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    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      AOC says Marjorie Taylor Greene is ‘deeply unwell’ after 2019 video surfaces

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said the Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene has a “fixation” on progressive members of Congress, and warned that Greene’s behavior has “raised concerns” among Democrats.Greene, a Trump loyalist and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, was elected to the House in 2020, and has spent her first months in office harassing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats.Ocasio-Cortez’s warning came after CNN unearthed a video showing her staff being harassed by Greene, then a private citizen, in 2019. The footage shows Greene, accompanied by a man who would go on to take part in the Capitol riot in January this year, shouting through the letterbox of Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional office.“You need to stop being a baby and stop locking your door and come out and face the American citizens that you serve,” Greene says. “If you want to be a big girl, you need to get rid of your diaper and come out and be able to talk to the American citizens. Instead of having to use a flap, a little flap. Sad.”The video emerged two days after Greene confronted Ocasio-Cortez outside the House chamber. Greene shouted at the New York congresswoman and accused her of supporting terrorists.Ocasio-Cortez told CNN: “This is a woman that’s deeply unwell. And clearly needs help. And her kind of fixation has lasted for several years now. At this point I think the depth has raised concerns for other members as well.”She added: “I think that this is an assessment that needs to be made by the proper professional.”Ocasio-Cortez, along with fellow progressives Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, have been regular targets for rightwing extremists including Greene. In September, when Greene was running for Congress, she posted a Facebook photo of herself holding a gun alongside images of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib.“We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart,” the caption read.In her 2019 video, which CNN posted online, Greene announces: “We’re going to go see, we’re going to visit, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”She adds: “Crazy eyes. Crazy eyes. Nutty.”Ocasio-Cortez referenced the video in a tweet, pointing out double standards between the behavior of some Republicans and that of Democrats.“And now it’s revealed that this person [Greene] showed up to members of Congress’ doors with folks from the mob who infiltrated the Capitol, beat Capitol police and strung up nooses in front of the House,” Ocasio-Cortez said.“If the shoe were on the other foot, the GOP would be calling for my expulsion.” More

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      in US Politics

      Democrats and Republicans agree on US Capitol attack commission

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      House Democrats and Republicans have agreed to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, lawmakers said on Friday.But the terms of the proposed commission fell short of Republican demands, casting doubt on whether the GOP will vote for its creation.The Democratic chairman of the House homeland security committee, Bennie Thompson, from Mississippi, and the ranking Republican on the panel, John Katko, of New York, said the new body would be modelled on the 9/11 Commission.That panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was created in late 2002 and published its report in 2004.Authorities are still examining videos and photos from 6 January.Told by Donald Trump to “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his electoral defeat was the result of mass voter fraud, hundreds of supporters of the then president broke into the Capitol. Some looked for lawmakers, including Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, to capture and possibly kill. Five people died.More than 440 people have been arrested in connection with the attack and charged with crimes including use of a deadly or dangerous weapon and assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors have said they expect to charge about 100 more.Maj Christopher Warnagiris, a US Marine Corps officer, was arrested on Thursday. He is the first active-duty service member to be charged. At least 52 military personnel, law enforcement or government employees have been arrested.A vote on the National Commission to Investigate the 6 January Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act, legislation necessary to create the 6 January panel, could happen as early as next week.The Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, did not immediately back the deal as announced.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, proposed a commission in February but the process stalled amid disagreement.Democrats wanted the commission to focus on the 6 January attack. Republicans wanted to include violence during protests over police brutality last summer, which they attribute to leftwing groups.There was also disagreement about the makeup of the commission and its powers of subpoena.Thompson was asked to negotiate directly with Katko, who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment over the events of 6 January, on a charge of inciting an insurrection. Trump was not convicted, as only seven Republican senators voted for his guilt, short of the super-majority needed.Should the panel be voted into existence, it will only investigate the events of 6 January.It will include 10 members. Five including the chair will be selected by Pelosi and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer. Five including a vice-chair will be appointed by the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.The commission will have the power to issue subpoenas but that action will require either agreement between the chair and vice-chair or a majority vote.The members will have “significant expertise in the areas of law enforcement, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, intelligence and cybersecurity”. Current government employees will not be appointed.A final report on the events of 6 January will be required, outlining facts and causes and providing recommendations to prevent future attacks.Thompson said: “There has been a growing consensus that the 6 January attack is of a complexity and national significance that what we need is an independent commission to investigate.“I am pleased that after many months of intensive discussion, Ranking Member Katko and I were able to reach a bipartisan agreement.”Pelosi said: “It is imperative that we seek the truth of what happened on 6 January with an independent, bipartisan 9/11-type commission to examine and report upon the facts, causes and security relating to the terrorist mob attack.” More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Today is a great day for America’: Biden removes his mask as CDC relaxes guidance – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.46pm EDT
      17:46

