Liz Cheney, avenging angel of the deposed neo-con wing of the Republican Party, has a book coming out soon. CNN got its mitts on a pre-publication copy. From the excerpts I read, it seems that Cheney, unlike certain political reporters, didn’t hold back material details to drive book sales. But the book contains color that may interest DC soap opera addicts.
Cheney describes Kevin McCarthy as a craven liar, which isn’t news to anyone, Republican or Democrat. Contempt for McCarthy (along with loathing for Vivek Ramaswamy) are among the few bipartisan political beliefs Americans still share. But Cheney adds details on the motives behind McCarthy’s post-J6 maneuvers to effect a Trump rapprochement.
I figured McCarthy walked back his initial assertion that Trump bore responsibility for the mob attack on the Capitol after seeing polls indicating Trump was still popular in his district. Turns out the danger McCarthy perceived was related but much graver than that: Cheney says McCarthy feared alienating Trump would affect McCarthy’s “ability to fundraise,” which prompted the about-face on Trump.
Cheney, who was still in House leadership at the time, says when she first saw the photo of McCarthy shaking hands with Trump in Florida three weeks after the coup attempt, she thought it was photoshopped. When she found out it was real, Cheney demanded answers.
“Mar-a-Lago? What the hell, Kevin?” Cheney asked.
“They’re really worried,” McCarthy said. “Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him.”
“What? You went to Mar-a-Lago because Trump’s not eating?” Cheney responded.
“Yeah, he’s really depressed,” McCarthy said.
The not eating thing has to be a falsehood. I mean, maybe for five hours he didn’t eat, but for three weeks? McCarthy lies a lot, but the Trump muumuu-suits don’t. (Still, I do hope he was despondent, if only temporarily. Despite the pending legal matters, I suspect a psychological toll is the only measure of justice we’ll ever get out of the traitorous orange fart cloud, so every bit of distress should be relished.)
Cheney describes the House Repubs’ descent into cowardice and madness, which we all saw in real time. She says one colleague praised her courage for standing up to Trump but declined to do so himself out of fear for his family’s safety. (Take note, New York appeals court!) She describes a caucus session after she voted to impeach where she was hectored by a colleague in dumb sexist terms:
She refused to back down, and what followed was a four-hour meeting where colleagues attacked her for standing up to Trump. In one memorable exchange, Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania said to her, “It’s like you’re playing in the biggest game of your life and you look up and see your girlfriend sitting on the opponent’s side!”
The remark provoked a chorus of female members who yelled back, “She’s not your girlfriend!”
Good God. But Cheney didn’t fit in anywhere anymore. She writes about working with Democrats on the January 6 inquiry, saying it was like being “a visitor from another planet.” Pelosi understood the value of Cheney’s participation and brushed off staffers’ objections:
Cheney writes that Pelosi’s team “pulled together a list of the 10 worst things I had ever said about her. Speaker Pelosi took one look at the list, handed it back to her staffer, and asked: ‘Why are you wasting my time with things that don’t matter?’”
It was an unexpected alliance, but Cheney says Pelosi always backed her up, and in turn, she was immediately impressed by Pelosi’s leadership.
“We may have disagreed on pretty much everything else, but Nancy Pelosi and I saw eye to eye on the one thing that mattered more than any other: the defense of our Constitution and the preservation of our republic.”
I don’t know if Pelosi holds grudges or settles scores, but if she does, she waits until the object of her ire is no longer useful to Democrats. Smart lady!
According to CNN, Cheney ends the book with a plea:
“Every one of us – Republican, Democrat, Independent – must work and vote together to ensure that Donald Trump and those who have appeased, enabled, and collaborated with him are defeated.”
Cheney concludes: “This is the cause of our time.”
Well, Cheney is wrong about almost everything, but she’s not wrong about that.
Open thread!
Baud
Pelosi is awesome. Eyes on the prize.
