Tag: Ron Johnson

‘Southpark’ Writer Takes Novel Approach to Political Action

Buck Banks

Fake Kari Lake website designed by Toby Morton.

From the happy mutants at Boing Boing comes this piece about Toby Morton, a former writer for “SouthPark” and “MadTV,” who buys domain names that relate to MAGA and Q figures and uses the resulting websites to undermine them.

Does Morton’s efforts influence campaigns or policy? Hard to say, but Arizona gubernatorial candidate and monster Kari Lake offered him $150 for the domain he used to build her site. Morton has also given the same business to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Toby Morton, we salute you!

Johnson from Wisconsin Is Dumb as a Box of Rocks, Son

Buck Banks

“To call what happened on January 6 an ‘armed insurrection,’ I just think, is not accurate.”

— Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) repeated his claim Tuesday that the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was not an “armed insurrection,” adding however, that protesters “did teach us how you can use flag poles, that kind of stuff, as weapons,” CNN reports.

Johnson Says Response to Russian Election Interference Was ‘Out of Proportion’

Buck Banks

“I’ve been pretty upfront that the election interference — as serious as that was, and unacceptable — is not the greatest threat to our democracy. We’ve blown it way out of proportion.”

— Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), back from a trip to Moscow, saying that Congress “went too far in punishing Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Roll Call reports.

GOP Now Fears Backlash from ‘Sad Sack Stories’ about People Dying If Supreme Court Kills Obamacare Subsidies

Jon Ponder

The Supreme Court will rule as early as June on a Republican lawsuit seeking to revoke subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act to cover the cost of health-insurance premiums for low-income workers. If the court rules in the Republicans’ favor in King v. Burwell, more than 7 million Americans will be forced to cancel private health insurance coverage paid for, in part or in whole, with government subsidies.

SEN. RON JOHNSON: [Pres. Obama will] have the ads all racked up with the individuals that have benefited from Obamacare on the backs of the American taxpayer. He’ll have all those examples as well so…

RADIO HOST JAY WEBER: And the sad sack stories about who’s dying from what and why they can’t get their coverage.

JOHNSON: Right.

The suit is based on a line of poorly constructed language in the ACA that suggests subsidies are only available from state-run insurance exchanges. The problem is that in 2010 — as a partisan gambit to hobble the Obamacare rollout — about 30 governors, mostly Republicans, opted not to stand up state exchanges thereby forcing their constituents to purchase insurance from federal exchanges. Because their subsidies do not come from state exchanges, it’s these low-income, mostly red-state workers, who will lose their insurance if Republicans prevail in King v. Burwell.

A few Republicans in Congress seem to be waking up to the fact that they could face unintended consequences if the Supreme Court rules in their favor. Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea partyist from Wisconsin who is up for reelection next year, may have spoken for many of his co-ideologues during an interview with right-wing radio host Jay Weber in Milwaukee last week:

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