      Unvaccinated Latinos in the US want the shot – but have trouble with access

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      4.03pm EDT
      16:03

      ‘Today is a great day for America,’ Biden says as CDC relaxes mask guidance

      2.31pm EDT
      14:31

      Vaccinated people can participate in indoor activities without masks or distancing, CDC says

      2.09pm EDT
      14:09

      Government to ease up guidance on indoor mask-wearing

      1.22pm EDT
      13:22

      Today so far

      12.33pm EDT
      12:33

      Colonial Pipeline now reaching full operational capacity but ‘hiccups’ likely, Biden says

      Live feed

      Show

      5.46pm EDT
      17:46

      Unvaccinated Latinos in the US want the shot – but have trouble with access

      Latinos in the US are reporting the lowest rates of vaccination. According to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “one-third of unvaccinated Hispanic adults say they want a vaccine as soon as possible, about twice the share as among unvaccinated Black and White adults.”
      Among unvaccinated Hispanic adults, nearly two-thirds were worried about missing work due to side effects, and half were worried they’d have to pay for it, the survey found. About 40% were worried they’d have to provide a social security number in order to get a vaccine and 35% were worried that signing up could affect them or their family’s immigration process – a holdover from the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule that held back green cards from immigrants who used public services.

      5.17pm EDT
      17:17

      Chip Roy, a hardline conservative Republican congressman of Texas will run to replace Liz Cheney as GOP conference chair.
      Roy had raised concerns that Elise Stefanik, the New York representative who is poised to ascend to conference chair after Republicans in the House ousted Cheney over her refusal to endorse false Trump’s election fraud conspiracy theory, is too moderate.
      Despite Stefanik’s more moderate record on policy issues, the congresswoman has whole-heartedly embraced Trump and Trumpism, earning the favor of the former president. Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus, wrote a letter to colleagues advising against electing Stefanik, based on her votes against Trump’s border wall and tax cuts, and her votes for climate action.
      Roy blamed members such as Stefanik for the party’s losses in 2018. It was members like her “playing footsie with Democrats on issues like HR5 (Equality Act) that led to Democrats steamrolling us in 2018” he said in his letter. The Equality Act would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity – most Republican lawmakers have staunchly opposed the anti-discrimination law, but Stefanik voted for it once.

      Updated
      at 5.29pm EDT

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      The CDC said fully vaccinated Americans no longer had to wear masks in most settings, marking a crucial moment in the country’s return to normalcy more than a year after the start of the coronavirus pandemic. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” said CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
      Joe Biden celebrated the new CDC mask guidance, saying, “Today is a great day for America.” The president delivered remarks on the CDC news in the White House Rose Garden, notably not wearing a mask as he spoke to the American people. “For now, after a year of hard work and so much sacrifice, the rule is very simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do,” Biden said.
      Biden said the Colonial Pipeline is now reaching full operational capacity, after a ransomware attack shut down the pipeline for several days. The president warned that it may take a few days to see the effect of the pipeline coming back online, as there could be “hiccups” as it resumes normal operations. Several east coast states have suffered gasoline shortages in recent days, as Americans went into panic-buying mode because of the shutdown.
      House speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Republicans’ “sick” efforts to downplay the violence of the 6 January insurrection. The Democratic speaker addressed the comments from Andrew Clyde, who said yesterday that the footage of the insurrection looked like “a normal tourist visit”. “I don’t know a normal day around here when people are threatening to hang the vice-president of the United States or shoot the speaker in the forehead,” Pelosi said. “It was beyond denial. It fell into the range of sick.”
      Liz Cheney did not rule out the possibility of launching a presidential bid against Donald Trump to prevent him from returning to the White House. Speaking to the Today show shortly after she was removed as House Republican conference chair, Cheney said of Trump, “He must not ever again be anywhere close to the Oval Office.”

