I don’t understand some of the reasoning going on here, about being against democrats “wanting” Liz Cheney, or voting for her.
First of all I did not see Cheney saying she planned to become a democrat. She said she’d stop being a Republican if Trump is the 2024 GOP nominee. And she said she’s going to openly support democratic candidates that run against MAGA big liars.
She didn’t say she was going to become a democrat.
Secondly, I don’t see anyone here (certainly not myself) saying they would vote for Cheney, or that they hope she runs, or that they are even thinking of her in those terms. So what does it mean, warning people about “wanting” Liz Cheney? Wanting her for what?
All I have ever said about Liz Cheney since 1/6 is just acknowledging her bold, outspoken stance against all things Trump. I can’t help but respect her for the work she’s doing as 1/6 committee chair. That’s the beginning and end of everything I am willing to “give away” to Cheney.
That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that she voted 90+ percent of the time WITH TRUMP. I haven’t suddenly become convinced that she is NOT still right wing in her bones. I didn’t suddenly forget what she has said and stood for in all of her political career before 1/6.
It’s possible to be clear-thinking enough to recognize that her stance against Trump and the big lie is a significant phenomenon, without being someone who “would vote for” or “want” her or is “giving away the store” to her. For ****’s sake.
Did Cheney even say she was going to become a democrat?
Who said “she would make a good democrat”?
I've seen people on other sites calling for her to come over.
The way people on here are gushing over her I figured some here felt the same way.
If I was wrong, so sue me.
People on these political threads are always ready to pounce and talk down to somebody. Name calling, even. Why not just say your piece and back away?
I'm not sure I want to condemn her for what her father did.
Quote:We have to remember she is completely her father's daughter from everything I have read and seen about her, and he was behind the whole torture enhancement and lying us into a completely unnecessary war.
I'm not sure I want to condemn her for what her father did. I think her prior legislative record alone shows us what she was and her subsequent behavior on the Jan 6 committee demonstrates a rather surprising willingness to defend some core principles – a side of her we'd never have seen were Trump not such an aberration.
Quote:What I don't get is welcoming subsequent far right voting when it comes to a Democratic agenda.
I doubt that her presence will turn the Democratic Party any further to the right.
Your apparent position here bears a notable similarity to Grover Norquist's stance: That "bipartisanship is another name for date rape". Both of you are, I'd suggest, purists.
Of course there are many individuals who have long been associated with the GOP and it's key political notions/values who have now abandoned the party (for reasons all of us would deem reasonable and welcome). Many of them had been influential over decades in forwarding GOP interests in the past, people such as Michael Gerson, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Steve Schmidt, Max Boot, etc. Cheney is obviously one of this cadre of conservative thinkers who, as a matter of conscience, have stood up in resistance to the direction of the party they'd once supported and pretty much all of them have suffered consequences for doing so. Such behavior deserves to be lauded.
I don’t understand some of the reasoning going on here, about being against democrats “wanting” Liz Cheney, or voting for her.
First of all I did not see Cheney saying she planned to become a democrat. She said she’d stop being a Republican if Trump is the 2024 GOP nominee. And she said she’s going to openly support democratic candidates that run against MAGA big liars.
She didn’t say she was going to become a democrat.
Secondly, I don’t see anyone here (certainly not myself) saying they would vote for Cheney, or that they hope she runs, or that they are even thinking of her in those terms. So what does it mean, warning people about “wanting” Liz Cheney? Wanting her for what?
All I have ever said about Liz Cheney since 1/6 is just acknowledging her bold, outspoken stance against all things Trump. I can’t help but respect her for the work she’s doing as 1/6 committee chair. That’s the beginning and end of everything I am willing to “give away” to Cheney.
That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that she voted 90+ percent of the time WITH TRUMP. I haven’t suddenly become convinced that she is NOT still right wing in her bones. I didn’t suddenly forget what she has said and stood for in all of her political career before 1/6.
It’s possible to be clear-thinking enough to recognize that her stance against Trump and the big lie is a significant phenomenon, without being someone who “would vote for” or “want” her or is “giving away the store” to her. For ****’s sake.
The Russian businessman and Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has said that he founded the Wagner mercenary group and confirmed its deployment to countries in Latin America and Africa in his first public confirmation of a link he has previously denied.
