The Gaetz Of Heck, Con't

A not-so-gentle reminder that many Republicans really hate GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, and that at this point they are more than willing to air his dirty laundry.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-O.K.) claimed on national television Wednesday night that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-F.L.) bragged about chasing down erectile dysfunction medication with an energy drink to prolong his sexual endeavors.

Gaetz brought a motion to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, and a day later, he and a posse of like-minded Republicans voted to axe the California congressman a day later.

The ousting of McCarthy has left the GOP party in chaos and plenty of ire was directed at Gaetz, as even fellow MAGA loyalists were furious over the ensuing infighting after the GOP left itself with no leader and no clear path forward.

Frustrated with Gaetz’s actions on Wednesday, Mullin unleashed wild allegations against the congressman when speaking to CNN’s Manu Raju outside the Capitol.

Mullin began by saying that after Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, “the media didn’t give [him] the time of day.” Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing, arguing that bad actors in the Justice Department were trying to ruin his life. That allegation prompted an investigation by the Department of Justice, which decided not to file charges in February.

“And there’s a reason why no one in the Congress came and defended him: Because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with,” Mullin added. “He would brag about how he would crush E.D. medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. This was obviously before he got married.”

He continued, “And so, when that accusation came out, no one defended him. And then no one in the media would give him the time of the day. All of a sudden he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the House back in November. And he’s always stayed there. And he was never gonna leave until he got this last moment of fame by going after a motion to vacate.”

In a statement to CNN read by anchor Anderson Cooper on air, Gaetz denied his colleague’s claim.

“I don’t think Markwayne Mullin and I have said 20 words to each other on the House floor. This is a lie from someone who doesn’t know me and who is coping with the death of the political career of his friend Kevin,” Gaetz’s statement read. “Thoughts and prayers.”

 

And while the DoJ investigation into Gaetz has been dropped, the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz has been going for over two years now, and there's a growing movement (powered by Newt Gingrich of all people) to expel Gaetz based on the results of the probe. 

Whether that happens, well, all bets are off here.

Indepen-Dunce Week: Defunding The DoJ

The Clown Caucus is vowing to defund the Justice Department, including slashing funding for the FBI, CIA, NSA, and whoever else may have evidence against Donald Trump, and impeachment of AG Merrick Garland is still coming, these stalwarts promise.

 

House Republicans are taking their fight with the FBI and Justice Department to a new level — weighing punitive steps against both agencies that would have been unfathomable a decade ago.

Half a year into their majority, and with an increasingly restless right flank, the House GOP is ready for a confrontation after a spate of recent decisions it sees as either anti-Trump or pro-Biden. At the top of the list: Hunter Biden’s plea deal with federal investigators and Donald Trump’s indictment over his handling of classified documents.

That push against the FBI and DOJ will become a cornerstone of Republicans’ agenda in a chaotic back half of the year. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has already threatened to explore impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland. Conservatives have also gone after FBI Director Christopher Wray, weighing whether to force a vote recommend booting him from office.

Additionally, some conservatives who believe the agencies have targeted Republicans are eager to cut the law agencies’ budgets. Then there’s the long-brewing congressional fight over a soon-to-expire warrantless surveillance program that has sparked bipartisan accusations of abuse by the FBI.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a leadership ally, predicted that conservative colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee’s government politicization panel and their allies would take their battle against FBI and DOJ to the chamber floor. Those Republicans, he said, “believe the best way to send a message is to use the power of the purse.”

Whether they prevail in the form of budget cuts, impeachment, or other measures remains to be seen. Conservative efforts could backfire, instead exposing tension with centrist and more establishment Republicans who embrace the party’s pro-law enforcement roots — the prevailing sentiment inside the GOP before Trump came along.

The fault lines emerged during closed-door House GOP spending meetings in recent weeks, as some lawmakers warned others to think twice about how they use spending bills to target specific agencies. In one session, conservative Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he privately urged his colleagues to “be careful” about how they talk about Justice Department funding, adding: “I’m not in favor of cutting DOJ.”

 

It doesn't matter what Republicans like Ken Buck want, Donald Trump went on a social media tirade over July 4th, demanding action by the GOP and demanding protests in the streets to get the Justice Department to drop all charges. 

What Trump wants, his flunkies get him, or they find out the hard way what happens to "traitors".

Ask Huckleberry Graham how that goes.

Not So Slick Rick Licked By Hick

Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott wasted tens of millions on loser Senate candidates as NRSC chair, failing so far to pick up a single seat and losing Pennsylvania to John Fetterman. He couldn't leave well enough alone and declared that his "leadership" is what the Senate GOP needs, coming at the Turtle for the Senate GOP leadership job anyway.

 

Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week’s midterm elections.

The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican’s campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party’s approach to reclaiming a Senate majority.

“If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in leadership elections on Wednesday.

Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell’s handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote was scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds with his effort to delay it until after a Georgia runoff election in December.

A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a conservative challenger.

Yet it appears unlikely that their numbers could grow enough to put McConnell’s job in jeopardy, given his deep support within the conference. And Trump’s opposition is hardly new, as has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Still, it represents an unusual direct challenge to the authority of McConnell, who is set to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history if he wins another leadership term.

“We may or may not be voting tomorrow, but I think the outcome is pretty clear,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes; I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”

 

Indeed he had the votes as McConnell was reelected this afternoon as Senate Minority Leader, 36-10.  Rick Scott came at the Turtle and missed, and now he's paying the price.

The GOP’s post-election finger-pointing intensified Tuesday, with two senators calling for an audit of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

During a tense, three-hour-long meeting of the Senate GOP Conference, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said there should be an independent review of how the party’s campaign arm spent its resources before falling short of its goal of winning the majority.

The discussion comes amid an all-out war enveloping the party following last week’s election. Over the past week, the political operations aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and NRSC Chair Rick Scott (Fla.) have clashed openly, blaming the other for the disappointing outcome — even before Scott launched a long-shot leadership challenge to McConnell.

But the recriminations took a new turn on Tuesday, with one of the party’s main political vehicles now facing the prospect of a financial review. According to two people familiar with the discussion, Blackburn told Scott during the meeting that there needed to be an accounting of how money was spent, and that it was important for senators to have a greater understanding of how and why key decisions involving financial resources were made. To move forward, Blackburn said, the party needed to determine what mistakes were made.

Tillis spoke out in support of the idea, arguing that there should also be a review of the committee’s spending during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, which would allow for a comparison to be made.

It would not be the first time a Republican Party committee underwent an audit: During the 2008 election, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s finances were reviewed as it faced an accounting scandal.

 

Marsha Blackburn is pretty mean to begin with, and you'll find Thom Tillis's prints on the knife used to backstab our old friend Madison Cawthorn in his failed primary reelection bid. If they're serious about a campaign audit of known Medicare fraudster Rick Scott, things could get very ugly, very fast. 

Stay tuned.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

As Donald Trump is expected to announce his 2024 presidential candidacy this week in order to try to protect himself from both indictments and rivals, other potential GOP candidates are thinking that the time to strike is now in order to knock Tang the Conqueror off his golden toilet.

Five days after a disappointing midterm election result and two days before former president Donald Trump is expected to announce a 2024 presidential bid, Republicans are grappling with an almost existential quandary: Who can lead the party to a post-Trump future?