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.05pm EDT

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      House speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN that she will not be relaxing the rule requiring masks in the chamber because not all members have been vaccinated, even though they have been eligible for months.

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Speaker Nancy Pelosi told me “no” she isn’t changing the rule requiring masks on the House floor.“No,” Pelosi said. “Are they all vaccinated?”

      May 13, 2021

      The Democratic speaker said two weeks ago that about 75% of House members have been vaccinated, a number that was virtually unchanged from a month earlier.

      4.31pm EDT
      16:31

      The mayor of Washington said she and her public health team are reviewing the new CDC recommendations to determine whether to relax the city’s guidance on masks.
      “Consistent with past practice, we are immediately reviewing the CDC guidance and will update DC Health guidance accordingly,” Muriel Bowser said on Twitter.
      The Democratic mayor added it is “critical that every resident, worker and visitor get vaccinated to help us crush the virus”.

      Mayor Muriel Bowser
      (@MayorBowser)
      1/ Consistent with past practice, we are immediately reviewing the CDC guidance and will update DC Health guidance accordingly.

      May 13, 2021

      4.20pm EDT
      16:20

      Joe Biden took a few questions from reporters after concluding his prepared remarks on the new mask guidance from the CDC.
      Asked about his meeting with Senate Republicans today to discuss his infrastructure plan, the president said they had a “very, very good” conversation.
      “I am very optimistic that we can reach a reasonable agreement,” Biden said, adding that both sides have engaged in a “good-faith effort” to find a compromise on an infrastructure package.
      With that, Biden and Kamala Harris walked out of the Rose Garden without wearing masks.

      4.15pm EDT
      16:15

      Joe Biden reiterated the new CDC guidance that fully vaccinated people are no longer required to wear masks in most settings.
      “For now, after a year of hard work and so much sacrifice, the rule is very simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do,” Biden said.
      The president was also careful to encourage people to be kind to those who still feel more comfortable wearing masks.
      “We’ve had too much conflict, too much bitterness, too much anger, too much politicization of this issue about wearing masks,” Biden said. “Let’s put it to rest. Let’s remember we’re all Americans. Let’s remember that we are all in this together.”

      Updated
      at 4.17pm EDT

      4.10pm EDT
      16:10

      Joe Biden celebrated the new CDC guidance on mask-wearing, but he also emphasized that the country had much more work to do to get the virus completely under control.
      “The safest thing for the country is for everyone to get vaccinated,” Biden said.
      The president noted it was easier than ever to get vaccinated, as all American adults are now eligible to receive a shot.
      “We’re still losing too many Americans because we still have too many unvaccinated people,” Biden said.

      4.07pm EDT
      16:07

      Joe Biden noted that this “great day” has come at a great cost to country, which has lost more than 580,000 people to coronavirus.
      The president expressed his condolences to all Americans who had lost loved ones to coronavirus, and he expressed hope that their memories would soon bring more happiness than sadness.

      4.03pm EDT
      16:03

      ‘Today is a great day for America,’ Biden says as CDC relaxes mask guidance

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris walked out to the Rose Garden without wearing masks, after the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people did not have to wear masks in most settings.
      As Biden walked up to the podium with an uncovered face, Harris could be heard telling him, “Great smile.”
      Biden began his remarks by saying, “Today is a great day for America in our long battle against coronavirus.”

      Joe Biden
      (@JoeBiden)
      Today is a great day for America in our long battle with COVID-19. Just a few hours ago, the CDC announced they are no longer recommending that fully vaccinated people need to wear masks.

      May 13, 2021

      The president said this “great milestone” was made possible by the country’s great success in getting hundreds of millions of vaccine doses to the American people.
      As of today, more than 250 million shots have been administered since Biden took office in January.

      Updated
      at 4.07pm EDT

      3.58pm EDT
      15:58

      The White House Rose Garden is all set up for Joe Biden’s remarks on the coronavirus pandemic and the CDC’s new guidance on mask-wearing.

