Republicans rebuke Liz Cheney in unprecedented moves

[homersapien 11,440]

Party leaders meeting in Salt Lake City move a censure resolution against the congresswoman from Wyoming and prepare to fund her primary opponent

By Josh Dawsey

 

Republican leaders forged an agreement this week to potentially fund a challenger to Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming, and party members are expected to formally condemn her for her work on the Jan. 6 committee Friday, an unprecedented rebuke of an incumbent member of Congress.

As the party met in Salt Lake City this week, the leaders of the Wyoming GOP privately signed a special letter that would allow the national party to financially support Harriet Hageman, Cheney’s primary challenger. The letter officially recognizes Hageman as the presumptive nominee for the seat.

In response to the party passing the “Rule 11” resolution that could fund Cheney’s challenger, a spokesman for Cheney said: “Wyoming Party Chairman Frank Eathorne and the Republican National Committee are trying to assert their will and take away the voice of the people of Wyoming before a single vote has even been cast.”

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also worked behind the scenes with David Bossie, a top Trump ally, to author and push a resolution that attacked Cheney’s work on the committee, called her a “destructive” force in the GOP and vowed the party would no longer support her.

“We’ve had two members engage in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse. This has gone beyond their original intent. They are not sticking up for hard-working Republicans,” McDaniel said in a joint interview with Bossie at a Salt Lake City hotel where the party is holding its winter meeting.

Bossie called it a “one-two punch” against Cheney that signaled a message from the GOP at the state and national levels.

The draft resolution passed unanimously in the GOP’s resolutions committee meeting on Thursday afternoon, and McDaniel and Bossie spoke privately in favor of it. “Once it passed, there was applause in the room,” McDaniel said of the resolutions committee. The RNC chairwoman said she expected the resolution to pass “overwhelmingly” on Friday morning when the 168 members of the committee consider it. “This isn’t a top-down situation. The members have shown tremendous support for this,” McDaniel said.

A representative for Cheney decried the party’s position, reiterating a statement she made last week that said Republicans were “hostage” to Donald Trump. She faces a difficult primary in Wyoming, where Trump endorsed against her and former aides of his are working for her opponent. Cheney, daughter of former vice president Richard B. Cheney, has largely voted with Republicans and has long held conservative views but has been vociferous and relentless in her attacks on Trump since Jan. 6.

“The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy. I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what,” Cheney said.

Cheney has said before she will do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the Oval Office again, and she has taken a particularly aggressive role on the committee, according to people involved, who praise her intellect and tenacity.

Some inside the party said the resolution was a waste of time when the party should be focusing on President Biden’s agenda and sagging popularity. “Why are we being dragged into a primary in Wyoming?” said Bill Palatucci, a national committeeman from New Jersey. Two other members said they wished they didn’t have to vote on the resolution on Friday but would vote in favor of it.

Several members said their colleagues were uninterested in reckoning with Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack, and his false rhetoric that the election was stolen. “They want to put their head in the sand,” one committee member said.

Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chairman, said they were censuring Cheney for “protecting the country from a maniac.”

“This is not about her conservative bona fides. This is clearly not about her commitment to public service. It’s all about, unlike the other members, she won’t kiss Donald Trump’s a--,” Steele said. “It sets an ugly precedent where the party sits in judgment of someone.”

McDaniel said it was the first time she was aware of the GOP censuring a member of Congress, and party officials could not recall another time the special Rule 11 had been used for a challenger against an incumbent. The chairwoman said she had not spoken to Cheney about the committee or the party’s moves to punish her. “And she hasn’t reached out to me,” she said.

McDaniel said she was particularly upset when an elderly, recently widowed friend of hers was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee after it was reported the friend was an alternate elector at the campaign’s behest. She declined to name the friend.

She and Bossie both said Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the other Republican member of the Jan. 6 committee, were helping Democrats keep the House. “They are propping up Nancy Pelosi,” Bossie said.

Party officials say they are poised to win the majority in the House in November’s midterm elections, but there is internal fear among some party strategists and prominent Republicans that the Jan. 6 committee and its findings could be an albatross.

