Dec 20, 2023
House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s honeymoon period seems to have ended as a number of hardline and MAGA Republicans have criticized the Louisiana congressman over the recent passing of funding and government bills.
The Senate recently voted through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes military spending for the Defense Department, including a historic 5.2 percent pay raise for troops, and is now set to be signed by President Joe Biden.
The bill was a scaled-down version of what passed through the House in July and did not feature some culture war issues that hardline factions of the GOP were keen to as part of the $886 billion military policy bill. These include restricting the Pentagon‘s abortion travel policy and cutting medical care for transgender troops, both of which were in the House defense policy bill that passed this summer under former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The bill also includes a short-term extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was due to expire in December and grants data collection and surveillance powers to spy agencies. Some House Republicans believe debating extending FISA should have been considered via stand-alone legislation over concerns the powers are being abused.
Following the Senate’s approval of the NDAA, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene argued that Johnson had negotiated the bill with leading Democrat figures and that they had “shoved the FISA spy court into our defense bill.”
The House Freedom Caucus is also said to be unhappy with Johnson’s dealing with the NDAA negotiations, calling the defense funding policy “an utter disaster for House Republicans and a massive unforced error from leadership,” according to a memo obtained by Axios.
Johnson was elected House speaker in October after a period of chaos following McCarthy’s ousting. The California Republican was removed from the role after Florida Representative Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate after McCarthy negotiated with Democrats to push through a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.
McCarthy himself changed congressional rules so that just one lawmaker needed to call a motion to vacate for it to be decided in a House vote. The rule is still in place, meaning Johnson could face the same fate if some hardline factions within the GOP are not happy with his performance.
Currently, there does not appear to be much desire from House Republicans to have a repeat of the disarray which saw GOP several lawmakers fail to get enough support from their own party to replace McCarthy, essentially putting the lower chamber’s work on hold for weeks.
Grant Reeher, the director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and a professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House, meaning fewer votes are needed to get a simple majority, on top of the fact the single motion to vacate rule is still in place means that Johnson’s position as speaker is “constantly tenuous.”
“However, Republicans in Congress suffered a severe black eye in the most recent speaker shift, and despite the firebrands in the Freedom Caucus—and a couple members in particular who don’t seem to care whether they hurt the team—I think that experience has demonstrated to the radicals that they are indeed playing with political fire,” Reeher told Newsweek.
“Furthermore, I think it’s a good sign that Johnson has made some decisions that go against their grain, so he doesn’t appear to be terribly afraid of them.”
Newsweek reached out to Johnson’s office via email for comment.
Arizona Representative Eli Crane, one of the eight GOP lawmakers who voted to oust McCarthy in the motion to vacate, previously told The New York Times that the disappointment in the passing of the defense bill could be a “building block” to House Republicans fully turning on Johnson.
The House Freedom Caucus also compared Johnson’s passing of NDAA to former House Speaker Speaker John Boehner, who left the role in 2015 after falling out with his conservative lawmakers on a number of issues, including trying to push through a bill that provided funding for Planned Parenthood.
“This is an obvious play to end-run conservative objections and pass liberal ‘woke’ military policy with the help of House Democrats—a page ripped from the Boehner playbook,” the House Freedom Caucus said in the memo, according to Axios.
Reeher believes that despite only being in the role for two months, Johnson’s position as House speaker could rest entirely on the results of the 2024 elections.
“I imagine that there is a collective sense of seeing what shakes out of that election,” Reeher told Newsweek. “If Republicans can increase their majority, that will go a long way to bolstering Johnson’s position. And if they lose the majority, I imagine they will elect a new minority leader.”
In a statement, Johnson praised the passing of the NDAA bill as it will allow the Department of Defense to return focus “back to the business of defending our nation and away from social experiments that hurt our military’s recruitment, morale, and readiness” while noting some of the conservative elements it contains.
“House Republicans secured important victories by reining in harmful Biden Administration policies, such as taxpayer funded censorship of conservative media, Critical Race Theory in the military and its schools, and Pentagon DEI bureaucracy,” Johnson said.
“This bill also supports military families by securing the largest pay raise for our brave men and women in decades while protecting the rights of military parents in their children’s education.”