      Steve Holland
      (@steveholland1)
      Nice day in the Rose Garden pic.twitter.com/FBMi7DjzC5

      May 13, 2021

      It’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Washington, so it’s a beautiful day to announce that fully vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks in most settings.
      Biden was supposed to start speaking about 15 minutes ago, but as per usual, he is running late, so stay tuned for updates.

      3.41pm EDT
      15:41

      Shelley Moore Capito said her group of Senate Republicans had a “very productive” meeting with Joe Biden to discuss the president’s infrastructure plan.
      “We did talk specifics,” Capito said. “And the president asked has asked us to come back and rework an offer so that he could then react to that and then re-offer to us, so we’re very encouraged.”
      She added that she was “grateful to the president and his staff for the give and take that we shared in the Oval Office”. Capito described Biden as being “very much desirous of striking a deal”.

      Updated
      at 3.47pm EDT

      3.31pm EDT
      15:31

      Joe Biden and Republican senators took their masks off during their infrastructure meeting after hearing about the new CDC guidance, according to Shelley Moore Capito.
      “We heard all about it,” Capito said of the CDC update after leaving the meeting. “The president took his [mask] off too.”

      Jennifer Jacobs
      (@JenniferJJacobs)
      “We did,” @SenCapito tells me when I asked of they all took their masks off in Oval. “We heard all about it” she said of new CDC guidance. pic.twitter.com/LHJM5BlWv9

      May 13, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.37pm EDT

      3.13pm EDT
      15:13

      Ben Wakana, a member of the White House pandemic response team, said the CDC could relax the mask guidance for vaccinated Americans because the vaccines have proven effective and those who have been vaccinated are unlikely to spread coronavirus.

      Ben Wakana
      (@benwakana46)
      Here are the reasons why the masks can come off now:1. Vaccines are effective in the real world2. Vaccines work against the variants3. Vaccinated people are unlikely to spread COVID

      May 13, 2021

      3.05pm EDT
      15:05

      Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was seen exiting the chamber without a mask on, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed its mask guidance for fully vaccinated Americans.
      “Free at last,” the Republican leader told reporters on Capitol Hill.

      Nicholas Fandos
      (@npfandos)
      “Free at last,” says a maskless Mitch McConnell, as he exits the Senate for the week. pic.twitter.com/YfbWekZ9BW

      May 13, 2021

      2.55pm EDT
      14:55

      The White House has informed staffers that they no longer need to wear masks at work if they are fully vaccinated, according to the Washington Post.

      Tyler Pager
      (@tylerpager)
      NEWS: The White House just sent an email to staff that masks are no longer required on campus for those who are fully vaccinated.

      May 13, 2021

      2.50pm EDT
      14:50

      This is the exact wording from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the new guidance for fully vaccinated Americans:

      Risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection is minimal for fully vaccinated people. The risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from fully vaccinated people to unvaccinated people is also reduced. Therefore, fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. Fully vaccinated people should also continue to wear a well-fitted mask in correctional facilities and homeless shelters. …
      CDC prevention measures continue to apply to all travelers, including those who are vaccinated. All travelers are required to wear a mask on all planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation traveling into, within, or out of the United States and in U.S. transportation hubs such as airports and stations.

      2.42pm EDT
      14:42

      This new graphic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrates the importance of the agency’s new guidance for fully vaccinated people.
      On the righthand side of the visual, it shows that fully vaccinated people can safely go without masks in almost all settings.

      Ed O’Keefe
      (@edokeefe)
      HELPFUL VISUAL AID via @CDCgov: pic.twitter.com/PYfmEbgwu1

      May 13, 2021

      2.38pm EDT
      14:38

      Despite the encouraging new guidance, Dr Rochelle Walensky said fully vaccinated Americans should continue to wear masks when on modes of public transportation, such as airplanes, buses or trains.
      But fully vaccinated people are not required to wear masks in almost any other setting, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
      Asked how fully vaccinated people should handle situations where they are not sure if everyone around them has been vaccinated, Walensky noted it is the unvaccinated people (not the vaccinated people) who are assuming some risk in that scenario. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Why the Arizona ‘recount’ of 2.1m votes is dangerous

