It was on this date in both 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled the sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio’s 6th District, Bill Johnson, who was first elected in… wait for it… the 2010 Tea Party Wave. He’s managed to win four more elections, which has a lot to do with the fact that Ohio’s 6th has a +16 lean in Congress. He’s usually not known for awkward quotes, and he has the benefit of providing absolutely no name recognition. Honestly, is there anything more generic of a name for a Congressman than BILL JOHNSON? That stands out as much as it would if he was one of the townspeople named Johnson in Blazing Saddles.
We give some points on the dumb scale to Johnson for denying climate change science. But it’s not just that he waves away the facts, it’s that he claims he’s an expert because he says he is a “scientist” himself. For the record, Bill Johnson’s “science background” is a degree in computer science… that was awarded to him back in 1979, quite the golden age for high level technology. And it was that resume that Johnson used to stifle an actual scientist from the EPA in a Congressional hearing.
What concerns us more, though, is the level of Islamophobia that seems to have taken root in Rep. Johnson over the past few years. You might wonder why the guy would support Donald Trump’s bigoted idea of a Muslim travel ban, but then you realize, Trump is hardly the only bigot who he’s palling around with these days. Johnson has been identified as one of two GOP members of Congress allying himself with Daniel Pipes, an anti-Muslim activist who has for decades been maligning practitioners of Islam, and after the Oklahoma City Bombing, insisted it was carried out by Muslims, and not anti-government militia goons Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Bill Johnson and Ron DeSantis both co-founded the “Congressional Israel Victory Caucus”, which advises extreme action to help Israel wipe out Palestine, including withholding water from Palestinian settlers.
Delightful. Don’t see how that could be a reason that peace won’t be brought to the MidEast, y’know, trying to get people on one side to die of thirst.
During Johnson’s first eight years in office, he wasted years of taxpayer time trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, twice voted to defund Planned Parenthood, voted against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy, voted against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, voted to shut down the government in 2013, and in 2018, when his party controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House, and voted for the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.