Jackie
I bit and preordered it as a gift from “TIFG” 🤭
My normie family members won’t get the joke, but I’ll enjoy using the gift message as the bookmark!
SiubhanDuinne
I might just read this book.
Searcher
Eleven-dimensional chess would be if it came out that Pelosi had had her team prepare the list for her to disregard.
Betty Cracker
@Searcher: That would be impressive, and I think it’s entirely plausible.
Michael Bersin
I’ll pass on reading the book.
They all helped build it. I give no credit to them for pointing out the existential threat after they built it with the intent of creating an existential threat. You know, leopards and faces.
Alison Rose
I love Pelosi. I hope she also told her staff to stop acting like high schoolers.
geg6
Mike Kelly, GQP-PA and used car dealer, is a piece of actual shit. And yes, he is an actual used (and new) car dealer. What a racket that must be. Just out of college, I worked in advertising for a local radio station and had to go and get copy for the Kelly dealerships’ ads. I hated when he was around because he was always leering at me when I was there.
dnfree
I sent an email yesterday to electoral-vote.com and it was included in the discussion on grocery prices today, so I’m mildly pleased. They even included my photos. I continue to be amazed at the number of people shopping at Jewel when Meijer prices are so much lower on many routine items.
Turgidson
It’s remarkable how so many people who were driven out of the GOP by MAGAts quickly “discover” that Dem leaders are…actually good at their jobs and *gasp* fundamentally decent people.
The Lincoln Project people are more effusive in their praise for Biden than almost any Democrat at this point. Cheney suddenly sees Pelosi as not just a real actual human being, but as a valuable ally in the cause of her time.
It’s almost like living in the sealed wingnut professional/media Batshittia parallel universe can lead one to believe crazy things, particularly about Democrats. Who knew.
Frank Wilhoit
The thing about stupid is the unpredictability.
geg6
@dnfree: Maybe they are like me. Even though Walmart has lower prices on many things on my grocery list, I choose not to shop there most of the time and get most of my groceries at the higher-priced but local chain Giant Eagle or, for some specific things, Aldi. Corporately owned Giant Eagle stores are union and even some (though not all) of the franchise stores are also union.
ETA: From what I have read, that Meijer dude who lost his House seat is a real asshole.
narya
@Baud: While sitting in the Social Security Administration office the other day, waiting my turn, I listened to Hillary’s podcast interview with Pelosi; it dropped on 1/18/21, so just after J6. It was quite good–and just reaffirms, for the nth time, how awesome Pelosi is.
Also: Maddow is interviewing Cheney on Monday’s show, for people who might be interested.
Omnes Omnibus
@Michael Bersin:
More or less where I am. I mean, it’s great that she found a line in the sand and all, but she still has a lot of odious views. She’s not getting any of my money.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Cheney’s loyalty to the Constitution rule seems to be sincere, which never fails to surprise me. I honestly didn’t think anybody who chose to be a Republican politician in the current era actually believes in what this country stood for, or had any principles beyond power and money.
Of course she was ostracized for having principles, so there’s that.
eclare
Nancy’s mantra above all: just win, baby. And the J6 committee was a win for democracy.
I saw her interviewed on a talk show, IIRC The Late Show with Colbert, and she said she had very thick skin. She sure does.
p.a.
@geg6:
US Aldi is German Aldi Sud. US Trader Joe’s is German Aldi Nord. The German brother-owners split over whether to franchise or not. Later, the anti-franchise brother… franchised.
cain
It seems like Texas political establishment consists of used car dealerships.
Used car dealerships are natural GOP strongholds. I hate those assholes and their dealerships are eyesores.
Chief Oshkosh
@Searcher: That is exactly what I thought when I read the excerpt. Further, it makes me wonder whether Cheney ever asked herself “How did I find out about this? How it is that this information has become available to me?”
From an opposite tack: Cheney needs to make her alignment with Pelosi palatable to old-style Republicans whose support she needs for an eventual presidential run. This sort of anecdote does that. So I have to ask myself: “How did I find out about this? How it is that this information has become available to me?”
