Cheney, eLizabeth

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;">=<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;">capt , trans to other node 12/17<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;">oops 2x see Liz<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;">==<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/republicans/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/republicans/</a>no lnx Republicans who keep a finger on reality are discovering that their voters have gone off the deep end

 David Neiwert and Daily Kos February 02, 2021
It's becoming much clearer why Republicans in Congress are so reluctant to acknowledge factual reality—such as that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential fairly, or that Donald Trump incited a mob that attacked the Congress and ransacked the U.S. Capitol—and have doubled down on their embrace of anti-democratic disinformation that fueled the insurrection: If they dare admit any of it, they risk the insane wrath of the millions of GOP voters out there who have wholly swallowed all that false Trumpian propaganda.
That's become especially self-evident among Republicans at the state and local levels throughout the country in the weeks since the January 6 riot. As Hunter recently explained, the GOP at the ground level not only has fully embraced the conspiracist rot that Trump promoted after he lost, but it also has become even more openly extreme than it was before the election. Liz Cheney is finding that out.
Whenever Republicans have made any gestures toward acknowledging either Biden's win or Trump's seditionist behavior, as the Guardian recently reported, voters at the state and local level have responded with outrage and threats.
"The evidence is overwhelming that local parties across the country, in blue states and red states, are radicalized and support extremely far outside the mainstream positions like, for example, ending our democratic experiment to install Donald Trump as president over the will of the people," Tim Miller, former political director of Republican Voters Against Trump, told the Guardian.
"They believe in insane COVID denialism and QAnon and all these other conspiracies. It's endemic, not just a couple of state parties. It's the vast majority of state parties throughout the country."
The list is long and worrisome:
Arizona: The state Republican party last weekend re-elected Kelli Ward, a conspiracy-theory-promoting "Trump Republican" who unabashedly promoted the "election fraud" disinformation. Party officials also voted to censure Governor Doug Ducey for certifying Trump's loss in Arizona, along with Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, and former Senator Jeff Flake, both for having supported Biden in the election.Texas: The state Republican Party encouraged its members to follow them on Gab, the favorite social-media platform of white nationalists, with a pro-QAnon conspiracy trope: "We Are the Storm." Even after Biden's inauguration, the party insisted that he had won fraudulently: "It took a global pandemic, a thoroughly corrupt media, and massive election irregularities for President Trump to be removed from office," the GOP said in a statement on its website.Hawaii: The Hawaii Republican Party's official account published a thread of tweets sympathizing with supporters of QAnon—dismissing cult's conspiracy theories that Democrats and media figures are secretly operating as global pedophilia ring, but arguing that adherents nonetheless were engaged in a form of patriotism. The same account also praised the "generally high quality" work of a Holicaust-denying YouTuber named Tarl Warwick, saying: "It is good to periodically step outside the 'bubble' of corporate commentators for additional perspective." The party deleted and condemned the tweets; the communications official who sent them resigned.Oregon: The state's Republican Party issued a lengthy statement stuffed full of conspiracy theories and disinformation condemning the 10 Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump after the insurrection. It claimed "there is growing evidence that the violence at the Capitol was a 'false flag' operation designed to discredit President Trump and his supporters." Some 23 Republican members of the state House repudiated the statement, noting that "there is no credible evidence to support false flag claims," adding that such rumormongering had become a distraction.Wyoming: State activists opened up a campaign to "recall" Congressman Liz Cheney after she joined the Republicans voting to impeach Trump, and have collected over 55,000 signatures. Ten county-level parties in the state voted to censure Cheney. A state senator named Anthony Bouchard announced a 2022 campaign against the congresswoman. The Wyoming Republican state party said "there has not been a time during our tenure when we have seen this type of an outcry from our fellow Republicans, with the anger and frustration being palpable in the comments we have received."Pro-Trump Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida even traveled to the state to lead a rally attacking Cheney. "We are in a battle for the soul of the Republican party, and I intend to win it," Gaetz told the rally.