Prigozhin said in a statement from his company that he founded the group in order to send fighters to Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014. He said: “From that moment, on 1 May 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later acquired the name BTG Wagner.”
Prigozhin, who became known as “Putin’s chef” because of his Kremlin catering contracts, has previously denied links with Wagner.
“I myself cleaned the old weapons, figured out bulletproof vests and found specialists who could help me with this,” Prigozhin added. “These guys, heroes who defended the Syrian people, other people of Arab countries, destitute Africans and Latin Americans have become the pillars of our motherland.”
Prigozhin, 61, has been hit with EU and US sanctions. He has previously sued media outlets including investigative website Bellingcat, Russian news site Meduza and now-shuttered radio station Echo of Moscow for reporting his links to Wagner.
For years, the Wagner group has been suspected of playing a role in realising Moscow’s overseas ambitions with the Kremlin denying any links.
Wagner’s presence was forced into the spotlight in 2018 when the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that several Russian-speaking men who killed and mutilated a detainee on video in Syria were Wagner fighters.
Numerous media investigations have in recent years implicated Wagner mercenaries of rape, torture and executions in hotspots around the world, including Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic.
Prigozhin referred to his troops as “heroes who defended the Syrian people, the other peoples of Arab countries, disadvantaged Africans and Latin Americans.”
When asked in a media inquiry why he had distanced himself from Wagner until now, the businessman said:
“I’ve been dodging the blows of a lot of opponents for a long time with one goal in mind: Not to frame these guys, the backbone of Russian patriotism.”
@blatham,
I've seen people on other sites calling for her to come over. The way people on here are gushing over her I figured some here felt the same way. If I was wrong, so sue me.
Careful, Frank. You don’t want to get a reputation for being agreeable, do ye?😁
I'm not sure I want to condemn her for what her father did. I think her prior legislative record alone shows us what she was and her subsequent behavior on the Jan 6 committee demonstrates a rather surprising willingness to defend some core principles – a side of her we'd never have seen were Trump not such an aberration
How Liz Cheney and Her Dad Paved the Way for the Big Lie
In recent days, Liz Cheney has become the hot celeb of the American media-political world. The conservative Republican representative from Wyoming is on the verge of being excommunicated from the House GOP leadership ranks because she has dared to speak an inconvenient truth: Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and his incitement of the seditious attack on the US Capitol “is a line that cannot be crossed.” Those recent remarks—coupled with her vote to convict Trump during Impeachment II—have provoked outrage from the Trump cultists within her party who are now demanding she be stripped of her post as the conference chair, the No. 3 spot in the Republican House caucus. And the betting odds are not in favor of the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cheney is undergoing a GOP version of a Soviet show trial. She has not demonstrated full and complete obedience to the party leader, so she must be destroyed. This is Orwellian. As the author of 1984 wrote, “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.” And in that dystopian novel, poor Winston Smith is tortured at the Ministry of Love until he shouts two plus two equals five. Only then is he allowed to rejoin society. Cheney challenges Trump’s Big Lie—I won!—and refuses to whitewash the January 6 attack and Trump’s responsibility for it. Consequently, GOP Big Brother must squash her, and it looks as if her fellow House Republicans will vote to remove her from the conference chair. If they could defenestrate her, they probably would.
In recent days, Liz Cheney has become the hot celeb of the American media-political world. The conservative Republican representative from Wyoming is on the verge of being excommunicated from the House GOP leadership ranks because she has dared to speak an inconvenient truth: Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and his incitement of the seditious attack on the US Capitol “is a line that cannot be crossed.” Those recent remarks—coupled with her vote to convict Trump during Impeachment II—have provoked outrage from the Trump cultists within her party who are now demanding she be stripped of her post as the conference chair, the No. 3 spot in the Republican House caucus. And the betting odds are not in favor of the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cheney is undergoing a GOP version of a Soviet show trial. She has not demonstrated full and complete obedience to the party leader, so she must be destroyed. This is Orwellian. As the author of 1984 wrote, “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.” And in that dystopian novel, poor Winston Smith is tortured at the Ministry of Love until he shouts two plus two equals five. Only then is he allowed to rejoin society. Cheney challenges Trump’s Big Lie—I won!—and refuses to whitewash the January 6 attack and Trump’s responsibility for it. Consequently, GOP Big Brother must squash her, and it looks as if her fellow House Republicans will vote to remove her from the conference chair. If they could defenestrate her, they probably would.