Hm. It ‘s being made available to me by Liz Cheney. I don’t know that I believe it…
cain
@Turgidson: We have honor. The GOP are a bunch of thieves.
Scout211
I posted yesterday on the CNN “exclusive” of Cheney’s book. I called Cheney our favorite anti-hero but I’ll amend that to our former favorite anti-hero because you are correct in this, BC:
Cheney is getting less and less useful and she may get a bump with this tell-all gossipy book that “names names,” but her power is fading and her usefulness to Democrats is likely in the rear view mirror.
Chief Oshkosh
@p.a.: I did not know that about Trader Joe’s. So, I guess it isn’t owned by a Biden Family LLC? ;)
WereBear
I did a lot of middle-school GAAAHS over this Cheney piece.
“Democrats! From the planet of good governance. The horror.”
To me it’s simple. She figured out the Republican party was going to die and she wants the ashes.
cain
@Scout211: Cheney is playing the long game. At some point, MAGA is going to collapse under its own hubris if our Democracy survives. Cheney will be seen as the one pol that pushed back and showed leadership and principles.
WereBear
@Frank Wilhoit: Brilliant!
Also, their only consistency.
Old School
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Yeah, she gets it. Making nice with Cheney and Kinzinger was a necessary task to having any sort of effective Jan 6 Committee. I know many on our side think that pointing out that Cheney is still terrible is some sort of amazing insight, but it’s not. And it never was. Pelosi and the House had a job to do for the sake of our historical record and Democracy. The idea that they would flinch because Cheney is still a Republican asshole is just silly and shows why Pelosi is where she is, and they are just complaining from the sidelines. These were the same people who were mad about Pelosi’s ice cream.
Frank Wilhoit
There is a very important grain of truth in Cheney’s peroration, but it is completely undermined by (at least) two fallacies.
The grain of truth is in the bit about “…those who have appeased, enabled, and collaborated with him…”. I take “enabled” to include his voters; but this is the first fallacy, because for Cheney, as for all Republican politicians of her generation, the voters do not exist: votes are the output of a linear (if sometimes very noisy) function whose input is money spent on advertising.
The second fallacy, of course, is that Cheney is not prepared to take any of the necessary actions, nor even to allow any others to take them while she stands by as a passive spectator. Her tactical concern may be to keep Trump out, but her strategic concern is to keep the Democrats out; and it is perfectly clear that the latter concern extends to the Democrats’ constituents, each to the last, whereas (per the above) it is not likely that the former concern extends to Trump’s constituents. Ex nihilo nihil fit, or, in Shakespeare’s paraphrase, “Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.”
Freemark
@Old School: And media keep saying the ‘pain is coming’. They know someday they’ll be right. Then it will be we correctly predicted on _____ yada, yada, yada. Of course ignoring all their wrong predictions.
Sure Lurkalot
@Michael Bersin:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you, you are my spirit guides. Cheney’s mouth noises about states advocating abortions after birth. In the room cheering when the House voted to gut the ACA. Directed the Jan 6 hearings to shield most everyone’s complicity except for Trump. Called the insurrectionists misled patriots.
Feel dirty reading the excerpts, no matter how “delicious”.
Gvg
@geg6: Around here I tend to shop a Publix and they do cost more. We have been shopping there my whole life and they carry some brands I prefer that Walmart doesn’t, but I do get some things at Walmart. I don’t like to though because they are the worst at long lines, dirty stores and even the online order and pickup has a long wait till it’s ready, then a long wait in the parking lot sometimes. Clearly their years of treating employees like shit is catching up with them and they aren’t staffed. So I only check them when other sources are out. Target had comparable prices on the few things I think Publix is too pricy on and much better online service.
With the higher priced store, I buy up on sales which they have, and do a little buying elsewhere. I don’t eat a complicated diet, so I can manage it.
davecb
@cain: There are lots of people who are conservative: they prefer gradual change.
