Tag: GOP now the cult of Trump

DFL Party Statement on the Ousting of Representative Cheney

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SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — Today, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement following Representative Liz Cheney’s ousting from Republican Party leadership: 

“Donald Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections led to the storming of the United States Capitol in a violent attempt to overthrow American democracy. Congressional Republicans just removed Representative Liz Cheney from party leadership for acknowledging that basic fact, fighting back against those lies, and voting to hold the perpetrator accountable.

“Representatives Hagedorn, Emmer, Fischbach, and Stauber should have joined Cheney in working to stop the Big Lie from becoming part of Republican dogma. Instead, they meekly sat back and allowed Cheney to take the fall for standing up for truth, for the rule of law, and for our democracy. This act of political cowardice on the part of Minnesota’s Republican Congressional delegation should not be forgiven and it must not be forgotten.

“It is abundantly clear that the Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump, the Big Lie, and the January insurrection, and every single Republican who allowed that to happen should be deeply ashamed of the miserable and morally bankrupt state of their party.”

‘We could lose our country’ because GOP politicians won’t ‘hurt Trump’s feelings’: DC insider

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Democracy in America could end and the cause could be the refusal of Republicans to hurt Donald Trump’s feelings.

At a campaign rally in October, Trump worried about what would happen if he lost to Joe Biden.

“Could you imagine if I lose?” Trump said at a rally in Georgia. “My whole life, what am I going to do? I’m going to say, ‘I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics.’ I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country. I don’t know.” Continue reading.

House Republicans vote to remove Liz Cheney from leadership

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House Republicans ousted Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as conference chair in a voice vote Wednesday, capping months of growing backlash over her criticisms of former President Trump, according to two sources in the room.

Why it matters: The stunning removal of the No. 3 House Republican over her condemnation of Trump’s election lies reflects the influence the former president still retains over the GOP. 

The big picture: The vote marks the most significant turning point in an internal party feud that is unlikely to subside any time soon. Continue reading.

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

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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.”

Continue reading.

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

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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.

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

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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

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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.

Capitol rioters make questionable claims about police

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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

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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.

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

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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.