The sentiments in Wyoming were deep and widespread. A Gillette woman named Shelley Horn started the Cheney recall petition, and told CNN: "You just can't go, 'Oh well, I need to vote with my conscience.' No! Vote for what your people put you in there to do. You're a Republican, you're supposed to back your party regardless."Trump supporter Taylor Haynes told CNN, "In my view, she's done in Wyoming." A poll commissioned by the Trump political operation purportedly showed the impeachment vote had hurt her popularity. "Liz Cheney's favorables there are only slightly worse than her father's shooting skills," quipped Donald Trump Jr.Other polls, however, supported the claim. A January 27 McLaughlin poll that showed 70% of Wyoming voters believe the impeachment trial was unconstitutional; more than two-third disapprove of Cheney's vote, and 63% say they are unlikely to vote for Cheney again.Some longtime GOP figures defended her. Gale Geringer, a veteran Republican strategist, told CNN that Cheney showed "courage" in casting the Trump impeachment vote: "I don't underestimate the anger people are feeling right now. It's huge. And Liz Cheney has become the target of that anger, but I don't think she's really the cause of it. I think it's fear of what the Biden administration is going to do to Wyoming. We're petrified. Our entire economy, all of our jobs, our tax base has been threatened. And there's nothing we can do about Joe Biden for four years. But we can take that fear and anger out on Liz Cheney."
But Politico reporter Tara Palmieri tagged along with the CNN crew, and found it nearly impossible to find anyone in the state who wasn't angry with their Congressman. Her impression was that Cheney is in serious political trouble.
Honestly, it was hard to find anyone who would defend Cheney — and I really tried to talk to as many people as I could not at the rally. I stopped at a biker bar, a gun shop, a vape shop, a hardware store, a steakhouse, a diner, a dentist's office and a pawn shop …
— At Harbor Freight Tools, when I uttered the name "Liz Cheney," an employee behind the cash register hurled a threatening epithet. Then a beefy and tattooed supervisor, Torrey Price, 48, came over mad as hell. His mask hung below his nose when he told me, "I don't think she spoke for Wyoming."
Price never votes in primaries but said he will in August 2022 — to oust Cheney. He shared more of his thoughts: the election was stolen, the U.S. Capitol raid was staged, and the number of Covid deaths were grossly inflated. He and his colleague Joe agreed on all of these points, adding that they would not be getting the vaccine.
— At the Outlaw Saloon, I envied the way a recently vaccinated NYT reporter sauntered into the biker bar maskless, when earlier, a middle-aged DJ in a cowboy hat asked me for my credentials. Likely because there were only two masks in the bar — the one on my face and another on a table, with the words "political prisoner" printed in red. The guy who threw down that mask predicted the size of the rally against Cheney, telling me the night before, "I guarantee you there will be 600 people there." I didn't believe him.
— At the steakhouse, our comely waitress said "a lot of people are fired up" about Cheney. As a lifelong native of Wyoming, she said Cheney made a grave mistake by not representing the people of her state.
Palmieri concluded: "If there was any doubt this is still Trump's Republican Party, my time in Cheyenne dispelled it."
The push to embrace Trumpism is roiling other state Republican parties. In Wisconsin, where 15 Republican lawmakers signed a letter to Vice President Mike Pence the day before the D.C. riot urging him to postpone the certification, and two Republican congressmen, Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Tiffany, objected to the electoral votes, the party is divided into two camps: in several states that Biden won.
"The Republican Party right now is relatively divided, but it's not the traditional ideological divisions that used to be in place, as much as it's between the sane and insane wings of the party," RightWisconsin editor James Wigderson told the Madison Capital Times. "I think that there's a chance of a real fracture coming."
