Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
For all intent & purpose, this is the government shutdown that the GOP Democrats want; this is the chaos and ineffective government that the GOP Democrats clearly want while *checks notes* a Democrat is in the White House.
F'ng Dems. We all better vote GOP next year so this GOP Democrat induced chaos doesn't happen again.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Matt Gaetz to Steve Bannon: "If you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention."
Good stuff.
Mods should merge this w/ the US Extremist thread. It seems redundant having separate threads at this point.
According to Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) office, Johnson drafted a summary of the “7 Core Principles of Conservatism” in 2018 that was intended to “help anchor the work of the Republican Study Committee.”
Those seven principles included the following: individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets and human dignity.
“Because all men are created equal and in the image of God, every human life has inestimable dignity and value, and every person should be measured only by the content of their character,” the section on human dignity states. “A just government protects life, honors marriage and family as the primary institutions of a healthy society, and embraces the vital cultural influences of religion and morality.”
The wording of one section in particular somewhat belies his extremely conservative stances on issues like same-sex marriage and gender identity. As a Louisiana state lawmaker, Johnson introduced legislation that would have allowed the state’s churches and clergy members to deny same-sex marriages.
Last year, Johnson introduced legislation — modeled after Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill — that would have prohibited discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as related subjects, at any institution that received federal funds. The Human Rights Campaign, a pro-LGBTQ civil rights organization, gave Johnson a score of 0 in its latest congressional scorecard.
Johnson is a close ally of former president Donald Trump, having served on the former president’s legal defense team during his two impeachment trials in the Senate. Johnson opposed certifying the results of the 2020 election and has minimized the federal charges against Trump — despite stating in his “7 core principles” that the rule of law is the foundation of the United States.
“To maintain ordered liberty and a civilized society, public and private virtue should be encouraged and justice must be administered equally and impartially to all,” Johnson wrote then.
Oh, it’s a feature all right. Suckers. And if you’re going to go off-grid, you can’t rely on coal. Who woulda thunk it?
This Fox News host gives climate skeptics airtime but went solar at home
Bret Baier has come under fire for amplifying the voices of climate change doubters and renewable energy critics. But parts of his D.C. mansion are covered in solar arrays.
When Fox News host Bret Baier listed his D.C. mansion for an eye-popping $31.9 million last week, some eagle-eyed observers noticed a surprising feature: Dozens of solar panels covered parts of the roof.
The listing agent, Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, confirmed to The Washington Post that 86 solar panels were installed last year on a portion of the 16,250-square-foot French chateau-style home. This comes as Baier — who hosts the highest-rated cable news program in its time slot — has used his platform to amplify criticism of action on climate change, including the adoption of solar and other clean energy sources.
Some prominent conservatives — including Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine — have also privately embraced solar while pushing back against climate initiatives aimed at speeding the transition away from fossil fuels.
Despite their climate stances, all three men appear to have accepted a market reality: Solar panels increasingly make economic sense, especially for those who can afford the upfront costs. Although the average solar system costs between $4,600 and $16,000, the technology can help households save money on their energy bills in the long term. For the average homeowner in the nation’s capital, the panels pay for themselves in less than five years, according to the renewable energy marketplace EnergySage.
“Solar panels are a good investment in much of the U.S., regardless of politics,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at the energy research firm BloombergNEF. She said the clean-energy tax credits in President Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, make solar even more attractive across the country.
It’s unclear whether Baier claimed the subsidies, unlike in the case of Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who used the credits to buy 30 solar panels after voting against the climate law. A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to attempts to seek comment from Baier.
Baier, whose home sale would be the most expensive in D.C. history if it fetches the listing price, hosts a news show on Fox, and therefore approaches political stories with more balance than the network’s well-known opinion programming. Yet Baier’s show, “Special Report,” has consistently misled the public about climate change, according to a 2021 analysis by Media Matters, a left-leaning watchdog group. From 2009 to 2021, nearly 88 percent of the show’s climate segments either spread misinformation or perpetuated false or misleading narratives about global warming, the report found.
