{"id":50552,"date":"2022-02-15T00:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T00:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=50552"},"modified":"2022-02-15T00:00:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T00:00:07","slug":"van-taylor-a-rino-wow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=50552","title":{"rendered":"Van Taylor a RINO? Wow!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rep.-Van-Taylor-880x495-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-46927\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rep.-Van-Taylor-880x495-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rep.-Van-Taylor-880x495-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rep.-Van-Taylor-880x495-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rep.-Van-Taylor-880x495-1.jpg 880w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Believe it or not, I am going to come to the defense of U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, a Plano Republican who is running for a third term as my congressman from the Third Congressional District of North Texas.<\/p>\n<p>You see, a far-right wing outfit based in Dublin, Ohio, has targeted Taylor, calling him a RINO, the acronym that stands for Republican In Name Only. This nut job outfit, which calls itself RINOreckoning,org, says Taylor voted with Democrats too many times in his second term.<\/p>\n<p>So, this group of wackos wants Taylor tossed out. RINOreckoning doesn&#8217;t recommend a successor; it just calls Taylor a bunch of names and suggests that his bipartisan outreach betrays &#8220;real Republicanism.&#8221; <em>What utter bullsh**!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be straight with you: I am not a big Van Taylor fan. I likely will vote for the Democratic challenger this fall. However, one of the few bright spots in Taylor&#8217;s still-brief congressional career has been his willingness to reach for Democrats in Congress to work on bipartisan solutions. It has earned him a bit of a positive reputation among many of his colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s one half-truth I want to mention specifically in this anti-RINO screed I saw online. It chastises Taylor for voting in favor of an independent commission proposed by Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to look into the 1\/6 insurrection. The measure never got out of the Senate; it died a quiet death in the other chamber.<\/p>\n<p>What these right-wing fruitcakes don&#8217;t dare mention is that Taylor voted <em>against<\/em> creation of the select committee that Pelosi formed as an alternative to the independent commission. The RINO hunters don&#8217;t say a word about that, which of course is understandable as it argues the liars&#8217; half-baked narrative.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and then there&#8217;s this one: It says that Taylor sided with &#8220;Liberal Liz Cheney.&#8221; <em>Rep. Cheney a liberal?<\/em> Are they fu**ing serious?<\/p>\n<p>Take a look at the website:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rinoreckoning.org\/\">Rino Reckoning<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This outfit clearly is aligned with the QAnon wing of the GOP. Its message is as dangerous as, say, the kind of crap that flows from Donald Trump&#8217;s pie hole about the &#8220;rigged 2020 election&#8221; and the &#8220;widespread voter fraud&#8221; that elected Joe Biden. Spoiler alert: There was no widespread voter fraud, and the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. political history.<\/p>\n<p>The Dallas Morning News noted this about Taylor in its summary of editorial board recommendations for the upcoming midterm election: <em>Taylor, 49, a businessman and Marine veteran in his second term in Congress, has demonstrated deeply conservative values dating back to his years as a member of the Texas House and Senate. He has a reputation as one of Congress\u2019 most engaged and responsive members to his constituents.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There really is much to admire about Rep. Taylor. He served as a Marine officer in Afghanistan, fighting to protect the free-speech rights of fruitcakes who populate RINOreckoning.org. I likely won&#8217;t cast my vote for Congressman Taylor. However, he deserves better than to be mischaracterized in this manner by a dangerous group of right-wing outliers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Believe it or not, I am going to come to the defense of U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, a Plano Republican who is running for a third term as my congressman from the Third Congressional District of North Texas. You see, a far-right wing outfit based in Dublin, Ohio, has targeted Taylor, calling him a RINO, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=50552\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Van Taylor a RINO? Wow!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[1941,9490,5800,8271],"class_list":["post-50552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","tag-gop","tag-qanon","tag-rino","tag-van-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50552"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50556,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50552\/revisions\/50556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}