Establishment Republicans such as former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, however, defended the Trumpists for their paranoia and embrace of partisan disinformation: "That is the perspective they have, that is the view that they have and it's valid; you can't say someone's opinion of a subjective matter is invalid," she said. "I mean, what gives us the right to judge someone's opinion like that?"In Michigan, where Republicans also embraced the "Stop the Steal" campaign prior to the insurrection, the impulse to maintain their embrace of Trumpism remains largely undiminished. The Allegan County Republican party censured Congressman Fred Upton because he voted to impeach Trump.
"Not a lot appears to be changing. We have former Ambassador Ron Weiser (expected to be the new Michigan GOP chair) and Meshawn Maddock (expected to be Weiser's co-chair)," WKAR politics reporter Abigail Censky observed. "(Maddock) led 'Stop the Steal' efforts in the state and was a key part of the kind of infrastructure to overturn the state's election results, which we know from bipartisan clerks and expert testimony was a fair and safe and secure election. It's interesting to see that that's kind of beyond reproach still, and that, that leadership is still going to go into place."
And in Georgia, Republican Party officials are grimacing at the wounds being inflicted on their voter-appeal operations by the presence of QAnon-loving Congressman Majorie Taylor Greene in the state's delegation, as well as in the media as her multiple conspiracist pronouncements—such as her approval of lynching House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—have come increasingly to light.
"If you have any common sense, you know she's an anchor on the party. She is weighing us down," said Gabriel Sterling, a Georgia Republican election administrator who criticized the baseless election conspiracy theories espoused by Trump and his supporters."Some people are saying maybe Nancy Pelosi will throw her out" of Congress, Sterling said. "The Democrats would never throw her out. They want her to be the definition of what a Republican is. They're gonna give her every opportunity to speak and be heard and look crazy — like what came out Wednesday, the Jewish space laser to start fires. I mean, I don't know how far down the rabbit hole you go."The unhinged behavior and conspiracism is widespread. The Oregon GOP's statement was rife with conspiracy theories, including a passage explaining why they viewed the January 6 insurrection as a "false flag" operation:Whereas this false flag will support Joe Biden plans to introducing new domestic terrorism legislation likely placing more emphasis on themes from post-9/11 Patriot Act such as allowing those charged with terrorism to be automatically detained before trial, outlawing donations to government-designated terrorist groups, allowing electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists, letting the government use secret sources in those trials, and perhaps new provisions such as codifying putting conservatives on a secret no-fly list without recourse to due process and restricting free speech, similar to the Sedition Act of 1798, which criminalized making "false statements" critical of the Federal government.The peculiar combination of self-righteousness, persecution complex, and projection endemic to extremist conspiracism were omnipresent. Shelley Horn, the Wyoming petitioner, blamed Cheney's impeachment vote for dividing the nation: "It's just sows more hate and division," Horn told the Cowboy State Daily, "and people are tired of it. Our country can't stand much more."
As Zack Beauchamp observed at Vox:It's obvious that some of the party's national leaders, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, don't actually believe in these conspiracy theories. But for too long, the party has been comfortable letting their rank-and-file supporters believe them because it's politically advantageous. Now, true believers are rising up and capturing the leadership of state parties and local activist groups — putting pressure on national politicians to conform to extreme ideas or risk a serious primary threat.This makes the GOP's post-Trump trajectory look even scarier. No one person or organization is in charge of the party, in a position to fix the root causes of its continuing turn toward extremism. Reforming the party requires a fight on multiple levels and in multiple arenas: reforms to the local and national party, transformations of both the party and adjacent institutions like Fox News.This what Barack Obama adroitly describes as America's "epistemological crisis." It will not stop happening as long as there are news organs that traffic in falsehoods as a profit model, and who devote 24 hours a day, seven days a week of broadcast time using those lies to coach half of the nation how and why to hate the other half—and politicians who gleefully profit from it as well.=<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;">=<h1 class="headline" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Enzi won't run again, makes opening for Cheney</h1><section class="homepage byline" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin: 0.25em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: block !important; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); font-weight: 400; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">By <a href="https://www.eenews.net/staff/Geof_Koss" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">Geof Koss</a> in <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eed" class="publication eed" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(50, 100, 151); text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; font-weight: bold;">E&E Daily</a> <time datetime="2019-05-06 06:45:44 -0400" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">6:45 AM EDT</time></section><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/stories/1060282007" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></a><section class="excerpt" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Four-term Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) announced he will retire instead of seeking reelection, creating an opening for Rep. Liz Cheney (R) to pursue a rare open Senate seat in the sparsely populated state.</section><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Elizabeth (Liz) Cheney has announced she will run for U.S. Senate in Wyoming. This could mean a brutal primary with the current sitting Senator, Mike Enzi. Enzi is <a href="http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_965c41d5-d1f3-5e4f-8327-f9b70efdb45e.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24.75px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">no climate warrior</a><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">, even though the state faces a<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/06/21/249906/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Holdren-Wildfire.gif" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24.75px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">doubling or tripling of wildfires</a> <span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24.75px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">if we don’t slash carbon pollution soon.