For instance, Baier has featured the views of Marc Morano, a prominent climate change skeptic, at least 10 times. Morano said on “Special Report” in 2019 that a major U.N. report on nearly 1 million species facing extinction was about “politics, not science.”
“The climate denial of the opinion hosts is more overt because it’s coming straight from their mouths,” said Allison Fisher, director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters. “But I think what Bret Baier is doing is more insidious because he’s inviting other people on [his show] to either deny or downplay climate change or challenge the efficacy of solutions.”
More recently, in a December 2022 episode of his podcast, Baier hosted Reps. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) for a conversation about energy policy. Johnson called for America to boost its exports of natural gas, incorrectly asserting that this would benefit the climate more than widespread adoption of solar panels and other green technologies.
“If we were to simply export four times as much natural gas as we are today ... it would have more of a carbon-emission-reducing effect than if we were to electrify every passenger vehicle in America, put a solar panel and battery backup on every home in America, and build 54,000 industrial-strength windmills all combined,” Johnson said.
Asked about his assertion, Johnson said he stands by it, noting that U.S. natural gas can be cleaner than gas produced in other countries. “The far-left environmental lobby can say whatever they wish, but it doesn’t make it true,” he said in an emailed statement.
Baier has given some airtime to advocates of climate action. In 2019, he hosted a conversation with Solar Energy Industries Association CEO Abigail Ross Hopper, who said the future of solar looked “bright.”In 2020, he co-hosted a town hall with liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who said that “climate change is an existential threat to this planet.” And in August, Baier co-moderated a Republican presidential debate where the candidates were asked whether human activity was contributing to climate change. (The overwhelming majority of scientists agree the answer is yes, but few of the candidates gave a straight answer.)
Mike Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, which includes solar companies with U.S. operations, said he was not surprised to learn that Baier had installed solar panels. He noted that Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, required employees to get coronavirus vaccines or submit to daily testing in 2021, even as several hosts criticized such vaccine mandates.
“I mean, they were all vaccinated. I would bet it’s a very high percentage of people there who have solar on their rooftops,” Carr said of Fox.
Massie, the Kentucky congressman, has been described as “one of the GOP’s most dedicated critics of liberal climate plans.” Even so, helives in an off-the-grid home powered by solar panels and a Tesla Model S battery pack, which together produce all the electricity his family needs to run a cattle farm. At the same time, he drives a Tesla with a Kentucky license plate that reads “Friends of coal” and “Coal keeps the lights on!”
For the idiosyncratic lawmaker, solar panels are less about fighting climate change than about promoting a Jeffersonian ideal of rugged self-reliance.
“If Thomas Jefferson could have had solar panels at Monticello, he’d have had solar panels,” Massie toldthe libertarian economist and podcaster Matt Kibbe in 2019. “The less you have to go to the store and buy, the less dependent you are on Walmart — it’s not just that you’re greener, but you’re more independent.”
Massie’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
DeWine, the Ohio governor, had solar panels installed on the carriage house at the governor’s residence last year, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. The new panels replaced an aging solar array and battery backup system installed in 2004, and the nonprofit group Green Energy Ohio helped pay for the installation using a $50,000 grant from the American Electric Power Foundation.
Since taking office in 2019, DeWine has promoted an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that calls for continued use of both fossil fuels and renewable energy. In January, he signed a bill that redefined natural gas as a source of “green energy” and promoted fracking in state parks, prompting outrage from environmentalists.
“Businesses and individual homeowners should look at whether installing solar panels is the right choice for them,” Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio governor, said in an interview. “It certainly has the potential to reduce energy bills.”
But, he added, “we are not in a position in Ohio to go 100 percent renewables. We have more energy needs than the current technology can meet. But we’ll see where we are in five, seven years.”
For all intent & purpose, this is the government shutdown that the GOP Democrats want; this is the chaos and ineffective government that the GOP Democrats clearly want while *checks notes* a Democrat is in the White House.
F'ng Dems. We all better vote GOP next year so this GOP Democrat induced chaos doesn't happen again.
Haha!
Clearly it the GOP Democrats who are chaos crazy!
