York's Irin Carmon interviewed him in 2015, he blamed legal abortion for school shootings, saying, "When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.” Nor was that a one-off. In 2016, he gave a speech in which he blamed feminism, liberal divorce laws, and the "sexual revolution" for mass shootings.

In this view, Johnson agrees with mass shooters, who claim they were driven to it because of women's sexual freedom. In the year before Johnson blamed male violence on women's sexuality, the incel-identified killer Elliot Rodger went on a shooting spree in California, claiming he was forced to do it to "punish" the "sluts" who had sex with other men while he remained a virgin. Since then, there's been a rash of violent incidents, some quite deadly, conducted by men who employ the same logic: Female sexual autonomy offends them, and must be punished with pain and death.

As David Futrelle, who has tracked incel forums at his blog We Hunted the Mammoth, has detailed over the years, at the center of incel ideology is a simple claim: That women cannot be trusted with the decision of who to be in a sexual relationship with. If women are allowed freedom of choice in their romantic endeavors, incel thinking posits, they'll be too preoccupied with "sleeping around" to settle down. And that women's gallivanting about leaves men, especially "beta males," lonely and frustrated. So women have to be locked down for the good of "society," by which they mean men. Or really, just those men who fear they can't get a wife without coercion.

Johnson has similar views. He wants to lock women down into unhappy marriages with abortion bans. And, in a twist that incels will love, he wants to throw away the key. He's long been outspoken against "no-fault" divorce, which allows someone to leave simply because they no longer want to be married. These laws don't just benefit those in garden-variety unhappy marriages. By lifting the burden to "prove" their suffering in court, abused women have an easier time escaping. That's why liberalized divorce laws led to a 20% decline in female suicides.

Johnson's own marriage was licensed under the "covenant" law in Louisiana. Couples who get married with that license have almost no right to divorce, and can only do so if they prove adultery or physical abuse. Religious conservatives passed covenant marriage laws in the 90s with much fanfare, but almost no couples opted in. And it's no wonder. "If I don't trap you, I know you'll leave" isn't really the marriage proposal of romantic dreams. But it is, of course, the guiding view of incels when it comes to relationships.

Johnson is such a weirdo about sex that it might be hard to get people to believe it. Luckily, there are a lot of clips showing the creepy obsession with controlling women that really drives home the incel vibe Johnson is throwing. Such as "joking" that his wife spends all her time "on her knees."

There are still many in the punditry who are confused about why Christian conservatives like Johnson glommed onto Trump, a thrice-married chronic adulterer who touches the Bible like it will burn him. But, of course, it was never really about Jesus. What Trump and the men who worship him share is anger that any woman would have the right to say no: To a date, to a marriage, to having your baby. It's why Trump has a long history of sexual assault. And it's why men like Johnson embrace a "religion" that is hyper-focused on caging women like they're farm animals. And why they resent gay people for their perceived sexual adventures. It's a coalition of men who fear, often for very good reason, that their repulsive personalities exclude them from a world where sexual expression requires consent. Johnson's now the most powerful Republican in Congress. The incel-ization of the GOP is complete.

No wonder the beta cult boys love these guys.

And this thinking is representative of something like 10% of the country.

i didn't read all that. because why would i.

but the number is way less than 10%.

…and the pubs have moved on from djt

jfc

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 11:26 am i didn't read all that. because why would i.

but the number is way less than 10%.

You would read it, so that you can intelligently respond to it.

jfish26 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:08 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 11:26 am i didn't read all that. because why would i.

but the number is way less than 10%.

Youwould read it, so that you can intelligently respond to it.

Not exactly his history

jfish26 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:08 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 11:26 am i didn't read all that. because why would i.

but the number is way less than 10%.

You would read it, so that you can intelligently respond to it.

Is this an oxymoron?

japhy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:43 pm

jfish26 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:08 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 11:26 am i didn't read all that. because why would i.

but the number is way less than 10%.

You would read it, so that you can intelligently respond to it.

Is this an oxymoron?

Evidently.

I'm gonna say these two are probably "melancholy".

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.)

Not all Christian counseling is created the same. Some more traditional counselors may add Biblical elements to science-based approaches, while others counseling might take the form of pastoral guidance, and some reject more science-based approaches in favor of a faith-based model that emphasizes the power of God and scripture.

