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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 12, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

As expected, this morning the House Republicans removed Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from her position as conference chair after she refused to stop speaking out against the former president for instigating the January 6 attack on our Capitol and the counting of electoral votes for President Joe Biden. The Republicans ousted her by voice vote, which meant that no one had to go on the record for or against Cheney, and the Republicans kept the split in the party from being measurable. It also ensured that she would lose; she has survived a secret ballot vote before.

Before the vote, Cheney allegedly told her Republican colleagues: “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person; you have plenty of others to choose from.” After the vote, she went in front of the cameras to say that she would lead the fight to reclaim the party from Trump, and said: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again goes anywhere near the Oval Office.”

After her ouster, Trump Republican Representative Madison Cawthorn (NC) tweeted ““Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye Liz Cheney.” The former president echoed Cawthorn: “Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party. She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our Country.”

After convincing his caucus to dump Cheney and embrace Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters: “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with.”

This was a breathtaking statement. McCarthy himself challenged the certification of Biden’s win, and just last week, Trump made a big announcement in which he called the election of 2020 “fraudulent.” The Big Lie animating the Republicans today is that Trump, not Biden, really won the 2020 election.

But McCarthy is not alone in his gaslighting. Yesterday, in the Senate Rules Committee markup of S1, the For the People Act protecting the vote, ending gerrymandering, and pushing big money out of our elections, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said: “I don’t think anyone on our side has been arguing that [voter fraud] has been pervasive all over the country.”

The false claim of widespread voter fraud is, of course, exactly what Trump Republicans have stood on since the 2020 election. It is the justification for their voter suppression measures in Republican states, including Texas, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, and, as of yesterday afternoon, Arizona.

In today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the January 6 insurrection, Republican lawmakers in general tried to gaslight Americans, as they tried to paint that unprecedented attack on our democracy as nothing terribly important. Although 140 law enforcement officers were injured, five people were killed, more than 400 people have been charged with crimes, and rioters did more than $30 million worth of damage, Republican representatives downplayed the events of the day, insisting that they were not really out of the ordinary. Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA) said that calling the attack on the Capitol an insurrection is a “bald-faced lie” and that “if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit…."

CNN later called Clyde’s remarks “absolute nonsense.” Even the definition of insurrection Clyde quoted—“an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country usually by violence”—showed the attack of January 6 to be an insurrection. And, as lawyer and CNN analyst Asha Rangappa noted tonight on Twitter, at his second impeachment trial even Trump’s own lawyers did not dispute that the events of January 6 were a violent insurrection. The record is clear.

Republican lawmakers like Clyde did, though, echo the former president’s interview on the Fox News Channel in March when he said that when his supporters went into the Capitol they posed “zero threat” and were “hugging and kissing the police and the guards…. A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.”

The former president appears to be continuing to exercise control over his underlings. Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller provided testimony at the House Oversight Committee hearing, and what they would not say was revealing. Rosen refused to answer questions about whether Trump asked him to try to overturn the 2020 election. Miller’s prepared remarks had included a sentence that said “I stand by my prior observation that I personally believe his comments encouraged the protesters that day.” In his testimony, he omitted that line, and later tried to walk it back, trying to draw a line between people who marched on the Capitol and those who broke into it.

But with Cheney and her supporters now in open revolt, and with news about the Capitol attack dropping, and even with more information coming about the ties between the former president and Russia, will Republican Party leaders manage to sweep everything under the rug?

Today, at a hearing on domestic extremism today before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas both testified that the most serious domestic national security threat in the U.S. right now is that of white supremacist gangs. “I think it's fair to say that in my career as a judge, and in law enforcement, I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,” Garland said. “There was an attempt to interfere with the fundamental passing of an element of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. And if there has to be a hierarchy of things that we prioritize, this would be the one we'd prioritize. It is the most dangerous threat to our democracy. That does not mean that we don't focus on other threats.”

For his part, President Biden is refusing to get sucked into the Republican drama, instead focusing on the country. Today an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the Pfizer vaccine for children as young as 12, and the CDC signed off on the recommendation, making it easier to reopen schools in the fall.

Today Biden met at the White House with Republicans McCarthy and McConnell, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), to try to hash out an infrastructure plan, although the Republicans have said they will absolutely not consider raising the corporate tax rates from where Trump’s 2017 tax cut dropped them. It was the first time McCarthy and McConnell had visited the West Wing since Biden was elected.

It was in the context of visiting the president that McCarthy tried to say that there was no Republican questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election (although, of course, more than two thirds of Republicans currently believe in the Big Lie). “We’re sitting here with the president today,” he told reporters.

Will today’s gesture be enough to make swing voters forget the party’s wholehearted embrace of the former president? Shortly after House Republicans removed Cheney from her leadership position, nine out of 14 voters in an Axios focus group said they would be willing to vote for a Republican in next year’s congressional races. But of those, 8 said they would not back any Republican who supports Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 election.

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #the big lie #Liz Cheney #January 6 2021 #white supremism #democracy

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brotheralyosha · 3 years

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Rick Hasen isn't getting much sleep these days.

One of the nation’s foremost experts on the laws that hold together democracy in America, Hasen used to be concerned about highly speculative election “nightmare scenarios”: the electrical grid being hacked on Election Day, or the pandemic warping turnout, or absentee ballots totally overwhelming the postal service. But now, what keeps him up at night aren about the concerted effort of Trump to try to alter the election outcome: Over 30 contacts with governors, state legislative officials, those who canvass the votes; pressuring governors, pressuring secretaries of state; having his lawyer pass out talking points to have Mike Pence declare Trump the winner even though he lost the election. I mean, this is not what we expect in a democracy.

For the first time in American history, the losing candidate refused to concede the election — and rather than dismissing him as a sore loser, a startling number of Americans have followed Donald Trump down his conspiratorial rabbit hole. The safeguards that ensured he left office last January after losing the presidential election may be crumbling: The election officials who certified the counts may no longer be in place next time he falsely claims victory; if Republicans take Congress, a compliant Speaker could easily decide it’s simply not in his interest to let the party’s leader lose.

To understand this fragile moment for American democracy, you could take a 30,000-foot view of a nation at the doorstep of a constitutional crisis, as Robert Kagan recently did for the Washington Post. Or you could simply look around you at what’s happening at the ground level, in broad daylight, visible to the naked eye, as Hasen has been doing. As he sees it, it’s time for us all to wake up.

“I feel like a climate scientist warning about the Earth going up another degree and a half,” Hasen told POLITICO Magazine in an interview this week. “The rhetoric is so overheated that I think it provides the basis for millions of people to accept an actual stolen election as payback for the falsely claimed earlier ‘stolen’ election. People are going to be more willing to cheat if they think they’ve been cheated out of their just desserts.”

Hasen has ideas about how to preempt some of this — they range from the legal to the political, and are the subject of a major conference that took place Friday at the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center, which he co-directs at UC Irvine. But even as he and other elections experts warn of a three-alarm fire, he’s troubled that Democrats in Washington seem to lack the same sense of urgency and focus.

“I think this should be the number-one priority, and I thought that Democrats wasted months on the For the People Act,” he says. “The Democrats’ answer … is ‘Well, the Democrats just have to win elections.’ There needs to be a plan B to that.”

If the same state and local election officials are in place in 2024 as in 2020 — many of them Republican — Hasen is confident they would be able to stand up to Trump’s pressure to disregard the vote count and declare him the winner. But Hasen isn’t confident they will be in place. Many election officials are fleeing and, he says, are “being replaced by people who do not have allegiance to the integrity of the process.” (We got a taste of that this week, when Texas announced an “audit” of the 2020 election results in four counties some eight-and-a-half hours after Trump publicly called for one despite no serious evidence of problems.)

Or consider how things might’ve played out in January if Congress’s makeup had been different. “What would have happened if the election was exactly the same, except Kevin McCarthy was Speaker of the House?” Hasen asks. “I don’t know that we’d have a President Biden right now.”

What realistically can be done to secure American democracy at this fragile moment? POLITICO Magazine spoke with Hasen this week to sort through it all. A transcript of that conversation follows, condensed and edited for length and readability.

When we spoke 17 months ago, you outlined a “nightmare scenario” for the 2020 election: That the pandemic would disenfranchise huge numbers of Americans, voting processes would be overwhelmed by absentee ballots, Trump would declare victory based on early returns and then once the absentees were counted and Biden was the victor, he’d claim fraud. I get the sense that the nightmare now is much worse. How did 2020 alter the way that you think through all of this?

In Sept. 2020, I wrote a piece for Slate titled, “I’ve never been more scared about American democracy than I am right now.” A month ago, I was on CNN and said I was “scared shitless” — the anchor badgered me into saying those words on cable TV. But I’m even more frightened now than in those past months because of the revelations that continue to come to light about the concerted effort of Trump to try to alter the election outcome: Over 30 contacts with governors, state legislative officials, those who canvass the votes; pressuring governors, pressuring secretaries of state; having his lawyer pass out talking points to have Mike Pence declare Trump the winner even though he lost the election. I mean, this is not what we expect in a democracy.

In 2020, there was a massive shift to absentee balloting; Donald Trump did denigrate absentee balloting despite using it himself and despite having his own ballot harvested for the primary; he lost the election but claimed he actually won; he made hundreds of false statements calling the election results into question; he’s convinced millions of people that the election has been stolen from him, and he is continuing to not only push the lie that the election was stolen, but also to cause changes in both elected officials and election officials that will make it easier for him to potentially manipulate an election outcome unfairly next time. This is the danger of election subversion.

The reason I’m so scared is because you could look at 2020 as the nadir of American democratic processes, or you could look at it as a dress rehearsal. And I’m afraid that with all of these people being put in place… when you’ve got Josh Mandel in the Senate [from Ohio] and not Rob Portman, I’m really worried.

Let’s dig into that. Traditionally, we talk about voter suppression. But what you’re describing is this whole other thing — not suppression, but subversion. Can you walk through that difference?

So, Georgia recently passed a new voting law. One of the things that law does is it makes it a crime to give water to people waiting in a long line to vote — unless you’re an election official, in which case you can direct people to water. That’s voter suppression — that will deter some people who are stuck in a long line from voting. Election subversion is not about making it harder for people to vote, but about manipulating the outcome of the election so that the loser is declared the winner or put in power.

It’s the kind of thing that I never expected we would worry about in the United States. I never thought that in this country, at this point in our democracy, we would worry about the fairness of the actual vote counting. But we have to worry about that now.

Given that shift from suppression to subversion, do you think the purpose of claims of voter fraud changed during the Trump era?

Sure. In two books of mine, I argue that the main purpose of voter fraud arguments among Republicans was twofold: one was to fundraise and get the Republican base excited about Democrats stealing elections; the other was to delegitimize Democratic victories as somehow illegitimate.

In 2020, things shifted. The rhetoric is so overheated that I think it provides the basis for millions of people to accept an actual stolen election as payback for the falsely claimed earlier “stolen” election. People are going to be more willing to cheat if they think they’ve been cheated out of their just desserts. And if [you believe] Trump really won, then you might take whatever steps are necessary to assure that he is not cheated the next time — even if that means cheating yourself. That’s really the new danger that this wave of voter fraud claims presents.

#yup!!!!!#it seems very very possible that at least a few states will straight up change the election results in 2024 #like it's not a secret! the state republican parties are actively setting up the infrastructure to do this #kind of unreal that the democratic party isn't doing anything about it tbh!!!#us politics #politico #long post

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reading-writing-revolution · 4 years

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Heather Cox Richardson:

December 9, 2020 (Wednesday)

Today’s big story remains the loss of our neighbors to Covid-19. Today, our official death count passed the number of those killed in the 9-11 attacks. On that horrific day in 2001, we lost 2977 people to four terrorist attacks. Today, official reports showed 3,140 deaths from Covid-19, the highest single-day toll so far. Hospitals are overwhelmed, our health care workers exhausted.

As the country suffers, Trump has launched a new approach in his attempt to steal the 2020 election. While he has previously insisted that he actually won, and that his “win” must be recognized, this morning he tweeted simply “OVERTURN.” Republican leaders have ducked the question of Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden’s win in the election by saying that the president has a right to challenge an election through legal means. Few of them commented on this new attack on our democracy.