In private conversations among donors, operatives and other 2024 presidential hopefuls, a growing number of Republicans are trying to seize what they believe may be their best opportunity to sideline Trump and usher in a new generation of party leaders.

Many blame Tuesday’s midterm results — Republicans made smaller-than-expected gains in the House and failed to gain control of the Senate — on the former president, who during the primaries elevated extremist candidates who fared poorly in the general election. The discouraging election outcomes, combined with Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden, have increased both public and private talk of considering a post-Trump world.

Many of the party’s top donors are actively trying to back other candidates and are tired of Trump, according to Republican officials and operatives in touch with them, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.

Many donors and operatives are already raving over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has fashioned himself as a Trump-lite Republican and cruised to a nearly 20-point victory over Democrat Charlie Crist on Tuesday night, flipping Miami-Dade County — a heavily Hispanic, densely populated county that has not been won by a Republican gubernatorial candidate in two decades.

Other potential Republican candidates — from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to former vice president Mike Pence to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin — are also quietly taking stock of what their own presidential bids might look like.

“The issue set was clearly in our favor — on inflation, on the border, on crime — and yet we failed to meet expectations,” said Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff. “The question is: Are there different candidates out there where the issue set still works, but with a different style that is also more in our favor?”

A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Uncertainty also looms over the Republicans eager to move beyond Trump. After all, Trump’s poor showing Tuesday and the calls for him to recede have echoes of previous moments when Trump seemed politically doomed, only to resuscitate himself: The early days of his first presidential bid, when he dismissed the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam prisoner of war, as “not a real war hero.” The final days of his 2016 campaign, when an “Access Hollywood” tape emerged showing Trump crudely boasting about groping women. In the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack, when Trump, having lost the presidency, encouraged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol.

 

The issue is that any of the non-Trump Republicans would be worse in every way than actual Trump himself. Without Trump's crippling ego, emotional instability, and his litany of personal grudges weighing his rivals down, they would be able to focus almost exclusively on rewriting America into an avowed white supremacist theocracy instead of weekly stories on nuking hurricanes or buying Greenland.

Yeah, I want to see Trump fail, but as I've said time and time again, Trump is only the symptom of a diseased, cancerous GOP infected with racist, religious zealots who want to purge America of anyone who isn't willing to serve their horrible version of Jesus. Even with Trump facing charges, the party will eventually pick someone to be their ridiculously racist avatar, and the battle will be joined again.

Apparently, that battle begins now.

The Green Thunder Down Under

Conservative, if not Trumpy Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been booted from office by voters over the weekend, and that means that white Labor PM Anthony Albanese will be PM, it also means he's going to have to convince Independents and Greens to form a coalition government as the BBC's Nick Bryant explains.

Tumbling down have come the walls of conservative citadels. Parliamentary seats where Liberals had for generations dominated now look like barren lands.

The shoreline of Sydney Harbour, which is home to the most expensive real estate on the continent, is a case in point. It has been overwhelmed by a "teal" wave, the colour adopted by the swathe of independents who have had such a transformative effect on the country's political geography.

Remarkably, the Liberals no longer control any harbour-side seats that stretch from the Opera House to the ocean. These include Wentworth and Warringah, which were represented up until recently by two former Liberal prime ministers, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott.

It is akin to San Francisco, another great harbour city, losing all its Democrats.

Nor did the teal wave just wash over the Liberal ramparts of Sydney.

In Melbourne, the party looks to have lost the seat of Kooyong, which was once the fiefdom of Robert Menzies, Australia's longest serving prime minister, and which had remained faithfully conservative since Australia became a federation in 1901.

The same electoral dynamics played out. A party that has become fixated in recent decades with attracting working class battlers in traditional Labor strongholds has lost touch with Tesla-driving professionals in blue-ribbon seats.

For the first time in more than a decade, the electric car nudged out the coal train.

The rise of the teal independents has shattered the main party duopoly in the major cities - urban Australia accounts for 86% of the country's population.

So, too, have the Australian Greens, one of the hitherto under-reported stories of this election.

With votes still to be counted, the Greens are confident of achieving what they are calling a "greenslide" in Queensland.

That is a startling statement, because, if true, it would shatter the conventional wisdom of Australian politics: that green politics is anathema to the country's "Deep North" state.

Labor's phobia of alienating voters in this mining and resources hub has had a paralysing effect on its approach to climate change.

Here, then, the Greens have been beneficiaries of Labor's timidity regarding emissions targets.

If parts of Queensland become "Greensland" then the ground has truly shifted beneath our feet.

 

Understanding that, Albanese has promised a "new green superpower" plan for Australia, but how far that actually gets, we'll see. Independents and green want radical, if not transformative climate action, and they may just very well have enough seats to force Labor to make good on that promise.

The Burned Bridges of...Lauren Boebert?

The same GOP activist group that ended Rep.Madison Cawthorn's whole career is now setting its sights on Rep. Lauren Boebert. Get the popcorn.

Is Lauren Boebert about to be “Cawthorn-ized”? We’re going to find out. The same group that posted a nude video of Rep. Madison Cawthorn has now turned their attention to Rep. Boebert, who faces her own primary challenge on June 28 (ballots will start being mailed out on June 6).

But can lightning strike twice? According to David B. Wheeler, head of that group (The American Muckrakers PAC—also known as FireBoebert.com), Boebert’s primary is similar to Cawthorn’s. The districts, he says, are “very similar” demographically. And just as Cawthorn faced a North Carolina state legislator, Boebert’s challenger is Colorado Republican state Sen. Don Coram. There’s also a sense that neither incumbent cares about their district, but are instead more interested in their national profile.

No two races are alike. Cawthorn tried to switch congressional districts—a move that failed and probably hurt his image. And, of course, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis endorsed Cawthorn’s opponent. Those are two big ingredients that Boebert’s opponent does not yet have (Colorado has two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor). By the same token, Boebert must defend a district that includes the liberal enclave of Aspen, Colorado (a potentially big source of anti-Boebert fundraising). And Wheeler tells me, “The opponent [Boebert] took out last time around is still pretty bitter about how she did it.” (In 2o2o, Boebert defeated a five-term, Trump-endorsed Republican congressman named Scott Tipton.)

Cawthorn and Boebert also share another obvious similarity: “Their own personal lives seem to be an absolute mess,” Wheeler adds.

Indeed, much of the drama has already been reported. Back in 2004, Boebert’s husband was arrested for exposing himself to two women at a bowling alley (Boebert was there). That same year, he was arrested on a domestic violence charge against her, and he served seven days in jail.

A few months later, Boebert was charged with assaulting him.

And then… they got married.

Since then, Boebert has had plenty of brushes with the law, including a 2015 incident where she was handcuffed at a country music festival after allegedly encouraging minors being detained for underage drinking to leave police custody. Boebert reportedly told police that “she had friends at Fox News and that the arrest would be national news.”

So, there are obvious similarities between Cawthorn and Boebert. And there will be no dearth of material to use against Boebert, including things that are yet to emerge (scandals are sort of like cockroaches—for every one you see, there are probably a hundred hiding).

Now, this is Matt Lewis of the Daily Beast, someone who would also like to see this same group going after"other extremists" like AOC or Rep. Ilhan Omar. But hey, Cawthorn actually did lose his primary thanks to these guys.

I'm okay with that if they can take down Boebert too.

