Louisiana Voice

In the parlance of stand-up comedy, Donald Trump died at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner when his jokes fell flatter than roadkill possum.

But perhaps his most vulgar joke—not offered at that July 24 event—was when he said he has “two jobs: being president and being speaker.”

The joke in reality is not Trump’s warped humor but rather House Speaker Mike Johnson who is little more than a rubber stamp for the Mobster-in-Chief, he who may have washed money through more than 380 separate bank accounts until those accounts were closed by Capital One.

David Graham, writing for The Atlantic, had a story yesterday that carried the sad but accurate headline, “FOR SALE: HOUSE SPEAKERSHIP, BARELY USED”

In more than a little dismissive manner, Johnson, who, unfortunately, represents Louisiana’s 4^th Congressional District, addressed the growing domestic abuse scandal surrounding Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, like Johnson, a Repugnantcan.

In Graham’s words, Johnson “didn’t have much to say” about allegations that Miller physically abused his ex-wife and their infant daughter. “There’s (sic) all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time,” Johnson said. “It’s not my business to get engaged in it” (Funny how New Grinch jumped on that Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinski thing, though).

That represents a breakthrough of sorts for Mikey Boy. Normally, he just pleads ignorance and declines to comment on any breaking scandal in the Beltway.

It makes one wonder about how two of Louisiana’s congressional members—Sen. John Kennedy who once served as Louisiana’s STATE TREASURER for 18 years and as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue for five years prior to that and currently serves on the Senate Appropriations, Banking and Budget committees as well as the Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy—and Johnson might react to the growing story involving President Inepstein and his 385 separate checking accounts that Capital One canceled because of the appearance of money-laundering.

You see, as Graham pointed out, House affairs (no pun intended) are precisely the business of Johnson—and as a former state fiscal officer and current watchdog of the federal fisc, banking matters should be of paramount concern to Kennedy.

That’s because, don’t you see, the Repugnantcans are supposed to paragons of virtue, especially in the areas of family values and fiscal responsibility. Remember how they impeached Bill Clinton over his dalliance with Monica but haven’t said squat about Trump’s cheating on three separate spouses, sexual assault conviction and links to the world’s foremost child sex trafficker. Nor have we heard a peep out of them about Trump’s compounding of the federal debt (remember his campaign promise to wipe out the federal debt?) Boys and girls, can you say…”double standard?” How about “hypocrite?”

And now that story about the 385 bank accounts and Trump’s ties to Russian money is growing legs but the party of high morals remains mute while Trump tries to distract voters with claims of Reflecting Pool vandalism. But that dog won’t hunt, primarily because Trump’s lies and venality are wearing thin (unlike his his svelte physique).

“If Johnson doesn’t think that his job includes protecting the moral reputation of the House, his small and endangered House majority, or the prospects of the Republican Party more broadly, he must have some other idea about his role,” Graham wrote. “What that might be is mysterious.”

He said Johnson’s subservience to Trump is “demeaning for Johnson, but given how Trump dominates the House, one might expect that Johnson would pay close attention to what the president says and does. Yet Johnson has a consistent pattern of pleading ignorance when asked about controversial statements or actions by Trump or his administration. In a characteristic example, Johnson dodged a question in October about cuts to funding for special education: ‘I’ve been so busy on this; I’ve not had a chance to dig into the details.’ Busy on what, precisely?”

That’s a question voters in Louisiana’s 4^th Congressional District should be asking in earnest.

And voters statewide deserve a response from Kennedy, the financial whiz kid, on growing questions about those 385 closed bank accounts.

Here is a quote from Kennedy from just yesterday: “I’d rather have a back-alley colonoscopy than go to another meeting about the work we need to get done. It’s time to vote.”

Well, Senator, (yawn) as you so eloquently put it, now’s the time for action, not homey banalities.