Instead, the Republican attorneys general of seventeen states supported a lawsuit Texas has asked the Supreme Court’s permission to file against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, suing them over their voting processes. A majority of voters in those four states voted for Biden, thus giving him their state’s electoral votes and the presidency. The states that want to sue are all Republican-majority states. They are hoping they can get the Supreme Court to allow them to sue, and that it will then agree with their complaint and throw out the votes from those states so the Republican legislatures there can then choose their own electors and give the win to Trump.

Astonishingly, this argument comes from the party that claims to oppose “judicial activism.”

The states that have declared their support for Texas’s lawsuit are: Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. They are essentially asking the Supreme Court to disfranchise the majority in the United States and to let them put their chosen president in the White House. This assault on American principles is breathtaking.

Trump has also filed a motion to join Texas’s lawsuit in his personal capacity as a presidential candidate. His lawyer says that he “seeks to have the votes cast in the Defendant States unlawfully for his opponent to be deemed invalid.” Tonight, at a White House Hanukkah party, Trump told the crowd that with the help of “certain very important people, if they have wisdom and if they have courage, we are going to win this election.” The attendees chanted “four more years.”

Legal experts say this case is a non-starter. University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes, “It is lacking in actual evidence; it is deeply cynical; it evinces stunning disrespect for both the role of the courts in our constitutional system and of the states in our elections; and it is doomed to fail.”

But the fact that Republican leaders have accepted, rather than condemned, this attempt to overturn a legitimate election says they are willing to destroy American democracy in order to stay in power. On CNN tonight, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican himself, called the lawmakers supporting Trump’s attack on democracy “morally and ethically bankrupt.”

Republicans might be stoking attacks on our electoral system because they know the courts will shut them down. After all, Trump’s lawyers are currently 1-51 in court, and it is unlikely the Supreme Court will take up Texas’s lawsuit. So siding with Trump is a cheap way for leaders to avoid alienating his voters when they will want those voters in 2022.

But they are playing a deeply cynical and wildly dangerous game. Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the Arizona Republican Party asked followers if they were willing to die to overturn the election, then posted a clip from the film “Rambo” in which the main character is threatening someone’s life, saying “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”

Today, talk show host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that they are, in fact, still a majority but they are plagued with “RINOs” who are selling them out. “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession,” he said. “I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York? What is there that makes us believe that there is enough of us there to even have a chance at winning New York? Especially if you’re talking about votes….” (New York City has more people than 40 of the 50 states.) He went on: “There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.”

The theme of civil war, and of America tearing itself apart, was one pushed hard by Russian operatives in 2018. On Twitter, “Civil War” trended today. An actual civil war is highly unlikely, but the unwillingness of leaders to stop this language is already leading to death threats against election officials. The longer they permit it to go on, the worse things will get.

Republicans are working to undermine the incoming Democratic administration in other ways, too. Last week, Attorney General William Barr announced that he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as special counsel in October to investigate the FBI agents who worked on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. While the law about special counsels says they must come from outside the government, Barr claims to have found a loophole in that rule. Durham can be fired only for specific reasons such as conflict of interest or misconduct. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) applauded the appointment and the continuation of the investigation.

Today Biden’s son Hunter told the media that he has just learned that he is under investigation by the Department of Justice for tax issues, although CNN suggested it is a much wider financial investigation than that, and that it began in 2018. The Justice Department is also investigating a company related to Joe Biden’s brother James. While the DOJ is supposed to be independent of the president, these investigations echo Trump’s own calls for such investigations. Immediately Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) called for a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, and tonight, Trump tweeted that “10% of voters would have changed their vote if they knew about Hunter Biden…. But I won anyway!”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham today that Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) should be “removed from Congress” after an Axios report that a Chinese intelligence operative had worked to ingratiate herself with California lawmakers between 2011 and 2015. The operative targeted a number of politicians, including Swalwell, and she fundraised on his behalf, but there is no evidence she broke any laws. In 2015, FBI officers alerted Swalwell, who immediately cut all ties to her. He was never accused of any wrongdoing. The operative left the country unexpectedly during the FBI investigation.

Although the Axios story was about Chinese espionage, right-wing media is aflame with attacks on Swalwell in what seems an attempt to discredit a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Don Jr. tweeted that Swalwell “was literally sleeping with a Chinese spy,” an allegation that is nowhere in the story, although the story mentions that two unidentified midwestern mayors had affairs with her.

The White House appears to be trying to sabotage the Biden administration not only by keeping the Biden team from information it needs, but by tying its hands and slowing it down. The day after the election, the Trump administration proposed a new rule requiring the new Department of Health and Human Services appointees to review most of the department’s regulations by 2023. The rule would automatically kill any regulations that haven’t been reviewed by then. This would mean that, just as the new administration is trying to fight the coronavirus, it would be slammed with administrative paperwork. The department’s chief of staff denies the unusual move is political, saying that a review is necessary because one hasn’t been done for 40 years.

Now that the transition process has finally started, Trump loyalists are blocking meetings, or sitting in on them to monitor what is being said, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency. At Voice of America, Trump’s appointed head, Michael Pack, has refused to give meetings or records to Biden’s team. For their part, Biden’s transition folks are avoiding fights in order to get whatever information they can.

Republican senators are also signaling that they intend to delay confirmations on Biden’s nominees, although in the past 95% of Cabinet nominees have had hearings before an inauguration, and 84% of those were approved within three days. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), for example, questioned the experience of Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra. Becerra is the Attorney General of California, and he sat on the House Committee on Ways and Means, which oversees health issues, during his 24 years in Congress. “I don’t know what his Health and Human Services credentials are,” Cornyn told The Hill. It’s not like [Trump’s HHS Secretary] Alex Azar, who worked for pharma and had a health care background.”

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bicenek · 4 years

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CORONAVIRUS

16 MINS AGO

Will Trump and His Enablers Ever Face Accountability for the Coronavirus Massacre?

The Iraq War is not a good precedent.

DAVID CORN

Washington, DC, Bureau Chief

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They misrepresented the threat. They disregarded experts. They did not prepare adequately. And thousands of Americans died.

And they got away with it.

The implementers, cheerleaders, and enablers of the catastrophic Iraq War were never punished for their actions. It’s not too early to wonder if Donald Trump and those who joined him in discounting and downplaying the coronavirus threat or who were part of his lethal mismanagement of the crisis or who echoed his false statements and absurd claims of winning will ever pay a price for conduct that has led to a current death toll of 12,000, which could end up a magnitude of order greater.

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The Iraq War and occupation, a strategic blunder of historic proportions that was mismanaged from the start, caused the deaths of almost 5,000 US service members and about 200,000 Iraqi civilians. And it was all for naught. There was no WMD threat to neutralize. The invasion did not remake the region and spread democracy. It wreaked chaos and violent instability that continue to plague Iraq and the world.

Yet the architects and engineers of this epic disaster never faced a reckoning. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were reelected, and after their second term was done, they were rewarded with lucrative book contracts, as was former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Paul Wolfowitz, the assistant secretary of defense, became the president of the World Bank. Bush went on to become a pal of Michelle Obama. Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary, was hired as a media consultant for the NFL. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice returned to academia and public speaking and served on the college football playoff selection committee. Columnists who championed the war—Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, the editorial writers of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal—kept their prestigious and well-paying jobs. The dogs of war who howled on Fox News and within the conservative media were not punished. Sean Hannity, a month before the 2003 invasion, declared, “We’re going to go in and we’re going to liberate this country in a few weeks and it’s going to be over very quickly…We’re going to find all of the weapons of mass destruction.” Today, Hannity is the biggest, highest-paid loudmouth at Fox. Democratic legislators who voted in 2002 to provide Bush the leeway to launch the war were not banished. Two won their party’s presidential nomination (John Kerry and Hillary Clinton), and a third (Joe Biden) is on his way to do the same.

There has never been true accountability for this massive screwup that cost thousands of Americans their lives.

Will that happen again?

It is undeniable (for any reality-based observer) that Trump botched the response to the coronavirus pandemic. A recent Washington Post article depicted this tragedy of incompetence in painful detail. And Twitter is loaded with videos showing Trump repeatedly uttering false statements, discounting the coronavirus threat, and claiming the virus was contained. For weeks, he conveyed the message that there was nothing to worry about. He was late to accept the need for social distancing and did not encourage governors to implement necessary shutdowns. He claimed a national testing system was about to start. It never happened, and his administration has failed to develop wide-scale testing. He did not move quickly to prepare health care workers with needed personal protective equipment and ventilators. He essentially told governors they were on their own.

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The most recent of all the revelations showcasing Trump’s ineptitude was especially stark. In late January, White House aide Peter Navarro sent Trump a memo noting, “There is an increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.” The warning never registered with Trump.

There has been an endless series of profound errors committed by Trump and his administration prior to and during this horrific crisis. Then–national security adviser John Bolton shut down the White House’s global health security office in 2018; the Trump team ignored a pandemic playbook left for it by the Obama administration. And Trump, the malignant narcissist, has, to no one’s surprise, explicitly rejected all responsibility for the glaring missteps and deadly miscalculations. Instead, he has boasted about the ratings for his daily press briefings.

Trump and adoring sidekick Mike Pence will face a moment of judgment in November, when voters will render a verdict. But what of all the others who helped make this moment of mass-death possible? The Dear Leader crowd that supports Trump no matter what has echoed, protected, defended, and bolstered him as he has guided the nation into a nightmare of economic calamity and rampant death. You know who they are. (If not, watch this.) White House advisers Kellyanne Conway and Larry Kudlow—who each will likely look for remunerative gigs after their time with Trump—both claimed the coronavirus was “contained.” Trump’s newly acquired press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, proclaimed in February, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here..and isn’t it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama.” Rush Limbaugh told his millions of Dittohead listeners that the coronavirus was no worse than the “common cold.” (Should he give back the Medal of Freedom Trump awarded him in February?) Numerous Fox-heads, including Hannity and Laura Ingraham, misled the public, reinforcing Trump’s insistence that the threat was a hoax and discounting the seriousness of this virus. Only Trish Regan was booted by Fox after she derided what she called the “coronavirus impeachment scam.” The others have remained in place.

Then there is the Republican Party. None of its leaders have dared to challenge Trump, as he misrepresented the threat and lied about his administration’s response. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) encouraged his constituents to ignore calls for social distancing and to go to restaurants. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) mocked concerns about the virus by wearing a gas mask on the House floor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) never publicly questioned Trump’s multiple blunders, and they continued to lead their party in a cultlike manner of total obeisance to Trump. Many others share the blame. Conservative and right-wing evangelical leaders, including Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University and Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union, reinforced the no-big-deal theme that was pushed by Trump’s White House and have considered Trump faultless.

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So with thousands of Americans dying in part because of Trump’s feckless and reckless response, who will be held responsible? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who prosecuted the impeachment case against Trump, has proposed creating a coronavirus commission like the 9/11 commission that investigated all the mistakes and misconceptions that preceded that horrible attack. The 9/11 commission produced a detailed and elegantly written report that offered a stunning indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration and the US intelligence community. (Still, Bush and Cheney were reelected.) But one can expect Trump, the Republicans, and their amen choir to rabidly oppose Schiff’s idea (as Bush opposed establishing the 9/11 commission).

American society does not do accountability well. The instigators of the Iraq War did not suffer. Nor did the bankers who crashed the US economy in 2008. We do have elections, and Trump, Pence, and their Republican handmaids will be on the ballot in seven months. But what of the Fox barkers, the conservative movement that has become no more than a promotion vehicle for Trumpjackery, and the entire right-wing noise machine? With their obsessive devotion to Trump, they all have helped pave the way to a national massacre. Will they be able to wash the blood off their hands? Can a large and deplorable slice of the national political media apparatus be judged guilty of murderous culpability and locked up (metaphorically)?

“Nations should have memories,” Frederick Douglass once said. But Gore Vidal frequently referred to the “United States of Amnesia.” And the past is not a good prelude for accountability. Too often the culprits who contributed to death and destruction end up skating along, even experiencing personal benefit. At this moment, the priority for the nation is to rise above Trump’s incompetence and contend with a killer virus that is robbing us of our friends, neighbors, and loved ones and causing severe economic and societal dislocation. But there ought to come a time for a tallying: who did what when, during a life-and-death national crisis. And it is not too early to be collecting receipts. None of this should be forgotten.

