Here’s another story on the deep weirdness of Mike Johnson, although it’s about his wife. Kelly Johnson for years has run some kind of “Christian counseling service” that is partly based on the writings of Hippocrates.
Kelly Johnson’s website listed a specialty in Temperament counseling, a specialty that she received training for from an organization founded in the 1980s by a Christian couple. According to the materials the organization provides, the National Christian Counselor’s Association is adamant that its offerings take place outside of more traditional state-licensed settings so that counselors and clients can be fully engaged through their faith.
“The state licensed professional counselor in certain states is forbidden to pray, read or refer to the Holy Scriptures, counsel against things such as homosexuality, abortion, etc,” a catalog of the organization’s offerings states. “Initiating such counsel could be considered unethical by the state.”
The temperament-based approach breaks people down into five types: Melancholy, Choleric, Sanguine, Supine, and Phlegmatic. Richard and Phyllis Arno, who established a test to identify people’s temperament, founded the National Christian Counselors Association in the early 1980s. They and their advocates prefer the term temperament over personalities as the term personality is characterized as a “mask” while temperaments are “inborn” and thus inherent to each individual regardless of outside influences such as parenting. Their work is largely based on Hippocrates’ view that there were four temperaments.
Does she know that Hippocrates wasn’t a Christian? Anyway, the website was taken down shortly after MAGA Mike became speaker. For more about how the forced-birth movement seems to have adopted Hiipocrates as one of their own, see The Shadow Medical Community Behind the Attempt to Ban Medication Abortion at The Intercept.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan has reinstated Trump’s gag order.
Trump responded by attacking Attorney General Bill Barr, a potential witness in the case, while continuing his public assault on Chutkan.
Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal election interference case, reinstated a partial gag order that had been approved then temporarily appealed in October as Justice Department prosecutors and Trump’s legal team debated the First Amendment grounds of the order. Trump took to Truth Social barely an hour later to attack the judge and former Attorney General Bill Barr, a potential witness in the case.
“I called Bill Barr Dumb, Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy, a RINO WHO COULDN’T DO THE JOB. He just didn’t want to be Impeached, which the Radical Left Lunatics were preparing to do,” Trump wrote just 75 minutes after the gag order was reinstated. “Bill Barr is a LOSER!”
Your move, Judge Chutkan.
The most interesting thing I saw this morning is this item from the New York Times, How Trump’s Verbal Slips Could Weaken His Attacks on Biden’s Age. I apologize that I’m out of gift articles for the month. This article is arguing that Trump is making more verbal gaffes than usual, and that this may be a sign of deterioration of some sort. I don’t know that I’m taking this very seriously, as his head was never screwed on all the way as near as I can tell.
Mr. Trump has had a string of unforced gaffes, garble and general disjointedness that go beyond his usual discursive nature, and that his Republican rivals are pointing to as signs of his declining performance.
On Sunday in Sioux City, Iowa, Mr. Trump wrongly thanked supporters of Sioux Falls, a South Dakota town about 75 miles away, correcting himself only after being pulled aside onstage and informed of the error.
It was strikingly similar to a fictional scene that Mr. Trump acted out earlier this month, pretending to be Mr. Biden mistaking Iowa for Idaho and needing an aide to straighten him out.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has also told supporters not to vote, and claimed to have defeated President Barack Obama in an election. He has praised the collective intellect of an Iranian-backed militant group that has long been an enemy of both Israel and the United States, and repeatedly mispronounced the name of the armed group that rules Gaza.
He was saying “hummus” instead of “Hamas.” And last week he said Viktor Orban was President of Turkey. Now, again, I don’t know that this is as big a change as the article is letting on, as his spoken diatribes were never exactly what you’d call coherent. And I doubt that his groupies care.
And… It looks like Hughie, Dewie, and Louise will take the stand each for one day in NY. Yep, Don Jr. Eric, and Ivanka have to testify. I think if they take the Fifth in a civil trial, it can be considered in consideration of damages. But if they lie, it's a criminal offense. Trump will testify in a week.
Trump knows he has lost big in the NY case. He's hanging his hopes on an appeal. But an appeal is not a retrial. It will be a consideration based on the facts of the trial. So if the Trump Crime Family stonewall or perjure themselves, it is going to weigh heavily in the appeal.
I understand Trump will have to put up the amount of damages in cash to the State of New York in order to appeal.
Re Trump losing his marbles, he's consistently losing in court all over. (FL docs case is an exception that will bite him in the butt.) Trump is too dumb to appreciate that he needs a top lawyer and Trump needs to follow instructions from that lawyer Trump is his own worst enemy in a courtroom and Trump has fired every lawyer who tries to explain. So the ones he has are collecting fees upfront and watching the show.
Re the House Clown Show, they are gonna negotiate by extortion with generally unpopular priorities. The Senate probably won't bend, including Mitch. All the chaos will hurt the GOP by reinforcing the perception of impotence.
When I was in evangelical / fundamentalist circles decades ago, I encountered some sort of teaching based on personality types, only they used cute little animals: otters, bears, and the like to represent the types. Don't remember if they were picky about temperaments vs personality – this was before gays had any kind of rights in this country.