      by

      Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterBy now, you’ve probably heard about the unprecedented effort to recount 2.1m votes in Arizona and all of the wacky conspiracy theories – including searching for bamboo fibers in ballots – that the effort seems to be amplifying.I watched this effort in person for three days last week. Election administration experts – who usually go out of their way to be non-partisan – have raised alarms about the process. But as I watched it unfold in Phoenix from the press box about 20 rows up from the arena floor, I couldn’t shake the idea of how benign, even normal, the whole thing might look to a casual observer. Three different counters at each table were tallying ballots, which were then photographed and scanned – what exactly was happening that made this so dangerous?I posed this question to Jennifer Morrell, who was on the floor observing the counting as a representative of the Arizona secretary of state’s office. Morrell, a former elections official from Colorado, specializes in the machinery of elections – the technology, the counting procedures and all the other wonky things that make elections run smoothly. She is not a flame-throwing partisan. But as we talked on the phone last week, I could tell from her voice that what she was seeing in the Arizona recount really bothered her.One of the biggest red flags for her, she told me, came not during the counting, but afterwards, when workers entered the aggregated total tallies from counts into computers. Morrell was deeply worried that there was only a single person responsible for entering the data and no one to check that they weren’t inadvertently entering a wrong number or accidentally switching the candidates.“There’s nobody verifying that what they entered was correct. There’s no reading out. These are things that you would typically see in an election office whether they were doing an audit, recount, where you want some sort of quality control mechanism in place,” she said.Morrell also expressed concern with the procedures in place to keep a baseline count of the ballots being handled across the audit. If a box of ballots says it has a certain amount of ballots in it, workers should count when they open the box to make sure that there’s actually that amount of ballots in there. And when ballots leave each station, they should also ensure that all of the ballots are accounted for. Not every station in the audit is doing that.At the counting table, the ballots spin around on a lazy susan to three different counters who are counting the presidential and US Senate races. As long as two of the three counters agree in their tallies and the third counter is within three votes, the tally is accepted. But when there is disagreement, the tables have to go back and redo their count. Morrell said she noticed that different tables had slightly different procedures for doing so. Some tables would go back and recount the whole batch of ballots, while others might just recount a smaller proportion of them.“It’s the consistency that’s an issue for me,” she said. “There’s no audit or even recount process that looks like this.”Aside from ballot counting, auditors are also performing a so-called forensic analysis of the ballot paper. The whole thing looks very hi-tech and official – ballots are photographed and then placed under a sophisticated-looking machine with microscopic cameras that is supposed to give a detailed analysis of the ballots.Jovan Pulitzer, a failed inventor and conspiracy theorist, is reportedly helping auditors with this portion of their review. He purports to have developed technology that can detect fraudulent ballots by looking for folds in the paper, as well as analyzing whether the ballots were marked by a human or a machine, the latter of which is, in his view, suspicious.Adrian Fontes, the former Maricopa county recorder who oversaw the 2020 election, said this process wouldn’t tell the auditors anything. If ballots arrive at an election office damaged, he said, they are duplicated electronically and then printed out with machine-made marks. This isn’t a sign of fraud – it’s a sign the process is working.Tammy Patrick, a former Maricopa county election official who now works with election administrators across the country as a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund, also noted that folds in a ballot don’t tell you anything about a ballot’s authenticity.PT 1For those who need to hear it again:📬Not all VBM/EV ballots that were tallied in Maricopa will be folded.✍Some may have been remade/duplicated onto ballot stock that was never mailed:🌍Military & overseas votes😎 Braille/lg print ballots☕ Damaged/torn ballots— Tammy Patrick (@aztammyp) May 12, 2021
      Pt 2And some in person ballots WILL be folded–such as provisionals.Again: 🤦‍♀️FOLDS 🤦‍♀️MEAN 🤦‍♀️ABSOLUTELY 🤦‍♀️NOTHINGIt is disingenuous & deceptive to imply otherwise.— Tammy Patrick (@aztammyp) May 12, 2021
      “They are taking advantage of the lack of information that the public has regarding the complexities of our system. And they’re creating a false narrative, and they’re setting themselves up to sell that false narrative.” Fontes told me. “I’m afraid they’re going to come out and say ‘oh we found pre-printed ballots’ and there aren’t going to be enough people who stand up and say ‘well no shit.’”Also worth watching …
      Arizona Republicans approved a new law on Tuesday that essentially does away with a longstanding state policy of allowing residents to choose to permanently receive a mail-in ballot. Under the new measure, which will take effect in 2026, a voter can be removed from the list if they don’t vote by mail in two consecutive primary and general elections. State officials estimated in February that 200,000 voters could be affected.
      Senate Democrats advanced S1, the sweeping voting rights proposal that would amount to the most significant expansion of voting rights in a generation. But the bill still faces a huge hurdle on the Senate floor because Democrats don’t have enough votes to overcome the filibuster, a procedural rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation. The West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, a key Democratic holdout on the issue, told ABC News on Wednesday he favors passing separate legislation that would fully restore a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act over the sweeping bill. It’s unclear how Democrats will proceed on both measures. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Liz Cheney refuses to rule out run for president in bid to thwart Trump

