Tag Archives: Liz Cheney

national news

Liz Cheney produces conflicting emotions

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is no secret to those who read this blog that Liz Cheney drives me batty.

The congresswoman from Wyoming is among the most conservative members of the House of Representatives. Her Republican credentials are impeccable, as she comes from a family led by a former defense secretary, congressman and vice president of the United States.

I didn’t support her decision to run for Congress; I believed her to be a carpetbagger, as she never spent much time in the state she now represents.

But, man, she is showing some spine, guts and conviction in standing against a president who sought to subvert the U.S. Constitution, is still seeking to overturn a free and fair election and has been the voice of idiotic demagoguery from the moment he became a politician prior to his run for the presidency in 2016.

Cheney voted to impeach the ex-POTUS. She stands foursquare on the oath she took to defend the Constitution. Rep. Cheney now is the lone Republican to join a House select committee that is going to examine the consequence of the Jan. 6 insurrection that the former POTUS incited.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy threatens to strip her of committee assignments. Liz Cheney continues to stand firm. To which I say … you go, Liz!

Rep. Cheney is taking a stand against blind fealty to a cult leader. She said the integrity of our democratic process is far more important than any loyalty she might feel toward any human being.

I am proud of the stand that Liz Cheney is taking on my behalf and on behalf of the country she took an oath to serve. Her oath makes no mention of any loyalty to a disgraced ex-president.

I salute Liz Cheney.

DC riot, national news

Rep. Cheney rules?

(Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

GREEN RIVER, Wyo. — As we approached the Utah border with Wyoming, I was hoping to receive a unique form of greeting from the state we were entering.

I wanted to see a sign that said something like: Welcome to Wyoming, home of Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans in Congress with a backbone.

We didn’t see it. However, as we trekked through this state I am left to wonder a thing or two about the embattled congresswoman.

Allow to me clear the air a bit.

I did not much care for Cheney’s decision to run for the lone U.S. House seat in this marvelous, sprawling and so very scenic state. She is an arch-conservative thinker, the daughter of an equally conservative former Wyoming congressman, defense secretary and vice president. What’s more, I considered her a carpetbagger, given that she did not grow up in this state; she is a child of Washington, D.C., where her dad served for so many years prior to becoming VP during the Bush 43 administration.

She was elected to the House. Then she did something so remarkable that it has given me a reason to rethink some of my original dislike of her as a politician.

Rep. Cheney voted to impeach Donald J. Trump in his second House impeachment. She was one of a handful of GOP lawmakers who agreed with most of the country: Donald Trump incited an insurrection against the government, which at the time of the Jan. 6 riot was certifying President Biden’s election. Trump is still having none of that and Cheney is having none of Trump’s insistence in the Big Lie that he was the victim of some massive electoral theft conspiracy.

She has said so with vigor and passion, so much so that nitwits like Florida U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz — the alleged child molester and sex trafficker — has come to Wyoming to criticize his fellow conservative colleague.

So it is with some measure of gratitude that I wandered through this state knowing that it is represented in the House of Reps by an individual who is willing to stand up the Trump cult of personality.

If only she could take the next step and endorse some of the progressive notions being kicked around by President Biden and his Democratic friends in Congress.

Well, we can’t have all that we want … right?

national news

GOP gap set to widen

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have this burning need to inform the Republican Party that booting out a conservative leader of the GOP House caucus only widens the divide between two factions within the party.

The Trump faction has its suck-up in the chair, Rep. Elise Stefanik. The establishment wing’s darling, Rep. Liz Cheney, has been cast aside.

The Trumpsters vs. The Establishment.

Let the battle commence. I am going to pull for The Establishment wing. It’s not that I am one of them. It is that the Trumpsters now are seeking to become poised to ruin the country, not to mention their political party.

The Trumpsters in the House, now led by Stefanik, are going to promote the Big Lie, that Trump lost the election via theft and vote fraud. They are lying their a**es off. They are continuing The Big Lie that Trump himself keeps alive.