So how would Cheney address “<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/20/2191841/obama-says-we-must-respond-to-the-global-threat-of-our-time-boehner-says-thats-absolutely-crazy/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">the global threat of our time</a>,” climate change? Well, her social media strategy on climate echoes <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/21/1959731/what-sarah-palins-facebook-post-about-her-gluteous-maximus-says-about-climate-and-cold-weather/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Sarah Palin’s</a> — take a picture of snow and make fun of it.

This spring, she implied that such a photo was evidence that global warming was not happening, despite the fact that the first half of 2013 was the seventh-hottest on record, <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/6" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">according to NOAA</a>.

She also went on Sean Hannity’s show <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKgtApH4eig" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">in June</a> to respond to President Obama’s climate plan, saying that “the science is just simply bogus, you know, we know that temperatures have been stable for the last 15 years.”

Cheney is parroting <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">talking points</a> from others that claim global warming stopped 15 years ago. What the science actually says is that the planet does indeed <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/17/2318521/nasa-globally-june-was-second-warmest-on-record/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">continue to warm</a>, especially when you take into account the fact that the Earth is mostly water, and this is where around <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/25/1768601/in-hot-water-global-warming-has-accelerated-in-past-15-years-new-study-of-oceans-confirms/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">90 percent</a> of recent warming has been going — causing the oceans to warm dramatically.

More relevant on a policy front, she also tweeted that the President’s climate action plan is “using phony science to kill real jobs.” She elaborated that action to rein in carbon pollution was “a war on coal, a war on jobs, a war on American families.”

She accuses the President of the United States of waging a “war on American families” because he plans to cut the dirty carbon pollution that harms public health and locks the children of American families into an <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/14/1009121/science-of-global-warming-impacts-guide/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">extreme climate future</a>. In particular, Wyoming faces <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/health/climate/wy.asp" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">serious threats</a> from <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/10/28/204873/max-baucus-montana-global-warming-bark-beetle-wildfires/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">wildfires</a>, <a href="http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/western-states-heat-wave-turns-deadly-no-relief-sight" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">extreme heat</a>, and <a href="http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/sco/drought/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">drought</a>.

So a Senator Cheney would oppose any action to cut carbon pollution because she does not see climate change as a serious threat — how fiercely would she oppose carbon regulations and investments in renewable energy? She <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/305460734945542144" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">tweeted</a> that “patriotism” was “doing everything possible to resist/block” President Obama’s “radical” agenda.