Bossie, a committeeman from Maryland and a two-time campaign aide for Trump, originally wrote the resolution, but McDaniel became involved in drafting and editing the final version, along with other members. The resolution changed from an original draft Bossie sent to others, where he called for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to expel Cheney and Kinzinger from the conference. In the final draft, the RNC did not call for McCarthy to expel Cheney but said the party would no longer support her.

In the joint interview, Bossie and McDaniel both said they were not doing this at the behest of Donald Trump, and McDaniel said she had not spoken to the former president about it. However, Trump has signaled support for the resolution, said a person close to him who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

The censure is a more ceremonial move, while the rule change could lead to broader ramifications in the race. Cheney has far outraised Hageman, with almost $5 million on hand, while Hageman has less than $500,000.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Cheney, and several of his allies are running the campaign of her challenger. Donald Trump Jr. and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, among others, have held fundraisers against her.

McDaniel declined to say what the party would actually do in Wyoming because she said no decisions had yet been made. The party could send money, volunteers, data and other things to the Wyoming GOP, now the rule has passed, which could then send the resources to use against Cheney. McDaniel also declined to say whether she would campaign personally against Cheney. “No decision has been made,” she said.

Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican Party, said he could not remember a recent precedent where the party censured a member and worked against an incumbent. Several other former chairpersons and officials said they were unaware of such a move either.

“The rule allows them to send money, which would not be insignificant,” Heye said. “Everything else is fairly insignificant besides the money.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/03/rnc-cheney-trump/

 

I don't normally agree with her, but good for her.  She has way more cajones than the male MAGAs in her party, presidential caliber in fact.

And she's right, history will be their judge.

[Grumps 3,704]

I admit to not reading much of the article yet, but it is pathetic if the RNC is going to censure someone for not toeing the party line.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

1 hour ago, Grumps said:

I admit to not reading much of the article yet, but it is pathetic if the RNC is going to censure someone for not toeing the party line.

I'm sure plenty agree with that sentiment. Here is the struggle: the same characters that orchestrated the Russia Hoax are orchestrating this so called investigation. Think about the fact these characters knew for years the origins of the Russia Hoax, knew it wasn't true yet willingly participated and lied to the American people. They tried to overturn an election of a sitting president over a lie they created. So pardon me if I or anyone is skeptical of those willingly participating in this so called investigation.

[I_M4_AU 7,987]

It’s just too personal for Cheney, she needs to be a Democrat and stop lying to herself.

[homersapien 11,440]

2 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

It’s just too personal for Cheney, she needs to be a Democrat and stop lying to herself.

Lying to herself??  

You need to actually read the piece and pay attention to what she said.

Either party should be proud to have a person who stands by her principles.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by homersapien

[I_M4_AU 7,987]

5 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Lying to herself??  

You need to actually read the piece and pay attention to what she said.

Either party should be proud to have a person who stands by her principles.

 

Yeah, go to the Democratic Party and stand on your principles there.  She is too involved personally to be objective.  

[homersapien 11,440]

3 hours ago, Grumps said:

I admit to not reading much of the article yet, but it is pathetic if the RNC is going to censure someone for not toeing the party line.

Like I said Grumps, anyone who sincerely believes Trump is irrelevant is either not keeping up with the news or in total denial.

And I submit the problem is not censuring Cheney because she isn't "toeing the party line" but the party line itself.

The GOP’s vile new punishment of Liz Cheney shows Trump’s true impact

Greg Sargent

Today at 10:39 a.m. EST

In recent days, we’ve learned that Donald Trump fully intended to get the 2020 election “overturned,” that he suggested law enforcement agencies could seize voting machines, and that, if elected in 2024, he might pardon those who violently attacked our seat of government, resulting in five dead and scores wounded.

So how is the GOP’s central committee responding to these developments?

With new efforts to punish the two Republicans who most prominently think this conduct should be disqualifying to lead their party and should call forth a serious national reckoning and institutional response in defense of U.S. democracy.

On Friday, the Republican National Committee voted to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) for their roles on the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection incited by Trump.

The censure resolution is explicit on why Cheney and Kinzinger are seen as such heretics. It declares that they want to “destroy” Trump rather than help Republicans win the majority and that their committee is engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

This is an extraordinary and revealing set of claims. The Republican Party’s official, openly declared position is that its long-term prospects are inextricably bound up with securing total impunity for an effort to overthrow our political order at its very foundations.