The (Burned) Bridges Of Madison Cawthorn, Con't

GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn has now reached the "embattled and besieged" stage of his rapidly fading political career, and I have neckties older than he is. Republicans want him gone like the fart in the wind he is, apparently.

Besieged by multiplying scandals and salacious accusations, Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, is under mounting pressure from both parties to end his short career in Congress.

In rapid succession, Mr. Cawthorn, who entered Congress as a rising star of the party’s far right, has been accused of falsely suggesting that his Republican colleagues routinely throw cocaine-fueled orgies, insider trading and an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. This week, he was detained at an airport, where police said he tried to bring a loaded handgun onto an airplane, the second time he has attempted that.

That came just days after pictures surfaced of him wearing women’s lingerie as part of a cruise ship game, imagery that might not go over well in the conservative stretches of his Western North Carolina district. And last month he was charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time since 2017.

The deluge of revelations and charges have left him on an island even within his own party. A political group supporting Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, has been pouring money into an ad campaign accusing Mr. Cawthorn of being a fame-seeking liar. The group is supporting the campaign of a more mainstream Republican, State Senator Chuck Edwards, who is running against Mr. Cawthorn. And the far-right, anti-establishment wing of the party now views the first-term congressman with similar skepticism, as someone who is falsely selling himself as a gatekeeper in his state to former President Donald J. Trump.

After initially blaming Democrats for the onslaught, Mr. Cawthorn on Friday said it was Republicans who were targeting him because he threatens the status quo.

“I want to change the GOP for the better, and I believe in America First,” he wrote on Twitter. “I can understand the establishment attacking those beliefs, but just digging stuff up from my early 20s to smear me is pathetic.”

At 26 years old, Mr. Cawthorn is not far removed from his early 20s, and Republicans running to unseat him in the May 17 North Carolina primary said the drumbeat of revelations could put his seat at risk if he secures the nomination for a second term.

Washington Republicans scoff at the notion that a solidly conservative district could be at risk during a year in which they are heavily favored, but early voting began this week as the avalanche of accusations against Mr. Cawthorn was gaining steam.

“He could absolutely lose,” said Michele Woodhouse, one of seven Republicans challenging Mr. Cawthorn in the primary.

His leading Democratic opponent, the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, continues to raise money off her Republican opponent’s foibles. Ms. Beach-Ferrara called Mr. Cawthorn “a troubled young man.”

“I hold him in my prayers, but I believe he is not fit to serve in office,” she said in an interview.

 

For those of you who don't speak Southern, "I hold you in my prayers" is the formal version of "Bless your heart" and it's just about the worst thing anyone can say about you in Carolina politics.

Oh, but it gets worse for the Madman...

Still, the dirt being dished is coming from Republicans — not in Washington but in North Carolina, said David B. Wheeler, president of American Muckrakers PAC, a group he said was put together to “hold Cawthorn accountable.”

Mr. Wheeler’s group, run by Western North Carolina Democrats, filed an incendiary ethics complaint on Wednesday that included a video of Mr. Cawthorn with a senior aide, Stephen L. Smith. In the video, Mr. Cawthorn, in the driver’s seat of a car, appears to say, “I feel the passion and desire and would like to see a naked body beneath my hands.”

The camera then pans back to Mr. Smith who says, “Me too” as he places his hand onto Mr. Cawthorn’s crotch.

The ethics complaint said Mr. Cawthorn has provided loans to Mr. Smith in violation of House rules. It also suggested that Mr. Cawthorn, who, according to the complaint, lives with the aide, has violated rules put in place during the #MeToo movement that bar lawmakers from having sexual relationships with employees under their supervision.

After the story broke in The Daily Mail, Mr. Cawthorn posted on Twitter, “Many of my colleagues would be nowhere near politics if they had grown up with a cell phone in their hands” — not exactly a denial but a suggestion that other members should not cast stones.

Mr. Wheeler provided The Times with a screenshot of the anonymous text he received that included the video, and he said he believed the tipster to be a former Cawthorn campaign aide. Another former aide, Lisa Wiggins, went public in an audio recording released by Mr. Wheeler with her consent, saying, “We all want the ultimate goal of him never serving again.”

Republicans in the state insist that accusations of lawlessness and neglect of his district are more damaging than details of his sex life. Democrats say they are most concerned with Mr. Cawthorn’s support for the protesters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A legal effort led by North Carolina Democrats to label him as an “insurrectionist” and constitutionally disqualify him from the ballot failed last month.

 

The legal, ethical way to get this little skidmark off the ballot may have failed, but it's now Republicans who are doing him in just weeks before his primary, and I couldn't be happier.  Yes, it means that Chuck Edwards may end up in Congress and he's a giant Republican racist asshole too, but it also means Cawthorn might survive his primary and end up losing a safe seat to a Democratic challenger, too.

We'll see.

The Burned Bridges Of Madison Cawthorn, Con't

NC GOP Rep Madison Cawthorn can't help himself, it seems. The youngest member of the US House can't stop acting like your obnoxious Gen Z co-worker who knows everything (of course) but won't stop pissing off the management, and it looks like this time he's gotten dragged into Principal McCarthy's office for ratting out the big after-prom party, and now the football team wants him gone.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina is throwing his weight behind a primary opponent to freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn -- an extraordinary broadside against a fellow Republican from his home state, as internal frustration with the controversial MAGA firebrand reaches a boiling point. 

"It comes down to focus on the district, producing results for the district, and in my opinion, Mr. Cawthorn hasn't demonstrated much in the way of results over the last 18 months," Tillis told CNN, describing why he is backing state Sen. Chuck Edwards in his primary against Cawthorn. 

And Tillis may not be alone. Other GOP lawmakers who are at their wits' end with Cawthorn are considering endorsing one of his primary foes, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, amid growing concerns that the North Carolina Republican is dragging down the entire party with his problematic behavior. The two most powerful North Carolina Republicans in the state legislature -- Senate leader Phil Berger and House speaker Tim Moore -- are headlining a fundraiser for Edwards on Thursday, according to the Edwards campaign. 

It's the latest sign of turmoil for the 26-year-old, who has angered and annoyed a wide swath of his colleagues with a steady stream of controversial antics and attempts to play political kingmaker in North Carolina and beyond. Most recently, Cawthorn sparked an uproar after claiming on a podcast that people in Washington have invited him to participate in orgies and used cocaine in front of him. Even fellow members of the House Freedom Caucus, a far-right crew with a penchant for controversy, have turned on Cawthorn: They've floated the idea of kicking him out of the group if he didn't clarify his wild accusations, according to GOP sources, though such a step seems unlikely. 

Amid complaints from members, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hauled Cawthorn into his office Wednesday morning and pressed him on the unsettling allegations, which he said Cawthorn admitted were untrue, and told the freshman lawmaker he needs to get his act together or else he could face internal consequences. 

"He's got to turn himself around," McCarthy told reporters. "I just told him he's lost my trust, and he's going to have to earn it back. I laid out everything I find that's unbecoming. ... He's got a lot of members upset. You can't just make statements out there."

 

The whole Zack Morris/Principal Belding dynamic is fascinating on one level, but it just proves some people peaked in high school.

This is one example where a GOP primary fight may actually not produce a worse Republican, as the worse one is already in office.