But for accepting reality and stating the obvious—Biden won, and it’s bad for a president to encourage a violent assault on Congress—Cheney (outside of Republican congressional circles) has won hoorays. Writing on CNN’s website, GOP consultant Scott Jennings observed that Cheney is “now positioned as a principled martyr.” In a recent Washington Post column, she wrapped herself in such noble garb, slamming Trump for “seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work—confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.” And she noted, “The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution.” Cheney also sharply pointed out that her boss, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House Republican leader, said in January that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on Congress “by mob rioters”—but has shifted his position since then.
Cheney does these days look like a courageous truth-teller, defying the cultism and alternative-fact addiction that has taken over her Grand Old Party. But, in a way, she is the victim of her own success–that is, the success of her family. In particular, the success her father had in lying to the American public.
In the 21st century, American presidents have at least twice tried to shape the world with a lie of enormous impact. Trump attempted to demolish the nation’s constitutional order and retain power with his false claim that the 2020 election was rigged and Joe Biden did not truly receive more votes. As Cheney points out, this lie delegitimizes the essence of the American political system. And two decades ago, another Big Lie was concocted and pushed by a Republican president that resulted in profound (and lethal) consequences. Her dad was its main architect.
That was the untrue allegation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass of destruction and was prepared to use them against the United States. The Bush-Cheney administration used these charges to garner public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Dick Cheney was the chief pitchman for this flimflam. In an August 2002 speech, he proclaimed, “There is no doubt [Saddam] is amassing [WMDs] to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” Soon after that, he publicly asserted that Saddam was trying to obtain aluminum tubes that could only be used for enriching uranium for weapons. And he also publicly cited a report that one of the 9/11 ringleaders had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.
None of this was true. And Dick Cheney’s lies were not the result of intelligence failures. US intelligence over the previous year had assessed that Saddam did not have a worrisome WMD program. Government scientists had concluded that the aluminum tubes in question were not usable for weapon-grade enrichment. And the CIA had discredited that Prague report. Yet none of this inhibited Cheney and President George W. Bush. They spent months dishing out an assortment of false statements—including the untrue claim that Saddam was in league with al-Qaeda—to grease the way to war. They succeeded. Bush won the support of Congress and the American public for his massive blunder in Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam’s dictatorship but it yielded a geo-strategic and deadly mess in the region. About 200,000 Iraqi civilians died in the ensuing years due to the war. More than 4,000 American soldiers lost their lives in the war.
One lesson of the Iraq war is that a big lie can work. Liz Cheney, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs during this stretch, supported the war—and has defended it ever since. (She co-wrote a 2015 book with her dad on US foreign policy.) She even insisted that one of the main lies of the Bush-Cheney fraudulent case for war—that there had been a significant connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq—was true. (She also hawkishly defended a sordid chapter of that sordid war: torture, saying it was “libelous” to call waterboarding “torture.”)
In recent days, Liz Cheney has become the hot celeb of the American media-political world. The conservative Republican representative from Wyoming is on the verge of being excommunicated from the House GOP leadership ranks because she has dared to speak an inconvenient truth: Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and his incitement of the seditious attack on the US Capitol “is a line that cannot be crossed.” Those recent remarks—coupled with her vote to convict Trump during Impeachment II—have provoked outrage from the Trump cultists within her party who are now demanding she be stripped of her post as the conference chair, the No. 3 spot in the Republican House caucus. And the betting odds are not in favor of the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cheney is undergoing a GOP version of a Soviet show trial. She has not demonstrated full and complete obedience to the party leader, so she must be destroyed. This is Orwellian. As the author of 1984 wrote, “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.” And in that dystopian novel, poor Winston Smith is tortured at the Ministry of Love until he shouts two plus two equals five. Only then is he allowed to rejoin society. Cheney challenges Trump’s Big Lie—I won!—and refuses to whitewash the January 6 attack and Trump’s responsibility for it. Consequently, GOP Big Brother must squash her, and it looks as if her fellow House Republicans will vote to remove her from the conference chair. If they could defenestrate her, they probably would.
