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Sunday, January 05, 2025

Shortly after being reelected as House Speaker, Mike Johnson read a prayer that he claimed was from Thomas Jefferson, despite there being no evidence the third president ever said it.

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I did a bit of newspaper research on the prayer that Mike Johnson falsely ascribed to Thomas Jefferson on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday. The story of how that prayer came to be inaccurately associated with Jefferson and then became a meme is pretty wild.

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-- Seth Cotlar (@sethcotlar.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 12:00 PM

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Jefferson's version of the Bible is at americanhistory.si.edu

How long before MAGAts like Mike Johnson force the Smithsonian to take that down?

#1 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-01-05 08:32 AM | Reply

Johnson is a vapid, weak man. He'll be squeezed like a lemon for a few droplets and thrown in the trash. That's MAGA.

#2 | Posted by Zed at 2025-01-05 09:12 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Even more funny/sad compared to Jefferies' brilliant and rowsing speech.

#3 | Posted by Corky at 2025-01-05 11:41 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

School Book historians in Texas wrote Jefferson out of the History Books.

Too liberal for History books, they said.

Now Mega-MAGAt-Mike is quoting non quotes as if they were Jeffersonian.

These emeffers are too stoopid to pray.

#4 | Posted by Wardog at 2025-01-05 02:35 PM | Reply

Cut-rate theologians like Johnson would do well to take note of where The Jefferson Bible brings down the curtain because it sure as hell runs counter to the snake oil folks like him have on offer:

"Then Joseph put the body in his own tomb that had been cut into solid rock and had never been used. He rolled a big stone against the entrance to the tomb and went away."

Buh-bye, that's all, folks.

#5 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-01-05 03:16 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Ah, thanks to the fates for the day that I finally became an atheist. It may have placed me outside of my culture, but it allowed me to keep my ability to reason and be authentic.

#6 | Posted by Hughmass at 2025-01-06 06:47 AM | Reply

Cut-rate theologians like Johnson would do well to take note of where The Jefferson Bible brings down the curtain because it sure as hell runs counter to the snake oil folks like him have on offer:

But that's part of their strategy. Adopt the language of goodness, virtue, morality, fiscal restraint, patriotism, etc. and do the opposite while proclaiming that the opposition are the bad guys. Their low information, gullible rubes fall for it each and every time.

#7 | Posted by FedUpWithPols at 2025-01-06 07:12 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

Hey, Mike! How about this banger from TJ:
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

#8 | Posted by catdog at 2025-01-06 08:49 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

Remember when Mike Johnson claimed God told him he was the next Moses?

But then Johnson watched as candidate after candidate failed to generate the necessary Republican support to win the Speakership. "Ultimately 13 people ran for the post. And the Lord kept telling me to, Wait, wait, wait,'" Johnson recalled. "So I waited, I waited. And then at the end ... the Lord said, Now step forward.'" Johnson regaled the audience with his surprise to be tapped as the Moses figure: "Me?" Johnson said. "I'm supposed to be Aaron." But that was not the message, Johnson insisted, recalling: "No,' the Lord said, Step forward.'"

Rolling Stone

#9 | Posted by Derek_Wildstar at 2025-01-06 01:34 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

Thomas Jefferson was NOT a Christian. He was a Deist as were the majority of the people at that time. People claiming to be Christians in his time were in the range of 25% to 30% of the population.

#10 | Posted by Hickory at 2025-01-06 06:55 PM | Reply

@#8 ... Hey, Mike! How about this banger from TJ:

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty. ...

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Phillip Mazzei (April 1796)
teachingamericanhistory.org

... The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble love of liberty, & republican government which carried us triumphantly thro' the war, an Anglican monarchical, & aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants & Americans trading on British capitals, speculators & holders in the banks & public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption, & for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field & Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors & perils. ...


An interesting read (the whole letter, not just the excerpt above ...)

#11 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-01-06 07:47 PM | Reply

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