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Did Mccarthyism Help Republicans In The 1952 Presidential Election

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-did-mccarthyism-help-republicans-in-the-1952-presidential-election/

How Did Mccarthyism Help Republicans In The 1952 Presidential Election

Helicopters In Korea 1953

The American Presidential Election of 1952

Infantry troops board helicopters for Korea via the 6th Transportation Helicopter Company, the first Army cargo helicopter unit in the combat zone. The 6th was called up in November 1952 and arrived in Korea with their H-19C helicopters in January, 1953. The armistice was signed, several months later, on July 27. For Joseph R. McCarthy and the conservative Republicans the ceasefire meant that there were be no victory over Communism in Korea. View the original source document: WHI 12139

After World War II, foreign affairs began to play a more important role than ever in the lives of American citizens. The United States and its allies competed with the;Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and its allies for political and economic control of the world. Known as the Cold War, this rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union shaped almost every aspect of international politics, as well as many domestic concerns. The Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR in the early 1990s.

In the late 1940s, people in Wisconsin were divided over issues such as the United Nations, support for European recovery, and the growing power of the Soviet Union. But when post-war Europe divided into Communist and Capitalist camps and China’s communist revolution succeeded in 1949, public opinion shifted to support democracy and capitalism against communist expansion. That tension reached a climax in Korea.

Mccarthyism & The Media During The 1952 Elections

ERICA GATZ

Senator Joseph McCarthy made accusations of treason and Communist activity in the United States throughout his career. One of his most famous moments came in 1950, in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he claimed to have a list of 205 individuals in the State Department that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party. Although he refused to produce any names and was never able to provide any evidence, McCarthy created general fear in America. McCarthyism, or the Red Scare as it came to be called, dominated American politics in the 1950s, damaged many peoples careers and distracted the voting population from other pressing issues.

Explore this article

Election Results

The Origins Of Mccarthyism

McCarthyism began well before Senator Joseph McCarthy arrived on the scene, and its origins are complicated. Much of it was rooted in fear and anxiety within the Republican Partys reactionary fringe. The United States had experienced a similar phenomenon from 1917-1920 in reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which represented the emergence of communism as a political movement. Civil liberties were strictly curtailed by the Espionage and Sedition Acts, especially free speech.

Even more troubling was the revelation that the Soviets had spied on the Wests atomic research. In 1946 the U.S. and Great Britain cracked one of the Soviet codes and learned that a scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project and was currently working in Great Britains atomic research facilities was a spy. Klaus Fuchs was a German communist who had fled his homeland to escape the Nazis. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he sincerely believed that the Soviets had a right to the atomic secrets being kept from them by their allies. Fuchs was arguably the most important spy in the Cold War. He passed on secrets that enabled the Soviet Union to end the U.S. monopoly on atomic weapons only 4 years after Hiroshima, and gave them critical information about American atomic capabilities that helped Joseph Stalin conclude the U.S. was not prepared for a nuclear war at the end of the 1940s, or even in the early 1950s.

Recommended Reading: What Year Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch

The 1952 Campaign And Televisions New Role

Vote for Peace. Vote for Prosperity. Vote for Ike. 1956.

Eisenhower proved to be an adept and strong campaigner, using the tried and true campaign train to visit 45 states where his smile and confident manner elicited great support. I Like Ike proved a winning campaign slogan.; His greatest failing, however, may have been his refusal to criticize the demagogic activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had even accused Eisenhowers colleague General George C. Marshall of being part of a Communist conspiracy.; About this failure to stand up for his former comrade in arms, President Truman remarked, I had never thought the man who is now the Republican candidate would stoop so low. Stevenson was also critical of McCarthys tactics, charging they undermined democracy. But when Eisenhower promised to end the war in Korea late in the fall, and to travel there if he won, it greatly strengthened his campaign.; No matter how many pithy, Twitter -like comments Stevenson was able to offer reporters, he was unable to match that offer by an experienced man of war.

Keith Temple New Orleans Times

In 1953, New York Judge Edward J. Dimock offered thirteen members of the Communist Party a trip to the Soviet Union, but the convicted men and women chose, instead, to serve prison sentences varying from one to three years. As New Orleans Times-Picayune cartoonist Keith Temple makes clear, eight were born in what became Iron Curtain countries. His sarcastic jab suggests that he was disgusted, but not surprised, that Communists from Soviet Bloc countries refused to move to the Soviet Union.

Keith Temple . Can You Beat It? 1953. Published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 5, 1953. India ink and crayon drawing. Gift of Keith Temple, 1953. , Library of Congress LC-DIG-acd-2a11139 Â© 2014 NOLA Media Group, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Used with permission of The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com.

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/pointing-their-pens-editorial-cartoons/red-scare.html#obj009

Recommended Reading: Number Of Senate Republicans

Fame Notoriety And Personal Life

HerblockMcCarthyismWashington Post.

From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.

McCarthy’s methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy’s Wheeling speech, the term “McCarthyism” was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. “McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled,” McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year, he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America.

1952 Wisconsin U.S. Senate election Party Republicanhold

Cold War American Foreign Policy Analysis

At the end of World War Two, the American public, political scientists, government officials, and Winston Churchill share the opinion that long-term hostilities between America and Soviet Russia were inevitable. In February of 1946, special advisor George Kennan confirms an existing political threat from Soviet Russia his Long Telegram. Since Kennans transmission, American foreign policy objectives became equated to American containment of communism. Determining which President achieves the most and least effective leadership requires establishing a metric. At the risk of generalizing, the criteria for effective American Presidential leadership during the Cold War is: establishing and executing effective foreign policy; protecting American

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Mccarthy And Eisenhower 1954

District of Columbia. During the first months of his administration, President Dwight Eisenhower handled Joseph R. McCarthy by publicly ignoring him. However, after the abuse that General Zwicker received from Senator McCarthy’s committee in January, 1954, Eisenhower felt compelled to comment. At a press conference on March 3, 1954, he was mildly critical of McCarthy’s lack of fair play, but he emphatically stated that dealing with employees of t View the original source document: WHI 49052

Communism required tight restrictions on personal freedom and government ownership of business. It threatened the American ideals of individual liberty and free enterprise. Communist expansion in Eastern Europe and Korea fueled Americans’ anxiety that their way of life was under attack and launched the career of Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy. After several uneventful years in the Senate, McCarthy made headlines when he announced in a 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he knew 205 communists were currently working in the State Department. Since American men and women were preparing to sacrifice their lives in combat against a communist enemy in Korea, McCarthy’s speech garnered great publicity. Capitalizing on people’s fears of communism, McCarthy launched a public campaign to eliminate the supposed communist infiltration of government and foreign policy. His pronouncements catapulted him to national prominence and provided a strong platform for his re-election.

Mccarthyism In The 1950’s

JUST IN: McCarthy mocks Democratic leaders, brags about GOP House fortunes in 2020 election

With the dropping of the Atomic bomb that ended WWII and the beginning of the Cold War, the United states was in distress. The start of the 1950s brought about many changes to American society, from the Red Scare and threat of the possible spread of communism in America, to changes in political movements, civil rights movements, and another possible war. The political climate in the 1950s was a period when people made judgement without proof based on peoples occupations, it instilled a fear that anyone could be a communist and pushed McCarthy to find and dispose of them. Factors that influenced this political crisis and fear go back years to 1917 when communism was recognized as a political force. It was known as the last red scare.

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Twists And Turns: An Alternate 1952 And Beyond

Recent threadmarks

McCarthyism, Nukes, and integration, thats whats at stake.*Audible sigh*At least its better than 1932You say that every year-Conversation between Earl Warren andMargaret Chase Smith November 3, 1952 1952 DownballotDamn, we lost seats again, Stevensons gonna pass more status quo bills.If a certain moderate Republican hadnt failed in his campaign, wed have better coattailsHow the hell is this my fault?!? Youre a Taft supporter!Yeah, but even then he was too isolationist for AmericaGet your redneck buddies rallied up, theyll unite behind those Assholes Brewster and McCarthy.Theyre not assholes, theyre trying to protect us!By destroying democracy? Good idea.Maybe its good that you failed.Thanks red-baiter-Conversation between Richard Nixon and Harold Stassen, November 4, 19521954 MidtermsYou can barely dent our system of economic success and prosperity-Eugene McCarthy

Red Scare And The Red Scare

Post World War II the United States was suffering from what is called Red Scare. The Red scare was a propaganda tactic to make the American public fear the communist countries. This propaganda was fueled further by the Korean War and the Cold War. This was fueled by a congressman by the name of Joe McCarthy. President Harry Truman also added on to this propaganda as well.

Also Check: Can Republicans Win Back The House

The Rise Of Joe Mccarthy

On February 9, 1950, at the Republican Womens Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joe McCarthy gave his Lincoln Day speech. Much of it was cut and pasted from speeches and testimony delivered in Washington and already public record. But then McCarthy produced something new. His exact words will never be known, but according to radio and newspaper men who followed his rough draft as he spoke, McCarthy took out a piece of paper, waved it around, and shouted, I have here in my hand a list of 205a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. Communists in the State Department represented a potential threat to national security. But McCarthy had no such list. His source was a four-year-old letter, already published in the Congressional Record, from then Secretary of State James Byrnes to a U.S. Congressman. In the letter, Byrnes explained that a screening of 3,000 federal employees transferred into the State Department from wartime agencies had resulted in recommendations against the permanent employment of 285. Of these 285, the employment of 79 had already been terminated. By subtracting 79 from 285, Senator McCarthy had his so-called 205 State Department communists.

Clarence Batchelor New York Daily News

During the 1952 presidential election, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy repeatedly accused Democratic Party candidate Adlai Stevenson of collusion with Soviet communists. Stevenson had given a deposition in favor of Alger Hiss during his Soviet espionage trial in 1948, so McCarthy and others used this as evidence of communist sympathies. Clarence Batchelor drew for the New York Daily News for thirty-eight years. He and his paper grew increasingly disenchanted with liberalism and by 1952 sympathized with McCarthyâs rhetoric.

Clarence Batchelor . Columbia: âWhat Worries Me Is, I Find No Anger Here Toward Hiss to Match His Anger toward McCarthy,â 1952. Published in the New York Daily News, 1952. India ink, lithographic crayon, charcoal and blue pencil drawing. Gift of Clarence Batchelor, 1953. , Library of Congress LC-DIG-acd-2a05674 Â© New York Daily News

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/pointing-their-pens-editorial-cartoons/red-scare.html#obj010_01

Read Also: Did Parties Switch Platforms

The Cold War: The Korean And Vietnam War

The Cold War was an event that directly impacted and influenced many aspects of American society during most of the second half of the 20th century. It mainly intensified due to the antagonistic values of the feuding America and Soviet Union who were each representative of opposing principles. Because they were the two remaining superpowers to emerge from the conflict of WWII the contention between democracy and capitalism soon became a global conflict. The Cold War was unlike any other in the sense that it was as much of a propagandists war as one that included direct military engagement. Although the Korean and Vietnam Wars were important examples of military intervention by the Americans in the name of containing communism these wars did

How Did Mccarthyism Impact Politics

JUST IN: House GOP Leader says Trump WILL WIN 2020 presidential election

In Congress, Nixon was able to secure a Senate seat by implying that the opposing candidate was a Communist sympathizer because she voted against the HUAC. Nixon accused Alger Hiss, a convicted former spy for the Soviets, and pressed the HUAC to go further into the investigations until Alger Hiss was proven guilty. This investigation gave Nixon a national reputation and he was labeled as a young star. The views of Nixon made him acceptable to east and west in the early 1950s. However, Nixon was a man that would go to extreme lengths and tricks if it achieved political success.

Recommended Reading: Did Trump Say Republicans Are Stupid

Dwight D Eisenhower: Campaigns And Elections

The Campaign and Election of 1952:

During an extraordinary military career, Dwight D. Eisenhower had done some things that few, if any, Americans had ever experienced. But he had not done something that was extremely commonhe had never voted. Yet in 1948, many Americans hoped that the general would cast his first ballotfor himself as President. Even Harry S. Truman tried to interest Eisenhower in a run for the presidency. As the election year of 1948 approached, Truman, who became President when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, seemed to have little chance of winning a full term of his own. In a private meeting, Truman proposed that he and Eisenhower run together on the Democratic ticket, with Eisenhower as the presidential candidate and Truman in second position. Eisenhower rejected this astonishing offer and probably thought that he would never again have to consider the possibility of a run for the White House. He also spurned requests from prominent Republicans that he seek the GOP nomination for President.

Campaign Difficulties

“There was a time when I thought he would make a good President… That was my mistake.”