      by

      Liz Cheney has refused to rule out running for US president if it would prevent Donald Trump from ever taking charge of the White House again, saying she will do “whatever it takes” to stop her fellow Republican.Cheney, who on Wednesday was ousted as House Republican conference chair by her colleagues, in a voice vote behind closed doors, was asked three times on NBC’s Today show in an interview aired on Thursday whether she would run to stymie a comeback by the former president.While not saying directly that she would, she declined to dismiss the suggestion each time.Trump’s hold on the Republican party is the “most important issue that we are facing right now as a country, and we’re facing a huge array of issues, so he must not ever again be anywhere close to the Oval Office”, Cheney said.“Right now I’m very focused on making sure that our party becomes again a party that stands for truth and stands for fundamental principles that are conservative and mostly stands for the constitution, and I won’t let a former president or anyone else unravel the democracy,” she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.Cheney, the House representative from Wyoming, was deposed from her leadership role after voting in February to impeach Trump for his role in the 6 January insurrection, where a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol following a speech by him.She has also criticized the former president over his continued lies that the 2020 election, which he lost, was rigged.This stance has put her at odds with Republicans who refuse to distance themselves from the twice-impeached Trump, who remains a popular figure among a base of GOP voters.Any attempt by Cheney to claim the Republican nomination for the 2024 election would appear to be an extreme long shot, given Trump’s enduring appeal to the conservative base. But it would probably achieve a level of disruption that could hinder Trump if the one-term president chooses to run for the GOP nomination again.“For reasons I don’t understand leaders in my party have embraced the president who launched that attack,” Cheney told NBC. “I think you’ve watched over the course of the last several months, the former president get more aggressive, more vocal, pushing the lie.”She added: “This isn’t about looking backwards, this is about the real-time current potential damage that he’s doing, that he continues to do. It’s an ongoing threat, silence is not an option.”Cheney said that Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader, is “not leading with principle right now”, calling his actions to push her out of her No. 3 position “sad and dangerous”.Cheney said that McCarthy’s trip to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to see for outgoing president following the Capitol riot was “stunning. I can’t understand why you’d want to go and rehabilitate him.”Cheney said her ousting was not a surprise but said she would not leave the party and speculated that several of her colleagues were worried what a commission into the 6 January riot would uncover.In defending their removal of Cheney, several Republicans have said that her attacks on Trump had become a distraction to opposing Joe Biden. Trump, for his part, has called Cheney is a “bitter, horrible human being”. More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      The point of the Republican party? To stroke the ego of Trump | Richard Wolffe