Not only that, the official party position is that those who sought to achieve this — including through mob intimidation and violence — are now to be seen as martyrs and heroes. Trump has succeeded in making this party orthodoxy.

Republicans, of course, will protest that characterization. Oozing with phony piety, they will insist that of course they condemn the violence and believe it deserves prosecution; they object only to the committee’s onerous treatment of the nonviolent.

We don’t have to accept this dodge. The official position being articulated here is that there’s no need for any national political accounting with regard to the role that Trump and his co-conspirators played in inciting that violence.

In essence, Republicans want to decouple the violence from the orchestrators of it. The GOP’s official party position has become that the orchestrators of insurrection are above accountability entirely.

Cheney, meanwhile, is coming in for additional punishment. As The Post reports, the Wyoming GOP has privately arranged for the national party to financially back Cheney’s primary challenger. Cheney’s effort to purge the party of its insurrectionist elements has itself become disqualifying in today’s GOP.

As bad as all this is, there’s still more. It should also shine a much harsher light on the threat to U.S. democracy posed by a potential GOP-controlled House.

In an unsettling bit of reporting, Punchbowl News points out that this RNC move will put more pressure on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to hold a vote to expel Cheney and Kinzinger from the GOP conference.

McCarthy has largely tolerated the flourishing of insurrectionist sentiment in the House GOP. But he doesn’t want to affirmatively expel those two apostates, Punchbowl reports, because it could take the focus off Democrats and place it on “internecine fighting over Trump”:

McCarthy has a tightrope to walk here. If he’s seen as protecting Cheney and Kinzinger, the California Republican risks damaging his relationship with the hard right — a relationship that was once rocky but is now largely under control. However, if he gives in to their demands, McCarthy puts the spotlight directly on his conference at a time when his best move is to keep a low profile.

The cross-pressures run as follows. The more Cheney and Kinzinger seek to hold Trump accountable for his effort to destroy our constitutional order, the more pressure McCarthy is under to expel them entirely. All that’s working against this is the possibility that this might damage GOP efforts to retake the majority.

The careful reader will note that there is no pressure of any kind on McCarthy toward further accountability for Trump; that is, there’s no pressure on him flowing from the latest extraordinary revelations about Trump’s true insurrectionist intent. This simply doesn’t exist in McCarthy’s calculus.

Indeed, the more we learn about that insurrectionist intent, the more the pressure on McCarthy runs in the other direction: to bury it, to whitewash it, to punish those who see it as disqualifying or even to firmly stand behind it. This is apparently a prerequisite for McCarthy to have a shot at becoming speaker.

Right now, we’re debating what to do about certain scenarios in which a GOP-controlled House helps overturn the 2024 presidential election. One possibility, which would be addressed by reform of the Electoral Count Act of 1887, is that a GOP-controlled House might count sham presidential electors sent by a corrupt GOP governor.

As unlikely as that might seem, the fact that House Republicans are converging on an unabashed pro-insurrectionist stance can leave little doubt that a GOP-controlled House would be likely to execute this scheme if the conditions for it aligned.

With the central GOP committee also converging on that stance, doesn’t it seem plausible that much of the party would bless such a scheme as well?

 

[homersapien 11,440]

2 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Yeah, go to the Democratic Party and stand on your principles there.  She is too involved personally to be objective.  

Actually that's good advice for anyone with principles who is considering leaving the Republican party.  

There are not many left there who are not willing to kiss Trump's azz and overturn our democracy for the sake of personal power.

Good on Liz.

[I_M4_AU 7,987]

4 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Actually that's good advice for anyone with principles who is considering leaving the Republican party.  

There are not many left there who are not willing to kiss Trump's azz and overturn our democracy for the sake of personal power.

Good on Liz.

 I feel the same way about Manchin and Sinema and kissing Biden’s a$$.

[homersapien 11,440]

13 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

 I feel the same way about Manchin and Sinema and kissing Biden’s a$$.

That makes absolutely no sense.  Manchin and Sinema are hardly Biden azzkissers -  in fact, just the opposite.