Regrettably there are lots of what are called “movement conservatives”, all around the world. They want rapid change, but only if it is to their personal advantage. In the previous generation, they were centered in Germany, Italy and Japan…
The Canadian Conservative party and US Republican party both suffered hostile takeovers by the movement conservatives of this generation. I got to watch the Canadian one.
Baud
@Old School:
But how do voters feel?
Geminid
@cain: Car dealers are a cornerstone of many a local Chamber of Commerce. Local Chambers are a nexus of political power that extends to smaller business owners as well as professionals including accountants, lawyers, real estate developers etc.
These folks collectively punch above their numerical weight and are the backbone of many local and state Republican parties. Or maybe they used to be; “populist” elements like Tea Party cranks and conservative evangelicals are no longer docile followers of the Chamber/Country Club elites.
I saw that in the 2014 Virginia 7th CD primary where Dave Brat beat Rep. Eric Cantor. Since then Virginia Republican politics have been an on again, off again struggle between the establishment and the populists.
One result was Brat losing the 7th District race in 2018, to Abigail Spanberger. She was the first Democrat to hold that seat since the party realignment of the 1970s. Cantor probably would have held that seat.
lowtechcyclist
@Frank Wilhoit:
FTFY. If you get to choose your voters, you don’t need to do much advertising.
She’s no longer in the House, so what actions can she take, let alone block others from taking?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
What I like about Pelosi is that she will work with anyone to accomplish a goal while being polite and professional the whole time. Personal attacks are completely irrelevant to her. That is the person I aspire to be. I don’t really care if someone is an awful person. I am still willing to work with them toward a good cause. Purity tests are counterproductive. The cause is more important than my personal feelings. I sometimes feel like the folks on our side are more obsessed with making sure the right kind of people are involved in meeting about how to work toward a cause than they are in taking concrete action toward that cause.
patrick II
@Old School:
That sounds good — but it means the Fed will keep the high-interest rate clamp on the economy a while longer and may (actually is meant to) cause an economic downturn sometime in the future — meaning next year, an election year.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer:
Thank you.
It reminds me of a couple of lines about a dickhead lawyer from Legally Blonde:
Cheney is a conservative Republican from Wyoming and the daughter of Dick — of course she’s terrible!
Mr. Bemused Senior
I have no love for Liz Cheney and I certainly don’t want her in any position of authority. I have respect for her as a person though, she stood up for the Constitution at some cost to herself.
As Cantra yos’Phelium so succinctly put it “In the matter of allies only two things are important. First, can he shoot? Second, will he aim at your enemy?”
Mike in NC
I recall reading that scumbag Marco Rubio gets most of his money from used car dealerships in the Miami area.
Jackie
@WereBear:
I love this visual! With Kevin and Elise delivering the heap of ashes while prostrated before her.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know. If people didn’t constantly remind me of how terrible she was, I’d probably vote for her.
Alison Rose
@Baud: Baud/Cheney 20XX!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: Well, if I lived in a deep, deep red district and my choice was Liz Cheney or a MAGA Republican, I would absolutely vote for her. Naturally, under any other circumstance, I would not.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Sugar and Spice!
(I’ll let the reader figure out which one I am.)
Jackie
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Amen, Sister! 👏🏻👏🏻
Ol_Froth
Mike Kelly is literally a used car salesman, and about as honest as one. Well, OK, he sells new cars too.
TriassicSands
It should always be noted that Cheney was and is a neo-con. That is Washington’s premier warmonger class.
In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin has come out strongly against Trump, but she is much like Cheney — a neo-con who supported the GOP throughout its decades long descent into authoritarianism. Only when Trump appeared — and for Cheney it was only after January 6 — did either of them begin to object. Cheney voted for Trump in 2020, after four years of racist, mindless incompetence.
Rubin has modified her rhetoric somewhat, but I don’t know how deep her convictions run. If Liz Cheney ran for president, Rubin would certainly vote for her, and, who knows, she might help run the campaign. Cheney would have undoubtedly voted to confirm all of Trump’s SCOTUS nominees had she been in the Senate.