Last Call For The Big Lie, Con't

Alabama GOP Sen. Mo Brooks will almost certainly not be a US senator for much longer.

Former President Donald Trump yanked his endorsement from Alabama Senate hopeful Mo Brooks on Wednesday, promising to make a new endorsement in the race before the May 24 primary. 

Trump's stunning decision to untether himself from a candidate who became the first Republican congressman to vote against certifying the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021, comes amid several dismissive comments that Brooks recently made about the election. Brooks was booed at a rally last August upon telling the crowd they should look beyond the last presidential contest. And in the last two weeks, he has publicly accused Trump of asking him to break the law by exploring ways to reinstall him as commander-in-chief. 

"Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went 'woke' and stated, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, 'Put that behind you, put that behind you,'" Trump said in a statement. 

He continued, "When I heard this statement, I said, 'Mo, you just blew the Election, and there's nothing you can do about it.'" 

Brooks will stay in the Senate race despite Trump's decision, according to a source close to the congressman. 

Trump, who vowed to throw his weight behind a different candidate in the "near future," met with Army veteran Mike Durant at Mar-a-Lago on Monday to discuss the race and get a better feel for the candidate, according to a person familiar with the meeting. He had previously told aides he is skeptical of Durant, who received a major boost in the race in the form of spending by More Perfect Union, an outside group that has committed to supporting moderate candidates in red and blue races. 

Trump also met with former Alabama Business Council president Katie Britt earlier this year amid his frustrations over Brooks' lackluster performance. As CNN has previously reported, Trump has told allies he's impressed with Britt's fundraising and has taken a liking to her husband, Wesley Britt, who played for the New England Patriots.
Britt served as chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby.

 

So there's plenty of Alabama Republicans who will come to Dear Leader Trump asking for his blessing, and the only question he will ask is "Do you believe Joe Biden stole the election from me and will you help me now get  the White House back?"

 

Because that's what Brooks says Trump asked him to do.

In a statement Wednesday morning, Brooks accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, of manipulating him and said Trump had asked him to work to "immediately rescind" the November 2020 election and hold a special election to re-elect Trump. Brooks said he had repeatedly told Trump that the election could not be overturned after Jan. 6.

“I’ve told President Trump the truth knowing full well that it might cause President Trump to rescind his endorsement," the statement said. "But I took a sworn oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. I honor my oath. That is the way I am. I break my sworn oath for no man."

 

Brooks tried to play both sides of the road and got run over standing in the middle. The lesson here is that the only thing that matters in Republican primaries is loyalty to Donald Trump, not to fact or America or your constituents. Brooks is done. He will not win the primary, especially in a state that elected Tommy Tuberville, the dumbest dirt clod in the entire Senate right now.

A state poll taken this week finds Brooks now in a distant third behind both Durant and Britt. 

 

In a race drawing national attention and millions of dollars already spent on ads, our new exclusive Gray TV/Alabama Daily News poll shows the Republican primary for the chance to replace retiring Senator Richard Shelby is a close contest, but with some eye-catching movement. Our polling shows businessman Mike Durant with a 6 point lead over former Shelby Chief of Staff Katie Britt, and both well clear of Congressman Mo Brooks.

Gray TV/AL Daily News Poll by Cygnal, +/-4%

Mike Durant - 34.6%

Katie Britt - 28.4%

Mo Brooks - 16.1%

Lillie Boddie - 6.5%

Karla Dupriest - 0%

Jake Schafer - 0%

Undecided - 14.4%

“It’s hard to ignore the real story here, Mo Brooks sliding,” says Alabama Daily News Publisher Todd Stacy. “Only 16% in this poll, that’s down from 40% of the electorate in August, that’s an incredible slide that I have you to attribute to him not getting his message out--he’s not had a whole lot of ads that really support his campaign, but more importantly he’s had about $1.5 million dollars of ads spent from PACS attacking him.”

 

No, as a Republican elected, your one job is to help the GOP steal the 2024 election and crown Dear Leader Trump as dictator, and everyone knows it.And while Durant and Britt are in the lead, Trump's made it clear that he favors someone completely loyal to his regime.

Show-Me-State, 👀 here!⁦

Congressman Billy Long ⁦@auctnr1⁩ just got a huge boost from President Trump in the race for #USSenate in #Missouri pic.twitter.com/VWdVc1n6bc

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) March 23, 2022

Rep. Billy Long now the odds on favorite, and Mo Brooks's political career has been crucified on a national stage, and he serves as a warning to others: you serve Donald J. Trump or you are destroyed.

Retribution Execution, Con't

The scheduled execution of GOP Rep. Liz Cheney's career in Wyoming continues, as now Trump wants the state legislature and GOP Gov. Mark Gordon to change primary election laws in order to eliminate party switching and voting in the state's primary contests.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies have been privately lobbying Wyoming lawmakers to change the state’s election laws as part of an effort to unseat Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

On Thursday, Trump endorsed Wyoming legislation that would prevent crossover voting in a primary election. Were the law to pass, Democrats, Republicans, or independents would no longer be able to switch party affiliation on the day of the state’s primary to vote for a candidate in another party.

The bill, introduced by Republican state Sen. Bo Biteman, is part of a push by some Republicans in the state to oust Cheney by blocking Democrats from switching parties to support her in her upcoming election against Trump-endorsed congressional candidate, Harriet Hageman.

Behind the scenes, Trump and Club for Growth’s David McIntosh have both personally called Wyoming’s Republican governor, Mark Gordon, to encourage him to back the bill, according to two people familiar with the calls.

“The Governor has had many conversations about this issue, including with President Trump and David McIntosh, however characterizing that as ‘pressure’ would be incorrect. Governor Gordon is going to do what’s best for Wyoming and he respects the legislative process,” said Michael Perlman, the communications director for Gordon.

The intensity of the push for the legislation peaked earlier this week, when Republicans began speculating that Gordon could announce his support for it in his State of the State address. But he did not. And as the week has gone on, Trump’s private lobbying became public.

“This critically important bill ensures that the voters in each party will separately choose their nominees for the General Election, which is how it should be!” Trump said in a statement. “It makes total sense that only Democrats vote in the Democrat primary and only Republicans vote in the Republican primary.”

The former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also called on Wyoming to “pay attention” to the bill and American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp — a close Trump ally — tweeted on Thursday that his group might score the legislation as it considered its support of GOP lawmakers.

“There was a big push this morning to get all of our MAGA influencers to push it and make a big deal out of it,” said one Republican operative involved in the race.

Cheney told The New York Times she will not encourage party switching or support any effort to encourage Democrats to vote in the Republican primary.

 

Two observations:

 

One, yes, these are the lengths Donald Trump will go to in order to punish perceived disloyalty. In Trump's worldview, political power only exists to further his own ambitions, and anyone who interferes with that, let alone actively assists in conducting a congressional investigation against him, is exterminated.

Two, all Republicans at the state and national level work for Donald Trump as far as Donald Trump is concerned. There's a reason we keep coming back to the organized crime comparisons because Trump is essentially the political version of a mobster kingpin. 

This is a political version of a mob hit on someone turning states' evidence against Trump, and it's being done for the same reasons: everyone knows who ordered the trigger pulled, and everyone in the GOP will know who did it and why, and to never even think about following suit.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has endorsed Harriet Hageman, the Trump-backed opponent of incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming -- a rare endorsement from leadership in a divisive GOP primary, and one that marks the culmination of a simmering feud between the two powerful Republicans battling over the future of their party. 