Her positions echo those her father used to such disastrous effect when he was Vice President. Dick Cheney was the main influence in the early Bush White House that stopped Bush’s campaign pledges to regulate carbon emissions from utilities cold. This had a serious impact on America’s climate and energy future, and <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/05/11/204085/dick-cheney-made-americans-less-safe-global-warming/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">seriously threatens</a> the national security of the United States to this day. His office <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/07/08/174078/burnett-cheney-boiling/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">blocked testimony</a> on the health threats of global warming, he made sure the EPA <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/opinion/18mon1.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">removed sections on climate change</a> from multiple reports in 2002 and 2003, and a Cheney appointee<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/06/23/14185/cheney-climate-clueless/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">stovepiped</a> disreputable climate change studies denying global warming. Liz Cheney, of course, thinks her dad was the “<a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/256178300437803008" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">best VP ever</a>.”

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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/dick-cheney/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 6px;">Dick Cheney</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/liz-cheney/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 6px;">Liz Cheney</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/senate/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 6px;">Senate</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/wyoming/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 6px;">Wyoming</a></li>

</ul>

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=THU JUL 18, 2013 AT 10:11 AM PDT<h2 style="text-align: left; margin: 0px auto 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.1; font-weight: normal; width: 460px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a id="titleHref" href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/18/1224678/-Liz-Cheney-s-neoconservative-Keep-America-Safe-group-s-existence-scrubbed-from-web" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none;">Liz Cheney's neoconservative Keep America Safe group tries to wipe its existence from the web</a></h2><div>Hayes Brown <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/07/17/2317311/liz-cheney-keep-america-safe/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">points out</a> that the website of Keep America Safe, a lightweight effort to keep alive the legacy of neoconservative Project for a New American Century, has been recently shuttered, along with the organization's Twitter account and Facebook page. The organization was primarily a project of Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol set up in 2009. Cheney announced she will run in the 2014 Wyoming Republican primary against incumbent Mike Enzi. That <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/politics/a-cheney-on-the-wyoming-ballot-if-so-a-problem-for-the-gop.html?pagewanted=all" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">hasn't made</a> the Wyoming GOP establishment all that happy. But the handwriting was on the wall when Cheney bought a $1.9 million residence in Jackson Hole last year: <blockquote style="margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px; line-height: 14.4px; background-color: rgb(246, 243, 236); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225);">The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine places the last version of the Keep America Safe website as June 30, 2013, several weeks prior to Cheney’s announcement, but at a time when buzz was surrounding the chance she’d enter the primary field. Its Twitter account—@KeepAmericaSafe—likewise appears to have had its last tweet around the same time, as the last manual retweet of the account was June 26. The group’s Facebook page has also gone missing, but ThinkProgress is currently unable to tell when that page went dark. Even their Ning, a little used social media connection site, has been taken down.</blockquote>But the group's YouTube site is still <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/KeepAmericaSafeCom" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">operating</a> if you're eager to see the flavor of what the group is, or was, all about. One of the group's leaders, Debra Burlingame, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/07/liz_cheney_running_for_wyoming_senate_seat_neoconservatives_hope_dick_cheney.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">told</a> Dave Weigel that “we succeeded in accomplishing what we wanted to accomplish.” Other than some generic ultra-hawkish sputtering, it's hard to see what those accomplishments were unless it was to give Cheney another platform from which to hiss the same message dear old dad laid out of us.At the time Cheney and Kristol launched this project nearly four years ago, I <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/14/792877/-That-Other-Cheney-Is-at-It-Again" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">wrote</a>: <blockquote style="margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px; line-height: 14.4px; background-color: rgb(246, 243, 236); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225);">Aided by Debra Burlingame, the sister of the pilot of Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and that old neoconservative standby William Kristol, Keep America Safe will devote itself to persuading us that using waterboarding, building missile umbrellas, keeping detainees at Guantánamo Bay and following an overtly aggressive foreign policy are good things.Dad Cheney must be proud. And mom, too, she of the ahistorical approach to U.S. history. Not that the Cheneys invented American exceptionalism—that deep-seated and self-righteously justified operating perspective that the United States makes the global rules, enforces them but need not follow them when it decides its interests are at stake. Those interests being, most prominently, the bottom-line of corporadoes. That exceptionalist philosophy long preceded the Cheneys' appearance on the world stage.