A House Divided Cannot Stand Mike Johnson
Republican control of the House may come down to one (1) vote
Nov. 29: House nears final 2025 tally … Trump’s sparkling new, almost-all-white cabinet … Australia bans social media for kids … New Zealand bans Candace Owens for New Zealand …
You can listen to the TFN podcast here.
Shorter-than-usual TFN today, you sweet, dozing, tryptophanned Newsfuckers. I will endeavor to make up for it with a Bonus Story1 or two over the weekend. Also, check out today’s TCB for exciting news about the TFN store!
…Actually, the news was that there is a TFN store, so it won’t be exciting by the time you get there. Fuck, capitalisming is hard. Let’s do some journalisming instead!
Political nerds who count things report that there’s a slim possibility of a very slim margin of Republican control of the House of Representatives for at least the start of RePresident Donald Trump’s second term.
That’s because Democrats in congressional races overperformed the presidential campaign of Vice Pres. Kamala Harris, giving Democrats some victories even in districts Trump won. But it’s also because Trump created some vacancies by picking some House Republicans as appointees, underperforming the human brain.
You may recall that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) quit almost instantly after Trump nominated him as attorney general. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a Republican leader, will be Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations until Elon Musk figures out how to fire the UN.
In addition, Rep. John Duarte (R-CA) fell behind on Tuesday in vote-counting for his race against Democratic challenger Adam Gray, Politico reports.
Some races for seats in the House of Representatives are still being counted, because we still let states run things and they still let counties run things and hoo-boy. But it means two other races could still go Democratic, as well.
Basically, if the cards hold up and the stars align and the creek don’t rise and the Good Lord™ willing, Republicans may end up with 217 seats to 215 Democratic ones. Which means if just one (1) Republican defects or even just fails to show up for a vote — and Democrats are unanimous — Republicans will not be able to pass the bills they’ve written to please corporate lobbyists, most notably Jesus.
Longtime Newsfuckers know that TFN views speculative/predictive “journalism” as The Devil’s Candied Yams, so we’re not going to wallow in the muck of What If™2 and predict what’s going to happen with House control. Spoiler: Something!
But it does seem important that House Democrats — and therefore all the madding crowd3 — be aware of the implications going forward.
Namely, as Politico notes, we’re looking at the possible emergence of a political Frankenstein’s monster4 who could make life miserable for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
Politico uses a much more terrifying term for this hypothetical hybrid beast: A Manchin.
Democrats, of course, spent years living in terror of the bipartisanship devastating rampages of Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV). Well, with Republicans now the ones vulnerable to such antics, it appears that now the Frankenstein’s monster’s foot is on the other, uh, foot.
And if a bill gets a 216-216 vote, then it doesn’t pass. So, if any bill is just a tad too Hitler-y for some “moderate” Republican to defend in their 2026 re-election bid, they might just have to bail. Meaning Johnson might have to squishify some legislation to win back those Hitler-reluctant votes.
Which could piss off MAGA members. And losing just one (1) single MAGITE5 vote will leave Johnson unable to pass his legislation even though it’s handwritten by Jesus up in Heaven where He lives and does Stuff.
And there are several MAGA members of Congress who find even the autotheocratic Johnson too squishy for their Torquemada-esque tastes. And now they, too, might be able to kill bills all by themselves. Unless…
…Johnson can woo Democratic support by squishifying bills even more, editing and revising Jesus’s hard work.
It all adds up to giving Democrats a decent shot at working the numbers. And that task will fall to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the House Democratic leader.
And while Republicans will have a stronger margin of control in the Senate, even in that chamber they’re going to face some real obstacles passing even some of Trump’s most high-profile to-do items, such as dismantling the Department of Education. (Here’s TFN’s deep dive on why the Education Department became a political piñata.)
So, take heart. The battle isn’t lost, we’re just getting started.
Some Heartbreaking Multiverse Fiction for You
In another universe, North Carolina Republicans in 2022 failed to win enough votes to seize control of the state Supreme Court. (h/t)
Without that court majority, Republican legislators in that fictional universe — where Spider-Man is a Republican — wouldn’t have been able to redraw the state’s congressional maps to erase three Democratic districts.
And in that crazy universe — where Superman is a girl — Democrats won those still-existing Democratic districts…
…and therefore control of the House of Representatives likely would be about to flip to the Democrats…
…who might be able to stop RePresident Donald Trump’s most egregious assaults on renewable energy…
…and in theory maybekinda mighta saved the world.
Well, nice to live in that universe!
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler called that scenario a “Case study in the national stakes of downballot races—stakes that last for years.” Yep!
So, back here on Earth Prime, let’s give a shout-out to all those valiant North Carolina organizers and volunteers who tried to make it happen in 2022. And let’s acknowledge that someone or someones who didn’t help out with that 2022 campaign in North Carolina just changed the course of history. In a bad way.
