Well, friends, Representative Mike Johnson is now the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  The Republicans apparently realized yesterday that if they didn’t get their sh*t together there would be serious consequences, so they bit their tongues, put on their fake smiles, and voted Johnson into the speaker’s seat.  Johnson is probably as bad a choice as Jordon, worse than McCarthy, and miles below any speaker we’ve had in my memory.  But such is the nature of the beast – the 21^st century Republican.

Already, in his acceptance speech, Mr. Johnson made it perfectly clear that he and his cronies do NOT represent us all.  He mistakenly believes that the United States is a religious nation comprised only of Christians … so those of us, about one-third of the population, who are not Christians and do not believe in the same ‘god’ Mr. Johnson believes in are no longer represented in the House of ‘Representatives’.  Oh sure, our tax dollars will still be welcomed, but our opinions and views will no longer matter.  Perhaps they haven’t for a while now.

Mr. Johnson has several strikes against him in my book …

• He is an election denier who still, nearly three years after the fact, claims that the 2020 election was ‘fraudulent’ or ‘stolen’
• He is a climate skeptic who has been dubbed an “energy champion” by the fossil fuel industry
• He voted against aid for Ukraine
• He is against women’s rights, as proven by his extreme anti-abortion stance, claiming the overturning of women’s rights in the Dobbs case a “historic and joyful day” (Would somebody please send Lorena Bobbitt to pay him a visit?)
• He is strongly against LGBTQ rights and has spoken of the ‘need’ in his view for a national “Don’t Say Gay” bill similar to the one in Florida.
• Like Jim Jordan before him, he speaks of cutting Social Security and Medicare

So … let’s see here … he does not represent women (50.4% of the population), does not represent LGBTQ people (7.1% of the population), does not represent those of us over a certain age (16.8% of the population), and as per his speech yesterday, does not represent non-Christians (nearly 30% of the population).  Even allowing for some overlap between those categories, it seems to me he actually represents a rather small segment of our nation, certainly far less than half.  And if all that weren’t enough to turn us against him from the start, the fact that he has Donald Trump’s support should tip the scales.  Should have stuck with McCarthy.

I strongly suspect the odds of getting the necessary appropriations bills passed in both the House and the Senate, then signed by President Biden before midnight on November 17^th are slim-to-none.  I hope I’m wrong, for our government desperately needs to get back to work … many things are nearing deadlines and lives … yes LIVES … are at stake.  But just because the Republicans bonded to get Johnson elected doesn’t mean they have given up on their game-playing … believe me, they haven’t.

The House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, has long been known as “The People’s House.”  I think it’s safe to say that designation has become obsolete.  We the People are no more important to half the people in that chamber than a fly on the wall would be.

For more, check out Dan Rather & Elliot Kirschner’s latest.

Note to readers:  There has been a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine tonight.  The shooter is still at large, Lewiston is on lockdown, at least 20 are dead with many more injured.  Needless to say, I will have more on that later today, but for now not enough is known for me to write about it.  Stay tuned …