President Harry Truman, 1952

The Campaign and Election of 1956

The President Prevails

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newagesispage · 3 years

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AUGUST 2021

THE RIB PAGE

Fran Drescher is running for National SAG-AFTRA President with Anthony Rapp as secretary treasurer for Unite for Strength!!! Matthew Modine is running under Membership first with Joely Fisher for Secretary Treasurer. Running in local elections are, among others, Yvette Nicole Brown, Shari Belafonte, Rosie O’Donnell, Jeff Garlin, Ezra Knight, Dule Hill, Camryn Manheim, Sara Rue, Mindy Cohn and Ever Carradine. Sept. 2 is the day!** Frances Fisher filed a suit against SAG-AFTRA over the health care plan but a judge rejected it.

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Bob Balaban and Henry Winkler play brothers in The French Dispatch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t wait for October 22!!!!!!!!!!!!** The next Wes Anderson film will star Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody and Tom Hanks. No other details are out there yet.

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Trees save lives in heat waves.

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TBS will bring us n updated Stupid Pet Tricks with Sarah Silverman.

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So much organized religion is based on forgeries, fakes and plundering. Virtually none of it is based on any sort of truth, spiritual or even historical. Just lies to fulfill an agenda and control the masses. And so far it has worked. –Larry Charles

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Scarlett Johansen has sued Disney cuz her contract guaranteed a theatrical release only.

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An expert on the circus industry recently reached out to me and urged me to not compare Trump and his comeback tour to clowns and the circus, as that is an insult to clowns. –Jim Acosta

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Will Celebrity Dating Game continue? I am sure they think romance expert, Michael Bolton is a cute and quirky thing to do but not so much. If it stays, I hope they change the music, at least those final notes. And why are half of the questions, “Who am I?” The show could be cute but they need a little work!!

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The look into the Jan. 6 insurrection has begun. Kinzinger and Cheney are in. **Tucker Carlson attacked Harry Dunn, a Capitol officer on air. The man protected Carlson’s son, a House staffer.** On Jan. 5, the Steve Bannon podcast went like this: All Hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. It’s gonna be moving. It’s gonna be quick.** Why is mainstream media putting nearly all eggs in the Covid and Olympic baskets and only a few on the insurrection hearing?

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The gun that killed Billy the Kid is for sale.

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Who owns Brett Kavanaugh?

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Gabriel Jagger married Anouk Winzenried.** I don’t know why the Rolling Stones bass player doesn’t just change his name to “not pictured.” –Michael Mckean

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Frank Fritz will not be back on American Pickers.

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For the first time, astronomers have seen behind a black hole. Einstein predicted the gravitational pull of black holes is so enormous that they warp the very fabric of space. He was right. Scientists have now spotted light which was being emitted by the far side of the black hole.

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Look for Heels on Starz.

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What is this new screen for Amazon? It sucks.

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Biden has signed an executive order to protect infrastructure from cyber- attacks.

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Get well Bob Odenkirk!!!! The fabulous Odenkirk collapsed on the set of Better call Saul from a minor heart attack.

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*****

R.I.P. President Jovenel Moise, Philece Sampler, Robert Downey Sr., Richard Donner, flood victims of Belgium and Germany, Robby Steinhardt, Covid victims, Joseph Behar, Robert Moses, Jackie Mason, Dusty Hill, joey Jordison, Priscilla McMillan, Ron Popeil, Carl Levin, Saginaw Grant and Charles Robinson.

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glitterypeanutmugnickel · 3 years

Text

May 11, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

May 12

Comment

Tonight, in a speech that claimed every piece of the Republican landscape since 1980, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney launched a broadside against the Republican leaders who have shackled the party to the former president.

“Today we face a threat America has never seen before,” Cheney said. “A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence. Millions of Americans have been misled by the former president. They have heard only his words, but not the truth, as he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.”

Cheney recalled the determination of those in Kenya, Russia, and Poland to risk their lives to vote for freedom, and talked of how the dream of American democracy had inspired them. She touched on religion, assuring listeners that God has favored America. She invoked Reagan, claiming that his Republican Party won the Cold War and saying that America is now on the cusp of another cold war with communist China.

This impending struggle highlighted the importance of today’s domestic struggle: “Attacks against our democratic process and the rule of law empower our adversaries and feed communist propaganda that American democracy is a failure. We must speak the truth. Our election was not stolen, and America has not failed.”

Cheney went on to claim that she stood on conservative principles Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has abandoned. The fundamental conservative principle is the rule of law, she reminded listeners, and those backing Trump’s Big Lie are denying that rule and undermining our democracy. The election is over, she said, and “Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.” It is imperative, she said, to act to prevent “the unraveling of our democracy.”

"This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar."

Tomorrow, House Republicans will vote on whether to keep Cheney at the number three spot in the party in the House—she is expected to be removed—and Trump’s own former deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, will tell the House Oversight Committee that after the election, the Justice Department “had been presented with no evidence of widespread voter fraud at a scale sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.”

On Thursday, over 100 former Republican leaders will drop a letter saying that if party leadership does not separate itself from former president Trump, they will start a third party. They are calling themselves the “rationals” against the “radicals,” and they include former governors and representatives, as well as Republican officeholders.

This revolt against the Trump loyalists in the Republican Party signals that, no matter what leadership is saying, many Republicans—including Republican lawmakers—are not, in fact, united behind the former president. After all, he never broke 50% approval when he was president, and he lost the White House and Congress for the party. And, now that he is locked out of Twitter and Facebook, it appears he can no longer command the audience he used to. In the week since he launched a new blog, it has attracted a little over 212,000 likes, shares, and comments. The top post got just 16,000 engagements.

Meanwhile, 63% of Americans approve of the job President Joe Biden is doing.

What’s at stake in the fight over Cheney’s position in the Republican Party—admit it, did you ever think you would care about who was the third most important House Republican?—is not some obscure struggle for political seniority. It’s a fight over whether the Republican Party will wed itself to the Big Lie that a Democratic president is illegitimate, despite all evidence to the contrary. Cheney is not a Democrat by a long shot, and she is correctly calling out the danger of the Big Lie for what it is: a dagger pointed at the heart of our democracy.

0 notes

orbemnews · 3 years

Link

Fractures in GOP on full display as Cheney faces renewed criticism But despite the intraparty pressure in Washington and primary challengers lining up to take her on in Wyoming, Cheney appears to be uninterested in backing away from her views, with one ally saying that the congresswoman believes strongly that what happened January 6 undermines democracy and the future of the Republican Party. Cheney, who has openly disagreed with many in her caucus about the role Trump played in the 1/6 insurrection, and who voted for his impeachment, is again facing increasing pressure, after House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked last week if Cheney was still a good fit for leadership. He declined to endorse her, instead saying Cheney’s future would be determined by the caucus. In interviews with CNN, two Republican lawmakers told CNN that Cheney’s comments this week have once again opened old wounds within the GOP conference, forcing members to once again reckon with whether she is the best fit as their leader. As CNN has previously reported, there is little indication anything will come of the frustration. The party is still more interested in moving on than fixating on trying to oust Cheney. But members who spoke with CNN on the condition of background to speak freely about the tensions said they feel that Cheney is not speaking for the conference. “It’s like ‘hey if you want the position, there is some responsibility that comes with it,'” one GOP lawmaker told CNN. “It’s a tough time for the elephants and so this is a complication that comes from within, which is quite frankly not helpful in any way, shape or form.” The person added “you only got two letters and it is only M-E or U-S.” In large part, Cheney’s comments this week were spurred by a series of interviews and questions she received about the events of January 6 and how McCarthy, a California Republican, has downplayed former Trump’s role in the attack, but her comments have once again revealed tension within the GOP that aren’t likely to disappear given that Cheney isn’t going to back away from her views that in order for the Republican Party to succeed in 2024, it must move beyond Trump. Another GOP lawmaker told CNN that the frustration is even more palpable this time. “It’s real and much more widespread than before and completely of her own making,” the lawmaker said. “At this point, it has zero to do with her vote and everything to do with her words and actions.” In February, Cheney overwhelmingly kept her leadership position in a secret ballot vote 145-61 — but GOP sources on the Hill tell CNN there is irritation and a lack of patience that she continues to so publicly attack members in the party and keeps going head-to-head with McCarthy. Two House Republicans who supported Cheney staying in her leadership post believe that the conference could vote again to oust her amid the fallout from her comments about Trump at the party’s retreat earlier this week. And it’s anyone’s guess how it could turn out, given that it’s a secret ballot. A senior House Republican, who backed Cheney in the past, predicted to CNN that she could be “in very big trouble” and stands on shaky ground to remain as the No. 3 in the House Republican Conference. “Members of all stripes were really upset she trampled all over the messaging and unity we otherwise had at the retreat.” The source said while it’s “unclear” when such a vote to oust her would occur, he predicted that a vote is “inevitable” and that this time, she actually could lose. Another member agreed that a vote seems likely. A third House Republican who backed her in the last vote says she has “less support than she thinks.” “The only thing she has going for her are reasonable members like me who have lost confidence in her but fear the bad press and disruption this will cause,” the first lawmaker said. That lawmaker said there is simmering tension between Cheney and McCarthy, whom the source said has been “furious” at her for weeks. McCarthy’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. “He literally saved her last time, and she doesn’t even acknowledge it,” the source said, referring to the speech the GOP leader delivered in February during the closed-door conference meeting in support of Cheney. Some in the House Freedom Caucus, who still back Trump and led the efforts against Cheney back in February, see Cheney’s recent actions as a sign they were right to question her role in leadership. However, her very open anger towards Trump and his role in the riot, echoes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s position — that the party needs to move on from the Trump era if it hopes to win back either the House and/or the Senate next year. One issue facing leadership is the question of who would replace her in the No. 3 spot. Multiple sources tell CNN the GOP leadership feels like they can’t replace her with a man. One person whom sources say could fill the role is New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, but she is likely not willing to step up, as she is reportedly considering a run to challenge New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cheney is also facing a backlash in Wyoming fomented by the former president, who won her state last year with nearly 70% of the vote, the most of any state in the country. After Cheney voted to impeach Trump, saying he “summoned,” “assembled” and “lit the flame of this attack,” the Wyoming Republican state party censured her, and said that “there has not been a time during our tenure when we have seen this type of an outcry from our fellow Republicans.” State senator Anthony Bouchard and state Rep. Chuck Gray launched campaigns against her, and the Trump political operation commissioned a poll claiming the impeachment vote hurt her popularity in the state. But Cheney, who won reelection in 2020 with 69% of the vote, still has a substantial following in the state and raised $1.5 million in the first three months of the year. Wyoming state GOP Rep. Landon Brown predicted that Bouchard and Gray will “end up splitting the vote between their faction of Republicans” and Cheney will receive at least 40% of the vote. “There’s way too much credence being given to these two — she’s a juggernaut and is an amazing ambassador for our state,” Brown said. “They just see through a different set of glasses than reality.” Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. have warned about that potential outcome. In March, Trump Jr. publicly pushed Wyoming to pass a bill creating an election runoff, which could’ve forced Cheney into a race against one other Trump-backed candidate. But the bill died in the state Senate after a narrow, 14-15 vote. The former president then said in mid-April that he’d endorse a 2022 candidate against her “soon,” claiming that “the only way she can win is numerous candidates running against her and splitting the vote.” “So many people are looking to run against Crazy Liz Cheney — but we only want one,” Trump said. Still, Cheney has plenty of allies in the conference — and they are defending her for standing up for her beliefs. “If a prerequisite for leading our conference is lying to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit,” said Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who also voted to impeach Trump. “Liz is going to be honest, straight up and going to stand her own ground.” This story has been updated with additional developments Friday Source link Orbem News #Cheney #criticism #Display #Faces #Fractures #FracturesinGOPondisplayasLizCheneyfacescriticism-CNNPolitics #full #GOP #Politics #renewed

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years

Link

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 23, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

At about 6:00 tonight, Emily Murphy, the Trump appointee at the head of General Services Administration who has been holding up the transition to a Biden administration, notified President-Elect Joe Biden that she recognizes his status and will release the money set aside for the transition. This should launch the formal transition process between administrations, as Biden’s people meet with Trump’s people to learn about the issues over which they will be assuming control on January 20, 2021.