The tension between the two began in the wake of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol when Cheney called for her party to move on from former President Donald Trump and voted to impeach him, while McCarthy chose to cozy up to the former President. Cheney's criticism of Trump led to his backers in the House to successfully push for her to be removed from her position as the chairwoman of the GOP Conference. It was a move McCarthy initially resisted, but ultimately backed. 

"I am proud to endorse Harriet Hageman for Congress," McCarthy said in a statement Thursday. "[Throughout] her career, Harriet has championed America's natural resources and helped the people of Wyoming reject burdensome and onerous government overreach." 

McCarthy explained his endorsement in remarks to Fox's Sean Hannity. 

"Wyoming deserves to have a representative who will deliver the accountability against this Biden administration. Not a representative that they have today that works closer with Nancy Pelosi, going after Republicans instead of stopping these radical Democrats from what they're doing to this country," the California Republican said. 

Hageman responded to the endorsement in a statement, saying, "I am very grateful for Leader McCarthy's strong support, and I pledge that when I am Wyoming's congresswoman, I will always stand up for our beautiful state and do the job I was sent there to do."

 

It's a hit job alright, and Cheney's career is all but cold in the ground.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The Former Guy™ is making good on his threat to destroy Liz Cheney's political career by supporting Harriet Hageman's primary challenge to Cheney's Wyoming at-large House seat.

 

Donald Trump is set to back Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman as she prepares a primary challenge against GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, according to three people with knowledge of his plans, marking the most important political endorsement yet in Trump’s post-presidency.

Trump’s looming involvement in the primary will test his political power in the GOP like never before, as he seeks to punish the most high-profile House Republican to vote for his impeachment in January. His allies and team not only encouraged Hageman to run against Cheney — they now are under pressure to clear the crowded primary field of other candidates who could split anti-Cheney sentiment, which would give the incumbent the chance to win her primary with only a plurality.

Cheney became Trump’s top Republican target after she spoke out against his role inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. House Republicans soon stripped her of her leadership post, and one of Trump’s sons and a top Trump ally have already campaigned against her in Wyoming.

At the same time, Trump threw himself into the process of vetting and interviewing multiple candidates running or exploring campaigns against Cheney with the goal of anointing a single challenger. Ultimately, he chose Hageman because she impressed him the most, according to the people with knowledge of his plans.

In a final step before officially announcing her campaign later this week, Hageman resigned Tuesday as one of Wyoming’s members of the Republican National Committee.

“By censuring Rep. Liz Cheney we sent the strong message that we expect our elected officials to respect the views and values of the people who elected them. Accountability is key and I am proud of our party for demanding it,” Hageman wrote in her resignation letter.

Hageman isn’t just banking on Trump’s endorsement in the coming primary against Cheney: Top Trump staffers and allies are in her corner, including some who are in talks to occupy key roles on her campaign or with a super PAC prepared to back her. Some former Trump campaign hands and advisers met with Hageman in March at the urging of local conservatives.

Trump’s endorsement announcement could come any day, but he has already told Hageman that she has his support, sources said.

“He interviewed a lot of people, and when it was done, it was clear she’s in a class of her own,” said one Republican familiar with Trump’s selection process who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about his decision.

Aside from her Trump connection, Hageman’s campaign credentials include her status as a fourth-generation Wyomingite who grew up on a ranch, later becoming a conservative activist and top land-use attorney in a state where land is a political issue. In 2018, her tough-talking campaign for governor made her a conservative favorite, though she finished in third place in a crowded primary. Still, that campaign made Hageman one of Cheney’s only likely challengers who had previously run statewide in Wyoming.

It's pretty obvious that the entire GOP now works for Donald Trump, and Trump's slate of 2022 revenge endorsements against those he feels weren't loyal enough to him, replacing them for Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan clones is really the only thing that might save the House for the Democrats as his hand-picked, double-dipped lunatics lose general election after general election.

We'll see what happens, but Liz Cheney's political career is close to being permanently over, I think. She'll get a nice corporate lawyer job and then a think tank sinecure in a few years, but like most Dubya-era Republicans, she'll be excluded from any real decisions in the party.

Not that she doesn't deserve the ignominy, but the country may actually pay a worse price for getting rid of her.

Last Call For If You Come At The Queen...

If you want to know just how good House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is at vexing the GOP, assisted in no small part by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy being a dim bulb among dim bulbs? Well, in the last few days, we've gone from the GOP demanding McCarthy give his rabid cultists a quixotic House vote to dethrone Pelosi to the cultists demanding the blood sacrifice of GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for joining the January 6th committee.

 

A growing group of rank-and-file House Republicans wants House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP leadership to punish Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for accepting a position from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. 

The push to seek punishment rose to a new level on Sunday, after Pelosi announced that Kinzinger had accepted her invitation to join the committee. Initially, most rank-and-file Republicans were content to let Cheney serve without much of a fight, but Kinzinger's addition has changed the conversation and has put a new level of pressure on McCarthy. 

While the loudest cries have come from members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, sources say that the sentiment has started to spread beyond the hard-line crew. 

"There's a lot," said one GOP member about the push to have the pair removed from their other committees. "Supporting Pelosi's unprecedented move to reject McCarthy's picks was a bridge too far." 

Pelosi rejected two of McCathy's choices last week -- Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio -- which prompted the GOP leader to withdraw all five of his picks.
Rep. Scott Perry, a Freedom Caucus member, publicly called on Conference Chair Elise Stefanik to call a special GOP conference meeting to "address appropriate measures" related to Pelosi booting two of McCarthy's chosen picks from the committee. Some members specifically want McCarthy and Stefanik to push for a vote of GOP members to strip Cheney and Kinzinger, who both voted to impeach former President Donald Trump earlier this year, from their other committee assignments. Stefanik's office did not respond to a request for comment on Perry's desire for a conference meeting. 

But kicking them off their committees would be easier said than done. While McCarthy could remove Cheney and Kinzinger from their other committees, Pelosi ultimately controls committee membership. She could theoretically just re-appoint them to their current posts. 

The scuttle demonstrates how difficult McCarthy's leadership role remains. While conservatives applauded his decision to attempt to appoint both Banks and Jordan and his subsequent move to pull back all of his choices, they still believe Cheney and Kinzinger need to be reprimanded for not remaining loyal to the conference. 

McCarthy's office did not respond to questions about Republicans pushing him to punish Kinzinger and Cheney.

 

McCarthy is now stuck. There's nothing he can do about Pelosi, and he can't really punish Kinzinger and Cheney without Pelosi putting them back on committees. Expulsion is likewise out of the picture. He doesn't have a whole lot of options left at this point, because the cultists will start demanding his blood next.

So what does he do?  Yeah, this is a "devil we know" situation, as long as the massively incompetent McCarthy remains lead Cat Herder in House GOP land, Pelosi can continue to run circles around him and leave him running from his own caucus. The issue is however that McCarthy's situation is growing increasingly untenable. Something will have to shift dramatically, it's just a question of when.

Ask the last couple of GOP House leaders how that goes.

If You Come At The Queen...

...well, you know. And they're going to miss by a lot.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus is urging Kevin McCarthy to try to boot Nancy Pelosi from her position as speaker, a sign of further escalating tensions after the California Democrat vetoed two of the House Minority Leader’s GOP picks from the Jan. 6 select committee.