But what struck me was: why on earth couldn't they use the standard Myers-Briggs temperaments/types that are well-researched, with all kinds of further writings and guidance based on such a big foundation. Why reinvent + water down the wheel?
There are two answers: many fundamentalists won't venture out of their biblical echo chamber, they distrust something if it's not written by someone in their bubble.
The other answer is related, but is more specific: they only look backwards. Why look at anything written recently that could never compare to God's Word, the Bible?
This is the same mindset that says the Founders of the US were demi-gods, who created a perfect Constitution, that can never be improved upon. Every answer to anything is always found by looking backwards. This is where Mike and Kelly Johnson are coming from. This is like piloting the Titanic by standing at the back of the boat, watching the wake.
Whatever happened to "Physician, do no harm?"
But you know what?
Upon further reflection, taking "counseling" advice from "Christ"ian busy-bodies is no dumber than listening to marital advice from "celibate (at least in theory, supposedly)," unmarried Catholic priests!
Hint 4 "Christ"ians:" 'The Four Temperaments' are NOT 'Stupid,' 'Ignorant,' ‘Loud,' and ‘Obnoxious!’
"another story on the deep weirdness of Mike Johnson"
I saw an old interview with him (2-3 years ago) he bragged that "if you want to know how I will legislate then take that bible off the shelf, dust it off and read it". I liked the "dust it off" part, he seems to be inferring most people don't read their bible (I don't have one to read so I plead guilty), at least he has the hate radio GQP arrogance thing going for him. I immediately wondered why the interviewer didn’t ask if he would consider the constitution when lawmaking? It seems like a good follow-up question to ask a “lawmaker” in a constitutional republic? Well today I read news that a judge in KS struck down a bunch of abortion restrictions, he wrote: "The Court has great respect for the deeply held beliefs on either side of this contentious issue,” Jayaram wrote in his 92-page order. “Nevertheless, the State’s capacity to legislate pursuant to its own moral scruples is necessarily curbed by the Kansas Constitution and its Bill of Rights". Seems like maybe someone will ask magat mike what he thinks of that. Though I suspect he is going to retreat to wing-nut only softball interviews soon.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-medications-restrictions-kansas-f1435cc5538ae6e19cd481a58e82aa7f
"I don’t know that I’m taking this very seriously, as his head was never screwed on all the way as near as I can tell"
Exactly, seems some of us are still waiting for him to act normal,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRkF82ZTui4
The most underreported story is the trial that has started in CO.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/30/politics/takeaways-trump-14th-amendment-trial-colorado/index.html
One of Harry Litman’s surrogates (law professor) give a detailed update. She discusses how the court is determining that 1) Jan 6 was an insurrection, and 2) Trump was behind it. Eric Swalwell – who was at the Capitol – and others – are testifying in this regard. Also how a decision in Colorado would affect similar trials going on in other states.
Unfortunately, the counseling world is only under the control of the buyer beware theory in the most part. This is especially true when your counseling services are religious based. Remember, religion is based on authority, which may or may not respect theories based on science using empirical methods. The probability of getting counseling with a science-based personality theory decreases the more fundamentalist the religion sponsoring it is, in my experience. The ancient Greeks did base some of their wisdom on some primitive experimentation, (at that point everything that was thrown up came back down) but their personality theory was more flawed and showed little basis in any more than human observation. So, when you hear words like phlegmatic and taciturn, the red flags of buyer beware are being waved unless you are in a history class. Best to be a wary buyer in any activity related to reputable counseling or even casual conversation when such words are thrown about.
Unfortunately, these are not the only "personality theory" words thrown about in today's world. Many other equally worthless ones are used in the world of "professional development". For the most part the term professional development is an oxymoron. More accurately, if they spout anything about personality, it should be more accurately labeled as lacky training.
“Christian counseling service” that is partly based on the writings of Hippocrates."
In Mike Johnson's case, it's the "writings of hypocrites."
"so that counselors and clients can be fully engaged through their faith"
I remember parts of the Bible, especially the Jesus chapters where they actually quote Jesus. They speak of humility, the meek, good deeds, loving neighbors, not judging others, the impossibility of serving both God and Mammon at the same time, forgiveness, feeding the poor, turning cheeks, loving enemies…
Something tells me it’s not that kind of ‘faith engagement’. You know you’re in trouble when you notice that whenever your faith engaged counselor is stressing some important faith engagement point, they’re always holding their bible upside down.
Plus when they should be listening to you, they keep going on about all the "losers and suckers" in their own life, complete with derogatory nicknames.
The weirdness surrounding Johnson gets deeper each day; now it has been revealed that he has since the beginning of his time in Congress consistently reported no assets in accordance with financial disclosure requirements of members of Congress, none, nada, zilch.
After Day One of Don Jr. testifying in NY, I'm reminded of an old joke.
A police officer arrives at the scene of a wreck. The car ran into a tree at a high rate of speed. The occupants are mostly unhurt and all are intoxicated. Trying to determine responsibility, the cop asks who was driving the car. To which a the drunks respond,
"Nobody was driving the car. We wash all in the back sheat singin'. "
Which seems likely to be the defense and explanation of the valuation.