It's not entirely clear where Johnson falls on this informal scale. She has a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from Louisiana Tech and a Master's in Education from Centenary College. In a personal testimonial, Johnson wrote about "deliverance through extraordinary trials, including her recovery from a broken neck in a 2007 car accident and other serious health challenges." Her counseling, which had a varying fee structure, was affiliated with Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, La., which according to Louisiana Baptist Message is where the couple attends services. Their church, in keeping with the denomination's views, proclaims it is welcoming to all, but makes it clear it "recognizes only the biblical definition of marriage" and only sex through marriage.

The organization does advise counselors to follow some elements of more traditional counseling, including maintaining the confidentiality of what is discussed. Counselors are also advised to hold malpractice insurance. A representative for the organization did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.

The Johnsons are deeply religious and have both publicly professed their "biblical worldview." The future House speaker rose to fame in the 1990s when he and Kelly became de facto spokespeople for "covenant marriages," a special agreement offered in some states that makes it more difficult for married couples to get a divorce. Johnson later cut his teeth as a litigator seeking to advance school prayer and defend bans on same-sex marriage. He also served in a leadership role with the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the US. Before his rapid political rise, Johnson wrote frequent guest columns for his local newspaper in which he questioned LGBT Americans, as CNN previously reported. At one point, he wrote in favor of criminalizing gay sex.

Johnson said on Thursday night that he now views the issue of same-sex marriage as settled law after the Supreme Court's landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. He said he has nothing personally against LGBTQ people, he just questions "their lifestyle choices."

I'm probably "choleric".

The future of our close ally Israel is at stake, but republicans can't possibly bring themselves to let an opportunity to pander to their benefactors go to waste.

Once again, a minority, i.e., republicans, are holding the country hostage so they can give billionaires a tax benefit. Rich people can continue to cheat on their taxes and avoid paying their fair share, and the MAGA cult can continue to scream the IRS is coming for the middle/working class.

smh This gets so fucking old...

Jake Sherman

@JakeSherman

-- HOUSE REPUBLICANS' Israel aid bill is out.

It offsets $14.3 billion in Israel aid with $14.3 bllion in cuts to IRS from the Inflation Reduction Act.

This offset will NEVER, EVER fly. Dems will reject it out of hand.

Here's the bill: https://punchbowl.news/file_5406/

House Speaker Mike Johnson turned heads on Monday when a website hosting his podcast and church sermons suddenly vanished. Still, Johnson hasn’t been able to completely scrub his prior social media presence, with some evidence of his lectures still floating around online, including a three-hour sermon organized by his wife’s ministry that blasts the newly elected’s Christian fundamentalism.

The contents of his evangelical musings—which he apparently wants to hide—offer revealing details about the little-known congressman, including that he doesn’t really believe in democracy.

“By the way, the United States is not a democracy. Do you know what a democracy is? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. You don’t want to be in a democracy. Majority rule: not always a good thing,” Johnson said at the First Baptist Church of Haughton, Louisiana, in 2019.

Yes, majority rule is not good for the R's.

Johnson has also attacked the idea of social services, claiming that the only entity entitled to provide care is the church, not the government.

“I was in South America two weeks ago and they were talking about how … the Catholic Church used to provide soup kitchens and orphanages and do all this stuff and it doesn’t do it anymore and now they’re just willfully, everybody’s willfully, having the civil government take all these responsibilities over. And it’s just a sad development because that’s not how it’s supposed to work,” Johnson said.

In other comments, the Louisiana congressman claimed that the “immigration crisis” is because refugees won’t “assimilate” to the “rule of law”—as in, gaining citizenship—while failing to acknowledge the complicated, lengthy, and expensive process required to become a U.S. citizen. Ultimately, according to Johnson, the failure falls on the refugees’ lack of Christian faith.

“The reason that illegal immigration is such a crisis, such a problem is because you have a lot of God-fearing folks and rule-abiding people who are following the law,” Johnson said, going on to celebrate America’s long history of immigration.

“That’s our origin. But at some point, if the rule of law is eviscerated in that process, the whole system topples. And we’re dangerously close to that right now, because why? We ain’t following the Bible’s rules on this,” Johnson added.

I appreciate your contributions to the forum today, japhy.