</blockquote>Why the site would get scrubbed at this juncture is a bit hard to understand. Is young Cheney going to cut herself free of her dad's philosophy that had her just short of <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/01/13/402244/liz-cheney-white-house-defense-cuts-accomplish-al-qaeda-and-taliban-objectives/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">calling</a> President Obama a traitor: “I think in fact what President Obama is doing is something that America’s enemies—the Taliban and Al Qaeda—have been unable to do, which is to decimate the fighting capability of this nation.”Some stuff just can't be scrubbed. But given that the conservative Enzi's not a tea party fire-breather, perhaps Cheney's consultants are urging her to adopt a more moderate stance, at least temporarily. All for the prize: a Senate seat representing fewer citizens than any other state in the nation.Read more about Cheney's bid below the fold.<div class="article-body" style="margin: 15px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="body" class="article-body" style="margin: 15px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; overflow: hidden;">Weigel reports that the Senate battle in Wyoming may be a proxy for a fight between conservative/neo-conservative hawks and the Rand Paul factions of the party: <blockquote style="margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px; line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(246, 243, 236); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top-style: solid; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Like Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton, a freshman who’s been nudged to run for the U.S. Senate by Kristol and others, Cheney’s seen by neoconservatives as a possible star. “She’s so good at articulating her views on policy,” says Debra Burlingame, the sister of a pilot whose plane was hijacked on 9/11 and a co-founder of Keep America Safe with the now-candidate. “I think she’ll help shore up support for what she believes and bring people back into the Republican Party, because we’re hungering for leadership. We can’t retreat from the world.” And would she stave off the intellectual challenge from Paul? “I don’t think that will be a serious factor. How many Rand Paul types are out there?”Quite a few, actually. Wyoming wasn’t one of Ron Paul’s strongest states in the Republican primaries, but Paul did pull one-fifth of the vote and six delegates out of the March 2012 caucus. The Pauls personify a kind of libertarian “America first” foreign policy, but it thrives in the mountain west even when they’re not around. Rand Paul’s filibuster against the theoretical drone-killing of Americans at cafes was a hit with Republicans everywhere. As Reason’s Mike Riggs first noticed, one of the Republicans who praised Paul the loudest was Sen. Mike Enzi.</blockquote>One can only hope the Enzi-Cheney battle devolves into the slime and that Enzi, with three terms under his belt, doesn't decide the contest isn't worth it age 70, which he will turn this coming February. It would certainly be more fun to cheer this fight if Wyoming had a strong Democratic candidate for that Senate slot. It doesn't. The executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party notes that even if the Republican Party fractured over Enzi-Cheney, a Democratic win <a href="http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/07/17/news/19local_07-17-13.txt" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">would be a "long shot."</a> The last time a Democrat represented Wyoming in the Senate was when Gale W. McGee finished his term in January 1977.</div></div><h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.1; font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ORIGINALLY POSTED TO <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Meteor%20Blades/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none;">METEOR BLADES</a> ON THU JUL 18, 2013 AT 10:11 AM PDT.</h4><h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.1; font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ALSO REPUBLISHED BY <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/main/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none;">DAILY KOS</a>.</h4></div>===The GOP is abuzz about Liz Cheney's <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/americas-next-top-political-dynasty-the-cheneys/277864/" style="text-decoration: none;">decision</a> to mount a 2014 primary challenge against incumbent Republican Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming. In an item titled "<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/07/16/old-boy-net-unites-against-liz-cheney-mike-enzi/" style="text-decoration: none;">Old Boy Net United Against Liz Cheney</a>," Jonathan Tobin describes the daughter of old boy Dick Cheney as "widely acknowledged to be among the party's brightest stars," a dubious characterization. He goes on:
<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(236, 240, 243); margin: 5px 0px 10px; line-height: 23.2px; padding: 15px !important;">Why are so many leading Republicans lining up against Cheney? They are saying that they are opposing her bid because they don't like divisive Republican primaries that weaken the party and the eventual winner against the Democrats. But this is bunk. Wyoming is so deep red it's almost impossible to imagine the scenario in which a GOP primary, no matter how nasty, would lead to a Democratic win. Rather, what they really seem to be mad about is a breach of manners. If Enzi were to disappear from the Senate, few in Washington would even notice, let alone miss him, while Cheney would be a strong asset for a party that needs talented members able to stand up to President Obama and the Democrats as well as strengthening the party's appeal to women. But many in the establishment are so offended by her not waiting her turn until Enzi left on his own steam that they are prepared to stand by him. 

