Josh Marshall
What’s Up With Speaker Mike Johnson’s Black Son?
On Speaker Mike Johnson’s first full day in office, half the journalism world was looking into the surprise Speaker’s past. In his meteoric one day rise from four term representative to Speaker there was no time for anyone to vet him. But one part of that past came out of left field. Video surfaced of an interview Johnson did with Walter Isaacson just after the death of George Floyd in June 2020 in which he revealed that he had an adopted black son, Michael. Johnson went on to explain that there was no question that his black 14-year-old son Michael faced challenges that his white fourteen year old Will never would. Many on the leftward side of the political spectrum were struck by Johnson’s empathy and frank recognition of discrimination in contemporary America while right wingers denounced him for his wokeness.
I had only heard this story in passing until this evening when TPM Reader RS flagged something odd about the story. No African-American son shows up in any of the family photographs on Johnson’s House website or on his personal Facebook page. Nor does Michael figure anywhere in any of Johnson’s campaign biographies.
As I went further down this rabbit hole tonight I was a bit dumbfounded. Is Michael made up? Is he excluded from family pictures? I was so baffled that I went pretty far down that rabbit hole trying to figure out what was going on.
Read MoreWe appear to have a very high casualty mass shooting unfolding in Lewiston, Maine. CNN reports that there are at least 16 fatalities and as many as 60 additional wounded. There appears to be a single gunman who opened fire at at least two three separate locations. The gunman is apparently still at large. And the entire city of Lewiston remains under a shelter in place order. There are lots of scattered reports, some of which seem contradictory or poorly sourced. But those seem to be the essential details as of this moment.
Late Update: NBC and Fox are now reporting at least 22 fatalities … the upshot of all the reports is that police in Lewiston were overwhelmed by the situation. They’ve had to call in state and federal manpower to assist with the manhunt. Police from other jurisdictions and states are moving in to assist. If you’re not from the northeast this is very far from anything that can be called a large city. So the time to get there is significant.
From TPM Reader ES …
Read MoreI had a hard time articulating this for myself — but now it’s clearer: the political and strategic confusion for everyone stems from the fact that what Hamas did to Israelis is not “resistance” but something else. It’s not even so-called asymmetric warfare or terror bombings. It’s not something that past resistance or anticolonial or liberation movements used to do. It’s something completely outside of it. In fact it’s more the kind of atrocities that victorious States or armies perpetrate.
Moments from now Mike Johnson of Louisiana will become Speaker of the House and I just found out that Johnson and his wife have a podcast about ‘religious conservatism’, basically a heavy focus on abortion bans, opposing gay marriage and the like. Before entering Congress Johnson was a ‘religious liberty’ activist. It’s on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and the rest. You have to figure that opposition researchers are going to be listening to it pretty closely. The first episode I’m listening to is Episode 12 “The Truth about January 6th that You’ve Never Been Told”. After that there’s Episode 14 “Post-Roe America: What Happens Now?” Johnson supports an absolute national ban on abortions.
It certainly *seems* – and I stress *seems* – like Republicans have finally managed to thread the Speaker needle and will elect Mike Johnson of Louisiana in a couple hours. When the caucus did a roll call late yesterday evening a few voted present but none voted against him. But 20 or so weren’t there. Those who were put on a big show of unity in a late evening press conference and the consensus seems to be that it’s happening. There’s a bit of uncertainty created by that non-trivial number not showing up for that final key vote. But no members have made any announcements or moves overnight or this morning that suggest they’re going to oppose Johnson on the floor or take any steps to halt his momentum.
My best guess is it probably happens. But given the events of the last three weeks we can’t be certain until we see the actual vote.
How did they finally pull this off?
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The Party of Rule-Breaking Trundles Toward Its Inevitable End Point 
Eight years ago Will Saletan said, “The GOP is a failed state. Donald Trump is its warlord.” There’s probably no short summary, phrase or aphorism I’ve repeated more times on TPM. Because it’s that good. Today we’re seeing another permutation and illustration of that enduring reality.
Yesterday and today the GOP went back to the well to find a completely new set of Speaker candidates and, they hoped, a new Speaker designee. After multiple rounds, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota was elected as the caucus’s choice. He then asked for a roll call of who would actually vote for him on the House floor. He came up more than twenty votes short.
Was there a writers’ strike on this new episode of the Caucus series? Because this sounds like a crib from an episode that ran the weekend before last when just the same thing happened to Steve Scalise. Sure enough within an hour or so we’re now hearing chatter that only Rep. Mike Johnson (LA), the guy who lost in the final vote, could get to 217. So only the guy who just lost can hope to win. Got it? Again, it’s a script cribbed from ten days ago.
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Normie Saviors and the Long Hand of Donald Trump
I mentioned in this week’s podcast that the current state of the House GOP Speaker debacle-ship reminds me of the day Denny Hastert became Speaker. Hard on the heels of a disappointing (Clinton-Lewinsky) scandal mid-term, in rapid succession one Speaker and one Speaker designate were blown out of the water by extra-marital affairs. In a rush to safety, as the financial journalists have it, Rep. Denny Hastert was elected Speaker essentially by affirmation. The one thing Republicans wanted more than anything was a return to calm and Hastert’s biography and demeanor offered it. Certainly someone as frumpy and avuncular as normie embodiment Hastert wouldn’t be off cheating on his wife or bringing the caucus into disrepute. So Hastert it was.
Obviously, it didn’t turn out quite as expected. But that’s how it looked at the time.
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On the Brink
I want to note several interconnected developments in the news coming out of the Middle East today.
Already battered by his ongoing criminal prosecution and attempted judicial coup, Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing with the Israeli public appears to have been shattered by the October 7th massacres in southern Israel. In such a perilous position, Netanyahu’s allies in and out of government have been spreading various stab-in-the-back type storylines seeking to evade responsibility for the events of October 7th.
The best way I can describe this is that Israel has its own version of the Fox News-rooted right wing big lie machine that Americans are familiar with here. That has been in overdrive for the last three weeks. It has included the government briefing reporters against the country’s security establishment, placing the blame for the massacres squarely on the IDF and Shin Bet, the country’s domestic intelligence and security service.
Read MoreAccording to Israeli media reports, the Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel’s international and domestic intelligence agencies) have created a new unit with the Hebrew acronym Nili, to track down and kill all the Hamas fighters who participated in the October 7th incursion into southern Israel which left more than 1,400 Israelis dead, mostly civilians.
According to Israel the attack was carried out by the Nukhba (elite) Force, a naval commando unit of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassem Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Press reports suggest the attack was carried out by roughly 2,500 Nukhba fighters.
The Inside Story of How Jim Jordan Broke the Model, Didn’t Become Speaker and Decided That was Fine
There’s an aspect of the Jim Jordan Speaker Drama that hasn’t gotten enough attention. It’s really the central element of the story. Over the years I’ve argued that the post-2010 GOP caucus operates by a consistent set of informal rules. What looks like drama and dysfunction is actually in its own way a very stable and functional system.
The congressional party is controlled and run by the hard right minority variously called the Tea Party or Freedom Caucus. But they are a bit too hot for national public consumption. They also rely on the idea that their far right policy agenda has broad public support but is held back by a corrupt/bureaucratic establishment. For both of these reasons a system was developed in which this far right group runs the caucus, but from the background, while it is nominally run by a mainstreamish Republican leader. Under John Boehner, Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy this basic dynamic remained more or less the same. It works for everybody because the Freedom Party calls the shots while the party maintains broad electoral viability via figureheadish leadership.
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