And if it’s all too depressing, think of it this way: When we work to build and grow movements here on Earth Prime, we may never know just how much we’re changing the world for the better.
The Trump Administration, Home of Identity Politics
The tally is in for RePresident Donald Trump’s cabinet and top appointees: It’s radically beholden to identity politics.
One unqualified appointee after another got in with one identity-politics identity in common: The Trump cabinet is almost as white as the front of Trump’s face used to be.
There’s one (1) Black guy, Scott Turner, who’s gonna be running the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is also a religious extremist, as literally only TFN is warning everybody.
There’s two (2) Hispanic appointees. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) will run the Labor Department. Both Labor and HUD were run by people of the same ethnicities during Trump1.0 presumably because Trump historically has assumed urban=Black and labor=Hispanic.
“Those agencies are not viewed as quite as historic. It’s where you historically will put minorities,” former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, appointee of Pres. George W. Bush, told Politico.
Where Trump is making history is in appointing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) secretary of state. Rubio will be the first Hispanic person to hold that office. He’s also a much more dangerous and accomplished Christian extremist than Turner and — as I and literally only I wrote on my non-immature Substack — is now poised to weaponize the State Department in the global spread of Christian extremism.
Two Quickies
For the first time, a country has banned social media for children. Under a new law passed by Australia this morning, no one under the age of 16 can use platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, X, or Instagram. But it goes further, too, and even outlaws Reddit for the kids. Any child caught using these platforms will face a prison sentence of five years. Ha I’m kidding because that’s what we’d do. No, instead, the tech companies will face fines of up to $33 million for failing to block kids from creating accounts. The law creates a new challenge for Australia, however; figuring out what to do with that many kids who are happy.
In related news, New Zealand yesterday announced its own version of a similar ban that Australia imposed last month. Residents of both countries are no longer allowed to have any amount of right-wing commentator Candace Owens in their homes. Or country. That’s because she’s been denied visas to travel there after saying Nazis didn’t do medical experiments on Jews during World War II. Owens had been planning a speaking tour during which she would share her thoughts on free speech and Jesus. As Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke explained, “Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.” Open the borders!!!
TCB
FUCKIN’ MERCH Just in time for capitalism’s annual human-sacrifice ritual today, TFN is opening The TFN Shop.
TFN gets a very wee slice of the filthy lucre from the shop, however. So if you’re buying TFN merch to support TFN, bless your heart, but a donation or gift subscription goes a lot further to that end.
That said, if you’ve just gotta have that cheeky TFN symbol smiling/flipping the bird at you, then, yeah, maybe a TFN mug is just the ticket.
Although we’re not the sellers and the law renders TFN virtually untouchable because corporations are just empirically better than humans, please do holler if you have any problems with the shop.
OH SHIT ALMOST FORGOT From now through Dec. 14, you can get a 10% DISCOUNT on all the overpriced swag at The TFN Shop by using the codeword FINGNEWS10. Yay! Here’s a look at some of your swag options:
CORRECTIONS I neglected to note which Newsfucker flagged a few TFN screwups, so thank you Unknown Fucking Soldier, and my apologies, I’ll try to do better in the future. Herewith, the corrections…
In Wednesday’s TFN, we inadvertently mislabeled the party affiliation of Rep. Lori Chavez DeRemer (R-OR), the new Labor secretary nominee. She is a Republican, even though some of her labor votes look Democratic. TFN regrets the error.
In yesterday’s TFN Bonus Story, we inadvertently referred to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as Claudia Feinbaum. We regret the error and what we have to assume is our implicit antisemitism.
In addition, yesterday, TFN suggested that the Mexican caravan Donald Trump referred to on Monday was non-existent. Reportedly, that is not the case. Sheinbaum is said to have told Trump that Mexican officials will disband the caravan the way they’ve been doing since 2018 when it wasn’t Pres. Joe Biden in the White House but Trump’s projectile-bullshitting ass. We regret the error but stand by the joke about the caravan disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle.
EDITORIAL NOTE Your nitpicky TFN’s policy is to note all but the most minor errors and corrections. #Journalism. The TFN editorial board has also decided to blame all future errors on autocorrect. Thank you for your funderstanding.
SOCIAL-ISM Come find us on whichever social media isn’t banned in your country! We’re on Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Spoutible.
Go get ‘em, kids. And have a good weekend.
Remember to change your account settings if you don’t want Bonus Stories or the Podcast emailed to you!
Property of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved.
That’s us! We’re madding!
Because TFN knows its nitpicky Newsfuckers lurv to point out that “Frankenstein’s not the monster.”
Your humanistic TFN doesn’t refer to humans as maggots even in funsies because that’s how dehumanization starts. First it’s ohs and ha has and then it’s running and screaming…
How about a sticker of your logo in your shiny new shop? That I would buy.
TGIF🥰