8 Days To Shutdown. Johnson Heads To Paris For Three Days!

That’s right folks. New House Speaker Mike Johnson who says he’s got a plan but he doesn’t want to show it to anyone yet (channeling Trump?) gaveled the House into a three day recess. So he can be in Paris tonight to give a “bigly” speech at a kind of global RWNJ/Fascist gathering. And rub elbows with others from the U.S. (Kristi Noem and not her hubby but paramour Corey Lewandowski for example) and others who envision their own brands of fascism and/or right-wing batshiite crazy insanity.

According to Alternet quite the gang will be there in attendance at the Worldwide Freedom Initiative’s (WFI) conference. Oh those RWNJ types with their misleading names! Freedom? I don’t think that’s at all what they have in mind. Or maybe they’re confused:

In any case it will as I said be quite the gathering there with Johnson “representing” the U.S. In addition to the already mentioned Noem and Lewandowski there will be a spokeswoman from Moms For Liberty who as I wrote a couple of days ago suffered massive humiliation at the polls Tuesday. I wonder how many others can afford to join her to be among friendly (to bigoted fascists) faces. Oh, and an appearance by Devin Nunes is being teased and former Trump campaign manager David Bossie too. Well, that’s just the dregs from our own country.  The linked article notes it is after all an international affair:

Johnson will also be joined at the conference by various international far-right activists, including Brexit architect Nigel Farage, French politician Eric Zemmour — who has defended the Nazi Party’s French collaborators — and Balázs Orbán, who serves as political director to extremist Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán (no relation).

I haven’t gotten to the worst part which sadly is about Speaker Johnson. He’s the freaking Keynote Speaker at this despicable gathering! And, he’s not catching a red-eye back home. Oh hell no. He’s going to hang out for a couple more days. What’s dealing with an impending government shutdown right before the holidays which could well trigger a recession that will impact other countries too when he can mingle with his fellow religious fanatics who share his dreams of fascism?  We’ve got some impressive people on our side of the aisle and one of them summed it up perfectly:

“We are just 8 days away from a devastating government shutdown — and instead of working in a bipartisan way to keep the government open, Speaker Johnson sent Congress home early for the weekend,” tweeted Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia). “This is completely unacceptable.”

I hope, or perhaps more accurately fantasize there’s a method to Johnson’s madness. Let’s face it, no matter what he’s probably going to meet the same fate as McCarthy. For a guy who’s bank account doesn’t carry a high enough balance to have triggered the reporting threshold on his required Financial Disclosures maybe he’s looking to parlay his “measured in Scaramuccis” Speakership into something lucrative. Lots of kids yet to put through college. In my fantasy he’ll come back and do what McCarthy did – cut a deal, in this case a CR that will take us past next year’s election and into Jan. 2025. With few poison pills, or more bluntly one Democrats can live with and enough that his fifty or so members in competitive districts can vote for. He’ll get axed like McCarthy did of course. But he’s making connections at his conference and he DOES have a legal background and some disgusting but solid credentials for pushing the kind of agenda the WFI wants.

That as I say is almost certainly fantasy. However, with the clock ticking down by the end of next week the govt. is going to shut down unless something gets worked out. And one of the most important people in getting something done has checked out for a three day trip to Paris. To keynote a conference of some of the worst “leaders” in the world.

Why this isn’t a leading topic on the news truly disgusts me this evening.