Seriously though, it's got to be massively frustrating to sit across the isle from the GOP madness. I would have eye strain from rolling my eyes all day long.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
For all intent & purpose, this is the government shutdown that the GOP Democrats want; this is the chaos and ineffective government that the GOP Democrats clearly want while *checks notes* a Democrat is in the White House.
F'ng Dems. We all better vote GOP next year so this GOP Democrat induced chaos doesn't happen again.
Haha!
Clearly it the GOP Democrats who are chaos crazy!
Seriously though, it's got to be massively frustrating to sit across the isle from the GOP madness. I would have eye strain from rolling my eyes all day long.
Particularly if you were on Maui and they were on Hawai’i.
Mike Johnson of Louisiana reported to be voted Speaker of the House.
Wait, you mean even without 1 democrat voting for him, the Republicans were able to elect a speaker of the house? No way! Sounds like malarkey. Good thing Republicans finally found a way to get something done all while democrats obstructed at every turn.
Except that was an impeachment trial where a majority of the 2/3rds required jury were fellow cult members. That trolling only plays well to the deplorable base who don’t understand the criminal justice system process or the civil court justice system process.
Congratulations on having a house speaker acting like he’s trying to intimidate his 7th grade debate club opponents. I look forward to watching him crash and burn.
‘I’ve prayed for each of you': How Mike Johnson led a campaign of election denial
The new speaker, an unsung enabler of Trump’s last-ditch effort, privately urged his colleagues to oppose the election results the day before the attack on the Capitol.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) departs a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 25, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
One day before a mob bludgeoned its way into the Capitol, Rep. Mike Johnson huddled with colleagues in a closed-door meeting about Congress’ task on Jan. 6, 2021.
A relatively junior House Republican at the time, Johnson was nevertheless the leading voice in support of a fateful position: that the GOP should rally around Donald Trump and object to counting electoral votes submitted by at least a handful of states won by Joe Biden.
“This is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I know I’ve prayed for each of you individually,” Johnson said at the meeting, according to a record of his comments obtained by POLITICO, before urging his fellow Republicans to join him in opposing the results.
A review of the chaotic weeks between Trump’s defeat at the polls on Nov. 3, 2020, and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack shows that Johnson led the way in shaping legal arguments that became gospel among GOP lawmakers who sought to derail Biden’s path to the White House — even after all but the most extreme options had elapsed.
As Trump’s legal challenges faltered, Johnson consistently spread a singular message: It’s not over yet. And when Texas filed a last-ditch lawsuit against four states on Dec. 8, 2020, seeking to invalidate their presidential election results and throw out millions of ballots, Johnson quickly revealed he would be helming an effort to support it with a brief signed by members of Congress.
Throughout that period, Johnson was routinely in touch with Trump, even more so than many of his more recognizable colleagues.
Some of Johnson’s vocal opponents at the Jan. 5, 2021, closed-door meeting were Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who warned Johnson’s plan would lead to a constitutional and political catastrophe.
“Let us not turn the last firewall for liberty we have remaining on its head in a bit of populist rage for political expediency,” Roy said at the time, according to the record.
Nearly three years later, on Wednesday afternoon, Roy and Bacon cast two of the unanimous House GOP votes to make Johnson the next speaker.
Johnson declined to comment Wednesday when asked about his involvement in events leading up to Jan. 6, telling reporters that “we will talk about all these things in detail” and added: “I’ve covered it many times over the last couple of years.” After his election as speaker, Johnson also did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about the 2020 election.
Johnson’s rise to the speakership in some ways shows that colleagues like Roy, Bacon and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) — who sharply rejected Johnson’s arguments at the time — have made peace with Johnson’s role in the election-objection effort and the national reckoning that has ensued.
Buck opposed two other candidates for speaker, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in part because they had refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, but he made an exception for Johnson.
Buck told reporters Wednesday that Johnson’s “amicus brief is fundamentally different than trying to overturn something on the floor.” Going through the courts was “absolutely appropriate,” according to Buck, who noted that “most of the conference voted to decertify the election.”
Buck didn’t acknowledge Johnson’s role in advocating for the objections in the conference, including during the impassioned Jan. 5 conference meeting.
Until Johnson’s unlikely bid for the speakership, his involvement in Trump’s bid to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election had largely avoided attention, overshadowed by his more visible colleagues — like Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Jordan — who more actively strategized with the outgoing president. Johnson wasn’t among the six Republican lawmakers subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 select committee, and he earned just one passing mention in its final report.
But a review of his closed-door comments and public statements at the time reveal the newly elected speaker as a ubiquitous contact for Trump at key moments, within days of the former president’s defeat at the polls and throughout his increasingly desperate effort to subvert the 2020 election.
‘Back in business’: Mike Johnson gives remarks before swearing in
Share
Play Video
‘President Trump called me’
“I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system,’” Johnson tweeted on Nov. 7, 2020, the day pollsters and media outlets largely called the race for Biden.
A day later, Johnson and Trump spoke again. “President Trump called me last night.” Johnson tweeted on Nov. 9, “and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted.”
In aninterview that daywith Lafayette, La.-based host Moon Griffon, Johnson expanded on his call with Trump and made clear that they already had their eye on a Supreme Court showdown over the election that wouldn’t materialize for another four weeks. Trump, he said, relayed that he was encouraged by Justice Samuel Alito’s order for Pennsylvania to segregate late-arriving absentee ballots in case they were ultimately disqualified as invalid.
“That’s a good sign,” Johnson said at the time. “I think there’s at least five justices on the court that will do the right thing.”
Johnson appeared intimately familiar with Trump and his campaign’s legal strategy, predicting the filing of at least 10 lawsuits in the coming days. The lawmaker added hopes that one of them wound up on a “rocket docket” to the high court. He revealed that his views on election fraud were in many ways shaped by the 1996 Senate race between Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican Woody Jenkins.
“I was a young pup law student at the time, but I was kind of carrying around everyone’s briefcases trying to help,” Johnson said, adding that despite evidence of fraud, Senate Democrats “buried it all.”
By Nov. 17, 2020, Johnson told two Louisiana radio hosts that the election was not over — and that Trump didn’t think so either. “I don’t concede anything,” he said. “I’ve talked to the president in the last few days, and he is still dug in on this.”
Amplifying Dominion falsehoods
Johnson then ran through a litany of allegations of election law changes in key states that he said were unconstitutional — and then he lent credence to a discredited claim of election fraud: “The allegation about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with the software by Dominion — look, there’s a lot of merit to that.”
In the same interview, Johnson — who as speaker will be privy to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence secrets — returned to the Dominion matter. He embraced the false description of Dominion machines as “a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.”
When the hosts pressed Johnson on Trump’s losses in court, the Louisianan noted that there were still a dozen suits pending but it was an “uphill climb.” Later that day, House Republicans elected Johnson as the vice chair of the GOP conference.
When Johnson joined the effort to support Texas’ fight at the Supreme Court, he said Trump had been in touch with him yet again.
“President Trump called me this morning to let me know how much he appreciates the amicus brief we are filing on behalf of Members of Congress,” Johnson tweeted the next day.
His effort, which garnered 126 signatures including that of then-GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, was the first signal that more than half of the Republican conference was prepared to toss the election results. It tracked closely with the approximately 140 members who supported challenges to the results on the floor of Congress on Jan. 6, both before the mob attack and after the riot.
When the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to reject Texas’ lawsuit, contending that the state lacked standing to sue over the issue, Johnson repeatedly expressed his dismay. But he returned to his refrain.
“No one knows yet how this will play out,” Johnson said in a Dec. 14 radio interview the morning of the Electoral College vote. He noted that Congress still had the last word on whether to accept Biden’s electors on Jan. 6, 2021.
'I googled him': What Mike Johnson's colleagues know about their new speaker
Share
Play Video
The effect on his speakership
Despite Johnson and his allies’ reticence to discuss the issue, it was among the first things on Democrats’ minds when asked Wednesday morning about the Johnson speakership.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former member of the select panel investigating the Capitol attack, quipped that Johnson was an “insurrectionist esquire.”
“His arguments are obviously more sophisticated than those of Donald Trump, but it’s the same essential authoritarianism,” he said.
Another former Jan. 6 panel member, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), said Johnson wasn’t as much of an “existential threat” to democracy, in his view, as Jordan — but argued that Johnson had given GOP lawmakers a “safe place.”
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, the day after Johnson’s contentious remarks at the conference meeting, he led a statement with 36 colleagues, defending their decision to lodge objections to electoral votes from multiple states.
“Our extraordinary republic has endured for nearly two and a half centuries based on the consent of the governed,” he wrote. “That consent is grounded in the confidence of our people in the legitimacy of our institutions of government. Among our most fundamental institutions is the system of free and fair elections we rely upon, and any erosion in that foundation jeopardizes the stability of our republic.”
Comments
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
G.O.P. Nominates Mike Johnson for Speaker After Spurning Tom Emmer
For all intent & purpose, this is the government shutdown that the GOP Democrats want; this is the chaos and ineffective government that the GOP Democrats clearly want while *checks notes* a Democrat is in the White House.
F'ng Dems. We all better vote GOP next year so this GOP Democrat induced chaos doesn't happen again.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
A look at Mike Johnson’s ‘7 core principles of conservatism’
Return to menuAccording to Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) office, Johnson drafted a summary of the “7 Core Principles of Conservatism” in 2018 that was intended to “help anchor the work of the Republican Study Committee.”
Those seven principles included the following: individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets and human dignity.
“Because all men are created equal and in the image of God, every human life has inestimable dignity and value, and every person should be measured only by the content of their character,” the section on human dignity states. “A just government protects life, honors marriage and family as the primary institutions of a healthy society, and embraces the vital cultural influences of religion and morality.”
The wording of one section in particular somewhat belies his extremely conservative stances on issues like same-sex marriage and gender identity. As a Louisiana state lawmaker, Johnson introduced legislation that would have allowed the state’s churches and clergy members to deny same-sex marriages.
Last year, Johnson introduced legislation — modeled after Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill — that would have prohibited discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as related subjects, at any institution that received federal funds. The Human Rights Campaign, a pro-LGBTQ civil rights organization, gave Johnson a score of 0 in its latest congressional scorecard.
Johnson is a close ally of former president Donald Trump, having served on the former president’s legal defense team during his two impeachment trials in the Senate. Johnson opposed certifying the results of the 2020 election and has minimized the federal charges against Trump — despite stating in his “7 core principles” that the rule of law is the foundation of the United States.
“To maintain ordered liberty and a civilized society, public and private virtue should be encouraged and justice must be administered equally and impartially to all,” Johnson wrote then.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
This Fox News host gives climate skeptics airtime but went solar at home
Bret Baier has come under fire for amplifying the voices of climate change doubters and renewable energy critics. But parts of his D.C. mansion are covered in solar arrays.
“A Fox News guy has solar panels? What does Murdoch think?!” one person wrote on an online forum for D.C. parents, referring to Rupert Murdoch, who launched the Fox media empire and has previously described himself as a “climate change skeptic.”
The listing agent, Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, confirmed to The Washington Post that 86 solar panels were installed last year on a portion of the 16,250-square-foot French chateau-style home. This comes as Baier — who hosts the highest-rated cable news program in its time slot — has used his platform to amplify criticism of action on climate change, including the adoption of solar and other clean energy sources.
Some prominent conservatives — including Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine — have also privately embraced solar while pushing back against climate initiatives aimed at speeding the transition away from fossil fuels.
Despite their climate stances, all three men appear to have accepted a market reality: Solar panels increasingly make economic sense, especially for those who can afford the upfront costs. Although the average solar system costs between $4,600 and $16,000, the technology can help households save money on their energy bills in the long term. For the average homeowner in the nation’s capital, the panels pay for themselves in less than five years, according to the renewable energy marketplace EnergySage.
“Solar panels are a good investment in much of the U.S., regardless of politics,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at the energy research firm BloombergNEF. She said the clean-energy tax credits in President Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, make solar even more attractive across the country.
It’s unclear whether Baier claimed the subsidies, unlike in the case of Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who used the credits to buy 30 solar panels after voting against the climate law. A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to attempts to seek comment from Baier.
Baier, whose home sale would be the most expensive in D.C. history if it fetches the listing price, hosts a news show on Fox, and therefore approaches political stories with more balance than the network’s well-known opinion programming. Yet Baier’s show, “Special Report,” has consistently misled the public about climate change, according to a 2021 analysis by Media Matters, a left-leaning watchdog group. From 2009 to 2021, nearly 88 percent of the show’s climate segments either spread misinformation or perpetuated false or misleading narratives about global warming, the report found.
For instance, Baier has featured the views of Marc Morano, a prominent climate change skeptic, at least 10 times. Morano said on “Special Report” in 2019 that a major U.N. report on nearly 1 million species facing extinction was about “politics, not science.”
“The climate denial of the opinion hosts is more overt because it’s coming straight from their mouths,” said Allison Fisher, director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters. “But I think what Bret Baier is doing is more insidious because he’s inviting other people on [his show] to either deny or downplay climate change or challenge the efficacy of solutions.”
More recently, in a December 2022 episode of his podcast, Baier hosted Reps. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) for a conversation about energy policy. Johnson called for America to boost its exports of natural gas, incorrectly asserting that this would benefit the climate more than widespread adoption of solar panels and other green technologies.
“If we were to simply export four times as much natural gas as we are today ... it would have more of a carbon-emission-reducing effect than if we were to electrify every passenger vehicle in America, put a solar panel and battery backup on every home in America, and build 54,000 industrial-strength windmills all combined,” Johnson said.
Asked about his assertion, Johnson said he stands by it, noting that U.S. natural gas can be cleaner than gas produced in other countries. “The far-left environmental lobby can say whatever they wish, but it doesn’t make it true,” he said in an emailed statement.
Baier has given some airtime to advocates of climate action. In 2019, he hosted a conversation with Solar Energy Industries Association CEO Abigail Ross Hopper, who said the future of solar looked “bright.”In 2020, he co-hosted a town hall with liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who said that “climate change is an existential threat to this planet.” And in August, Baier co-moderated a Republican presidential debate where the candidates were asked whether human activity was contributing to climate change. (The overwhelming majority of scientists agree the answer is yes, but few of the candidates gave a straight answer.)
Mike Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, which includes solar companies with U.S. operations, said he was not surprised to learn that Baier had installed solar panels. He noted that Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, required employees to get coronavirus vaccines or submit to daily testing in 2021, even as several hosts criticized such vaccine mandates.
“I mean, they were all vaccinated. I would bet it’s a very high percentage of people there who have solar on their rooftops,” Carr said of Fox.
Massie, the Kentucky congressman, has been described as “one of the GOP’s most dedicated critics of liberal climate plans.” Even so, helives in an off-the-grid home powered by solar panels and a Tesla Model S battery pack, which together produce all the electricity his family needs to run a cattle farm. At the same time, he drives a Tesla with a Kentucky license plate that reads “Friends of coal” and “Coal keeps the lights on!”
For the idiosyncratic lawmaker, solar panels are less about fighting climate change than about promoting a Jeffersonian ideal of rugged self-reliance.
“If Thomas Jefferson could have had solar panels at Monticello, he’d have had solar panels,” Massie toldthe libertarian economist and podcaster Matt Kibbe in 2019. “The less you have to go to the store and buy, the less dependent you are on Walmart — it’s not just that you’re greener, but you’re more independent.”
Massie’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
DeWine, the Ohio governor, had solar panels installed on the carriage house at the governor’s residence last year, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. The new panels replaced an aging solar array and battery backup system installed in 2004, and the nonprofit group Green Energy Ohio helped pay for the installation using a $50,000 grant from the American Electric Power Foundation.
Since taking office in 2019, DeWine has promoted an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that calls for continued use of both fossil fuels and renewable energy. In January, he signed a bill that redefined natural gas as a source of “green energy” and promoted fracking in state parks, prompting outrage from environmentalists.
“Businesses and individual homeowners should look at whether installing solar panels is the right choice for them,” Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio governor, said in an interview. “It certainly has the potential to reduce energy bills.”
But, he added, “we are not in a position in Ohio to go 100 percent renewables. We have more energy needs than the current technology can meet. But we’ll see where we are in five, seven years.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/10/25/bret-baier-solar-power-home-fox-news/
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Yes, like cattle... or insects. Make women produce worker bees! And keep them barefoot and in the kitchen!
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
jesus christ, he is worse than mccarthy.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Congratulations on having a house speaker acting like he’s trying to intimidate his 7th grade debate club opponents. I look forward to watching him crash and burn.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/25/mike-johnson-trump-election-gambit-00123611
‘I’ve prayed for each of you': How Mike Johnson led a campaign of election denial
The new speaker, an unsung enabler of Trump’s last-ditch effort, privately urged his colleagues to oppose the election results the day before the attack on the Capitol.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) departs a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 25, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
By KYLE CHENEY and NICHOLAS WU
10/25/2023 06:01 PM EDT
One day before a mob bludgeoned its way into the Capitol, Rep. Mike Johnson huddled with colleagues in a closed-door meeting about Congress’ task on Jan. 6, 2021.
A relatively junior House Republican at the time, Johnson was nevertheless the leading voice in support of a fateful position: that the GOP should rally around Donald Trump and object to counting electoral votes submitted by at least a handful of states won by Joe Biden.
“This is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I know I’ve prayed for each of you individually,” Johnson said at the meeting, according to a record of his comments obtained by POLITICO, before urging his fellow Republicans to join him in opposing the results.
A review of the chaotic weeks between Trump’s defeat at the polls on Nov. 3, 2020, and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack shows that Johnson led the way in shaping legal arguments that became gospel among GOP lawmakers who sought to derail Biden’s path to the White House — even after all but the most extreme options had elapsed.
As Trump’s legal challenges faltered, Johnson consistently spread a singular message: It’s not over yet. And when Texas filed a last-ditch lawsuit against four states on Dec. 8, 2020, seeking to invalidate their presidential election results and throw out millions of ballots, Johnson quickly revealed he would be helming an effort to support it with a brief signed by members of Congress.
Throughout that period, Johnson was routinely in touch with Trump, even more so than many of his more recognizable colleagues.
Some of Johnson’s vocal opponents at the Jan. 5, 2021, closed-door meeting were Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who warned Johnson’s plan would lead to a constitutional and political catastrophe.
“Let us not turn the last firewall for liberty we have remaining on its head in a bit of populist rage for political expediency,” Roy said at the time, according to the record.
Nearly three years later, on Wednesday afternoon, Roy and Bacon cast two of the unanimous House GOP votes to make Johnson the next speaker.
Johnson declined to comment Wednesday when asked about his involvement in events leading up to Jan. 6, telling reporters that “we will talk about all these things in detail” and added: “I’ve covered it many times over the last couple of years.” After his election as speaker, Johnson also did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about the 2020 election.
Johnson’s rise to the speakership in some ways shows that colleagues like Roy, Bacon and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) — who sharply rejected Johnson’s arguments at the time — have made peace with Johnson’s role in the election-objection effort and the national reckoning that has ensued.
Buck opposed two other candidates for speaker, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in part because they had refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, but he made an exception for Johnson.
Buck told reporters Wednesday that Johnson’s “amicus brief is fundamentally different than trying to overturn something on the floor.” Going through the courts was “absolutely appropriate,” according to Buck, who noted that “most of the conference voted to decertify the election.”
Buck didn’t acknowledge Johnson’s role in advocating for the objections in the conference, including during the impassioned Jan. 5 conference meeting.
Until Johnson’s unlikely bid for the speakership, his involvement in Trump’s bid to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election had largely avoided attention, overshadowed by his more visible colleagues — like Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Jordan — who more actively strategized with the outgoing president. Johnson wasn’t among the six Republican lawmakers subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 select committee, and he earned just one passing mention in its final report.
But a review of his closed-door comments and public statements at the time reveal the newly elected speaker as a ubiquitous contact for Trump at key moments, within days of the former president’s defeat at the polls and throughout his increasingly desperate effort to subvert the 2020 election.
‘President Trump called me’
“I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system,’” Johnson tweeted on Nov. 7, 2020, the day pollsters and media outlets largely called the race for Biden.
A day later, Johnson and Trump spoke again. “President Trump called me last night.” Johnson tweeted on Nov. 9, “and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted.”
In an interview that day with Lafayette, La.-based host Moon Griffon, Johnson expanded on his call with Trump and made clear that they already had their eye on a Supreme Court showdown over the election that wouldn’t materialize for another four weeks. Trump, he said, relayed that he was encouraged by Justice Samuel Alito’s order for Pennsylvania to segregate late-arriving absentee ballots in case they were ultimately disqualified as invalid.
“That’s a good sign,” Johnson said at the time. “I think there’s at least five justices on the court that will do the right thing.”
Johnson appeared intimately familiar with Trump and his campaign’s legal strategy, predicting the filing of at least 10 lawsuits in the coming days. The lawmaker added hopes that one of them wound up on a “rocket docket” to the high court. He revealed that his views on election fraud were in many ways shaped by the 1996 Senate race between Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican Woody Jenkins.
“I was a young pup law student at the time, but I was kind of carrying around everyone’s briefcases trying to help,” Johnson said, adding that despite evidence of fraud, Senate Democrats “buried it all.”
By Nov. 17, 2020, Johnson told two Louisiana radio hosts that the election was not over — and that Trump didn’t think so either. “I don’t concede anything,” he said. “I’ve talked to the president in the last few days, and he is still dug in on this.”
Amplifying Dominion falsehoods
Johnson then ran through a litany of allegations of election law changes in key states that he said were unconstitutional — and then he lent credence to a discredited claim of election fraud: “The allegation about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with the software by Dominion — look, there’s a lot of merit to that.”
In the same interview, Johnson — who as speaker will be privy to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence secrets — returned to the Dominion matter. He embraced the false description of Dominion machines as “a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.”
When the hosts pressed Johnson on Trump’s losses in court, the Louisianan noted that there were still a dozen suits pending but it was an “uphill climb.” Later that day, House Republicans elected Johnson as the vice chair of the GOP conference.
When Johnson joined the effort to support Texas’ fight at the Supreme Court, he said Trump had been in touch with him yet again.
“President Trump called me this morning to let me know how much he appreciates the amicus brief we are filing on behalf of Members of Congress,” Johnson tweeted the next day.
His effort, which garnered 126 signatures including that of then-GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, was the first signal that more than half of the Republican conference was prepared to toss the election results. It tracked closely with the approximately 140 members who supported challenges to the results on the floor of Congress on Jan. 6, both before the mob attack and after the riot.
When the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to reject Texas’ lawsuit, contending that the state lacked standing to sue over the issue, Johnson repeatedly expressed his dismay. But he returned to his refrain.
“No one knows yet how this will play out,” Johnson said in a Dec. 14 radio interview the morning of the Electoral College vote. He noted that Congress still had the last word on whether to accept Biden’s electors on Jan. 6, 2021.
The effect on his speakership
Despite Johnson and his allies’ reticence to discuss the issue, it was among the first things on Democrats’ minds when asked Wednesday morning about the Johnson speakership.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former member of the select panel investigating the Capitol attack, quipped that Johnson was an “insurrectionist esquire.”
“His arguments are obviously more sophisticated than those of Donald Trump, but it’s the same essential authoritarianism,” he said.
Another former Jan. 6 panel member, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), said Johnson wasn’t as much of an “existential threat” to democracy, in his view, as Jordan — but argued that Johnson had given GOP lawmakers a “safe place.”
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, the day after Johnson’s contentious remarks at the conference meeting, he led a statement with 36 colleagues, defending their decision to lodge objections to electoral votes from multiple states.
“Our extraordinary republic has endured for nearly two and a half centuries based on the consent of the governed,” he wrote. “That consent is grounded in the confidence of our people in the legitimacy of our institutions of government. Among our most fundamental institutions is the system of free and fair elections we rely upon, and any erosion in that foundation jeopardizes the stability of our republic.”