Murphy’s decision appears to have been prompted by Michigan’s certification of its election results. Biden won the state by 150,000 votes, fourteen times Trump’s margin there in 2016, and now can officially claim the state’s 16 electoral votes. This makes it almost impossible for Trump somehow to eke out a win. The Trump campaign vowed to fight on.

Murphy went out of her way to say that she was not pressured by the White House, but Trump promptly contradicted her, saying that the call had been his. For all his bluster, the Trump campaign has bowed to reality, and this might indicate a new era in politics.

Trump is unique, but he is also the product of a distinctive era of Republican history. Beginning in 1968, the party began to win power through the Southern Strategy, picking up racist southern Democrats who opposed the Democratic Party’s embrace of Black rights. After Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, those voters supported Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for president thanks to his insistence that federal protection of racial equality was unconstitutional. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, put their loyalty up for grabs. Richard Nixon claimed it by promising he would not use the federal government to enforce racial justice.

This strategy worked, but it changed the trajectory of the post-WWII Republican Party. It had been Republican Supreme Court justices nominated by President Dwight Eisenhower who advanced civil rights by insisting that states were bound by the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, but the Republican Party now needed to court voters motivated by white supremacy. That ideology promoted an image of white men as the hardworking producers in the country, taking care of their wives and children, while people of color and independent women who wanted equal rights were demanding government program that sucked tax dollars.

That formula became the driving narrative of the modern party, embraced by business leaders who needed to marshal voters behind policies that increasingly benefited not ordinary Americans but those at the very top of the economic ladder. Over time, this new breed of Republicans bled out of the party traditional Republicans who objected to the extremist turn the party was taking. And extremist it was: aided by talk radio and the Fox News Channel, party leaders increasingly demonized their opponents, until by 2016, the leader of the party opened his presidential campaign by alleging that immigrants were criminals, boasting of sexual assault, and welcoming the support of white supremacists.

And yet, despite a clear pattern of voter suppression, a majority of voters rejected Trump in 2020, suggesting that demographics and reality have finally caught up with the Southern Strategy.

In the wake of the election, Trump’s followers have embraced his distrust of our electoral system and are flocking to the conspiracy theories put forward by QAnon. They are flocking to Parler, a social media website that permits conspiracy theories to spread unchecked, although, interestingly, their leaders remain on more mainstream platforms like Twitter.

While defeated incumbents tend to lose power in their party, Trump has tried to assert his continued control. He has attacked loyal Republicans like Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine who have refused to support his attempt to steal the election; is hoping to keep his handpicked Republican National Committee chair, Ronna McDaniel, in office; has packed state level party positions with loyalists; and is trying to keep control over the voter data he has compiled over the past four years. Trump is primed to control the direction of the party for 2024. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have signaled their support for this plan by endorsing McDaniel for another term in office.

But while followers marinate in fantasies about secret servers and hidden ballots, and congressional leaders endorse Trump, other Republican Party leaders recognize that his refusal to accept the results of the election is unprecedented and dangerous.

On Sunday, leaders began to pressure Trump to concede. Trump’s former National Security Advisers John Bolton and H. R. McMaster agreed that Trump’s disdain for the election was eroding democracy, which plays into the hands of our adversaries. The Republican former governor of New Jersey, Thomas H. Kean, and a former Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey, Tim Roemer, both of whom were on the 9/11 Commission, were more explicit. They warned that the transition delay from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attack.

At about 6:00 last night, the Trump campaign abruptly jettisoned the attorney who has been making even more crazy claims than Trump’s longtime lawyer Rudy Giuliani. A statement from the Trump campaign, signed by Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to the Trump team, said “Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.” Powell, who is openly a QAnon believer, has been out in front of the Trump recount effort, making simply outrageous claims. It seems her craziness finally went too far.

Today more than 100 former national security officials from the Republican Party issued a statement saying that Trump’s refusal to concede “constitutes a serious threat to America’s democratic process and to our national security.” They called “on Republican leaders—especially those in Congress—to publicly demand that President Trump cease his anti-democratic assault on the integrity of the presidential election…. By encouraging President Trump’s delaying tactics or remaining silent, Republican leaders put American democracy and national security at risk.”

Tonight, Emily Murphy finally admitted that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

It’s hard to imagine this admission will bring the extremist Trump supporters back into the fold. At the same time it’s hard to see how establishment Republicans horrified by the excesses of Trump’s regime will be willing to move toward the extremists. If this is indeed a split, establishment Republicans will have to move back toward the center to pick up the voters the party has lost at the fringes. Its extremist adherents will regroup outside the mainstream, and the power of the Southern Strategy to win elections will be broken.

We’ll see.

While Republican leaders have struggled, Biden has stayed above the Trumpian fray, emphasizing the need for coordination to distribute the coronavirus vaccine but focusing on jump-starting his administration rather than challenging Trump in the public forum. Last night, word began to leak of the president-elect’s Cabinet picks. They are a very clear sign of his determination to rebuild the nation by putting experts back into power.

Biden’s nominees are people who have spent long careers inside the government, making them good candidates to rebuild what Trump gutted, beginning with the State Department, which manages our foreign policy. Biden began by naming a secretary of state, a sign to the world that America is back and wants again to be a reliable partner. His pick is Antony Blinken, who served as Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Advisor under President Barack Obama. Blinken also worked with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden chaired it, and served as Biden’s National Security advisor when he was vice president. He will be an informed, strong voice at State.

The rest of Biden’s candidates show similar credentials, but they also reflect the longstanding Democratic principle that the government should reflect the American people. Biden is proposing Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas, a former deputy secretary, to head the Department of Homeland Security. He proposes Avril Haines, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, for Director of National Intelligence, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year veteran of the foreign service, who is Black, for ambassador the United Nations.

Thomas-Greenfield went to college with David Duke, who would go on to become the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and who endorsed Trump for president in both 2016 and 2020. It is a new era in politics in at least some very important ways.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#quotes #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #political #election 2020 #transition

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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Fractures in GOP on full display as Cheney faces renewed criticism

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/fractures-in-gop-on-full-display-as-cheney-faces-renewed-criticism/

Fractures in GOP on full display as Cheney faces renewed criticism

But despite the intraparty pressure in Washington and primary challengers lining up to take her on in Wyoming, Cheney appears to be uninterested in backing away from her views, with one ally saying that the congresswoman believes strongly that what happened January 6 undermines democracy and the future of the Republican Party.

Cheney, who has openly disagreed with many in her caucus about the role Trump played in the 1/6 insurrection, and who voted for his impeachment, is again facing increasing pressure, after House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked last week if Cheney was still a good fit for leadership. He declined to endorse her, instead saying Cheney’s future would be determined by the caucus.

In interviews with Appradab, two Republican lawmakers told Appradab that Cheney’s comments this week have once again opened old wounds within the GOP conference, forcing members to once again reckon with whether she is the best fit as their leader. As Appradab has previously reported, there is little indication anything will come of the frustration. The party is still more interested in moving on than fixating on trying to oust Cheney. But members who spoke with Appradab on the condition of background to speak freely about the tensions said they feel that Cheney is not speaking for the conference.

“It’s like ‘hey if you want the position, there is some responsibility that comes with it,'” one GOP lawmaker told Appradab. “It’s a tough time for the elephants and so this is a complication that comes from within, which is quite frankly not helpful in any way, shape or form.”

The person added “you only got two letters and it is only M-E or U-S.”

In large part, Cheney’s comments this week were spurred by a series of interviews and questions she received about the events of January 6 and how McCarthy, a California Republican, has downplayed former Trump’s role in the attack, but her comments have once again revealed tension within the GOP that aren’t likely to disappear given that Cheney isn’t going to back away from her views that in order for the Republican Party to succeed in 2024, it must move beyond Trump.

Another GOP lawmaker told Appradab that the frustration is even more palpable this time.

“It’s real and much more widespread than before and completely of her own making,” the lawmaker said. “At this point, it has zero to do with her vote and everything to do with her words and actions.”

In February, Cheney overwhelmingly kept her leadership position in a secret ballot vote 145-61 — but GOP sources on the Hill tell Appradab there is irritation and a lack of patience that she continues to so publicly attack members in the party and keeps going head-to-head with McCarthy.

Two House Republicans who supported Cheney staying in her leadership post believe that the conference could vote again to oust her amid the fallout from her comments about Trump at the party’s retreat earlier this week.

And it’s anyone’s guess how it could turn out, given that it’s a secret ballot.

A senior House Republican, who backed Cheney in the past, predicted to Appradab that she could be “in very big trouble” and stands on shaky ground to remain as the No. 3 in the House Republican Conference. “Members of all stripes were really upset she trampled all over the messaging and unity we otherwise had at the retreat.”

The source said while it’s “unclear” when such a vote to oust her would occur, he predicted that a vote is “inevitable” and that this time, she actually could lose. Another member agreed that a vote seems likely. A third House Republican who backed her in the last vote says she has “less support than she thinks.”

“The only thing she has going for her are reasonable members like me who have lost confidence in her but fear the bad press and disruption this will cause,” the first lawmaker said.

That lawmaker said there is simmering tension between Cheney and McCarthy, whom the source said has been “furious” at her for weeks. McCarthy’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“He literally saved her last time, and she doesn’t even acknowledge it,” the source said, referring to the speech the GOP leader delivered in February during the closed-door conference meeting in support of Cheney.

Some in the House Freedom Caucus, who still back Trump and led the efforts against Cheney back in February, see Cheney’s recent actions as a sign they were right to question her role in leadership. However, her very open anger towards Trump and his role in the riot, echoes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s position — that the party needs to move on from the Trump era if it hopes to win back either the House and/or the Senate next year.

One issue facing leadership is the question of who would replace her in the No. 3 spot.

Multiple sources tell Appradab the GOP leadership feels like they can’t replace her with a man. One person whom sources say could fill the role is New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, but she is likely not willing to step up, as she is reportedly considering a run to challenge New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cheney is also facing a backlash in Wyoming fomented by the former president, who won her state last year with nearly 70% of the vote, the most of any state in the country.

After Cheney voted to impeach Trump, saying he “summoned,” “assembled” and “lit the flame of this attack,” the Wyoming Republican state party censured her, and said that “there has not been a time during our tenure when we have seen this type of an outcry from our fellow Republicans.” State senator Anthony Bouchard and state Rep. Chuck Gray launched campaigns against her, and the Trump political operation commissioned a poll claiming the impeachment vote hurt her popularity in the state.

But Cheney, who won reelection in 2020 with 69% of the vote, still has a substantial following in the state and raised $1.5 million in the first three months of the year.

Wyoming state GOP Rep. Landon Brown predicted that Bouchard and Gray will “end up splitting the vote between their faction of Republicans” and Cheney will receive at least 40% of the vote.

“There’s way too much credence being given to these two — she’s a juggernaut and is an amazing ambassador for our state,” Brown said. “They just see through a different set of glasses than reality.”

Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. have warned about that potential outcome. In March, Trump Jr. publicly pushed Wyoming to pass a bill creating an election runoff, which could’ve forced Cheney into a race against one other Trump-backed candidate. But the bill died in the state Senate after a narrow, 14-15 vote.

The former president then said in mid-April that he’d endorse a 2022 candidate against her “soon,” claiming that “the only way she can win is numerous candidates running against her and splitting the vote.”

“So many people are looking to run against Crazy Liz Cheney — but we only want one,” Trump said.

Still, Cheney has plenty of allies in the conference — and they are defending her for standing up for her beliefs.

“If a prerequisite for leading our conference is lying to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit,” said Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who also voted to impeach Trump. “Liz is going to be honest, straight up and going to stand her own ground.”

This story has been updated with additional developments Friday

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crimsonbreeze · 4 years

Text

Here’s the thing though

Now the Democrats are going to have to go back to working with these Republicans who had a hand in nearly getting them killed without any justice whatsoever. I mean, it’s bad enough that they have to work with these people and plead with them to just do their jobs and make some attempt to work for the people that they represent but now they’re going to have to do it without even the consolation of the Republicans admitting that they were wrong and that they betrayed this nation. They were wrong to support Donald Trump’s blatant lies and they put themselves, their colleges and the very foundation of our country in danger. Instead, they reiterated that it’s ok for a president to sic his supporters on anyone who doesn’t agree with him and he can’t be held accountable for that.