(You know, you're not really obligated to reply to every single post that's directed to you. )

[I_M4_AU 7,987]

16 minutes ago, homersapien said:

That makes absolutely no sense.  Manchin and Sinema are hardly Biden azzkissers -  in fact, just the opposite.

(You know, you're not really obligated to reply to every single post that's directed to you. )

You said NOT willing to kiss Trump’s a$$ and Manchin and Sinema are NOT willing to kid Biden’s a$$. I usually don’t respond to every post directed at me, but when you can’t understand I feel obligated to set you straight.  

[CoffeeTiger 5,169]

6 hours ago, homersapien said:

“We’ve had two members engage in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse

Edited February 4, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[pensacolatiger 313]

Wait - there’s still people that don’t believe DNC, BLM, and Antifa had boots on the ground Jan 6th?  For real?

[homersapien 11,440]

On 2/4/2022 at 5:28 PM, pensacolatiger said:

Wait - there’s still people that don’t believe DNC, BLM, and Antifa had boots on the ground Jan 6th?  For real?

Of course, everyone knows the whole thing was an antifa false flag project....... for real. 

Er,  wait a second,.......

 

The Jan. 6 attack was actually a "legitimate political discourse".

G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

The Republican National Committee voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in the inquiry into the deadly riot at the Capitol.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/republicans-jan-6-cheney-censure.html

 

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by homersapien

[autigeremt 6,686]

The Duopoly at its best. 

[CoffeeTiger 5,169]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:09 PM, homersapien said:

Of course, everyone knows the whole thing was an antifa false flag project....... for real. 

Er,  wait a second,.......

 

The Jan. 6 attack was actually a "legitimate political discourse".

G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

The Republican National Committee voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in the inquiry into the deadly riot at the Capitol.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/republicans-jan-6-cheney-censure.html

 

 

 

 

The GOP as a whole can't get their story straight on the narrative/story they want to go with in regards to Jan 6, but they still expect people to take what they say seriously. 

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[creed 1,649]

On 2/4/2022 at 12:26 PM, I_M4_AU said:

It’s just too personal for Cheney, she needs to be a Democrat and stop lying to herself.

Too personal. Uh...what that hell does that mean?

[I_M4_AU 7,987]

Just now, creed said:

Too personal. Uh...what that hell does that mean?

She’s a never Trumper of the highest order, she can’t be objective, IMO.

[creed 1,649]

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

She’s a never Trumper of the highest order, she can’t be objective, IMO.

Thank god she's a never Trumper. I don't see any way someone could be objective if they are a Trumper. And although she doesn't represent me, my first red flag in a representative is if they are Trumpers as you say. 

[I_M4_AU 7,987]

1 minute ago, creed said:

Thank god she's a never Trumper. I don't see any way someone could be objective if they are a Trumper. And although she doesn't represent me, my first red flag in a representative is if they are Trumpers as you say. 

Not to be a never Trumper does not automatically make you a Trumper.  That is what the MSM wants you to believe and you have accepted that assumption.  The only reason she is on the Jan 6th commission is her Never Trumper stance, the only reason. 

[creed 1,649]

47 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Not to be a never Trumper does not automatically make you a Trumper.  That is what the MSM wants you to believe and you have accepted that assumption.  The only reason she is on the Jan 6th commission is her Never Trumper stance, the only reason. 

Well Chaney and I have one thing in common.

MSM? I don't watch any political programming. I can think for myself.

[pensacolatiger 313]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:54 PM, creed said:

Thank god she's a never Trumper. I don't see any way someone could be objective if they are a Trumper. And although she doesn't represent me, my first red flag in a representative is if they are Trumpers as you say. 

Lol - for sure, support the brain dead potato in office over the guy that led the country into some of our best financial times

[creed 1,649]

10 minutes ago, pensacolatiger said:

Lol - for sure, support the brain dead potato in office over the guy that led the country into some of our best financial times

You don't know what you're talking about. I will almost support any republican not named Trump or Brooks.

[pensacolatiger 313]

6 minutes ago, creed said:

You don't know what you're talking about. I will almost support any republican not named Trump or Brooks.

So you voted for trump in 2020?

[creed 1,649]

10 hours ago, pensacolatiger said:

So you voted for trump in 2020?

No. I wrote someone in.