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POLITICS

Crenshaw Says GOP Can’t ‘Excommunicate’ President Trump By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/crenshaw-says-gop-cant-excommunicate-president-trump/

Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) appeared to caution against attempts to push former president Trump out of a position of influence within the GOP, in comments on MSNBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

Host Chuck Todd asked whether Crenshaw believed Trump was a “legitimate leader of the Republican party.”

“Hold on, I believe that you’re not going to excommunicate a former president, right?” Crenshaw responded. “I refuse to go into this sort of black and white thinking about, it’s either totally one thing or totally the other. These are complex human relationships that involve millions of people.”

Crenshaw also commented on the House GOP’s decision to oust Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) as GOP Conference Chair, by a voice vote on Wednesday. Cheney and colleague Adam Kinzinger (R., Il.) have continued to criticize Trump over his allegations that Democrats “stole” the election, and for his apparent refusal to help quell rioting at the Capitol on January 6.

“I refuse to allow this drama to engulf us. That’s what [Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy was saying, and I fully agree with that,” Crenshaw said. “Look, I say this to Liz, and I say this to Adam: You’re not going to get the colleagues who believe in that stuff to apologize to you, to agree with you.”

Meet the 100 Republicans Threatening to Form a Third Party By Jim Geraghty

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/meet-the-100-republicans-threatening-to-form-a-third-party/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=first

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported, “over 100 Republicans, including former officials, threaten to split from the G.O.P.

We can now see the list of 100 Republicans who “believe in pushing for the Republican Party to rededicate itself to founding ideals—or else hasten the creation of an alternative.” The list includes some well-known names like Anthony Scaramucci, Mark Sanford, Joe Walsh and Evan McMullin, and quite a few names that will not ring bells to most of the public. Connie Morella last served in Congress in 2003, and served as an ambassador until 2007. Arne Carlson was governor of Minnesota back in the 1990s. Christopher Bayley was the King County, Washington prosecuting attorney from 1971 to 1979.

It is far from clear that a warning from, say, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld that he’s thinking of leaving the GOP will sway the thinking of other Republicans; the man was the Libertarian Party nominee for vice president in 2016. In other words, the last time Weld left the GOP, the party thrived without him.

I asked Wednesday what form this group would take, as “successfully building a lasting and significant third party will require a gargantuan commitment of resources and a sustained Herculean effort.”

As of now, it appears this group is truly starting from scratch, with an open letter and a request for e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and zip codes.

The Justice Department’s Resident Conspiracist Susan Hennessey’s appointment suggests the department will be politicized again. By Kimberley Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-justice-departments-resident-conspiracist-11620944310?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

House Democrats in February stripped Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, punishment for promoting conspiracy theories. Democrats this week rewarded their own conspiracy theorist with a powerful position at the Justice Department. Anyone miss William Barr yet?

Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessey announced this week she’s taking a job at the department’s National Security Division, reportedly as senior counsel. Lawfare began in 2010 as a national-security blog, though by the Trump era it had become an unabashed mouthpiece for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency, and partisan enough to marinate in the anti-Trump fever swamps.

Before QAnon, there was that tinfoil-hat document called the Steele dossier. It read like the world’s worst spy novel—secret meetings, perverted sexual acts, bribes, blackmail, cutouts—but Ms. Hennessey and her fellow Lawfare contributors lapped it up and played a central role in building and promoting the Russia-collusion fiction. Ms. Hennessey’s history as a National Security Agency lawyer gave credibility to the craziness.

“The allegations are being taken quite seriously,” she assured readers in a post in January 2017, when news of the dossier first broke. Dossier author Christopher Steele is “a person whose work intelligence professionals take seriously,” she added. She also promised that this was not a case of Obama officials “leaking sensitive information” out of “revenge,” since intelligence officials treat sensitive information “with the utmost care.” Within days Lawfare was weaving madcap webs involving Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Russian banks and Carter Page.

Like all good conspiracists, she also worked hard to cast doubt on facts that disproved her theories. She excoriated a 2018 memo by former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes about FBI surveillance abuses, suggesting it was a “lie.” She wrote this before she’d even read the memo, which proved accurate. When the Justice Department inspector general released a 2019 report lambasting the FBI’s conduct in the Russia probe (including that Mr. Steele had cobbled together gossip), she tweeted that she didn’t “think the findings are significant enough” to “justify the work of a podcast.” (In the runup to her job offer, thousands of her prior tweets disappeared.)

The Squad Is Rooting for Hamas By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-squad-is-rooting-for-hamas/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=second

Ocasio-Cortez, usually a font of half-baked socialist economic ideas, now regularly offers thoughts on the Israeli–Palestinian situation to her 12 million Twitter followers.

Here is one:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
Blanket statements like these w/ little context or acknowledgement of what precipitated this cycle of violence – namely, the expulsions of Palestinians and attacks on Al Aqsa – dehumanize Palestinians & imply the US will look the other way at human rights violations. It’s wrong.