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-johnson-house-speaker-ndaa-kevin-mcarthy-1853755
This is another reason why so many Americans are not pleased with this government. To put it lightly, our government sucks. The worst bunch is the MAGA gang. They are very bad for our country.
I think the U.S. badly needs a multi-party system.
Now you have 2 parties trying to be each others opposite.
Add a third party in the middle and compromise suddenly gets a lot easier.
I think it is wishful thinking as it requires a major overhaul of the U.S. voting system as the current one
basically makes a third party impossible.
They need to get rid of the district system if they want new parties.
I think the district system sucks and is less democratic, as imagine you are a Republican voter in New York or any other big city, there is no sense in voting as your vote will always go to waste, and of course the same goes for a Democrat in a small village in Texas (although Texas is slowly becoming more blue).
The UK needs a similar reform, as you either have a Labour or Conservative government being in full control and trying to demolish everything the opposite party has achieved when they were in power.
Having them in coalitions forces them to cooperate and create a balanced policy together.
And while we are on the reform boat, the Netherlands has a none of the problems the U.K. and the U.S. has in this regard, but it took proportional voting a bit too far. The minimum number of seats required to become represented in parliament is just 1. This causes waaaaay to many parties and as a result the major parties are getting smaller each year, which makes creating a coalition and a government a pain in the …..
A voting ballot doesn’t fit on a table anymore (literally) and counting the votes is a nightmare as a single ballot takes more than a square meter.
I think the most optimal and most democratic and practical system is proportional with a minimum number of seats to enter parliament. This allows for a multi-party system without creating instability because there are too many parties.
^bert
I think that virtually every democracy could use some sort of reforms. Churchill once said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Sorry bert, the USA doesn’t need any advice from foreigners on how they think the US should work.
New report shows how Russia tried to help Republicans in 2022 election
A newly released intelligence report indicates that the Russian government acted to “denigrate the Democratic Party” ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The report suggests that Russia acted against Democrats because of President Joe Biden’s effectiveness in unifying Western countries and creating support for Ukraine. In the process, Russia took a truly incredible action in which it traded Russian lives to protect Republican votes.
The declassified report, which is heavily redacted, does not give many details about how Russia worked behind the scenes. However, it is clear about the rationale for why both the Russian government and its proxies sought to help Republicans. “While Russian officials most likely recognized that U.S. support for Ukraine was largely bipartisan, Russian influence actors disproportionately targeted the Democratic Party,” the report concludes, “probably because Moscow blames the U.S. president for forging a unified Western alliance and for Kyiv’s continued pro-Western trajectory,
The report also indicates that China and Iran launched efforts to interfere in the election. Neither of those attempts appears to be as strongly partisan as the Russian interference. China reportedly aimed its efforts at affecting the outcome of “a handful of races.” Iran put its efforts behind decreasing confidence in American democracy, election integrity, and support for Israel.
The assessment indicates that efforts to interfere in the election increased when compared to the 2018 midterms, but did not rise to the “comprehensive, whole-of-government” effort that Russia undertook in 2016. It also concludes that a higher level of inference is expected by multiple countries during the 2024 election cycle.
In its efforts, Russia reportedly used themes designed to reduce U.S. support for Ukraine. Interestingly, efforts to shift the outcome of the election included not just establishing fake accounts on social media sites, but included enlistment of commercial PR firms and “payments to influencers.” If those influencers are named in the report, that information is hidden behind the black bars of redactions … but it would be very interesting to know who took Vladimir Putin’s payment to help erode democracy.
The assessment notes that many of the operations don’t involve overtly false reports. Instead, Russia and other foreign governments are using issues that already generate media attention and partisan friction in America—and “amplifying” those “authentic” public narratives.
This is a technique that Russia has employed going back well into the Soviet Union period. Specifically, Russia has long played up issues of racism in the United States to increase political divisions. A Senate report in 2018 showed how Russia uses a two-pronged approach to increase racial tensions by appealing to racism on the right while deflating Democrats’ efforts to organize Black voters. In the 2016 elections, that even included running ads on radio stations with heavily Black audiences to depress turnout for Hillary Clinton.
