In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American politician and lawyer Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson). He's best-known for acting as the speaker of the US House of Representatives, blocking further US military aid to Ukraine & for his ultra-religious worldview.
1/21
1/21
Johnson is an extremely religious person, and one of his main missions is to end the separation of church and state. He's cited pseudo-historian and Christian nationalist David Barton as "profoundly influential in his faith and thinking."
2/21
2/21
As a boy, Mike dreamed of becoming a firefighter like his father, but became a vampir... lawyer instead. He acted as a constitutional lawyer before entering politics, supporting and promoting sodomy laws that would've criminalized homosexuality.
3/21
3/21
Johnson is a long-time and outspoken critic of LGBT rights. He's said that gays "are capable of changing their abnormal lifestyles" and that "homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic."
4/21
4/21
Johnson is taking his Christian duties so seriously, that, together with his 17-year old son, he's even installed a porn detection software called Covenant Eyes on his devices.
5/21
5/21
Mike is also a young-earth creationist, believing that the Earth is 6000 years old. He helped the Creation Museum secure millions in tax subsidies to build a theme park where dinosaurs accompanied Noah in his ark. He's also connected evolution to mass shootings.
6/21
6/21
In 2010, he was named the "founding Dean" of the Pressler School of Law in Lousiana. Supposed to become a "bastion of ardent theological and political conservatism," the school never opened despite millions in funding, and Johnson eventually resigned from his position.
7/21
7/21
And of course there's the climate issues - a committee which Johnson led stated that living near wind turbines could cause "depression and cognitive dysfunction", and that as humans it is our duty to "take dominion of the Earth" and "eat those animals."
8/21
8/21
Like a good Christian, Mikey has opposed universal healthcare, refugee assistance and raise of the minimum wage to 15 USD. Understanding the power of thoughts and prayers during disasters, he's applauded Lousiana's efforts to add more religious stuff in schools.
9/21
9/21
Before becoming one of his biggest fans, Johnson criticized Trump: in 2015, he wrote that "Donald Trump ... lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House," and that "he is a hot head by nature."
10/21
10/21
But after Trump became the President, Johnson, like so many others, was politically cuckolded by Trump. He later served in Trump's legal defense team during both of his impeachment trials. Today as the speaker, he's basically doing what Trump tells him to do.
11/21
11/21
He was also one of the most vocal supporters of Trump after the 2020 US presidential election. In Nov 2020, he said that "the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there's a lot of merit to that."
12/21
12/21
Johnson's promised to release 44 000 hours of security footage from the Jan 6 Capitol attack. As of Dec 2023, a total of 162 hours or 0,4% of the total have been published. Maybe the Trump supporters couldn't find what they were looking for and abandoned the project.
13/21
13/21
According to Republicans for Ukraine, Johnson has been extremely unsupportive of Ukraine - he voted in favor of only once for Lend-Lease Act of 2022. After that, he's voted against every additional assistance for the war-ridden country.
14/21
14/21
In one of the most cynical speeches ever, Mike stated in Oct 2023 that “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there," continuing that "We're not going to abandon them [Ukraine].”
15/21
15/21
Yet he is one of the biggest reasons why the Ukraine aid isn't moving forward - In Jan 2024, he opposed a bipartisan, Senate GOP-sponsored package including both border security and aid for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel.
16/21
16/21
After the Senate passed a bill on Ukraine aid in Feb 2024, Johnson said that he has no intention even of allowing a vote to happen on the bill. He also told his fellow Republicans that there is "no rush" to decide on the bill.
17/21
17/21
It is quite evident that Johnson is doing all this to campaign for Donald Trump, who'll probably be opposing Joe Biden in the 2024 US presidential election. But there's also another, much more sinister theory: that Mike Johnson gets support from Russia.
18/21
18/21
In 2018, a group of Russian nationals donated 37 000 USD to Moscow Mike in campaign contributions through a company called American Ethane. The company was controlled almost entirely by three Russian oligarchs, and they were fined a sum of measly 9500 USD for the incident.
19/21
19/21
To conclude: Mike should read the holy scripture he so eagerly promotes. Maybe start with Luke 3:10-11: "‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’"20/21
Actually, here's one more video from 2015 documentary on purity balls. In it, Mike's daughter makes a "virginity pledge" to her father and they even sign an agreement over this. These events are often promoted as "dates".
21/21
21/21
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