Even more interestingly, Senator Rand Paul, who is usually to be found among those least likely to join the go-along-to-get-along crowd, is also backing Enzi, which may have more to do with his disagreement with Cheney's sensible views on foreign policy than any affection for the incumbent. 
</blockquote>One aspect of that analysis is accurate: Liz Cheney's foreign-policy views, which would only be considered "sensible" at a magazine that still regards the Iraq War as a prudent undertaking, explain a great deal of the opposition to her. Most Americans understand that investing <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314" style="text-decoration: none;">trillions of dollars</a> and thousands of American lives in Iraq was a historic blunder. Tea Party types don't want to defend the conflict, but neither are they comfortable fully confronting the truth about Team Bush's folly or the toll it has taken on the GOP's reputation for competence in foreign policy. 
Enzi supported the Iraq War too, and it may be irrational that his challenger is more tied, in the public mind, to the invasion. But being the offspring of a vice president has consequences. On one hand, you enjoy a base of donors and a degree of name recognition far beyond what individual merit would've brought. On the other hand, you're tied to the family brand. Republicans aren't thrilled about this primary challenge in part because of the nature of the Cheney brand: It is understandably associated in the minds of many Americans with misleading the nation into a disastrous war, an official program of illegal torture, a proclivity for Machiavellian power grabs, and a relationship with Halliburton that seemed like cronyism. There is, as well, the public's distaste for political dynasties, due to the reasonable suspicion that the younger members wouldn't be where they are without inside-the-Beltway nepotism, and the carpetbagger vibe of her brief residence in the state prior to declaring her run.
It is fair to judge Liz Cheney based on the family brand? Personally, I try not to hold the illegal, immoral acts of a father against his son or daughter unless he or she implicates herself in the objectionable positions.Liz Cheney hasn't just embraced the objectionable actions and positions of neoconservative Republicans. She has also earned an independent reputation as someone who participates in weak, laughable, and even scurrilous attacks on ideological opponents that can only cast doubt on her judgment and moral character. The weak, laughable attacks are often aimed at Obama, of whom I am often critical. But even people who hold Obama in low esteem can't help but feel embarrassed on behalf of commentators who discredit themselves by making absurd <a href="http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/05/28/hannity-and-liz-cheney-agree-obama-is-afraid-to/194246" style="text-decoration: none;">claims</a> like, "He's unwilling to go after the terrorists that are threatening the nation." To deny Obama's willingness to go after terrorists is to be deeply ignorant, ideologically blinkered, or a liar. None of those qualities is desirable in an aspiring U.S. senator.
On another occasion, Cheney said of Obama, "He's working to preemptively disarm America while rogue states like North Korea and Iran build nuclear weapons capabilities and stockpiles." Under Obama, the U.S. spends orders of magnitude more on defense than any other country; it maintains a nuclear stockpile large enough to obliterate whole continents if not the earth itself; and it has invested billions in a fleet of armed drones that increases our weapons capabilities. Obama's policy is, in other words, keeping us armed to the teeth. I understand that convention holds that it's unfair to begrudge pundits when they go on Fox News and utter inane talking points so far beyond exaggeration that they're just lies, but this is especially inane.  
