Insights on new Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson via Glenn Greenwald:

Twenty-three minute interview with Johnson about the testimony of FBI Director Wray.  Interview starts at 21:58

Clips of Mike Johnson interrogating Homeland Secretary Mayorkas:

You and I agree on some things, sharply disagree on others. And this is true broadly if I compare myself to other Americans (many of whom I have far deeper and wider disagreements than I do with you), and between any two given Americans.

Issues and positions are important, but they're not the most important. We can expect that in any healthy society there will be deep, fundamental, and even irreconcilable differences.

What's important is that those differences don't lead to deep, sustained, and irreconcilable violence. And the best way so far we as humanity have come up with to do that is to make sure that societies can change their minds. So long as people can disagree but have a belief that 1) they can change their mind and 2) there's a real way for them to have a shot at getting others to change their mind, then it's less likely they'll decide that the only way to resolve differences is to permanently shut up those who disagree with them.

Trump took direct aim at this. He lost the election, clearly and decisively. He lost both the popular vote and the electoral vote. And in response, he engaged in a months-long attempt to illegally and illegitimately overturn the results, culminating on Jan 6th when he summoned a mob to attempt to use violence to force the nullification of Americans' votes.

Johnson was part of this. Whatever you think about his stance on the issues, whether you find yourself aligning with him on some or none or all of them, he is part of a movement that attacked -- and continues to target -- this most fundamental plank that keeps America more or less working as opposed to being in a state of perpetual ethnic and ideological literal warfare.

paulsurovell said:

Insights on new Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson via Glenn Greenwald:

Twenty-three minute interview with Johnson about the testimony of FBI Director Wray.  Interview starts at 21:58

We interviewed @RepMikeJohnson in July and - while we had several areas of serious disagreement - he's one of the smartest and most principled opponents of the US Security State (CIA/FBI) and its attempt to control online political speech (starts 21:50):https://t.co/kc4K9bkXPb pic.twitter.com/DLmEicS6g2

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 25, 2023

Clips of Mike Johnson interrogating Homeland Secretary Mayorkas:

MUST WATCH: @RepMikeJohnson gets increasingly frustrated as @SecMayorkas dodges questions on a judge's explosive ruling that his agency systemically censors Americans online.

Mayorkas says he didn't even read the ruling—then outright lies about his agency's record. pic.twitter.com/JM2kNC4YZw

— System Update (@SystemUpdate_) July 27, 2023

Un-fuc-king-believable that Greenwald thinks those are the most important things to talk about with respect to Johnson.

Or maybe not so unbelievable, since it's Greenwald.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I mean, the deep, cynical irony of someone who supported nullifying an election being called a "principled opponent" of attempts to control political speech...

Steve said:

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

sometimes the thumb gets in the way..,

Johnson looks like a bit like Stephen Colbert (and sounds like him from The Colbert Report). 

Is Johnson upset Twitter took offline photos of someone's johnson?

Mike Johnson played a central role in trying to overturn the 2020 vote (WaPo)

paulsurovell said:

Insights on new Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson via Glenn Greenwald:

Twenty-three minute interview with Johnson about the testimony of FBI Director Wray.  Interview starts at 21:58

Clips of Mike Johnson interrogating Homeland Secretary Mayorkas:

Mike Johnson will be leading the charge to focus the American security state on disobedient women and LGBTQ people.  Principled opponent of the security state my ****.

tjohn said:

Mike Johnson will be leading the charge to focus the American security state on disobedient women and LGBTQ people.  Principled opponent of the security state my ****.

There is a type of person who call themselves "progressive", but who only care about government actions which might affect them personally; consequently, if they're not LGBTQ or women then they don't care. They're really "libertarians". 

PVW said:

Mike Johnson played a central role in trying to overturn the 2020 vote (WaPo)

Mike Johnson on January 6, 2021 - 

One of his own press releases -

Johnson Leads Hearing on Harmful Effects of “Gender-Affirming Care” for Children

“The reach of radical sexual identity politics isn’t limited to young children. We see this extended to young adults—especially at the university level… Today, nearly one in four high school students identifies as LGBTQ. Whether it’s by scalpel or by social coercion from teachers, professors, administrators, and left-wing media, it’s an attempt to transition the young people of our country.

“Something has gone terribly wrong and today we hope to shed light on what that is and how we can address the problem. Contrary to what the Democrats believe, the scourge of radical gender ideology is very real, efforts to cover up what’s being done to children are extreme, and the science is on our side.”

just so we understand the terminology, do "systemically censor" and "control online speech" generally refer to attempts at stopping the spread of public health disinformation during the pandemic?

and not for nothing but Mike Johnson and his ilk don't really care about free speech. They just want to pretend Republicans are victims of imagined persecution by social media companies.

