Baptist Mike Johnson elected speaker of the House after 3 weeks of infighting
“Johnson, a conservative Baptist who has served in Congress since 2017, vowed to ‘ensure the House delivers results and inspires change for the American people’ and to ‘restore trust in this body.’” - CPost
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Pity he’s been a stolen election hoaxer. If he wants to ‘restore trust,’ he could start by publicly apologizing for his role in trying to help Trump steal an election.
Sorry, his being a Baptist doesn’t nullify the other issues.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I can hear it now.
Aaron, can you give specifics on how Johnson tried to steal an election. Questioning if things were done decently and in order is not stealing. You made a very bold accusation against a brother in Christ. Perhaps you know something the rest of us do not. If so, please specify. I am very concerned with how quick you have been to vilify fellow believers- even some of us here on SI- who happen to have a different view on events than you do. BTW you have a right to hold your views about the election and a variety of other view that I may or may not agree with. I will defend your right to express your views. I will however not defend your right to make unwarranted attacks.
I was hoping the moderate Republicans who would not accept Jim Jordan would have wrenched out of Johnson an admission that Biden was the legitimate winner of the presidential election.
Details on Johnson’s stolen election hoax participation:
In December of 2020…
Johnson then filed a written submission to the Supreme Court, known as an amicus brief, supporting a Texas lawsuit that aimed to invalidate results in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. The brief was signed by 125 other House members. (Newsweek)
By December it was quite clear that the stolen election narrative was bogus. If MJ was not aware, that’s on him. It was his responsibility to be aware.
But his worst act was…
After the 2020 election, Johnson also echoed some of the wilder conspiracy theories pushed by then-President Donald Trump to explain away his loss. Then Johnson voted against certifying Biden’s win even after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (AP, emphasis mine)
There are worse things than being a stolen-election hoaxer, but if you’re a U.S. Congressman, there not very many worse things.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The press will ask him if he considers Biden the legitimate president. He's going to have to answer that. He professes to be a Christian, I trust he will tell the truth.
For those who have forgotten or never actually knew, the brief Johnson signed was not a brief to overturn the election. It appears to delay the electoral vote count until the state issues were addressed. As with many of the Court cases, The merits of the Case were never heard. The case was dismissed on standing.
The merits of the case seemed clear, that the Constitution gives the power over elections to legislatures not to courts. In every state where a court changed the electoral procedures they did so in opposition to the Constitution and those changes should have been ruled out. With respect to standing if a states votes are effectively annulled by another state that conducted its election improperly, that state should absolutely have standing to challenge the issue.
But regardless of how one concludes on the merits or the standing, we should acknowledge what the amicus brief was actually about.
Unfortunately it continues to be the case that the very mention of Trump brings an almost allergic reaction that shuts down conversation about issues. One would be forgiven for thinking that there are some who are okay with illegal things so long as Trump is not the president. It was a pragmatic view from the beginning and continues to be in my opinion.
Larry thank you for your detailed explanation. I contend that Mike Johnson has been slandered on this site. Everyone has a right to an opinion about the election, but to slander every person who had questions about the election and who used the legal process to try to find answers to those questions is wrong.
Mike Johnson
Steve Horn, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, said in comments to Baptist Press: “To have someone with Mike’s intellectual acumen, love for America, principled convictions and Christian worldview as Speaker of the House gives me great hope.
David R. Brumbelow
We have been praying at church for our leaders in this country. We consistently pray that they will realize that they need wisdom from God for making decisions and that they will turn to God for that wisdom. I am thankful that we now have a speaker in the House of Representatives who professes Christ and turning to him in prayer. I look forward to praying for Mike Johnson by name while I also pray for President Biden by name. I keep praying that President Biden will realize how much he needs to be looking to the Lord for guidance for all the difficult decisions he faces and all the responsibility he has. I pray that Speaker Johnson continues to look to the Lord and does not become too busy to pray.
I am currently withholding judgment and my concerns about Mike Johnson. If Johnson actually "follows the Constitution, upholds the agreed-upon rules, lets everyone (both Republicans and Democrats) read the bills and genuinely participate, keeps the House transparent and accountable, and mainly stays out of the way as America's elected representatives draft, debate, and amend legislation," I will actually applaud the speaker ouster move by the GOP. The last 5 Speakers of the House (4 of which were Republican) were not about this process by rather about retaining power.
That does not mean that I don't have concerns about Johnson. He assumed some of the craziest conspiracies about the 2020 election and made some of the craziest accusations that were by far the easiest to disprove including these statements:
“In every election in American history, there’s some small element of fraud, irregularity, error. We just know that. You just accept that that’s the case...But when you have it on a broad scale, when you have, you know a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. When you have, you know, testimonials of people like this but in large numbers, it begs to be litigated and investigated...."
“The allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion. Look, there’s a lot of merit to that. And when the president says the election is rigged, that’s what he’s talking about...”
To be honest, it really doesn't surprise me because Mike Johnson has publicly claimed that the fake historian David Barton from Wall Builders had a profound influence on him, his work, life and everything he does over the last quarter century. Barton's versions of American history is embellished propaganda that even led Thomas Nelson Publishers to pull his book, "The Jefferson Lies" because the book was filled with so many factual errors, cherry-picked quotes and misleading statements in his quest to prove that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation. Barton also promotes the 7 Mountain Mandate.
“Those are the seven areas you have to have, and if you can have those seven areas, you can shape and control whatever takes place in nations, continents, and even the world,” “Now that’s what we believed all along is you got to get involved in this stuff. Jesus said ‘you occupy ‘til I come.’ We don’t care when he comes, that’s up to him. What we’re supposed to do is take the culture in the meantime, and you got to get involved in these seven areas.” (2011 Radio Interview).
Sadly, the current culture war in our country has now expanded to the subject of American History. Those on the right with power are usually embellishing US history as propagandists and those on the left with power are social justice activists that reframe all of US History as a conflict between the oppressed and oppressor. Both frameworks are very dangerous and need to be challenged.
If one was so quick to assume the craziest conspiracy theory (Dominion Voting Machines) about the 2020 election had "alot of merit", and looks to David Barton as a major influence on him, his work, life and everything he's done over the past 25 years, I don't have much faith in his ability to make decisions based on factual evidence, reason and the reality of our historical context, despite his strong Christian faith.
I know that many critics have claimed Johnson is a "Christian Nationalist." His close association and the influence of Barton on his thinking does provide a trail of breadcrumbs that point to this conclusion. But the real proof will be how he manages the House as Speaker. Will he be about process or power?
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