First of all, there are no “expulsions of Palestinians.” Six Palestinian families may be evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in a property dispute — and the Israeli supreme court has delayed a decision — over land that was seized from Jewish families by the Jordanian Army after 1948. It’s a complicated case, brought to the judicial system by private citizens and adjudicated in an independent court. The case has been litigated for nearly 50 years, through the existence of numerous Israeli governments, both left and right. Now, I realize Ocasio-Cortez has little use for independent judiciaries or private property — or history, for that matter — but cases like these are just a pretext for the Palestinian Authority, frustrated by the Abraham Accords and their own failures, to create chaos and deflect blame.

Second, the Al-Aqsa mosque was not “attacked.” Israeli police fired stun grenades and tear gas at rock-hurling rioting Palestinians, spurred by rumors of Jewish intrusions into the Muslim holy site. Palestinian leaders have relied on this ugly tactic for nearly a century — even before the idea of Palestinian state had been concocted — to gin up protests and insurgency. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the situation knows the Israeli government has absolutely no interest in controlling or taking Al Aqsa. If they did, they would never have handed administration of the site over to Muslim authorities. If they did, the Israeli military wouldn’t be rerouting Jewish marchers celebrating the reunification of Jerusalem to placate Palestinians.

Other Squad members such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib openly spread blood libel. If you listen to them, you’d think Israelis go around killing Palestinian children for kicks. It’s odious. They’re Jew haters, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise:

To wit: Ilhan Omar

@IlhanMN
Israeli air strikes killing civilians in Gaza is an act of terrorism. Palestinians deserve protection. Unlike Israel, missile defense programs, such as Iron Dome, don’t exist to protect Palestinian civilians. It’s unconscionable to not condemn these attacks on the week of Eid.

The DC Statehood Proposal Could Give a Handful of People Three Electoral Votes By Derek T. Muller

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/05/06/the_dc_statehood_proposal_could_give_a_handful_of_people_three_electoral_votes_775920.html

Proponents of District of Columbia statehood believe this is their moment. The House of Representatives has approved H.R. 51, and the Senate might bypass the filibuster to send the proposal to President Joe Biden for his signature. But election questions plague the bill.

H.R. 51 would turn most of the District of Columbia into a state called “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth” (after Frederick Douglass). A remaining federal enclave consisting principally of the White House, the Capitol, and federal buildings around the Mall would become the seat of government called “Capital.”

While nearly everyone in the current District of Columbia would be moved to the new state, the new Capital would still have about 30 to 50 people living in it. And under the Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961, those few dozen people would have three electoral votes in presidential elections. Though the District of Columbia did not have representation in Congress, the amendment gave D.C. residents electoral votes equal to the smallest state in the country. States such as Vermont and Wyoming have three electoral votes; so does D.C.

If Douglass Commonwealth becomes a state, it gets two senators, at least one member of the House, and an equivalent number of electoral votes. But the remaining Capital residents are also entitled to three electoral votes in every presidential election. Critics of the Electoral College complain about the imbalance between small and large states, but this would be the most lopsided of all — Capital would have about 1/20,000th the population of Vermont. A sitting president’s family could change their voter registrations to Capital and have nearly unilateral control over three electoral votes.

It’s a problem for statehood proponents, but H.R. 51 calls for an expedited repeal of the Twenty-third Amendment. There’s no guarantee that two-thirds of each house of Congress, plus legislatures in 38 states, would vote for repeal. The Constitution has been amended once in the last fifty years, and a handful of resistant states or members of Congress could block repeal.

Sinema Criticizes Biden Admin on the Border: ‘This Is a Crisis; We All Know It’ By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/sinema-criticizes-biden-admin-on-the-border-this-is-a-crisis-we-all-know-it/

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) on Thursday criticized the Biden administration over the “crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the federal government “must do more” to address a surge of migrants entering the country illegally.

“The reality is that this is a crisis,” Sinema said during an interview with KTAR News. “We all know it, and the federal government must do more to address this surge of migrants who are coming to the border with increasing numbers each year.”

Sinema noted that Arizona recently has seen the highest number of border crossings in 20 years.The senator’s comments come on the same day that White House press secretary Jen Psaki faulted the “nature of” media as having been a “big driver” behind the use of the term “crisis” when referring to the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

During an interview with The Axe Files with David Axelrod podcast Thursday, Psaki claimed that the migrant surge “wasn’t really a crisis,” just a “huge challenge.”

Yet even President Biden referred to “the crisis that ended up on the border with young people” last month. However, Psaki insists he was not referring to migrants crossing the border and that the comment has been misinterpreted.

Why Can’t Democrats All Be Like Tulsi Gabbard? By Megan Fox

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2021/04/26/why-cant-democrats-all-be-like-tulsi-gabbard-n1442748

The Democrats made a big mistake by keeping former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) out of the fold. Her message can and will resonate with an awful lot of people who have grown tired of absolutely everything being viewed through the lens of race. Gabbard took to Twitter to post a video begging people to stop the practice of what she calls “racialism.” Unlike racism, racialism is the blaming of every societal ill on racism until the message is totally lost. Example: Removing all people of color off of grocery packaging.