Greenwald calling Mike Johnson principled just shows how far gone Greenwald is. He has zero credibility as a journalist at this point.

I don't care if Johnson is smart or whatever else. It is all nullified by the FACT he tried to help overturn the election for POTUS.  He is a traitor. Period.

It's been 24 hours since the OP started the thread, and hasn't returned after all of these responses.

I've heard of "drive by" posting, but this is the first "drive by thread" I can recall.

It takes some people time to, you know, do research.

But I really loved Colbert's "Am I Mike Johnson?" bit. 

I’m as addicted to MOL as anyone, but, my God, please give me a break if I happen to step away for more than 24 hours.

DaveSchmidt said:

I’m as addicted to MOL as anyone, but, my God, please give me a break if I happen to step away for more than 24 hours.

Would you start a thread about a person in the news, with "insights" that arguably were intended to be positive facts about him and his selection for his new role, and then go silent for the next two nights as other posters point out more significant and concerning facts about him?

I can't imagine you doing something like that.

dave said:

But I really loved Colbert's "Am I Mike Johnson?" bit. 

Since this thread started with "insights" from the Twitter about Mike Johnson, here's some more - 

This is (being kind here) high school level knowledge of the Constitution that the speaker lacks. 

Meanwhile a Republican rep in ME just flipped on gun control, biggly. 

(Hi Paul, hi nan)

dave said:

This is (being kind here) high school level knowledge of the Constitution that the speaker lacks. 

You think that's something? Wait until you see the level of his knowledge about science.

Mike is worse than all the others who were nominated before him. He can really be a PITA come next election. We have to vote straight line blue at every election going forward. The madness seems to be another global pandemic…

Some more "insights" -

Mike Johnson’s conspiracy theories about ‘illegals’ mark a new GOP low

"Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected House speaker, has repeatedly flirted with what’s known as the 'great replacement theory,' the idea that Democrats are scheming to supplant American voters with immigrants. The Louisiana Republican’s views show how fringe conspiracy theories have gone mainstream in the Republican Party at the highest levels of power. ...

"Johnson employs it regularly. He reiterated the claim in an interview this year with the right-wing outlet Newsmax, accusing President Biden of 'intentionally' encouraging undocumented migration to 'turn all these illegals into voters for their side.' On numerous other occasions, he has made similar charges, even declaring that Democrats’ express goal is the 'destruction of our country at the expense of our own people'."

nohero said:

Some more "insights" -

Mike Johnson’s conspiracy theories about ‘illegals’ mark a new GOP low

"Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected House speaker, has repeatedly flirted with what’s known as the 'great replacement theory,' the idea that Democrats are scheming to supplant American voters with immigrants. The Louisiana Republican’s views show how fringe conspiracy theories have gone mainstream in the Republican Party at the highest levels of power. ...

"Johnson employs it regularly. He reiterated the claim in an interview this year with the right-wing outlet Newsmax, accusing President Biden of 'intentionally' encouraging undocumented migration to 'turn all these illegals into voters for their side.' On numerous other occasions, he has made similar charges, even declaring that Democrats’ express goal is the 'destruction of our country at the expense of our own people'."

This all started with people like Paul Harvey and Bob Grant to Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh et al…it’s decades of conspiracy theories that has poisoned our country. Conservatives really do believe everything they hear on those programs, and it’s driving their paranoia. They will not show or talk about the thousands of Venezuelans being deported back to Caracas every month. In fact our own media don’t show them. Democrats really need to step up their efforts to counter the madness. Really.

I have often thought that part of our border issue has been the repeated daily talking points from Republicans that we have an open border.  They have been constantly advertising the blueprint to how people can enter the country legally.

ml1 said:

just so we understand the terminology, do "systemically censor" and "control online speech" generally refer to attempts at stopping the spread of public health disinformation during the pandemic?

and not for nothing but Mike Johnson and his ilk don't really care about free speech. They just want to pretend Republicans are victims of imagined persecution by social media companies.

When people show a pattern of defending hateful and harmful speech by citing a principle of "free speech," but then clearly demonstrate their eagerness to suppress free speech - say by writing or supporting laws censoring books available in school libraries, or shielding drivers who purposely run over protestors from liability, or attempting to nullify elections -- you start to think, maybe they don't actually believe in free speech, they're just fans of hateful and harmful speech.

aka fascists