It’s honestly ridiculous that these senators that went on tv and spoke to reporters and pushed Trump’s lies about election fraud got to then be the jury for this trial. I mean, one of the Republicans was tweeting about Nancy Pelosi’s location as the senators were being evacuated. Trump was not alone in riling up this angry mob. Why should you get to judge if someone is guilty of a crime when you have commited that exact crime yourself? Josh Hawley fucking raised his fist in support and solidarity with that mob. So many of these Republicans refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election fair and square and kept repeating these debunked allegations of voter fraud over and over and over.

The nerve of these people is truly astounding. Mitch McConnell had no problem right after voting not guilty to stand up in the middle of the Senate Floor and say Trump was in fact guilty. Go to hell, sir. I suppose it’s not surprising. We have proof that so many of these people begged Trump to help them and to call off the mob and their pleas went unanswered and even after that so many of them still voted not to certify the election results. This man literally left them to die and they still chose to be loyal to him.

Even after all the horror that happened on January 6th, you people didn’t even have the decency to be respectful while your coworkers talked about the fear they felt on that day. You ignored them. Acted like you had more important things to do. Accused THEM of going against the constitution. Some of you didn’t even show up. Why the hell should you be allowed to vote if you don’t even hear the whole trial? Normal citizens get arrested if they skip out on jury duty but you go to skip out on the trial to impeach a president and not only did you not get in trouble, you still got to cast a vote to convict him or not? What?

Why?

I don’t understand. What do you think you’re going to gain from this? Have you really not learned after all this time, after what happened on January 6th that this man will never, ever, lift a finger or even open his mouth for you if there is not something in it for him? He doesn’t care about you. His supporters, whose votes you are so desperate for, do not care about you. I’m looking at you Ted Cruz. Your open support for Trump didn’t keep those people from ransacking your office too, did it? And in that moment of confusion, when they thought you “were gonna sell them out all along” they sounded like they were ready to kill you too. I’m looking at you “Little Marco.” I’m looking at you Kevin McCarthy, you who asked Trump to help when your life was potentially in danger and even in that moment, Trump’s only response was that you weren’t doing enough to help HIM steal the election. Let’s just make that clear, shall we. He incited this insurrection because he knew he lost the fair and objective election and sicking and angry and delusional mob on you was his last ditch effort at holding on to power. “Maybe they care more about the election than you do?” He might as well have said that you deserved whatever was happening to you because you hadn’t done enough for him. In truth, he wanted you to be rioting right along with those people. He left you to die and you still voted to not certify the election results.

We don’t always get along with the people we work with. That’s just a part of life. But how can you just sit there sullenly while you see those people along with yourselves, come that close to death? How can anyone be this cold? This cruel? You can’t all be sociopathic. Did you really not care or were you just too traumatized to watch those videos? Or maybe you were just too ashamed to admit the truth that it was an attack incited by Trump and you just didn’t want to admit that he’s guilty?

Maybe you’re just truly that spineless. Still bowing to the will of a man that no longer has any power. That was silenced by the social media platforms he was using to spread his hate and violence because those private companies were brave enough to stand up to him and tell him enough is enough and call him out on his crime.

You have embarrassed yourselves. You have disgraced our country. You have betrayed our democracy.

You people wanna run for President in 2024? Who’s going to vote you? Certainly not any of these Trump supporters if he decides to run again. You made sure he has that option. Why should anyone vote for you? You clearly don’t have respect for democracy when you go spouting lies just because the liar in chief tells you too. You don’t have any respect for your colleagues who you ignored throughout this trial and accused of going against the constitution. You don’t even have respect for yourselves. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have continued to support the man that told an angry mob to go attack you.

Why should anyone vote for you? How can any voter ever expect you to stand up for them when you can’t even stand up for yourselves?

#impeachment #rant #mp #i knew they were gonna acquit him #but still #i'm so angry #i thought at least a few more of them might find a conscience #or have the decency to look ashamed #but no #smh

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multipleservicelisting · 4 years

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‘Impeachment is totally wrong,’ flies against Biden’s unity message: McCarthy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., encouraged President Biden to call Democrats off holding an impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump Thursday, whom he said could still lead the party going forward.

“I think impeachment is totally wrong,” he said on “America’s Newsroom.” “It was purely politically driven. What they were doing on impeachment with having no committee look at it, no information, and people just vote on this. And now President Trump is a private citizen. Why would you spend your time on this?”

Democratic leaders have signaled they willl proceed with the Senate trial for Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday the Senate trial would likely proceed “soon.”

PELOSI DEFENDS IMPEACHMENT IN FACE OF BIDEN’S CALL FOR UNITY: ‘WE MUST DO IT’

Trump was impeached for a second time last week on an article of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol, after a mob of avid supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6 to disrupt certification of Biden’s win. The melee lead to five deaths and rebukes from some senior members of Trump’s own party, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Ten Republicans joined House Democrats in voting to impeach Trump, including conference chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. McCarthy voted against it and was part of the majority of the House Republican caucus that challenged Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump.

Democrats hold total control in Washington for the first time in a decade after Biden won and Democrats took narrow control of the U.S. Senate. McCarthy said the effort to convict Trump after he left office would be a divisive action from a party stressing unity.

BIDEN SWORN IN AS 46TH PRESIDENT, SAYS ‘DEMOCRACY HAS PREVAILED’ IN INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Asked about Cheney’s vote and divisions in the GOP caucus over Trump’s impeachment, he said he was optimistic the leadership team could unite and gain the majority in two years. Despite Trump’s defeat, House Republicans gained 13 seats in the 2020 election, and all incumbent GOP members were re-elected.

“We’re going to have a discussion inside. I know there’s differences of opinion. The best thing that we can do as one party is talk to one another, respectfully and understand that some people will have differences of opinion and air those out and move forward as one,” he said.

Asked who the leader of the Republicans was, McCarthy would not directly say Trump, although he did say he had the “ability to lead this party.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“The people are the leader of the Republican Party,” he said, later adding, “I think President Trump continues to have that ability to lead this party and unite. Yes, President Trump has the ability to lead this party.”

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Many Republicans Are Currently In The House

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-currently-in-the-house/

How Many Republicans Are Currently In The House

Why The Number Of House Members Hasn’t Changed Since 1913

Republicans register their fury as House holds historic first proxy vote

There are still 435 members of the House of Representatives a century later because of the;Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which set that number in stone.

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 was the result of a battle between rural and urban areas of the United States following the 1920 Census. The formula for distributing seats in the House based on population favored “urbanized states” and penalized smaller rural states at the time, and Congress could not agree on a reapportionment plan.

“After the 1910 census, when the House grew from 391 members to 433 , the growth stopped. Thats because the 1920 census indicated that the majority of Americans were concentrating in cities, and nativists, worried about of the power of ‘foreigners,’ blocked efforts to give them more representatives,” wrote Dalton Conley, a professor of sociology, medicine and public policy at New York University, and Jacqueline Stevens, a professor of political science at Northwestern University.

So, instead, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 and sealed the number of House members at the level established after the 1910 census, 435.

Theres Never Been A Better Time For Civic Engagement

Youve cast your vote. Now what? Join 10 million other Americans using GovTrack to learn about and contact your representative and senators and track what Congress is doing each day.

And starting in 2019 well be tracking Congresss oversight investigations of the executive branch.

Youre more than a vote, so support GovTrack today with a tip of any amount:

Or keep using GovTrack for free! Our public interest mission means we will never put our service behind a paywall.

Its Not All Bad News For Democrats

While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.

Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election,2 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.

Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020,3 but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.

Don’t Miss: Tim Kaine Lapel Pin Debate

Who Controls State Legislatures In States With Changes

Thirteen states were affected by the 2020 Census’ shift in congressional seats.;

States are given the task of redrawing districts when;they gain;or lose;seats.;

Michael Li, senior counsel for the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program,;said;the country could be poised for a battle over;gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing district lines to favor one party over the other or to suppress the vote of communities of color.

In some states, the process is fairer than others, he said, because they are not controlled by just one political party or they have instituted an independent redistricting committee, such as in Michigan. But for other states, the party in power stands to control the map.

Red Surge Democrats Stunned As Gop Gains House Seats Expected To Hold Control Of The Senate

More than a week after the election, a small number of House and Senate races are still undecided, but all signs are pointing to something like a red surge that few had predicted for Congress. Thats a shock because media pundits and Democrats had predicted a blue wave that never materialized. The Associated Press is reporting Democrats have been blindsided.;

As of Wednesday, Republicans appear to have secured 50 seats in the next Senate as theyre now expected to win in Alaska and North Carolina. Plus, they have a strong chance of winning two more in Senate runoff elections in Georgia in January. Democrats are believed to have won 48 Senate seats.;

And even though Democrats say theyve won the 218 seats needed for a majority in the House of Representatives, their margin of control is much smaller than it was before this election, and it could be razor-thin.;

Democrats went into the election with a 232-197 House advantage. There were also five open seats, plus one independent lawmaker. The AP says Republicans have won 202 seats so far. But there are more than a dozen races still undecided in states like California, Utah, and New York, and Republican candidates are currently leading in most of those races.

The Republican coalition is bigger, more diverse, more energetic than ever before, said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy .

AS BIBLICAL VIEWS ARE SILENCED MORE AND MORE ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BE SURE;TO STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FREE CBN NEWS APP;

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Republicans Suddenly Sweating Falling Deep Into House Minority

GOP leaders tout their chances to win back the majority, but falling poll numbers for Trump have some worried they could lose seats in November.

07/29/2020 04:30 AM EDT

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A slew of dismal summer polls and a persistent fundraising gap have left some Republicans fretting about a nightmare scenarioin November: Thatthey will fall further into the House minority.

Publicly, House GOP leaders are declaring they can still net the 17 seats needed to flip the chamber. But privately, some party strategists concede its a much grimmer picture, with as many as 20 Republican seats at risk of falling into Democratic hands.

Far from going on offense, the GOP could be forced to retrench in order to limit its losses.Theres a growing fear that President Donald Trumps plummeting popularity in the suburbs could threaten GOP candidates in traditionally favorable districts, and that their partys eagerness to go on offense might leave some underfunded incumbents and open GOP-held seats unprotected.

Internal Democratic surveys in recent weeks have shown tight races in once-solid GOPseats in Indiana, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Montana that Trump carried handily 2016 data that suggest the battleground is veering in a dangerous direction for the GOP.

And should the environment worsen, other seats in North Carolina, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington state, central Virginia and Michigan could be at risk.

Gop Women Made Big Gains

While the majority of the Republican caucus will still be men come 2021, there will be far more Republican women in Congress than there were this year. So far, it looks like at least 26 GOP women will be in the House next year, surpassing the record of 25 from the 109th Congress. Thats thanks in part to the record number of non-incumbent Republican women 15 whove won House contests. And its also because of how well Republican women did in tight races. The table below shows the Republican women who ran in Democratic-held House districts that were at least potentially competitive,1 according to FiveThirtyEights forecast. As of this writing, seven of them have won.

GOP women have flipped several Democratic seats

Republican women running for potentially competitive Democratic-held House seats and the status of their race as of 4:30 p.m Eastern on Nov. 11

District D+22.1

Results are unofficial. Races are counted as projected only if the projection comes from ABC News. Excludes races in which the Republican candidate has either a less than 1 in 100 chance or greater than 99 in 100 chance of winning.

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United States House Of Representatives

United States House of Representatives Flag of the U.S. House of Representatives Type Plurality voting in 46 statesVaries in 4 states

The United States House of Representatives is the lower house of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper house. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.

The House’s composition is established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The House is composed of representatives who sit in congressional districts allocated to each state on a basis of population as measured by the U.S. Census, with each district having one representative, provided that each state is entitled to at least one. Since its inception in 1789, all representatives have been directly elected. The number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435. If enacted, the DC Admission Act would permanently increase the number of representatives to 436. In addition, there are currently six non-voting members, bringing the total membership of the House of Representatives to 441 or fewer with vacancies. As of the 2010 Census, the largest delegation is that of California, with 53 representatives. Seven states have only one representative: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Rising Violent Crime Is Likely To Present A Political Challenge For Democrats In 2022

Rep. Schiff: Only Question Is How Many In GOP Will Support Impeachment | Morning Joe | MSNBC

But there are roadblocks to fully enacting Democrats agenda. Their thin majorities in both chambers of Congress mean nearly all Democrats have to get on board with every agenda item in order to push through major legislative priorities. And without adjusting or eliminating the legislative filibuster in the Senate, Democrats need 10 Republicans to join them for various legislation a near-impossible task.