Christian Fascism

Christian fascism is a term which is used to describe a far-right political ideology that denotes an intersection between fascism and Christianity. It is sometimes referred to as "Christofascism", a neologism which was coined in 1970 by the liberation theologian Dorothee Sölle.[1][2][3]

Interpretation of Sölle
Tom F. Driver, the Paul Tillich Professor Emeritus at Union Theological Seminary, expressed concern "that the worship of God in Christ not divide Christian from Jew, man from woman, clergy from laity, white from black, or rich from poor". To him, Christianity is in constant danger of Christofascism. He stated that "[w]e fear christofascism, which we see as the political direction of all attempts to place Christ at the center of social life and history" and that "[m]uch of the churches' teaching about Christ has turned into something that is dictatorial in its heart and is preparing society for an American fascism".[4][5]

Christofascism "disposed or allowed Christians, to impose themselves not only upon other religions but other cultures, and political parties which do not march under the banner of the final, normative, victorious Christ" – as Paul F. Knitter describes Sölle's view.[6][7]

Christomonism
Douglas John Hall, Professor of Christian Theology at McGill University, relates Sölle's concept of Christofascism to Christomonism, which inevitably ends in religious triumphalism and exclusivity, noting Sölle's observation of American fundamentalist Christianity which led him to conclude that Christomonism easily leads to Christofascism, and violence is never far away from militant Christomonism. (Christomonism only accepts one divine person, Jesus Christ, rather than the Trinity.) He states that the over-divinized ("high") Christology of Christendom is demonstrated to be wrong by its "almost unrelieved anti-Judaism". He suggests that the best way to guard against this is for Christians not to neglect the humanity of Jesus Christ in favour of his divinity, and remind themselves that Jesus was also a Jewish human being.[2][8][9]

American history and politics
Chris Hedges and David Neiwert contend that the origins of American Christofascism date back to the Great Depression, when Americans first espoused forms of fascism that were "explicitly 'Christian' in nature".[10]: 88  Hedges writes that "fundamentalist preachers such as Gerald B. Winrod and Gerald L. K. Smith fused national and Christian symbols to advocate the country's first crude form of Christo-fascism".[11] Smith's Christian Nationalist Crusade stated that a "Christian character is the basis of all real Americanism".[11] Hedges also believes that William Dudley Pelley was another prominent advocate of Christofascism.[10]: 88  Nonetheless, some historians contend the presence of Christian fascism in the Antebellum United States.[12]

In the late 1950s, some adherents of these philosophies founded the John Birch Society, whose policy positions and rhetoric have greatly influenced modern dominionists.[11] Likewise, the Posse Comitatus movement was founded by former associates of Pelley and Smith.[10]: 90  The 1980s saw the founding of the Council for National Policy[11] and Moral Majority,[13][14] two organizations which carried on the tradition, while the patriot and militia movements represented efforts to mainstream the philosophy in the 1990s.[10]: 90 

Incidents of anti-abortion violence, including the Atlanta and Birmingham bombings which were committed by Eric Rudolph and the assassination of George Tiller at his Wichita, Kansas church in 2009, have also been considered acts which were motivated by Christofascism.[10]: 90–91 [15]

Usage of the term caused controversy in 2007 when Melissa McEwan, a campaign blogger for then-presidential candidate John Edwards, referred to religious conservatives as "Christofascists" on her personal blog.[16][17]

[...]

Shirley wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 5:35 pm The future of our close ally Israel is at stake, but republicans can't possibly bring themselves to let an opportunity to pander to their benefactors go to waste.

Once again, a minority, i.e., republicans, are holding the country hostage so they can give billionaires a tax benefit. Rich people can continue to cheat on their taxes and avoid paying their fair share, and the MAGA cult can continue to scream the IRS is coming for the middle/working class.

smh This gets so fucking old...

Jake Sherman

@JakeSherman

-- HOUSE REPUBLICANS' Israel aid bill is out.

It offsets $14.3 billion in Israel aid with $14.3 bllion in cuts to IRS from the Inflation Reduction Act.

This offset will NEVER, EVER fly. Dems will reject it out of hand.

Here's the bill: https://punchbowl.news/file_5406/

Interesting that new House Speaker and Christo-Fascist Mike Johnson was OK with Trump increasing the national debt by nearly $8 trillion dollars during his 4 years in office. Which just happened to include a $1.9 Trillion dollar tax cut, with 83% of the benefits accruing to the top 1%. Does anyone recall Johnson calling for "offsets" then? If Johnson was really concerned about the national debt, wouldn't he be in favor of even more IRS agents collecting unpaid taxes from people who owe them, instead of making it easier for tax-cheats to get away with not paying their fair share?

In his first major move, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is using the bipartisan goal of providing aid to Israel to pick a fight with President Joe Biden over his signature achievement. A new bill House Republicans released Monday includes $14.3 billion in emergency funding for Israel while rescinding the same amount of IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, a major climate, health care and tax law Biden signed last year.

'It's breathtaking': Joe reacts to Speaker Johnson using Israel aid to pick fight with Biden