After Cheney came out and vehemently opposed Trump, there were Democratic commenters on WaPo’s comment pages who actually said Biden should replace Harris with Cheney. WTF? Some said they would vote for her for president. Were they pretending to be Democrats? I don’t think so. They were simply reflecting the typical level of sophistication of American voters. I doubt they had any idea what Cheney’s voting record looked like.
Baud
@Ol_Froth:
Wasn’t Devin Nunez also a car salesman?
Chris
Even though I know who Liz Cheney is, and even though I know Dick Cheney hasn’t been relevant to anything in over a decade, whenever I read the name “Cheney” my brain still automatically conjures the image of Halliburton-Blofeld. Ah well.
One of the weirdest things about the present day, after having grown up in the 2000s, is knowing that nearly all the Republicans who are anti-Trump (an infinitesimal minority to be sure) are either neocons or at least neocon-adjacent.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed.
Alison Rose
@Baud: That makes it sound like the official campaign announcement will happen on OnlyFans.
Chris
@Alison Rose:
No disrespect intended to Obama, Biden, or anybody else, but Nancy Pelosi has to be the most effective politician the United States has had in this century.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
You would think that, just once in a while, some Reichwingnut would experience what Cheney did with Pelosi (and with thr entire rest of the GQP) and rethink, not merely the personal relationship, but their political philosophy as a whole.
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: A lot of people seem to think that Pelosi was just engaged in a marriage of convenience with Cheney, but I think it goes deeper than that considering some other things Pelosi has said about the necessity of a healthy GOP. I think Pelosi thinks it’s essential to have a “loyal opposition” to make American democracy work, probably because you will always have some sort of tribal division in the population that will align with party identification given the way our system works. A loyal opposition is an ideologically opposed party that nonetheless generally plays by the rules. What we’re seeing now is that one of the tribes has been co-opted by a radical cadre that does not even pretend to play by the rules, which Cheney appears to attribute mostly to the influence of Trump on the GOP. I doubt that’s the entire problem but Trump did introduce and normalize types of transgressive political behavior that were heretofore frowned upon.
Michael Bersin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
“Why, you’d vote for Satan if he was a Democrat.”
“Not in a primary, I wouldn’t.”
different-church-lady
@Turgidson: It’s the difference between being tough and being an asshole. MAGA will never understand they’re not the same.
Chris
@Turgidson:
Well, when you look at where they’re coming from, it’s understandable that they’d be baffled by the concept of politicians that are either decent or good at their jobs. After all, their entire self-justification is based on the idea that Everybody Does It.
artem1s
JFC. REALLY?!!!!!! At what point did the Cheney/Bush Crime family decide ‘fundraising’ wasn’t their top priority? Those assholes never wavered from inciting domestic and/or global violence and hatred to further their ’causes’. No matter who it hurt or who got killed, Darth only ever cared about how much and how often he could line his pockets. She is not a reasonable GOPer. She is as complicit as McCarthy was in looking the other way as TIFG set the stage for a violent overthrow of the government.
Chris
@cain:
She wants to be Andrew Johnson.
Alison Rose
@Chris: I would definitely agree with that, based on her powers of persuasion.
My favorite story-in-three-acts re Pelosi:
Chris
@davecb:
I think increasingly the entire world is seeing this. Certainly the entire Western world.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Liz Cheney serves as proof that there’s overlap between the categories of people: a) who I’d be willing to work with to achieve a laudable goal; and b) who I otherwise wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them.
And I do think she’s missing the very real possibility that when she talks about how everyone must “…work and vote together to ensure that Donald Trump and those who have appeased, enabled, and collaborated with him are defeated”, she’s talking about the bulk of the current GOP establishment. That cutting out the rot may not leave enough of a GOP to save. That she may have to choose between preserving the GOP and preserving the nation, and I’m still not sure which one she’d sacrifice. She’s trying to have both – and I know many here will disagree, but I can’t see a future in which both the nation and the GOP survive the next ten or twenty years.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Cold as hell. God I love Nancy Pelosi.