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Numerous Freshman Democrats Lost Reelection

The vulnerable first-term Democrats who Decision Desk HQ projects to lose reelection are Reps. TJ Cox, Gil Cisneros, and Harley Rouda of California, Reps. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala of Florida, Rep. Abby Finkenauer of Iowa, Rep. Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico, Rep. Max Rose of New York, Rep. Kendra Horn of Oklahoma, Rep. Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, and Rep. Ben McAdams of Utah.;

Rep. Collin Peterson, a long-serving Democratic representative in a Minnesota district that Trump won by 30 points, also lost reelection.

Some House Democrats who flipped Republican suburban and exurban seats in 2018 did win reelection, however, including Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, Rep. Katie Porter of California, Reps. Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger, and Jennifer Wexton of Virginia, and Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey.

A Candid Conversation With Eight Women Of Color Running For Congress This Year

Gore is running against Democratic incumbent Rep. Marcia Fudge, who has represented Ohios solidly blue 11th Congressional District since 2008 a majority Black urban area.

Maybe the candidacies arent taken seriously because typically we dont get the Black vote. And sometimes we dont get the white vote, you know? So were kind of in a bit of a quagmire, Gore said, reflecting on her challenges to fundraise.

Klacik, a former Democrat who voted for Barack Obama, faces an incredibly steep climb in a reliably blue urban district, which includes parts of Baltimore. She is running against incumbent Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who was sworn in earlier this year after the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings in October 2019. Cummings held that seat since 1996.

I get called names all the time for being a Black Republican. Meanwhile, my whole push is to make it better in the Black community, Klacik said, criticizing Democratic politicians for a lack of investment in the inner cities.

Asked what advice she has for other Republicans of color who face similar backlash, Klacik urged them not to be discouraged.

People are always gonna either love you or hate you, she said. Youve got to fight for whats right.

The primary is our biggest place of hurt

Compared to an expansive network of Democratic organizations built over the last few decades to support female candidates, there are only a few Republican groups working specifically to boost the campaigns of Republican women.

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Changes To House Rules

After Democrats took control of the House in the 116th Congress, they voted to change some rules from the previous session of Congress when Republicans were in control. Some of the changes appear below.

PAYGO: Democrats approved PAYGO, a provision that requires legislation that would increase the deficit to be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases.

Ethics: Democrats made changes to House ethics rules that required all House members to take ethics training, not just new members. The rules also required members to reimburse taxpayers for settlements that that result from a members discrimination of someone based on race, religion, sex, national origin, or disability, among other things. Lawmakers were also prohibited from sitting on corporate boards.

Climate change committee: Democrats created a new climate change committee to address the issue. The committee was not given subpoena power or the ability to bring bills to the floor.

A full explanation of the rules changes can be viewed here.

Were Also On Social Media

GovTrack.us is an independent website tracking the status of legislation in the United States Congress and helping you participate in government. Now were on Instagram too!

Follow on Instagram for new 60-second summary videos of legislation in Congress.

Follow on Twitter for posts about legislative activity and other information were tracking, and some commentary.

And please consider supporting our work by becoming a monthly backer on Patreon or leaving a tip.

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Opinion: House Republicans Have Two Critical Advantages In 2022

Democrats hold the balance of power in Washington, D.C., but their margin is wafer-thin: Joe Biden is president, and the party controls both houses of Congress only very narrowly. Theyve already enacted $1.9 trillion of economic stimulus. Theyre haggling with Republicans over the size of a bipartisan infrastructure bill. And theyre keen to pass a new voting rights law, although moderate Sen. Joe Manchin III might scuttle the effort.

Still, their time in the majority might be limited. We live in an era of bitter, closely divided elections. And in 2022, Republicans have two advantages that might soon give them the edge in the House.

The Republicans first advantage: The other party holds the White House. If Biden follows the path of other recent presidents, hell spend political capital, navigate crises and lose supporters in the process.

Barack Obama summarized this dynamic two years into his presidency: In the rush of activity, sometimes we lose track of the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place. This is true of nearly every recent president. Ronald Reagan lost supporters as the 1981-82 recession tore through the economy. Obama alienated swing voters and energized tea party activists as he tried to advance the Affordable Care Act in Congress. And Bill Clinton lost voters when he attempted to pass a health-care reform bill of his own.

The GOPs second advantage: It draws the lines.

Democrats Keep House Majority But Republicans Defied The Odds

The Democrats could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years.

Nancy Pelosi praises Democrats for retaining the House majority

The Democrats will keep their majority in the House of Representatives, but after all the votes are counted, they could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years.

The Democrats gained a majority in the House following the 2018 election in which they won 41 seats. This was the largest gain for the political party since the 1974 election, in which they gained 49.

Some of the popular freshman Democrats who came into office in 2018, including New Yorks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesotas Ilhan Omar, have been elected for a second term.

But Republicans appear set to make some gains, winning nearly every tossup and picking up at least six seats based on calls of races by The Associated Press.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted Wednesday morning, Republicans defied the odds and grew our party last night.

He also tweeted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Youve been put on notice.

Among the Republican victories is , who won Georgias conservative 14th Congressional District after publicly supporting the fringe conspiracy theory known as QAnon.

In videos unearthed by POLITICO, Greene is also heard spouting racist, Islamophobic and sexist views.

ABC News Quinn Scanlan and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

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Bipartisan Bromance Blossoms As 2 Texas Congressmen Make Dc Road Trip

Hurd was also one of just four House Republicans who voted for a resolution to condemn Trumps racist tweets last month attacking four freshman Democratic women of color. His positions and willingness to speak out against Trump made sense, given the political and demographic makeup of his district. The 23rd District is almost 70% Latino, and Hillary Clinton won it by about 3.5 percentage points in 2016. Last years midterm elections left Hurd as one of just three House Republicans to sit in a district carried by Clinton, not Trump.

But Hurd only barely survived in 2018 to win reelection by just 926 votes over Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran who had already announced she was seeking a rematch in 2020. Without Hurd, who was seen by Republicans and Democrats alike as an unusually strong GOP incumbent, the Cook Political Report has moved its rating for this seat from Toss Up to Lean Democratic.

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mdye · 7 years

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Donald Trump passed along sensitive intelligence to Russia’s ambassador, endangering American assets in the exact same way that Barack Obama did when he bowed to that guy. We’re convinced that at this point, Mitch McConnell’s entire family could be eaten by bears but so long as the plan to lower the effective tax rate for corporations were on track, he’d be cool. And it seems like Trump’s week couldn’t get any worse unless he had a photo-op with an authoritarian ruler like Recep Tayyip Erdog — oh. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, May 16th, 2017:

THIS MIGHT BE HOW THE DEMOCRATS BLOW 2018 - Greetings from Georgetown, where everyone knows the reason Trump won in November was because there weren’t enough Beltway gatherings at hotels where a side order of foie gras butter is a reasonable $15. As such, the Center for American Progress and practically the entire Democratic establishment thought it a good idea to to have an “Ideas Conference” at the Four Seasons today. Naturally, this had us wondering whether the setting might undermine the speakers’ messages of economic inclusion (”Concentrated money and concentrated power are corrupting our democracy,” warned Elizabeth Warren; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the economic woes of working people in California are “not much different from people in coal country;” “All we do is fight for working families in our country,” claimed Nancy Pelosi, adding that it was imperative that the Democratic Party better communicate its agenda to voters). “CAP’s Ideas Conference isn’t about the venue — it’s about the ideas and energy our speakers are bringing to the day,” said CAP spokeswoman Allison Preiss, who added that the venue was chosen to accommodate unexpected press interest (though the group’s 10th anniversary policy conference in 2013 was held, somewhat suspiciously, at the St. Regis). We asked Senator Jeff Merkley what he thought of the setting. “I did find it kind of ironic as I was walking here from the subway stop that we were moving into elite Georgetown for this conference,” he said. Merkley said he didn’t know enough about the planning to comment at length, but noted, approvingly, “this is a union shop.” Onward to 2018!

This is arguably the GOP’s worst news cycle of the year, and Republicans were giddy to tee off on the conference’s location: “Giving speeches to rich, white, elites inside $800 per night hotels in the toniest section of the most hated city in America only picks up where Hillary Clinton left off,” Ken Spain, the former communications director for the Republican National Campaign Committee, told us. Sam Geduldig, a leading GOP lobbyist and erstwhile aide to former House Speaker John Boehner, picked up on that theme. “I have this vision of wealthy liberals picking at a seafood tower while talking about people they know nothing about,” Geduldig said. “Maybe they can conduct a focus group of the hotel staff, while they have them in one place?”

Taking BernieLand’s temperature: “A tone-deaf luxury bootcamp for CAP-affiliated consultants, operatives, and big money donors accustomed to losing elections means the Democratic party might not get in shape ahead of the 2018 midterm elections,” People for Bernie co-founder Winnie Wong told us.

TRUMP ADMIN STILL DANCING AROUND INTEL LEAK DENIAL - Marina Fang: “President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday continued to provide a muddled explanation of reports that the president shared classified information with Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting last week. National security adviser H.R. McMaster, who had said on Monday that The Washington Post’s reporting was false, would not directly confirm or deny that Trump had shared classified information. ‘We don’t say what’s classified, what’s not classified,’ McMaster said at a press briefing Tuesday, before adding that ‘what the president shared was wholly appropriate.’ Trump all but confirmed that he shared classified information in a series of tweets early Tuesday morning, proclaiming that he has ‘the absolute right’ to share any information he wants.” [HuffPost]

Oh: “McMaster’s pushback came just hours after Trump himself acknowledged Tuesday morning in a pair of tweets that he had indeed revealed highly classified information to Russia — a stunning confirmation of the Washington Post story and a move that seemed to contradict his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report.” [WaPo’s Ashley Parker]

DONALD TRUMP GAVE SENSITIVE INTEL TO THE RUSSIANS AND THE GOP IS ON IT - And by “on it,” we mean, “has the same canned response queued up.” Amanda Terkel: “Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) said the news was ‘deeply concerning,’ and he will raise it when the House Intelligence Committee meets. ‘I would be concerned anytime we’re discussing sensitive subjects with the Russians,’ said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) similarly said the revelations were ‘deeply disturbing,’ while Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told the White House to get its act together: ‘The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. It’s got to happen.’ House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he wants a ‘full explanation’ from the administration of what Trump disclosed, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would simply like ‘a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda.’” [HuffPost]

Haircuts: Jeffrey Young (h/t Jeffrey Young), Canada’s own Todd Zwillich (h/t Tiger Beat).

Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

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OH GOOD LORD, TRUMP MEETS WITH ERDOGAN - The whole Russian intel leak thing reminded us that Trump will also likely meet with Rodrigo Duterte at some point this year. Can’t wait! Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Mark Landler: “President Trump on Tuesday praised President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey as a stalwart ally in the battle against Islamic extremism, ignoring Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarian crackdown on his own people and brushing aside recent tensions between the United States and Turkey over how to wage the military campaign against the Islamic State. Welcoming Mr. Erdogan to the White House, Mr. Trump said, ‘Today, we face a new enemy in the fight against terrorism, and again we seek to face this threat together.’ … Mr. Erdogan praised Mr. Trump for the ‘legendary triumph’ he had achieved in the election and declared that his first meeting with the new president would be a ‘historical turn of tide’ in the Turkish-American relationship.” [NYT]

Congratulations to Jared Kushner: “Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took himself out of the running to be the nation’s next FBI director, informing President Donald Trump’s administration that he intends to stay in the Senate instead. In a statement released by his office on Tuesday, Cornyn, the Senate’s majority whip, said the country needs a ‘well-credentialed’ and ‘independent’ FBI director to replace James Comey, who was fired by the president last week.” [HuffPost’s Igor Bobic]

THE 11-DIMENSIONAL CHESS OF FAKE NEWS - True Detective Season 13: The first one starring Tim Allen and Kelsey Grammar and streamed on NewsmaxTV. Alex Seitz-Wald: “The Dallas-based financial adviser, Ed Butowsky, a Fox News contributor who has written articles for Breitbart News, contacted the parents of Seth Rich and urged them to hire a private investigator to look into the death of their 27-year-old son, who was shot and killed last July in what police say was a robbery gone wrong. The Rich family hired the detective who had been recommended, Rod Wheeler, a former D.C. homicide detective who is also a Fox News contributor and who last month tweeted a photo of himself at the White House captioned, ‘Doing my part to Make America Great Again!!’ Wheeler said on Monday there was evidence to support the conspiracy theories, including that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks before his death — prompting a quick rebuke from both the police and Rich’s family…. Police say it was a robbery gone wrong, but the death quickly became a fascination of conspiracy theorists, who alleged he was the source of DNC emails published on Wikileaks, even though U.S. intelligence agencies say they actually came from a Russian hacking operation.” [MSNBC]