At the time of the 2022 elections, support for Ukraine was still relatively high, even among most Republicans. However, one of ways Russia worked to change that was through pressing a message that has not been difficult to find in the news. “As the election neared, Russian influence actors amplified questions about whether US aid to Ukraine if the balance in power shifted after the midterms,” the report says.
In what may be the most astonishing connection to Russia’s efforts to influence the election and events on the ground in Ukraine, the report indicates that Russian military officials “proposed delaying the Russian withdrawal from Kherson until after the midterms to avoid giving a named political party a perceived win before the election.”
The report doesn’t indicate whether this plan was carried out. However, Election Day in 2022 was Nov. 8. Russia announced its withdrawal from Kherson on Nov. 9. Considering the information provided, it’s very hard to view this as a coincidence.
During those final days, Russian forces were low on supplies, Ukrainian troops were advancing, and every moment of delay exposed Russian supplies and equipment to destruction. But Russia was willing to take that risk rather than give Democrats a perceived win ahead of the election. That’s how determined they were to play a role in 2022. Considering how Republicans in Congress have completely stalled America’s assistance to Ukraine, the sacrifices Russia made in Kherson may have been their best investment since the illegal, unprovoked invasion began.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/19/2212644/-New-report-shows-how-Russia-tried-to-help-Republicans-in-2022-election
Here’s a direct link to the National Intelligence Council report:
Click to access NIC-Declassified-ICA-Foreign-Threats-to-the-2022-US-Elections-Dec2023.pdf
Thanks, Larry, for providing this fascinating info! This makes a lot of sense, sadly.
The Russians played both sides a RSM told me.
And why would he lie about this?
^bert
Here is a link from a Leftist outlet for you to read. It clearly shows the results of the investigations after the 2016 election. Hopefully this will show you the truth you seek about russian interference and you won’t have to conjure up your own drivel.
https://time.com/5565991/russia-influence-2016-election/
By the way, the next time you call me or anyone else here a liar, you’re gone. Got it? You would be wise to remember we all support Ukraine here and politics takes a BACK SEAT to that. Got it? Furthermore, for you Leftist punks, don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say to their faces. I can guaranfuckingtee you that you would NOT call me a liar to my face. Got it?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“a Leftist outlet”
You’re calling Time Magazine “Leftist”? That’s a laugh. What do you consider to be “Leftist” – anything to the left of you?
Media Bias / Fact Check rates them “Left-center” – “These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias.” That’s pretty far from what most people would call “Leftist”.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/time/
“for you Leftist punks”
I haven’t noticed anyone who I’d consider “Leftist” posting here. Perhaps you should specify who you’re referring to rather than misusing labels?
Also, the Time article is about the 2016 election, while the new report is about the 2022 election.
“don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say to their faces”
Sir RSM – thought you might get a kick out of this. It demonstrates the difference between encounters on the Internet and those in real life. Enjoy…
Cute, but why can’t dogs just be dongs? Why do we program them to be something else online? Is politics really that important that we can forget being civilized and honest? If politics is more important to you than Ukraine then you’re on the wrong website friend. That’s why I asked what your connection is to Ukraine because for people like you it is easy to forget about Ukraine and try to push your politics. Meanwhile I am trying to invite everyone to support Ukraine so people like you are working against me. Why should I keep you?
I am always civilized and honest.
“for people like you”
What exactly does that mean? People who are honest and fair, and fact-check everything?
“try to push your politics”
I don’t push politics. I push the truth.
“people like you are working against me.”
How am I working against you? If you repeat something from a “fake news site” that’s not true and I respond with a fact check, that’s working towards the truth, not against you. As I’ve mentioned before, if I were to post something incorrect and someone corrected me, I’d appreciate it – I wouldn’t take it as a personal attack. Are you really so invested in those falsehoods that you take a fact-check as indication that someone hates you, wants to kill you and your pets, and wants to pull your skin off? I have no hatred for you or anyone on this site, no matter how delusional they are.
“Why should I keep you?”
Well, previously you wrote, “Personally I don’t care what people’s politics are as long as they’re honest and like Ukraine.” Has that changed?