They disgust me to no end.

As for Liz Cheney, she is far from my favorite House member. However, she voted to impeach Trump after the then-POTUS incited the insurrection on Jan. 6. What’s more, she has continued to stand strongly behind her vote and has drawn the wrath of the Trumpsters with whom she serves.

The fight for control of the congressional Republican caucus ain’t ending. You go, Rep. Cheney.

national news

Cheney for POTUS? Wow!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Liz Cheney soap opera is getting downright weird, man.

The congresswoman from Wyoming, who has just lost her job as House Republican caucus chair, has been asked whether she would run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. Her answer: She said she will do anything to stop Donald Trump from getting the nomination.

“I’m very focused on making sure that our party becomes again a party that stands for truth and stands for fundamental principles that are conservative,” she said. “And I won’t let a former president or anybody else unravel the democracy.”

Well …

What do you think of that one?

Cheney won’t rule out running for president to stop Trump (msn.com)

Cheney lost her GOP congressional post because she voted to impeach Donald Trump after he incited the Jan. 6 insurrection. She hasn’t let up on the ex-POTUS. She calls him a threat to our democratic process.

She is correct about the danger Trump poses. The House GOP, though, is looking to populate its leadership roster with Donald Trump suck-ups. That ain’t Cheney.

Now she’s talking openly about running for POTUS?

Why, we’ll just have to stay tuned.

DC riot, national news

Now comes the fight … maybe

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This just in: U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin might decide he wants to lead the House Republican caucus because the presumed heiress apparent, Elise Stefanik of New York, is too liberal.

Ah, yes. Let’s have a fight, shall we?

The House GOP caucus ousted Liz Cheney of Wyoming because Cheney is appalled at the conduct of Donald Trump. She happened to have the bad form to criticize the former president for inciting the Jan 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol Building while Congress was in the midst of certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Why, those Republicans just cannot stand the notion of one of their leaders criticizing such abhorrent conduct. So they booted Cheney out of her leadership post.

OK, that’s done. Now comes the fight to find a successor.

Roy said Stefanik’s voting record is too, um, moderate to suit his taste. He wants a fire-breather in that leadership job. Hey, kinda like Liz Cheney, whose own conservative credentials are beyond dispute.

Is Roy going to sing from the same page as Stefanik, giving Trump a pass on his insurrection-incitement? That appears for all the world to be the only credential any card-carrying GOP member of Congress needs these days to assume a leadership role.

This’ll be fun to watch.

Go ahead, Rep. Roy. Let’s see what you have.

national news

Hey, Rep. Cheney: Keep messaging!

(Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The U.S. House of Representatives Republican caucus has thrown in with the former Liar in Chief and decided that a truth-teller among its ranks has no place in its leadership.

Rep. Liz Cheney this morning was stripped of her title as chair of the House GOP caucus, the No. 3-ranking post among congressional Republicans.

Prediction: Liz Cheney isn’t going to skulk away quietly.

Indeed, she said today that she intends to do all she can to ensure that Donald Trump never sets foot in the Oval Office ever again.

Good for you, Rep. Cheney.

Be not confused here. I detest Cheney’s politics. I do admire her courage in standing firm against Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and her vote to impeach Trump a second time when he exhorted the terrorists to storm Capitol Hill.

Cheney told the truth about Trump. Her colleagues in the House are having none of it. They have shamed themselves and their governing institution.

national news

It’s all topsy turvy

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My ever-lovin’ goodness.

I am cheering for Liz Cheney, a right-wing Republican member of Congress.

She is about to be stripped of her chairmanship of the Republican House caucus because … she is telling the truth about Donald Trump, the ex-POTUS and insurrectionist in chief.

It’s a dark day if you’re a Republican. I am not. I call myself a “good government progressive.” In Texas, in fact, we don’t register as Democrats or Republicans. We vote in open primaries. We get to vote in whatever primary we choose. The election judge might stamp our voter registration card with a “D” or an “R.” Or he or she might not.