Condolences to Melissa McCarthy: “As President Donald Trump is reportedly frustrated with his communications team and mulling a major staff shake-up, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle signaled Tuesday that she could be leaving the president’s favorite channel for the White House. In an interview with the Bay Area News Group, Guilfoyle said she had been in conversations with the Trump administration about becoming White House press secretary or taking on another press role.” [HuffPost’s Michael Calderone]

NC GOV PROMISES EXECUTIVE ORDER ON HB2 - Pretty amazing considering the state legislature stripped Roy Cooper of pretty much every power save for the approval vanity plates. Julia Craven: “North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vowed Tuesday to issue an executive order ‘pretty soon’ to increase protections for LGBTQ people in the state. The pledge follows the state’s partial repeal of HB2, a law barring local governments from passing any anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people. ‘I’m going to issue an executive order pretty soon that is comprehensive, that helps with LGBT protections and we’re going to keep working every day,’ he said during the Center for American Progress’ Ideas Conference. Cooper’s office told HuffPost they could not immediately give additional details about the order.” [HuffPost]

MAN ARRESTED FOR THREATENING CONGRESSWOMAN - McSally, to refresh your memory, represents Gabby Giffords old district. Curt Prendergast: “The FBI arrested a TUSD employee on suspicion of threatening U.S. Rep. Martha McSally. FBI agents arrested Steve Martan, 58, in connection with three messages left on the congressional office voicemail on May 2 and May 10, according to a criminal complaint filed May 12 in U.S. District Court in Tucson. Martan is a campus monitor at Miles Exploratory Learning Center in the Tucson Unified School District. He was placed on home assignment and told not to come into work as the district investigates the allegations. The voicemails contained threats to McSally, including that she should ‘be careful’ when she returns to Tucson and that her days ‘were numbered.’ He threatened to shoot her in one of the expletive-filled messages.” [Arizona Daily Star]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here is the flyest toddler to ever take to a moonbounce.

COMFORT FOOD

The dopest of elevators.

How to make the carbonara from “Master of None.”

Take a break from this nightmarish newscycle and relax by watching some Japanese joinery.

TWITTERAMA

Thoughts and prayers to all those GOP lawmakers concerned about Trump’s behavior

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) May 16, 2017

White House reaction cycle 1 - It never happened 2 - POTUS tweet 3 - It happened; NBD 4 - Nobody cares but you 5 - No more questions on this

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) May 16, 2017

Regular reminder that the entire election turned on fake anger that Clinton had mishandled unmarked material at low-level classification.

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) May 15, 2017

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libertariantaoist · 8 years

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The foreign policy issue in American politics has undergone some remarkable shifts over the years. We are in the midst of just such a shift, but before we can properly understand what is happening today we must consult Clio, the muse of history, and see what patterns we can discern.

As witnesses to the birth of the American empire at the turn of the last century, the two major parties staked out roughly opposite positions. As William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt presided over the acquisition of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba, it was the Republicans – the party of big business, crony capitalism, and “preparedness” – who waved the banner of expansionism, and the populist Bryanite Democrats who stood for anti-imperialism. This changed with the usurpation of the old Democratic populism by the “progressivism” represented by The New Republic and Woodrow Wilson, whose policies would christen an entire school of foreign policy thought under the rubric of “Wilsonian” internationalism.

It was the backlash against Wilson’s war to “make the world safe for democracy” that the “isolationist” (i.e. anti-interventionist) sentiments of the American people – and both parties – were solidified, at least for a while. “Isolationist” sentiment in Congress was centered in the Republican party, exemplified by the “Irreconcilables,” who opposed US entry into the League of Nations, but anti-interventionism was the default position of both parties in the wake of the Great War.

This bipartisan devotion to the foreign policy of the Founders didn’t last, however: as war clouds gathered once again on the European horizon, the left-wing of the Democratic party in alliance with the Anglophile Establishment on the east coast openly agitated for war with the Axis powers. Arrayed against them were Midwestern progressives and conservative businessmen, with a few libertarian intellectuals thrown in to spice up the pot, known today as the “Old Right.”

As per usual, these disparate stances had less to do with objectively observable national security considerations than with the woof and warp of domestic politics. The Old Right, consisting of conservative Republicans and a constitutionalist remnant of the Democratic party, feared that war would give Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers the weapons they needed to consolidate their control of the economy and the country. As libertarian Rose Wilder Lane put it, we’ll “beat national socialism in the trenches and get it on the home front.”

The Democrats, heavily influenced by their far left-wing, were also – ironically – subject to considerable pressure by banking interests, whose holdings of British and other European government bonds were at risk as the Nazis steamrollered across the continent. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party turned on a dime and became the loudest interventionists of them all, the die was cast: the “Great Debate” became a battle between pro-Soviet/pro-British elements versus the nationalist-“isolationist” America First movement.

Pearl Harbor doomed the latter, but the anti-interventionists didn’t immediately fade away. Sen. Robert A. Taft, known as “Mr. Republican,” who led the America First wing of the party until 1953, opposed the formation of NATO. But the cold war was rapidly reversing the polarities of American politics, and the McCarthyite rampage led ineluctably to a turnaround among conservatives on the foreign policy question: they became militant interventionists, with National Review under editor William F. Buckley, Jr., leading the call to “roll back” communism. Meanwhile, the liberal-left abandoned its former militance and advocated – for the most part – détente with the Soviet Union.

With the implosion of international communism and the fall of the Soviet Union, it looked likely for a while that the old “isolationism” of the right would rise again, with Republicans skeptical of Bill Clinton’s Balkan war – but several factors intervened to block this development.

First, our symbiotic relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states motivated George Herbert Walker Bush to intervene when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait: the first Gulf War was the result. The Democrats, for the most part, retained their mildly anti-interventionist position, out of habit, although there were significant defections.

Secondly, and more profoundly, the 9/11 attack intervened, and arrested the development of any anti-interventionist sentiment in both parties for a good while. As was the case in the run up to World War I, war hysteria united both parties, with anti-interventionist dissent consigned to the fringes. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was supported by the leadership of both parties.

When war weariness became a general malaise this led to the election of Barack Obama. While Obama campaigned – and won – on the basis of his antiwar credentials, his presidency was anything but anti-interventionist. His reign was marked by the ascendancy of the “responsibility to protect” faction of Wilsonian internationalists, and he intervened in Libya and Syria on this basis, as well as continuing – and even ratcheting up – the endless “war on terrorism” initiated by his predecessor.

So where are the patterns in this historical pageant? If we go all the way back to the earliest days of the republic, we can see that the foreign policy position of the parties has been determined by their designation of the chief danger to our national security. It is an answer to the question: Who is the “the enemy?”

In the days of Washington and Jefferson, the choices were either the British, or the French: the former represented a domestic danger, as imagined by the Jeffersonians, in the form of the restoration of royalism in America, while the latter, in the Federalist mindset, was the source of an alleged Jacobin menace, which was said to inspire Jefferson and his followers. And so we can see that, from the very beginning, these alleged foreign enemies were merely representations – stand-ins, if you will – of domestic political actors.

The same pattern has persisted throughout our history. In the two world wars, the German “threat” was represented at home by our numerous German-American population, who generally resisted the “progressive” domestic politics of the war-making Wilson and Roosevelt administrations, as well as being solidly “isolationist.” During the cold war communism was The Enemy, and this was merely a projection onto foreign soil of the anti-Communist hysteria whipped up by the McCarthy crusade and the general fear of radicalism and communist “subversion” in the United States.

Now we arrive at the present, where we encounter what may be a unique moment in the history of the politics of US foreign policy.

The projection of domestic bogeymen onto a foreign landscape has persisted to the present day, with one important modification, and it is this: in the past, while one of the parties held up an “enemy” as a dire threat to our national security, the other party defined itself largely in opposition to this. For example, during the cold war era, conservative Republicans wanted to spend billions on the military in the name of meeting the Soviet “threat,” while liberal Democrats responded that the money was better spent at home taking care of our own people. They did not pose an alternative threat. That has now changed.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, The Enemy is Russia. In a curious upending of their mindset in years past, liberal Democrats have become rabid Russophobes who see a Putin “agent” under every bed and bush. The reasons for this are entirely domestic, i.e. political: having fielded a presidential candidate who inspired nothing but either ennui or revulsion, they are intent on finding a reason other than their own incompetence and ideological bankruptcy for Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeat. They’ve settled on “Russian interference,” i.e. the WikiLeaks revelations of Democratic corruption, and are now embarked on a campaign – in tandem with their many friends in the mainstream media – to target President Donald Trump as an outright agent of the Kremlin.

This is what motivates their demands that the President “do something” about the alleged ‘”threat” posed by Putin to our European allies, and their insistence that we must strengthen and expand NATO, and unconditionally support one of the most corrupt and illiberal regimes in Europe, namely Ukraine. Their response to Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia is to denounce him as “Putin’s puppet.”

As for the Republicans, the aftereffects of 9/11 are still quite strong: the result is that they define The Enemy as “radical Islamic terrorism.” Again, this is a representation, in large part, of an alleged threat that is said to exist domestically. This threat is then projected onto an overseas screen, either ISIS (in Syria) or al-Qaeda (in, say, Yemen). Never mind that, aside from the 9/11 attackers and a few others, most of the worst terrorist incidents that have occurred have been carried out by US citizens who are second generation immigrants. In this sense, Republican foreign policy has become a form of “security theater.”

Furthermore, “radical Islamic terrorism” is a very broad term that, as used by President Trump, encompasses the Shi’ite version of Islam, the adherents of which have never carried out a single attack in the United States. Indeed, Iran – the seat of Shi’ite power – is engaged in a vicious war with the Sunni Islamists, in Syria and elsewhere. Yet the Trump administration persists in labeling Iran “the single biggest exporter of terrorism” in the world – a designation that blanks out the substantial role played by the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia in exporting the radical Islamist ideology that motivates both ISIS and al-Qaeda.

And while Trump has given voice to more than a few anti-interventionist sentiments – he’s against “regime change,” he’s skeptical of NATO, he wants to “get along with Russia,” and he claims to represent a foreign policy that puts “America first” – under his administration the historical pattern persists. The only difference is his choice of enemies.

This puts us anti-interventionists is a perilous position: both parties are pushing a war agenda, with the only difference being the target of American bombs.

Now one could argue – as I have in these pages – that Trump’s ostensible reluctance to repeat the mistakes of the past gives us some degree of leverage. And it is true that, in trying to repair relations with Russia, and avoid the terrible consequences of conflict with that nuclear-armed power, the President has stuck his neck out and taken a very big political risk. Yet the fact remains that the targeting of Iran – exhibited, so far, in terms of pure bombast – represents a clear and present danger to the peace of the world.

And so we are between a rock and a hard place. If the Democrats win, we get World War III with Russia: if the Republicans win, we get a reiteration of our endless “war on terrorism.”

That’s why Antiwar.com is more essential than ever – because the danger of war has never been greater. With both parties pushing a war agenda, the political space for anti-interventionists is considerably narrowed.

But that doesn’t mean that the politics of foreign policy is tilted against us: that’s because we have the support of the war-weary public, which is sick and tired of foreign wars and cares not one whit about either alleged Russian “aggression” in some faraway country or whether ISIS is in Mosul or Mauritania. The natural “isolationism” of the average American is our greatest asset and ally, and we here at Antiwar.com are intent on taking full advantage of it. But we can’t do that without your support – your financial support.

The War Party has a bottomless treasury: they not only have the enormous resources of the US government, they also can count on the boundless generosity of the war profiteers, what President Eisenhower dubbed the military-industrial complex. They also have the media in their pocket, which is always eager to broadcast “fake news” designed to lure us onto foreign battlefields.

We, on the other hand, just have you – our readers and supporters. We depend on you for the resources we need to keep this web site going. And we’re reaching out to you once again, asking you to vote with your pocketbooks.

We’ve been at this for over twenty years, and never in that time has the need for Antiwar.com been greater. Please help us fight the War Party. Make your tax-deductible donation today.

#justin raimondo #anti-war

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