Republican Reality 85 , CD3 DFL

Kevin McCarthy Ripped For Absolutely Orwellian Line In His Liz Cheney Letter

The House Republican leader gets blasted after attempting to redefine “free thought.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced Monday that he was leading an effort to boot Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her GOP leadership post.

Cheney is on the outs because she has refused to endorse former President Donald Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election being “stolen” and has blamed him for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol that was carried out by his supporters.

That makes one line in McCarthy’s letter to his Republican conference stand out:

“We are a big tent party. We represent Americans of all backgrounds and continue to grow our movement by the day. And unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate.”

Top female GOP senator compares Cheney ousting to ‘cancel culture’

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the only woman in Senate Republicans’ elected leadership team, compared efforts to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from leadership to “cancel culture,” and argued that the party should be focused on unifying heading into 2022.

“I feel it’s OK to go ahead and express what you feel is right to express and, you know, cancel culture is cancel culture no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, I think there are those that are trying to silence others in the party,” Ernst told reporters on Monday asked about Cheney’s likely ouster.

House Republicans will vote Wednesday on whether to remove Cheney as their conference chair. Though she survived a similar attempt earlier this year, she’s all but guaranteed to be ousted Wednesday amid growing frustration over her criticism of former President Trump and the false claim he and some of his ardent supporters have made that the 2020 election was “stolen.” Continue reading.

Trump Guilty Of ‘Egging On’ Capitol Riot, Says Facebook Oversight Panel Co-Chair

Washington (AFP) – Donald Trump encouraged the Capitol rioters and so earned his Facebook ban, but the social media giant’s rules are in “shambles” and need fixing, the co-chair of the network’s oversight panel said Sunday.

The panel agreed just days ago that Facebook was right to oust the ex-president for his comments regarding the deadly January 6 rampage, though it sidestepped an overall decision on whether he will ever be allowed back.

“He issued these statements which were just egging on — with perfunctory asking for peace — but mostly he was just egging them on to continue,” oversight body co-chair Michael McConnell told Fox News Sunday. Continue reading.

Former Connecticut GOP minority leader slams Republicans for abandoning the ‘constitutional system’

In Glastonbury, Connecticut near Hartford, Chip Beckett was a fixture in the local Republican Party. But Beckett, a member of the Glastonbury Town Council and its former minority leader, is now an ex-Republican — and he discussed his reasons for leaving the GOP and joining the Independent Party during an interview with the Hartford Courant.

Beckett’s big problem with the national GOP of 2021 can be summed up in one word: Trumpism. Beckett told the Courant that while he thinks Republicans are doing some good work locally in his area, he believes the national GOP has been overtaken by extremists.

Arguing that the national GOP has been “going in the wrong direction for a long time,” Beckett noted that he switched to the Independent Party in December in response to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filing a frivolous lawsuit to delay now-President Joe Biden’s Electoral College certification in four states. Beckett was also disillusioned with his former party because of former President Donald Trump’s policy of separating families at the U.S./Mexico border. Continue reading.

Trump loyalists taking over top GOP group after helping to stoke Jan. 6 riot

Hardline supporters of Donald Trump are driving out more moderate members of a top Republican group in the fallout over the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The fundraising arm for the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) made robocalls encouraging Trump supporters to “stop the steal” by marching on the Capitol, which preceded the riot, and more moderate members of the group are quitting as the former president’s allies take over, reported The Daily Beast.

“During the last several months, it has become clear that there is a significant difference of opinion among members of the RAGA’s executive committee as to the direction this organization should take going forward,” wrote then-chair Chris Carr, who is Georgia’s attorney general, in his April 16 resignation letter. Continue reading.

Failure to communicate: The Capitol Police leadership gap on Jan. 6

Lack of direction, preparation, according to rank-and-file officers

On the morning of Jan. 6, as a group of Capitol Police officers was being briefed on what to expect before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, a captain told them to be on the lookout for a handful of people wanted for crimes from previous Make America Great Again protests.

The captain also discussed the Proud Boys, an extremist group that would play a substantial role in the violent insurrection, and advised that many people in the crowd could be armed.

But when asked what the response should be if the officers did encounter armed protesters, the captain’s reply was useless, according to one officer on duty that day. Continue reading.

Capitol rioters make questionable claims about police

PHOENIX — Joshua Matthew Black said in a YouTube video that he was protecting the officer at the U.S. Capitol who had been pepper sprayed and fallen to the ground as the crowd rushed the building entrance on Jan. 6.

“Let him out, he’s done,” Black claimed to have told rioters.

But federal prosecutors say surveillance footage doesn’t back up Black’s account. They said he acknowledged that he wanted to get the officer out of the way — because the cop was blocking his path inside.

The making of a myth

Russell J. Ramsland Jr. sold everything from Tex-Mex food to light-therapy
technology. Then he sold the story that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump

ADDISON, Tex. — Key elements of the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump took shape in an airplane hangar here two years earlier, promoted by a Republican businessman who has sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to a wellness technology that beams light into the human bloodstream.

At meetings beginning late in 2018, as Republicans were smarting from midterm losses in Texas and across the country, Russell J. Ramsland Jr. and his associates delivered alarming presentations on electronic voting to a procession of conservative lawmakers, activists and donors.

Briefings in the hangar had a clandestine air. Guests were asked to leave their cellphones outside before assembling in a windowless room. A member of Ramsland’s team purporting to be a “white-hat hacker” identified himself only by a code name. Continue reading.

‘Mind-numbingly reckless and irresponsible’: Maricopa County sheriff blasts Arizona Senate’s audit demand

Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone on Friday slammed the “Senate Republican Caucus’ audit of the Maricopa County votes” for “[jeopardizing] the entire mission of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office,” the Arizona Republic reports.

“The Senate Republican Caucus’ audit of the Maricopa County votes from last November’s election has no stopping point,” Penzone said in a statement. “Now, its most recent demands jeopardize the entire mission of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.”

Penzone’s criticism comes after Maricopa County failed to provide “certain routers that the state Senate sought in its original subpoenas” of 2020 election material. According to the Arizona Republic, “the county has provided all 2.1 million voter general election ballots, voter information and election equipment in response to state Senate subpoenas,” but is warning of a “significant security risk to Sheriff’s Office law enforcement data” if the routers are released. Continue reading.

Larry Hogan: GOP turning into ‘circular firing squad’ over Trump loyalty

As House Republicans prepare to oust Liz Cheney from leadership, one outspoken GOP Trump critic says the party should not swear fealty to a “dear leader.”

WASHINGTON — Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., criticized those within the GOP who insist they need to double down on keeping former President Donald Trump as its leader despite his loss in 2020, saying that it’s part of a “battle for the soul of the Republican Party.”

As House Republicans appear ready to remove Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from its leadership ranks because of her criticism of Trump and his false claims that the election was stolen from him, Hogan told “Meet the Press” Sunday that the party is becoming a “circular firing squad.”

“It bothers me you have to swear fealty to the dear leader or you get kicked out of the party. It just doesn’t make any sense,” Hogan said. Continue reading.

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