Still, I dislike Liz Cheney’s politics. Too right wing for my taste.

However, she ain’t buckling under the pressure of the Trumpkin Corps. She is continuing to speak the cold, hard truth about Donald Trump, that he’s a threat to our government and that he needs to be stopped.

And so, the Republican poo-bas are going to relieve her of her chairmanship because she won’t swill the poison that makes believers of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election being “stolen.”

Indeed, a dark day is going to dawn very soon on the national Republican Party.

national news

House GOP to define itself

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The U.S. House of Representatives Republican caucus is facing a defining moment this week.

It will have a chance to define itself as being willing to push forward a serious agenda or whether it will serve as a cabal of toadies for a disgraced, defeated for president of the United States, the former Liar in Chief who continues to foment the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election, that it was stolen from Donald Trump by “rampant vote fraud.” There was no rampant fraud. It’s a lie. It’s the Big Lie.

The moment will come in a vote over whether to replace Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as the Republican caucus chair and seat Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York in her place.

Cheney is a right-wing conservative lawmaker with serious GOP chops, being the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. She also is a principled conservative who was as appalled and aghast as others were at the insurrection that Donald Trump — the aforementioned Liar in Chief — incited on Jan. 6. She voted to impeach Trump.

That doesn’t sit well with most of the GOP caucus. They fawn over Trump and are fearful of what he could do them if they were to cross him, the way Cheney did.

So up steps Stefanik, a Trumpster to the core. She has bought into the Big Lie. She is loyal to the Liar in Chief. And so … the House GOP caucus will get to choose her over Cheney, which they appear set to do on Wednesday.

It surely will mark a dismal moment in the history of a once-Grand Old Party.

There’s a glimmer of good news in this key vote. It well good pi** off enough serious Republicans to turn their back on the Big Lie … and on Donald J. Trump.

national news

GOP has gone to hell

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There’s no nice way to say it, so I’ll just fire away.

The Republican Party has gone head first into the shi**er. It’s gone to hell. It no longer represents anything other than fealty to a hate- and fear-monger, an ignorant buffoon who had no business being elected POTUS.

Donald Trump’s vise grip on the once-great political party is shameful in the extreme.

The party has devolved into an organization that now stands and cheers for an alleged sex trafficker in Rep. Matt Gaetz, embraces the lunacy of QAnon queen and conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene … and then boos and jeers actual Republicans such as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

The House Republican leadership is set to boot Cheney out of her GOP caucus chairmanship. The party rank-and-file has turned its back on the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, Romney. What do these two politicians have in common? They voted to impeach and convict Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

And so the party now slobbers all over Donald Trump’s shoes and demands that other politicians do the same.

What in the name of governance happened to this group of individuals? They have been taken hostage by an imbecile.

Wow! I … am … stunned.

national news

Liz Cheney: no martyr

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Frank Bruni is a superb columnist for the New York Times.

He is passionate about many issues dear to progressives, especially marriage equality; I mean, he is a gay man who writes frequently about the issue … and does so with superb rhetoric.

That all said, I believe he is mistaken when he implies in his latest column that Rep. Liz Cheney is positioning herself as a martyr of some sort. I don’t believe that’s happening.

Cheney is likely to lose her House Republican caucus chairmanship because she voted to impeach Donald Trump in January for inciting the infamous riot at the Capitol Building.

She remains what she always has been: a conservative Republican who voted overwhelmingly in favor of Trump’s agenda. That isn’t good enough to save her leadership post. The Trump cult that comprises most GOP House members want her gone.

So she’s going to keep harping against Trump. Good for her! Is she pretending to be something other than a conservative GOP lawmaker? I don’t see it.

Opinion | Is Liz Cheney a Martyr — or Just a Hack in Holy Drag? – The New York Times (nytimes.com)