In a letter Friday, the far-right group asked McCarthy to file and bring up a privileged motion by July 31 “to vacate the chair and end Nancy Pelosi’s authoritarian reign as Speaker of the House.”

“Speaker Pelosi’s tenure is destroying the House of Representatives and our ability to faithfully represent the people we are here to serve,” they write. “Republicans, under your leadership, must show the American people that we will act to protect our ability to represent their interests.”

The motion is all but guaranteed to fail in the Democratic House, but it signals a stewing anger on the right towards the speaker. The Freedom Caucus’ letter indicates that McCarthy would need to initiate the motion, and if he were to do so, it would further escalate partisan acrimony in the House that has remained high, and occasionally gotten personal, since Jan. 6.

They argue that Pelosi’s decision to reject Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) from the panel was “intolerable.” Pelosi, meanwhile, says she made the right call blocking the two Trump allies because of their “antics” in the months following the deadly insurrection.

Banks and Jordan “made statements and took actions that just would have been ridiculous to put them on a committee seeking the truth,” Pelosi told reporters.

A spokesperson for Pelosi did not immediately respond to request for comment.

That's because the spokesperson for Pelosi was too busy laughing for twelve minutes.

You know what? This is a threat more to McCarthy's role as minority leader than it is Pelosi's position as House Speaker, and if he doesn't play along, he may not be in that role much longer. Boehner and Ryan were both run out of town, Boehner by rail, Ryan by primary.

This is more his concern. Pelosi should even have to lose a wink of sleep, and won't.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Donald Trump will settle for nothing less than the political extermination of GOP Rep. Liz Cheney for speaking out against him, and he's in the middle of choosing his catspaw to do his dirty work in Wyoming.

Former President Donald Trump’s top political advisers have been holding quiet talks over the last several months with the primary challengers looking to take down his most prominent Republican nemesis: Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

During phone calls and Zoom chats, the Trump advisers have pressed the candidates on their fundraising capabilities, their policy positions and the overall strength of their campaign organizations. The goal: to determine whether they have what it takes to unseat Cheney, the influential daughter of a former vice president, who served as the No. 3 House Republican until colleagues ousted her in the spring.

The talks will escalate next week, when Trump meets with two challengers at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club: state Rep. Chuck Gray and attorney Darin Smith. Trump’s son, Don, Jr., who earlier this year visited Wyoming to speak out against Cheney for supporting his father’s impeachment, is expected to be present at the meetings.

Trump is expected to sit down with other candidates before deciding whom to endorse, though advisers say that Gray and Smith have emerged as the two clear frontrunners. To prevent Cheney from winning renomination with just a plurality of the vote, they also say, Trump needs to back the strongest candidate and then elbow out others in the crowded field.

The behind-the-scenes talks underscore the high stakes confronting Trump, who has made unseating Cheney a priority since she blamed him for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and voted to impeach him. The outcome of the contest — and Trump’s ability to shape it — will be a key measure of Trump’s post-presidential dominance over the Republican Party.

“The Wyoming race is the highest priority of the cycle. It’s a must-win for President Trump. I hope he fully understands that because it’s an undeniable fact,” said Christopher Ekstrom, a major GOP donor overseeing a super PAC that’s expected to get involved in the effort to unseat Cheney.

Shortly after the January impeachment vote, the former president’s advisers began reaching out to the state Republican Party chair, Frank Eathorne, and state legislators to take their temperature on Wyoming’s political landscape. They were also in touch with the anti-tax Club for Growth, a pro-Trump group that is opposing Cheney.

Trump allies, including Donald Trump, Jr. and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, have participated in anti-Cheney events in the state. Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also went to Wyoming to get on-the-ground intel and meet with potential primary challengers.

The Trump team sounded out a potential early challenger in state Treasurer Curt Meier. But Meier said he wasn’t interested and instead recommended Gray, a state legislator and former radio show host who is staunchly supportive of the former president. In late January, Trump pollster John McLaughlin commissioned a 500-person survey through the former president's political action committee, which asked respondents their opinion of Gray and whether they would support him or Cheney in a primary matchup. The poll also tested the strength of another candidate, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard.

 

While it's definitely a litmus test on the power of Trump's cultism, I don't expect him to lose. I expect Cheney to be utterly destroyed and left broken, with Trump gloating that he crucified her, and that everyone else in the GOP who voted to impeach him will suffer the same fate. 

 

Most likely he'll be 100% correct.

It is a cult, after all.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The Trump party just collected apostate Rep. Liz Cheney's head, removing her from the House GOP leadership in an unceremonious voice vote this morning.

In an extraordinary bow to former President Trump, House Republicans voted Wednesday to purge GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney from her leadership post, punishing the conservative Wyoming Republican for daring to refute Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

The decision was made by voice vote, meaning there will be no tally of the lawmakers who voted to dump Cheney, or of those who wanted her to stay on. Sources inside the closed-door vote said it was an overwhelming vote against Cheney. Some guessed the split was three to one.

That represents a remarkable shift from a similar challenge to her leadership status in February, when she won handily. And it marked the first time in recent memory that a congressional GOP leader was toppled by rank-and-file Republicans in the middle of their term through a formal vote.

Trump was not on Wednesday’s ballot, but he was the elephant in the room as Cheney’s colleagues voted to condemn her for what has become an unpardonable sin in today’s Republican Party: calling out the former president for his repeated falsehoods about his election defeat.

“You can't have a conference chair who recites Democrat talking points,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), former head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a close Trump ally, said after the vote.

Yet not all conservatives agreed.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), another Freedom Caucus member, was a rare conservative supporting Cheney. A sharp critic of "cancel culture," Buck warned after the vote that Republicans likely alienated voters who agree with Cheney's criticisms of Trump — or at least her right to air them from a position of leadership.

"Liz didn't agree with President Trump's narrative and she was cancelled," Buck said. "We have to deal with this narrative at some point. There are major issues — the border, spending — there are major issues. But to suggest that the American people in 2022 won't consider the fact that we were unwilling to stand up to a narrative that the election was stolen, I think will be taken into consideration with their vote."

It's all about Trump now.

Anyone who doesn't bow down to him will be removed. 

 

Anyone remaining in the party is okay with that.

Keep that fact in mind.

Retribution Execution, Con't

It's no longer a question of if Rep. Liz Cheney will remain in the House Republican leadership, it's a question of how soon she's ejected from from Congress and the party itself by the Wyoming GOP.

Rep. Liz Cheney’s colleagues are set to boot her from House GOP leadership this month. Now Republicans back in her home state of Wyoming are plotting how to remove her from Congress entirely.

There is no shortage of Republicans eager to take on Cheney in a 2022 primary since her vote to impeach President Donald Trump and her subsequent criticism of him tanked her popularity in Wyoming. But the crowded field is also a risk for the anti-Cheney forces, making it more possible for her to win with a plurality.

That might be the only path back to Washington for Cheney, barring a drastic change of fortune: Internal polling conducted for Trump’s PAC in January and, more recently, for the pro-Trump Club for Growth show a majority of Wyoming Republicans disapproving of Cheney and continuing strong support for Trump.

The collapse in support is a remarkable fall from grace for Cheney, who just last year passed on an open Senate seat in her state to remain in House leadership instead. After ascending to GOP conference chair — the same post her father once held — she was touted as a future House speaker. Now, it’s impossible to call her anything other than an underdog in her own congressional seat.

Trump and his orbit have taken a strong interest in the race, and an endorsement could help clarify the field, which already features four Republicans who have filed to run against Cheney. But more contenders are waiting on the sidelines, and Trump’s political team, according to two people familiar with the efforts, has shown early interest in recruiting a pair of Republicans who aren’t already in the race: attorney Darin Smith, who ran for the seat in 2016, and Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan.

“I think anybody who's a decent Republican is going to get behind whoever Donald Trump eventually endorses,” Smith said in an interview. “He's gonna look under every rock and look over the lay of the land, and he's going to determine who that person that he's going to get behind is.”

He said he’s been approached about entering the race and is seriously considering it. "We need somebody, for sure, that will export Wyoming's values to Washington and not the other way around,” Smith said.

Smith placed fourth in Wyoming’s Republican congressional primary in 2016, when the seat was open, and appears more likely to enter the fray than Buchanan, who would have to forgo reelection as secretary of state to challenge Cheney. The two are unlikely to both jump into the primary, and people close to Buchanan said they think he is leaning against a run. 

I wouldn't go out of my way to feel bad for Liz Cheney though, she's just as awful as her father.  If she does lose her seat, she'll land at a law firm and then move on to think tanks and fellowships for a while. But she will stand as an object lesson to Trump and the GOP, and hopefully to voters who will realize which side really is using "cancel culture" to crush all dissent.

Hint: it's not the Democrats, guys. And after the GOP gets done smashing all resistance in their party, they'll come for the rest of us. As Adam Serwer reminds us, Cheney is a fraud who made Trump possible, and she's upset she's lost control of the monster she made.

During the Obama administration, Cheney was a Fox News regular who, as was the fashion at the time, insisted that the president was secretly sympathetic to jihadists. She enthusiastically defended the use of torture, dismissed the constitutional right to due process as an inconvenience, and amplified the Obama-era campaign to portray American Muslims as a national-security threat.

Until the insurrection, she was a loyal Trumpist who frequently denounced the Democratic Party. “They’ve become the party of anti-Semitism; they’ve become the party of infanticide; they’ve become the party of socialism,” she said in 2019. Her critics now, such as Scalise and the buffoonish Representative Matt Gaetz, formerly gushed over her ability to bring, as the Times put it in 2019, “an edge to Republican messaging that was lacking.”

That “edge” was Cheney’s specialty from the moment she emerged as a rising star in the GOP. In 2010, Cheney launched a McCarthyite crusade against seven unnamed attorneys in the Obama-era Justice Department who had previously represented terrorism suspects held in the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. The Bush administration’s assertions of imperial power in the War on Terror violated the Constitution many times over—the conservative majority on the Supreme Court agreed—and the lawyers who represented detainees were defending the fundamental constitutional right to counsel. They were affirming the integrity of the American legal system; Cheney smeared them as terrorist sympathizers, as The Enemy.

“While embracing or ignoring Trump’s statements might seem attractive to some for fundraising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country,” Cheney lamented in her Washington Post op-ed. But her colleagues are merely following her example.

“Americans have a right to know the identity of the Al-Qaeda Seven,” a 2010 ad from Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, intoned ominously, as if it were referring to the actual 9/11 hijackers and not the attorneys who had represented them in court. “Whose values do they share?" The Enemy has no rights, and anyone who imagines otherwise, let alone seeks to uphold them, is also The Enemy.

This is the logic of the War on Terror, and also the logic of the party of Trump. As George W. Bush famously put it, “You are either with us or with the terrorists.” You are Real Americans or The Enemy. And if you are The Enemy, you have no rights. As Spencer Ackerman writes in his forthcoming book, Reign of Terror, the politics of endless war inevitably gives way to this authoritarian logic. Cheney now finds herself on the wrong side of a line she spent much of her political career enforcing. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, infamously announced that America might have to employ “the dark side” in its fight against al-Qaeda; forgetting the entire point of Star Wars, which is that the dark side ultimately consumes its adherents. Not until the mob ransacked the Capitol in January, it seems, did she begin to understand that millions of Americans believe the things their leaders tell them.

 

Cheney, Scalise, Trump, Stefanik, Gaetz, and Taylor Greene: they're all fascists who want complete control of the country by any means necessary. They just have slightly different tolerances for various tactics.  

The answer to the Trump problem is not "better Republicans".

The answer is voting them all out of power.

Retribution Execution, Con't

At this point House Republicans are now openly plotting the ouster of Liz Cheney, the one Republican willing to risk her party leadership to say that Trump's Big Lie is full of crap.

House Republicans are moving closer to ousting Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from leadership, and are already considering replacements — including Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) and Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), congressional aides tell Axios.

What we're hearing: Most members recognize Cheney can't be succeeded by a white man, given their top two leaders — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — fill that demographic. Selling such a team in a midterm year would compound the GOP's challenges with suburban women. 

The conference meets next Wednesday, May 12. Most members expect the process to oust Cheney to begin then, whether formally or informally, after some of McCarthy's top lieutenants broadened their complaints against her. It would take up to a two-thirds vote of the 212 caucus members to replace her — a relatively high bar if a secret ballot is held.

Behind the scenes: When Cheney faced an uprising within the party in February over her vote to impeach former President Trump, McCarthy supported her and told his colleagues he wanted her to remain as GOP conference chair. But leadership and many in the rank and file were angry last week when Cheney's criticism of Trump dominated coverage of the House Republican conference in Orlando, Florida.

 

Both Walorski and Stefanik voted to throw out the Presidential election results to validate the Big Lie, while Wagner and former House #3 Cathy McMorris Rodgers did not, so my money is on Stefanik. And when people are openly talking about who will be replacing you and why rather than could, the writing's on the wall for both Cheney and the GOP.

We'll see next week just how long Cheney may have left.

And reminder: Cheney is still an awful, repugnant human being who would support 99% of what Trump did, especially if she was doing it herself.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

Republicans are taking another shot at ending Rep. Liz Cheney's career, confident this time that they have the numbers to remover her from the House GOP's number 3 post.

Top Republicans are turning on Rep. Liz Cheney, the party’s highest-ranking woman in Congress, with one conservative leader suggesting she could be ousted from her GOP post within a month.

Why it matters: The comments by Reps. Steve Scalise, the minority whip, and Jim Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, carry weight because of their close relationship with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — who is openly feuding with Cheney. 

Banks (R-Ind.), leader of the largest conservative caucus in the House, told Axios Friday that Cheney's continued criticisms are "an unwelcome distraction," and he questioned whether she would retain her leadership role in a month. 

Banks' comments were echoed more diplomatically by Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 Republican in the House. 

During an interview with Axios on Friday, he said of Cheney: "This idea that you just disregard President Trump is not where we are, and, frankly, he has a lot to offer still.”
Earlier in the week, McCarthy himself told reporters: "If you're sitting here at a retreat that's focused on policy, focused on the future of making American next-century, and you're talking about something else, you're not being productive."

Cheney (R-Wyo.) told reporters during several interviews at a GOP retreat in Orlando, Florida, that anyone challenging the 2020 election results should be disqualified from a presidential campaign in 2024, and that she herself would not rule out a run. 

