Constanze Stelzenmüller & Financial Times reporters Lauren Fedor & James Politi, on the Mike Johnson Political Moment, as it devolves into Yesterdays News!
Political Observer on the the unhappy marriage of Politics & Theology!
Don’t relax, Europe — the US hard right isn’t finished yet
Ultraconservative Americans have views about the old continent that would dismay most Europeans
Constanze Stelzenmüller
https://www.ft.com/content/a9e85226-0946-4b09-b755-6b44d885c677
At the weekend, Congress finally unblocked the $61bn Ukraine aid bill, and sighs of relief were heard across European capitals, where anxious policymakers had for months been reading up on arcane details of congressional procedure. But they should not relax just yet. And not just because those dollars still have to be transformed into weapons and a path to victory for Ukraine on the battlefield.This remarkable vote was accomplished via an intelligence-assisted Pauline conversion in House Speaker Mike Johnson, a determined push by less than half the Republican caucus and support across the aisle from almost the entire Democratic side of the House. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumptive presidential candidate, was distracted by his legal entanglements.
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Inside House Speaker Mike Johnson’s conversion on aid for Ukraine
Breakthrough move to hold vote followed campaign by evangelical Christians and intelligence chiefs
By Lauren Fedor and James Politi
https://www.ft.com/content/842cd90e-ca83-48e3-af8e-1f086d223db
In the last week of February, a large billboard appeared across the street from Mike Johnson’s home church in Benton, Louisiana.
“For such a time as this,” it read, quoting a Bible verse alongside an image of a damaged Baptist church in Berdyansk, Ukraine. It addressed Johnson by name.
The advertisement was paid for by Razom, a Ukrainian human rights group, and appealed to Johnson’s deep Christian faith — and his power as Speaker of the House of Representatives to secure billions of dollars in US funding for Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The campaign paid off last week, when Johnson shocked Washington and US allies around the world by allowing the House to vote for that aid, unblocking $95bn in funds for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The Senate also passed the package on Tuesday night, allowing President Joe Biden to sign it into law on Wednesday. The Pentagon immediately announced $1bn in weaponry from US military stockpiles would be sent immediately — crucial support just as Russian forces threaten to overwhelm Ukrainian defences.
It marks a huge U-turn for Johnson, who had previously voted repeatedly against Ukraine aid, and for months used his power as Speaker to block a vote on new support. And it culminates a months-long, behind-the-scenes campaign by intelligence chiefs, White House officials, European diplomats and evangelical Christians from Ukraine to persuade him.
People close to Johnson insist that he has long been sympathetic to the Ukrainian people’s plight and spent recent months trying to find a way forward to satisfy feuding factions within the Republican party, including isolationists who have threatened to oust him over his support for Ukraine.“He has never had a lack of clarity about who is right and wrong in this conflict,” said one person close to Johnson.
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Notice how both these ‘news stories’, commentaries are framed by vulgarized Theology. Also note that the Lauren Fedor & James Politi essay relies on gossip: ‘said one person close to Johnson.’
Political Observer
P.S. I have deliberately fore-shortened these political interventions ! The Reader is most capable, of reading for herself this ‘political reporting’ and come the her own conclusions!
‘'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary