Speaker Johnson’s tenure as Speaker of the House hasn’t gone well. And you’d be hard pressed to find a conservative who can tell you how he is any better than the ousted Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.
So far, Johnson’s glorious achievements of late are more warrantless spying on Americans and funding the war in Ukraine. With him in charge, who even needs to worry about the possibility of Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries getting the Speaker job in the near future?
Funding for Ukraine and warrantless spying on Americans gets through the House.
As the House pushed through a massive foreign aid bill which funds Ukraine, Speaker Johnson’s leadership faced scrutiny for its handling of both the funding allocation and the FISA surveillance legislation.
The recent passage of a funding bill earmarking $61 billion for Ukraine’s defense efforts garnered significant attention and criticism among conservatives. Amidst mounting pressure and internal discord within his own party, Speaker Johnson still forged ahead, navigating a contentious political landscape to secure support for the aid package with the help of his Democrat friends.
Another significant piece of legislation went through as well: the extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Section 702 permits warrantless surveillance of foreigners abroad, raising concerns about potential infringements on privacy rights and the sweeping up of information on American citizens. It’s how the Democrats spied on Trump and it’s what they will continue to use to spy on their political enemies (us).
Despite calls for reform and amendments that would have added a warrant requirement, it was rejected in the House and the FISA extension passed through the Senate with little fanfare.
Speaker Johnson hasn’t figured out a way to herd the cats.
Speaker Johnson’s role in stifling meaningful reform efforts within the Republican conference on these and other important matters underscores a disconnect between legislative priorities and public interests – and highlights Speaker Johnson’s perceived alignment with the status quo.
Sure, not everything isn’t Johnson’s fault. He can’t force Republicans to vote a certain way. We continue to have a bunch of weak and spineless RINO-types in the House who won’t serve the constituents who voted for them.
However, we need an actual leader – someone who can organize the RINOS and conservatives together to act as a unified front against tyranny – someone who can explain that we have 1/3 of the
government with the House of Representatives – even though it’s a very limited one-vote majority soon. Someone who will get the Republicans to actually USE that power. Because right now, it’s just a chamber that does little except for the the bidding of the Democrat Party.
In fact, the Democrats are all over the media right now praising Johnson and giving him accolades for pushing back against his own party to get things done.
A better leader is out there.
Johnson’s ineptness should lead to him being booted. And soon. Speaker Johnson’s leadership falls short of what we need with his inability to address crucial concerns surrounding anything that Republican voters want done.
If the House could get their crap together (and that’s doubtful), they could unify behind a decent conservative candidate. The one who should have got the job the last time – Florida Rep. Byron Donalds.
Johnson breaks Hastert Rule to get Ukraine bill passed.
Rep. Donalds criticized Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recently for disregarding the Hastert Rule in his handling of the Ukraine bill. The rule is intended to prevent a GOP speaker from working with Democrats to pass legislation.
Working with Democrats to pass legislation…Can you imagine having an actual Republican legislative body who would actually REFUSE to work with the Democrat party and push back against them?! That would be a nice change of pace.
45-year-old Donalds said, “It shouldn’t even be this way because there was a time and opportunity to put different packages together, and that time wasn’t taken. We got to do better and get this thing back together.”
Amen.
Johnson was in the running for the Speaker job the last time but was beaten by Johnson [1]. That was obviously a mistake.