      by

      What is the point of the Republican party?This isn’t a flip question. It’s one prompted by the last four months of grappling with the fallout of the bloody insurrection on Capitol Hill, and by the last four years of grappling with the fallout of installing a fascist in the White House.So, for real: what does the GOP stand for? Apart from trying to seize back power, what does it want to do?The answer, as Liz Cheney has learned, is to pander to the ego of a single Florida resident who has no obvious or coherent political purpose.This might just explain why the party has been struggling so hard to respond to the last four months of the most tenuous Democratic control in Washington.The Biden team has not commanded the nation’s capital from a position of strength because of LBJ-like powers of persuasion, Democratic unity or structural majorities. They have succeeded because Republicans sorely lack – as George HW Bush used to put it – the vision thing.There was a time, not so long ago, when the GOP stood for small government, or big business, or at least big churches, or sometimes the little guy. They were for standing up to foreign enemies and domestic taxes.There was, for what it was worth, a contest of ideas and worldviews between the two sides of the aisle: between the notion that government could do big things, and that government should only do small things – that markets and businesses either needed regulation, or were marvelously efficient at solving all our problems.After four years of Donald Trump, that is no longer the world we’re living in. To be fair, three decades’ worth of upheaval – the colossal failures of the war on terror, the financial crisis, a historic pandemic, the climate crisis and a technological revolution – may have made matters worse.But here we are nonetheless at a point where the Grand Old Party has shrunk into a small old cult of personality, willing to twist and turn to the whims of its sociopathic former leader.Consistency meant nothing inside the cult. More billions of spending on a nonsensical border wall? The deficit hawks said no problem. More bullying business leaders by presidential tweet? The capitalist caucus said bring it on. More cozying up to the leaders of Russia, China and even North Korea? The defense hawks thought that sounded fine. Paying off porn stars with campaign dollars? The party of family values barely blushed.Each one of these big and small sellouts brought the party to the point where it fired Liz Cheney from the House leadership on Tuesday for stating the obvious: Trump lost the election last year and stoked an insurrection to save face.Cheney is a conservative’s conservative, who voted with Trump 92.9% of the time – more than the party’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell. But Cheney knows that if we cannot agree on democratic principles like free and fair elections, or the constitution, we cannot begin to debate the principles or policies that separate Republicans from Democrats.“I am a conservative Republican and the most conservative of conservative principles is reverence for the rule of law. The electoral college has voted. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple judges he appointed, have rejected the former president’s claims,” she said on the House floor on Tuesday.“Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the constitution. Our duty is clear. Every one of us who has sworn the oath must 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.”Clearly most Republican members of Congress don’t care – mostly because they think they are on a winning track. There is a near-universal expectation that the Republicans will take back at least half of Congress next year, and that its lickspittle House leader Kevin McCarthy, will finally rise from his semi-prone position to become speaker.Democrats have succeeded because Republicans sorely lack – as George HW Bush used to put it – the vision thingBut while incumbent presidents tend to lose power in their first midterms, there is nothing pre-ordained about this prognosis. It just gets repeated so often, it feels that way.There was a president, not so long ago, who bucked that trend. His name was George W Bush and his vice-president was a man named Dick Cheney, father of Liz. While their opponents wanted to re-litigate the disputed election of 2000, Bush and Cheney were focused on supposedly keeping the country safe.Yes, the 2002 elections were the first after the 9/11 attacks, but the framing was devastatingly effective: are you with the president’s party, or with the terrorists? It wasn’t fair or accurate, but it was simple and successful enough to pick up seats in both the House and Senate.It’s not hard to imagine a similar election for Democrats next year, the first after Covid is finally crushed. Are you for or against the pandemic? Are you for or against building back better? Are you for or against investing in bridges, or childcare, or community college?Instead, the Republican party is determined to answer its own burning question about whether you are for or against Donald Trump.This may satisfy the legions of hardcore Trump fans, but they clearly do not represent a winning majority. So far, their broader attempts to portray Joe Biden as a scary socialist have failed: Biden’s approval ratings are much higher than Trump’s, and that includes positive ratings from almost half of Republicans.Where does the GOP end up? Much like its sidekick for the last several decades, the National Rifle Association. The NRA has been a fearsomely effective political machine, blocking any attempt at gun safety laws by mobilizing just 5 million members. Along the way, it became a cult of personality and corruption revolving around its leader, Wayne LaPierre.Now, after a failed legal gambit to declare bankruptcy, it faces the full force of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who is suing to shut the NRA down. “The rot runs deep,” she said on Tuesday. “No one is above the law. Not even one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country.”The rot runs deep across the right. Powerful political parties and organizations can suddenly seem brittle after years of hollowing out. Americans might love big personalities, but they love the law even more. More

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      Liz Cheney vows to work to keep Trump from return to power – video

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      After being voted out from her role as House Republican conference chair, Liz Cheney said she planned to ‘lead the fight’ to create a stronger party in the future. The congresswoman said: ‘I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.’ Cheney was one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump over the US Capitol breach

      Liz Cheney removed from House leadership over Trump criticism
      Why did the Republican party oust Liz Cheney? More