It’s enough, already. “Please, please, let us stop the racialization of everyone and everything. It’s racialism,” Gabbard said. “We are all children of God and therefore family in the truest sense, no matter our race or ethnicity. This is Aloha. And this is what our country and world need.”

She went on to castigate the mainstream media for ginning up hatred. “The mainstream propaganda media and politicians: they want us to constantly focus on our skin color or the skin color of others because it helps them politically or financially.”

The Hawaiian philosophy of Aloha is beautiful and Gabbard explains it well. “Aloha means respect and love for others. It’s what enables us to see beyond our skin color and see the soul, the person within,” she said. “So let’s do our best to cultivate this Aloha in our hearts and see and treat others through this prism of love, not through the prism of race and ethnicity.”

Gabbard finished strong, saying, “Please, let us not allow ourselves to be led down this dark and divisive path of racialism and hate.”

She’s so normal and good. Why can’t all Democrats be like Tulsi?

Liz Cheney Won’t Rule Out 2024 Presidential Run By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/liz-cheney-wont-rule-out-2024-presidential-run/

Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wy.) says she is “not going to rule anything in or out” when it comes to a potential 2024 presidential bid.

“Ever is a long time,” Cheney said in an interview with the New York Post that was published Monday.

Cheney, the third-ranking GOP lawmaker in the House and a vocal critic of former President Trump, also told the outlet that while she believes Republicans could take back the presidency in 2024, she thinks lawmakers who supported his effort to overturn the 2020 election results should be disqualified from running.

“I think we have a huge number of interesting candidates, but I think that we’re going to be a in good position to be able to take the White House,” she said. 

“I do think that some of our candidates who led the charge, particularly the senators who led the unconstitutional charge, not to certify the election, you know, in my view that’s disqualifying,” said Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney.

House Votes Down Resolution Condemning Maxine Waters’s Remarks on Chauvin Trial By Zachary Stieber

https://www.theepochtimes.com/house-votes-down-resolution-condemning-maxine-waterss-remarks-on-chauvin-trial_3784487.html

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted down a resolution that would have censured Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).

The party-line vote saw 216 Democrats reject the resolution and 210 Republicans back it. Two members from each party did not vote.

Waters traveled to a Minneapolis suburb over the weekend and urged demonstrators to be “more confrontational” if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin were not convicted on charges in the death of George Floyd.

“We’re looking for a guilty verdict,” she also said.

The proposed resolution (pdf), filed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), included most of Waters’s remarks. It also referenced how Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill commented on them in the courtroom, saying in part: “I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function.”

McCarthy charged that Waters “broke the law by violating curfew and then incited violence.”

On the House floor in Washington before the vote, Democrats disputed that claim.

“Chairwoman Waters’s remarks reflect the very profound anger and sense of hopelessness that she and so many others, myself included, feel when we see African-Americans being killed during encounters with our law enforcement. And their families not seeing justice,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told colleagues.

He accused Republicans of taking Waters’s remarks “out of context” to “hold a ‘gotcha’ partisan vote.”

In a statement after the vote, McCarthy said, “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, and every other House Democrat, had the opportunity to condemn the violent rhetoric of our colleague Representative Waters, a chairwoman and senior member of Congress, to protesters to ‘get more confrontational.’”

“Instead, they condoned it. And the House and our justice system are worse off because of it,” he added.

“Every single House Democrat just voted to stand with Maxine Waters. They made it clear: Democrats are fine with Democrat politicians inciting violence and chaos,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote in a tweet.

Pelosi had defended Waters’s remarks, saying she did not need to apologize.

“Maxine talked about confrontation in the manner of the civil rights movement,” Pelosi told reporters on Monday. “I myself think we should take our lead from the George Floyd family. They’ve handled this with great dignity and no ambiguity or … misinterpretation by the other side. No, I don’t think she should apologize.”

7 Reasons Why Democrats Are Obsessed With Race From the perspective of power politics, it makes perfect sense. Don Feder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/7-reasons-why-democrats-are-obsessed-race-don-feder/

It’s almost impossible for a Democrat to get through the day without saying something about race – something really stupid.

Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s UN Ambassador, said white supremacy is “weaved [sic] into our founding documents [including the Constitution] and principles.” You know, like “all men created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” You gotta be a Klansman to believe that stuff.

On the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Red China, which practically runs the UN, systematically suppresses racial minorities which might challenge its rule), Joe Biden — who once said school busing would create a “racial jungle” — again took aim at the “systematic racism and white supremacy” which he says have long plagued our laws and institutions.

“Racism is real in America and always has been,” squawked Kamala Harris, who practically called Biden racist during the Democrat primary campaign.

If systematic racism and white supremacy weren’t enough, the left insists that we also confront “institutionalized racism,” “white privilege,” “white fragility” (whites who refused to admit their racism) and “whiteness” – in order to reach the promised land of “racial justice,” “racial equality” and “racial equity.”

Democrats call anything that challenges their misrule racist – including Georgia’s election reform (an attempt to “disenfranchise minorities”), gun ownership (In 2008, Obama said Middle Americans bitterly cling to guns and “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”), the Electoral College, the Senate filibuster (“a remnant of Jim Crow”), voter ID laws, capitalism and the Constitution.