Guess Who MAGA Mike Johnson Once Blamed for the Fall of Rome

Prior to launching his political career, Speaker Mike Johnson worked hand in hand with a group promoting “conversion therapy” for gay teens, actively promoting the criminalization of gay sex, and even blaming sexual orientation for the downfall of the Roman Empire.

According to a CNN KFile review that analyzed dozens of the Louisiana Republican’s media appearances between 2006 and 2010, before he entered political office, Johnson spent years providing legal advice to Exodus International, an Orlando-based Christian conversion therapy organization whose practices resulted in quantifiable harm.

He also partnered with the group to run an annual anti-gay event called the “Day of Truth,” a snub of the national youth movement protest “Day of Silence,” which recognizes the silent suffering of LGBTQ teens who are bullied.

According to some experts, Johnson didn’t just pander to anti-gay advocates, “he was the anti-gay and ex-gay advocate,” Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out, told CNN.

“I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson said during a radio promotion of the “Day of Truth” in 2008. “Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”

Johnson also claimed that sexual orientation contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, although Hadrian, one of Rome’s so-called “Five Good Emperors,” publicly identified as gay.

“Some credit the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society,” Johnson said in 2008.

The group, Exodus International, shut down in 2013 after nearly four decades in business with a public apology for promoting the debunked practice, which aimed to make gay and lesbian teenagers straight.

In an email bannered “I’m Sorry,” Exodus’s president, Alan Chambers, wrote that he was apologetic for the “shame and guilt” participants endured.

“I’m sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced,” Chambers wrote. “I’m sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection from Christians as God’s rejection. I’m profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith, and that some have chosen to end their lives.”

It turns out that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign might be a good thing after all. A new poll shows his running actually increases the likelihood of a Joe Biden victory.

Polling from Quinnipiac University shows that the 2024 election will be a tight one, no matter what. Registered voters are almost evenly split between Biden and Donald Trump, the respective Democratic and Republican front-runners.

Quinnipiac polled 1,610 voters during the last week of October and found that in a general election between just Biden and Trump, 47 percent of voters would back Biden while 46 percent would vote for Trump. The university said that this number has held steady since August.

But when the general field is expanded to include Kennedy in a three-way race, Biden’s lead widens. The incumbent president would win 39 percent of voters, while Trump would take a close but clear second with 36 percent support. Kennedy would get only 22 percent of voters.

Quinnipiac’s findings mirror that of another major national poll, which came out in mid-October. A survey by NPR, PBS NewsHour, and Maris found that Kennedy’s run would actually give Biden a seven-percentage-point advantage over Trump.

Kennedy holds significant sway among independent voters, but he also has a huge draw for Republicans. Previously, he had been embraced by the far right for things such as his opposition to vaccines and belief in conspiracy theories.

Kennedy’s embrace of far-right talking points is expected to woo voters away from Trump—and that has angered previously friendly conservative news outlets. Kennedy seemed genuinely shocked when Fox News’s Sean Hannity turned on him during an early October interview.

Independent candidates historically perform poorly in the general election. They are more often viewed as spoilers who strip just enough votes away from one major candidate to tip the election toward the other. It’s unlikely Kennedy will pull a lot of voters away from Trump, but it’s looking increasingly likely that he could pull just enough to turn the election decisively for Biden.

The House failed Wednesday night to expel serial fabulist George Santos from Congress, marking just another bump in a career plagued by scandal.

Representatives voted 179–213 against the resolution to remove Santos (with 19 members voting “present”). Only 24 Republicans joined the majority of Democrats in voting against the freshman congressman, not nearly anywhere close to the two-thirds majority needed to expel him from the House.

The New York representative has caused nothing but controversy since he took office in January. He fabricated the vast majority of his personal and professional background and has been federally indicted for financial fraud and identity theft.

In addition to apparently lying about his employment history, Santos has falsely claimed that his grandparents were Holocaust survivors, his mother died in the 9/11 attacks, and four of his employees were killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting. He also lied about founding an animal rescue charity and producing the disastrous Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

But none of that was enough for the House to push for his expulsion.

Six freshman Republicans from New York—Representatives Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Nick Langworthy, and Brandon Williams—co-sponsored the resolution to expel Santos. The six lawmakers were some of the first Republicans to call publicly for Santos to resign once his lies were revealed. All of them except Langworthy won in districts that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, making them more vulnerable to being voted out in 2024.

Many Republicans have resisted calling on Santos to resign due to their narrow majority in the House. With just a nine-seat GOP majority, Santos is a necessary vote. Several Republicans had called to hold off on the expulsion vote until after the House Ethics Committee finished an investigation into Santos. The committee opened the probe in March and announced Tuesday that it would complete its investigation on or before November 17.

Santos has been federally charged with 23 counts of various types of financial fraud. He pleaded not guilty to the initial 13 in May, and he has denied the additional 10 that were filed Tuesday night in a superseding indictment. Earlier this year, he also agreed to a deal with Brazilian authorities investigating him for financial fraud so that he could avoid prosecution.

GOP Senator J.D. Vance is blocking multiple judicial nominations, in an apparent retaliation for the federal indictments of Donald Trump.

According to Vance, the Justice Department’s pursuit of, well, justice is enough to constitute a “banana republic.”

“I object to this because we are living in a banana republic where the president is using his Department of Justice to go after his chief political rival, the person he will appear on the ballot with, in about a year,” Vance said on Wednesday.

At stake are the nominations of Rebecca Lutzko to the Northern District of Vance’s home state of Ohio and April Perry to the Northern District of Illinois—both of whom Vance thinks are worthy sacrifices for an opportunity to kowtow to Trump.

“If the Department of Justice will use these nominations for law instead of politics, I am happy to end this whole policy,” Vance added.

Trump is currently facing 91 felony charges in four criminal trials. On the federal level, he is facing two indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and allegedly stealing a trove of classified documents from the White House.

It’s not clear what exactly Vance thinks he will achieve in these cases by blocking unrelated nominations for U.S. attorneys.

Republican Representative Brian Mast horrifyingly compared Palestinian civilians to Nazis on Wednesday and implied that they are all guilty for Hamas’s atrocities.

The House was debating the Hamas International Financing Prevention Act, a measure that would impose sanctions on people who support groups, such as Hamas, that the bill deems “terrorist organizations.” The measure was originally introduced in January, but an amended version with no humanitarian considerations is on the floor now, partially in light of Hamas’s violent attack on Israel in early October. In the nearly one month since, Israel’s retaliation has killed more than 8,000 civilians, mostly women and children.

But Mast refused to accept that fact. “I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of ‘innocent Palestinian civilians,’ as is frequently said,” the Florida Republican said on the House floor.

“I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”

Mast’s comments, though horrific, should come as no surprise. When the Foreign Affairs Committee began debating the bill two weeks ago, Mast revealed he had amended the measure to strip out a humanitarian provision that would have allowed aid into Gaza. That aid would include food, medicine, and medical devices for civilians.

Mast said his goal was to deliberately slow the flow of aid into Palestine. “I would challenge anybody in here to point to me which Palestinian is Hamas and which one is an innocent civilian,” Mast said, implying that even children were complicit.

“It should absolutely be every effort made to slow down any perceived assistance that is going there.”