Cheney's low regard for civil liberties bothers me most. Others on the right are most bothered by her work for Keep America Safe. As the New York Timesreported in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/us/politics/10lawyers.html" style="text-decoration: none;">a 2010 article about its efforts</a>: 
<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(236, 240, 243); margin: 5px 0px 10px; line-height: 23.2px; padding: 15px !important;">A conservative advocacy organization in Washington, <a href="http://www.keepamericasafe.com/" title="http://www.keepamericasafe.com/organization site" style="text-decoration: none;">Keep America Safe</a>, kicked up a storm last week when it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxg7LmlEQg&feature=player_embedded" title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxg7LmlEQg&feature=player_embeddedvideo" style="text-decoration: none;">released a video</a> that questioned the loyalty of Justice Department lawyers who worked in the past on behalf of detained terrorism suspects.But beyond the expected liberal outrage, the tactics of the group, which is run by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/liz_cheney/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Liz Cheney." class="meta-per" style="text-decoration: none;">Liz Cheney</a>, the daughter of the former vice president, have also split the tightly knit world of conservative legal scholars. Many conservatives, including members of the Federalist Society, the quarter-century-old policy group devoted to conservative and libertarian legal ideals, have vehemently criticized Ms. Cheney's video, and say it violates the American legal principle that even unpopular defendants deserve a lawyer."There's something truly bizarre about this," said Richard A. Epstein, a<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_chicago/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the University of Chicago." class="meta-org" style="text-decoration: none;">University of Chicago</a> law professor and a revered figure among many members of the society. "Liz Cheney is a former student of mine -- I don't know what moves her on this thing," he said.On Sunday, Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brookings_institution/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Brookings Institution" class="meta-org" style="text-decoration: none;">Brookings Institution</a>, issued a joint <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0307_guantanamo_statement.aspx" title="Text of the letter" style="text-decoration: none;">letter</a> criticizing the "shameful series of attacks" on government lawyers, which it said were "unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications." The letter was signed by a Who's Who of former Republican administration officials and conservative legal figures, including <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/kenneth_w_starr/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Kenneth W. Starr." class="meta-per" style="text-decoration: none;">Kenneth W. Starr</a>, the former special prosecutor, and Charles D. Stimson, who resigned from the second Bush administration after suggesting that businesses might think twice before hiring law firms that had represented detainees. Other Bush administration figures who signed include Peter D. Keisler, a former acting attorney general, and Larry D. Thompson, a former deputy attorney general.The letter cited "the American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients," including the defense by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/john_adams_1735_1826/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about John Adams." class="meta-per" style="text-decoration: none;">John Adams</a> of British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre, and noted that some detainee advocates, who worked pro bono, have made arguments that <a href="http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/05-184.pdf" title="http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/05-184.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">swayed the Supreme Court</a>. Ms. Cheney's video referred to the lawyers as the "Al Qaeda Seven," and accused the Justice Department of concealing their names, which were later revealed by <a href="http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/03/exclusive-unknown-doj-lawyers-identified" title="Fox News video" style="text-decoration: none;">Fox News</a>.</blockquote>Tobin might have been less puzzled by the opposition to Cheney's candidacy if he'd recalled how many people lost respect for her enough to publicly declare her approach to advocacy "shameful." In Tobin's defense, there are probably some Republican operatives who are upset that she didn't "wait her turn." Politicos are often overly invested in dues paying, obsess over perceived slights, fetishize tribal loyalty, and exhibit entitlement on a scale that used to be considered sinful. The Republicans who oppose Cheney for those reasons should get over themselves. They should oppose her based on the dearth of what she has to offer, and the many discrediting statements, actions, and policy stances that call her values, character, and judgment into question. This is someone who has a history of mistaken foreign-policy judgments, an inability to make sophisticated critiques of ideological opponents, and a bad habit of behaving dishonorably toward rivals. She should never be trusted to hold elected office in America.