But for accepting reality and stating the obvious—Biden won, and it’s bad for a president to encourage a violent assault on Congress—Cheney (outside of Republican congressional circles) has won hoorays. Writing on CNN’s website, GOP consultant Scott Jennings observed that Cheney is “now positioned as a principled martyr.” In a recent Washington Post column, she wrapped herself in such noble garb, slamming Trump for “seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work—confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.” And she noted, “The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution.” Cheney also sharply pointed out that her boss, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House Republican leader, said in January that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on Congress “by mob rioters”—but has shifted his position since then.
Cheney does these days look like a courageous truth-teller, defying the cultism and alternative-fact addiction that has taken over her Grand Old Party. But, in a way, she is the victim of her own success–that is, the success of her family. In particular, the success her father had in lying to the American public.
In the 21st century, American presidents have at least twice tried to shape the world with a lie of enormous impact. Trump attempted to demolish the nation’s constitutional order and retain power with his false claim that the 2020 election was rigged and Joe Biden did not truly receive more votes. As Cheney points out, this lie delegitimizes the essence of the American political system. And two decades ago, another Big Lie was concocted and pushed by a Republican president that resulted in profound (and lethal) consequences. Her dad was its main architect.
That was the untrue allegation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass of destruction and was prepared to use them against the United States. The Bush-Cheney administration used these charges to garner public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Dick Cheney was the chief pitchman for this flimflam. In an August 2002 speech, he proclaimed, “There is no doubt [Saddam] is amassing [WMDs] to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” Soon after that, he publicly asserted that Saddam was trying to obtain aluminum tubes that could only be used for enriching uranium for weapons. And he also publicly cited a report that one of the 9/11 ringleaders had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.
None of this was true. And Dick Cheney’s lies were not the result of intelligence failures. US intelligence over the previous year had assessed that Saddam did not have a worrisome WMD program. Government scientists had concluded that the aluminum tubes in question were not usable for weapon-grade enrichment. And the CIA had discredited that Prague report. Yet none of this inhibited Cheney and President George W. Bush. They spent months dishing out an assortment of false statements—including the untrue claim that Saddam was in league with al-Qaeda—to grease the way to war. They succeeded. Bush won the support of Congress and the American public for his massive blunder in Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam’s dictatorship but it yielded a geo-strategic and deadly mess in the region. About 200,000 Iraqi civilians died in the ensuing years due to the war. More than 4,000 American soldiers lost their lives in the war.
One lesson of the Iraq war is that a big lie can work. Liz Cheney, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs during this stretch, supported the war—and has defended it ever since. (She co-wrote a 2015 book with her dad on US foreign policy.) She even insisted that one of the main lies of the Bush-Cheney fraudulent case for war—that there had been a significant connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq—was true. (She also hawkishly defended a sordid chapter of that sordid war: torture, saying it was “libelous” to call waterboarding “torture.”)
There was another odious lie that Liz Cheney also defended—or played footsie with: the racist conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Asked about birtherism in 2009, she replied, “I think the Democrats have got more crazies than the Republicans do. But setting that aside, one of the reasons you see people so concerned about this, I think this issue is, people are uncomfortable with having for the first time ever, I think, a president who seems so reluctant to defend the nation overseas.” Without endorsing the conspiratorial and disproven details of this nutty notion, Cheney was providing moral support to its adherents. (Trump’s championship of this lie helped turn him into a right-wing hero and set up the foundation for his 2016 presidential bid.)
It is a good thing that a hardcore conservative like Liz Cheney has joined the opposition to the Trumpian authoritarianism that has fully infected one of the nation’s two major political parties. Most of the GOP base is beyond persuasion. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Republicans believe Biden did not win the election legitimately. The denialists lost in the swamps of Foxlandia won’t be swayed by a Liz Cheney op-ed. But for conservative Americans who give a damn about Trump’s war on reality and the Constitution—unfortunately, a minority—Cheney’s current stance could boost their spirits and spine. And the fight to protect American democracy needs as many enlistees as can be mustered, on the left, in the middle, and on the right.
Still, Liz Cheney deserves hardly a cheer, for it ought to be remembered that Trump is pushing his Big Lie in the wake of other big lies—and that Cheney, her father, and so many other Republicans not so long ago did much to blaze the path for the dangerous political villainy she now decries.