She also said a commission to examine the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection should be narrowly focused — not the wide-ranging probe McCarthy favors. 

In addition, Cheney characterized a memo Banks wrote about how the party could retain working-class voters as "neo-Marxist."

What they're saying: Banks said such comments detracted from a unified focus about how to beat the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. 

"That’s what we got out of Liz Cheney, which doesn’t help us remain focused on that single goal," the congressman said during an interview he offered to Axios. 

"Her lack of focus on that, while being focused on other things, and proving her point, was an unwelcome distraction." 

“The sort of sideline distractions at the GOP retreat will only serve to hold us back from being focused on that nearly unanimous goal we have as a conference," Banks added.

Asked whether he thought Cheney, who serves in the No. 3 party role as GOP conference chair, will retain that position in a month, Banks said, "I don't know."

 

So what's different now as opposed to when Republicans failed to oust her in February and failed miserably?

Two words: Donald Trump. Trump has gotten through to Steve Scalise, and Scalise and his crew want Cheney gone after her comments on 2024. Expect this time for Cheney to actually be removed from her post.

The purge continues. The only thing that matters to the GOP is loyalty to Dear Leader Trump.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Georgia Republican and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused to let Trump steal the state's election and has been number one on Trump's list of "traitors" for a while now. His political future is basically nil and all indications are he'll be primaried out well before his November 2022 reelection.

 

He's already been removed as the state's chief election official by last week's omnibus Jim Crow voter suppression package, and Georgia Republicans are making sure that no Democrat ever wins again in the state, and that means never again allowing elected officials to objectively run elections in Georgia, but making sure the GOP state legislature does.

It is a remarkable turn of events for a conventional Republican politician whose down-ballot election in 2018 went largely unnoticed outside his own state. Yet after refusing to buckle to Donald Trump’s requests to change the state’s vote count and feuding with Trump over the former president’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, Raffensperger’s reelection campaign is unfolding, improbably, as one of the most consequential of the election cycle — with implications for the GOP in every state and at all levels of government.

Jason Shepherd, the chair of the Republican Party in Cobb County, Georgia, said he has friends who are “completely uninvolved in politics” who tell him “there is no way they are going to vote to reelect Raffensperger.”

That sentiment, he said, is coming from “the type of person you’re almost surprised they know the name of the secretary of state.”

“I don’t want to say there’s zero chance, but at this point right now, it’s nearly impossible to find anyone in the party who supports the reelection of [Raffensperger],” he said.

Raffensperger still has more than a year to turn it around. But he is running up against the heavy weight of GOP’s election fraud orthodoxy. Earlier this week, Rep. Jody Hice, a defender of Trump’s effort to overturn the election, announced he’s running with Trump’s endorsement to unseat Raffensperger. And the Georgia Republican Party isn’t exactly sitting on the sidelines.

The state executive committee publicly called this week on Raffensperger to repudiate his staff for misquoting Trump’s words in a December phone call in which Trump urged a Georgia elections official to find “dishonesty” in the vote in an attempt to reverse the election results.

The party said Raffensperger has “dodged repeated attempts” by committee members to discuss the issue with him.

Closer to home, Raffensperger failed this past weekend to get Republicans in his own precinct to elect him as a delegate to his county’s upcoming Republican Party convention, said Stewart Bragg, executive director of the Georgia Republican Party. After Raffensperger wrote a letter asking to be elected, no one at the precinct meeting moved to nominate him, Bragg said.

In a statement, the chair of the Fulton County Republican Party, Trey Kelly, said he was unaware of any letter from Raffensperger, adding that, “like many others who did not attend Saturday, he was not added to the delegate or alternate list for the county convention.” A person close to Raffensperger also denied that he sent a letter seeking election.

His representatives otherwise declined to comment for this story, pointing to Raffensperger’s past public statements.

Raffensperger's official responsibilities have also been targeted by Republicans in the state. On Thursday, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law, signed by Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, that removes the secretary of state as the state election board chair — to be replaced by a person approved by the state legislature.

The law, in effect, hands control of the five-person board over to the state legislature: Two other members on the board are picked by the respective legislative chambers. The law also gives the state election board the ability to suspend county election officials, who are replaced by an individual picked by the board.

Raffensperger is not without a fan base. In fact, he’s the most popular Republican in Georgia, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in January — even more than Kemp or Trump.

But that feat is in large part because Raffensperger is admired by Democrats, who viewed him as a truth-telling, elections administration equivalent of Dr. Anthony Fauci after the November vote. Nearly 45 percent of Republicans in the state disapprove of Raffensperger’s performance, according to the poll.

Raffensperger has been a focal point for Trump and his supporters since shortly after the presidential election. Even as early as November, he said he was preparing for a primary challenge because of how angry some in the state may be with him.

In an election cycle where secretary of state races are likely to get a near-unprecedented amount of attention, Georgia’s may be the most competitive. Not only is Raffensperger facing a Trump-backed primary challenger, Democrats will be gunning for the office in 2022 as well, enraged by the Republicans in the legislature pushing through bills that will restrict voter access to the polls and emboldened by the party’s successes in the state’s last election.

 

Don't feel sorry for Raffensperger. He literally did the bare minimum of his job as a Republican, and he's still a Republican. Like all of them, they need to go.

The Banana Republicans Split

If Donald Trump does actually follow though on his threat to create his own party, nearly half of current Republicans would join him, according to a new USA Today/Suffolk poll from over the weekend.

If there's a civil war in the Republican Party, the voters who backed Donald Trump in November's election are ready to choose sides.

Behind Trump.

An exclusive Suffolk University/USA TODAY Poll finds Trump's support largely unshaken after his second impeachment trial in the Senate, this time on a charge of inciting an insurrection in the deadly assault on the Capitol Jan. 6.

By double digits, 46%-27%, those surveyed say they would abandon the GOP and join the Trump party if the former president decided to create one. The rest are undecided.

"We feel like Republicans don't fight enough for us, and we all see Donald Trump fighting for us as hard as he can, every single day," Brandon Keidl, 27, a Republican and small-business owner from Milwaukee, says in an interview after being polled. "But then you have establishment Republicans who just agree with establishment Democrats and everything, and they don't ever push back."

Half of those polled say the GOP should become "more loyal to Trump," even at the cost of losing support among establishment Republicans. One in five, 19%, say the party should become less loyal to Trump and more aligned with establishment Republicans.

The survey of 1,000 Trump voters, identified from 2020 polls, was taken by landline and cellphone last Monday through Friday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

They express stronger loyalty to Trump the person (54%) than they did to the Republican Party that twice nominated him for the White House (34%).

 

If only a quarter to a third of Republicans would absolutely stay in the GOP if Trump made a third party, the term "absolute disaster" doesn't begin to cover it for national Never Trump Republicans. But as much as I'd love to see Republicans split their own vote and get destroyed by Democrats in any even remotely competitive House district, Senate race, or Governor's race, I can't imagine Trump would be allowed to do this because it would lead to a near total takeover of the government by Democrats.

But what Trump does have is leverage over his foes in the GOP, and that leverage is going to only grow stronger. he's still going to pick primary winners in just about every GOP race. That's good for Trump, and bad for the country.

We'll see how much damage the split causes, but it's getting increasingly untenable, and I expect sooner rather than later, the opposition to Trump will be removed completely.