---

Later that same month, the subcommittee held a hearing aimed at promoting Missouri v. Biden, the lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana that challenged the Biden administration’s efforts to work with social media companies to control disinformation.

“The executive branch has undertaken a broad campaign to censor the American people,” Johnson declared. “That’s the headline. That’s the takeaway today.”

Roth, Zachary. ”How U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson helped derail a fight against election lies.” Kansas Reflector, November 27, 2023.

---

While the Biden Administration’s program focused on integrity in the interest of the American People, Johnson and Republican attorneys general chose to hamper the effort in their own partisan interest, an interest that belies a lust for power unbridled by any interest in the bedrock that is truth x context x empirical observation x careful handling, sifting, and weighing of factual data x reasoning with good character and good sense — all of that to fool what they may presume to be their own sheep.

Call the sort of lie Speaker Mike Johnson uttered disingenuous speech or sophistry. Our “executive branch” encouraged honesty and integrity, but Johnson took it as a moment to call it censorship and thereby safeguard disinformation, chicanery, and fraud, which may to Johnson may rank among Christianity’s most fundamental and necessary virtues for they are not so useful to any sustained secular democratic republic. 

Johnson has also touted the Dominion Voting Machine Hoax, i.e., that America’s voting machines were built in Venezuela and rigged against Trump (Trump has another relationship involved with Venezuela, and it’s not rigged against him).

Regarding the baseless assertion that the 2020 national election had been rigged or made fraudulent in some way, Trump lawsuits launched the courts into 62 investigations of the allegation, and all but one were found against Trump–and the one turned out trivial and far from changing the election.

Not all politicians lie so brazenly to their constituencies–and for the privileges of power itself, no less. Today’s Grand Old Party has stained itself with its abandonment of the Constitution, honor worth the recognition, and general integrity. Speaker Mike Johnson has only led the cowardly and seditious charge and been booted into place potentially to fully subvert the 2024 election.

How to Lie Like A Speaker (Representing the Devil)

For those daring to cross over to the forever burnt side of history, here is a smorgasbord of methods known to delusional or practiced liars: baseless accusations; defamations; deflections of responsibility; denials of culpability; erasures, omissions, and revisions in the telling of events; fabrications and frame-ups; fishing expeditions; libels and slanders.

For criminals, there are more potent forms of foul speech in the abuse of the law: conspiracy to commit crime and incitement to violence are two. Speech intended to defraud is another. Trump himself appears to own a special collection of tools with his finesse in vocalized or otherwise signaled coercion and intimidation–or marching orders. He has, after all, developed a reputation as a highly motivational speaker.

At the moment, the House has embarked on a programmatic impeachment of the incumbent President Biden and has done so without a single affirmed assertion or charge. 

For his part, Mike Johnson has recently approved a thing most precious to our reactionary Republicans, i.e., a Fishing Expedition under the facade of democracy.

---

The US House of Representatives has voted to formally open an impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden, moving forward a process that has been promised by Republican leaders since they regained control of the lower chamber in midterm elections in 2022. / Although no evidence has been produced, Republicans have accused Biden and his family of personally profiting from his position while vice-president under Barack Obama.

Yerushalmy, Jonathan. ”Biden impeachment inquiry explained: what is happening and could the president be convicted? The US House of Representatives has voted to formally open an impeachment inquiry into Biden–without any evidence he has committed wrongdoing.” The Guardian, December 14, 2023.

---

Related Online

Anderson, Lisa Marie. ”Speech in a Low Dishonest Decade.” The Wilson Quarterly. Winter 2020.

Biden, Joe. ”Statement from President Joe Biden on Baseless House Republican Impeachment Stunt.” White House, December 13, 2023.

Baragona, Justin. ”Mike Johnson Just Hired the Perfect Flack to Push More Election Lies.” Daily Beast, November 1, 2023.

Broadwater, Luke, Steve Eder. ”Johnson Played Leading Role in Effort to Overturn 2020 Election.” The New York Times, October 25, 2023.

Cheney, Liz. Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. Little, Brown and Company, 2023.

CNN Facts First. ”Does the Dominion Voting Systems organization have ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, George Soros, and the Clinton Foundation?” n.d.

Colbert, Stephen. ”Republicans Have No Evidence to Impeach Biden | MAGA-Approved Anti-Woke Coffees.” Video, YouTube, December 14, 2023.

Cummings, William, Joey Garrison, Jim Sergent. ”By the numbers: President Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the election.” USA Today, January 6, 2021.

Basu, Zachary. ”MAGA movement gets its speaker.” Axios. October 25, 2023.

Cancryn, Adam, Jennifer Haberkorn. ”Mike Johnson pushed the ‘Big Lie’. But Biden world sees thornier issues ahead.” Politico, October 26, 2023.

Cheney, Kyle, Nicholas Wu. ”‘I’ve prayed for each of you’: How Mike Johnson led a campaign of election denial.” Politico, October 25, 2023.

French, David. ”‘MAGA Mike Johnson’ and Our Broken Christian Politics.” The New York Times, November 5, 2023.

Glasser, Susan B., Jane Mayer, Evan Osnos. ”Mike Johnson and the Power of the Big Lie.” The New Yorker, October 27, 2023: Podcast. “You have to lie about the election to rise in power if you’re a Republican in the House,” the staff writer Jane Mayer says, “but when you face potential sentencing in a court yourself, the truth finally comes out.”

Manderson, Nathaniel. ”Mike Johnson claims to hate the devil. Maybe he should look in the mirror.” Salon, December 3, 2023.

Marcotte, Amanda. ”Mike Johnson’s Satanic panic: How evangelical delusions trained Republicans to love Trump lies.” Salon, October 31, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. ”Trump and the Question of Insurrection.” BackChannels, January 9, 2021.

Roth, Zachary. ”How U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson helped derail a fight against election lies.” Kansas Reflector, November 27, 2023.

Warburton, Moira and Katharine Jackson. ”Biden impeachment inquiry authorized by House Republicans, despite lack of evidence.” Reuters, December 13, 2023.

Wilson, Rainn. ”The metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from a humble servant of the abject poor . . . .” X, August 3, 2019.

Whitehead, Andrew, Samuel L. Perry. ”The Christian Nationalism of Speaker Mike Johnson.” Time, October 27, 2023.

Yerushalmy, Jonathan. ”Biden impeachment inquiry explained: what is happening and could the president be convicted? The US House of Representatives has voted to formally open an impeachment inquiry into Biden–without any evidence he has committed wrongdoing.” The Guardian, December 14, 2023.

---

Speaker Mike Johnson Commits the Sin of Omission

###