JML
Pelosi is the Michael Corleone of the House: It’s not personal, just business. But she also knows exactly who she’s dealing with at all times. She knows who can be trusted and who can’t, who will follow through and who won’t. It’s why she let the pokes go from AOC early on: she knew it didn’t matter, and it was just politics.
Part of the problem with the current GOP is everything is personal. Everything is a zero-sum game with them.
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer:
I was so envious of that ice cream drawer! I like the good stuff.
Chris
@cain:
“Judging from the size of their respective American flags, Watson, we can clearly deduce that this car dealership is more patriotic than that car dealership.”
“Good heavens, Holmes!”
“And as it’s more patriotic, it follows inescapably that its products must be of a superior nature.”
Hoodie
@Turgidson: These are not all stupid people. I’m pretty sure they knew how competent Pelosi is, it was their job to pretend they didn’t.
Betty Cracker
@TriassicSands:
And so it was, in the very first sentence of the post, though I don’t think this particular audience needs a reminder.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Hoodie: Yeah, the US political system absolutely needs a healthy loyal opposition to function properly, and a majority willing to accept the concept of a loyal opposition. We’re in the middle of finding out what happens when we no longer have the former, and if the GOP, God forbid, regains power, we’re going to find out what happens when we lose the latter.
trollhattan
Kochs magically turn roots into grass, decide darling Nikki is their real deal. And the Home Despot cofounder declares self a proud Trumper sociopath.
First, get rid the last of your checkers, second, declare yourself pro-fascist, third VICTORY!
NoOneOfConsequence
So, what did they disagree on? That murder, rape, assault, battery, fraud, public corruption, all those things, they’re bad?
“Nancy Pelosi thinks they’re all bad, Ms. Cheney, so, what, you disagree with her on that? You think they’re good? I know it’s a stupid question, so… why do you say that you disagree on almost everything else? Do you want people to think that you’re stupid, or do you want people to think they should hate Democrats?
“Hey, I’m not the one who said she disagreed with Ms. Pelosi – a decent, honorable lady – on pretty much everything, but the preservation of America and the Constitution. Why would you pretend to disagree about so much, when your actual disagreements are so small? I mean, do you really deserve power, if you have to tell such slanderous lies, not just about Nancy Pelosi and folks like her, but some 30-40% of the population, that they’re just plain wrong about ‘almost everything’?”
Hoodie
The one thing I would like to ask someone like Cheney or Kinzinger is “why do you think your party was so vulnerable to takeover by a Trump-centered cult?” The only guy who seems to have tried to address the question is Stuart Stevens.
cain
@davecb: There has been rapid change culturally here especially thanks to black lives matter and others as minority groups have more political power than they’ve ever had. That’s leading to a lot of changes that the ‘slow change loving’ conservatives probably don’t like either. Possibly turning them into movement conservatives.
Chris
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
My general feeling is that if American liberals in the Roosevelt era were able to hold their nose and prop up the putrid carcass of the British Empire and the living abomination that was Stalin’s USSR, all for the cause of anti-fascism… (And of course, Roosevelt’s America had more than a few warts of its own…) It’s probably not too much to ask me to support people who, on the whole, are nowhere near that level of vile for the same cause.
brantl
@lowtechcyclist: The thing to remember is, if she gets any power, it is extremely unlikely that anything she sways with it, will sway in any good direction at all. She’s been right on one goddamn thing out of thousands, and that’s the her party is in the wrong hands, now; the hands she wants it in are her own, and those are still the wrong hands.
Soprano2
I’m missing Colbert this week. I haven’t seen it mentioned here, but evidently he had appendicitis and have to have it taken out over the weekend, so no new shows this week.
Soprano2
@Hoodie: The more I hear Kinzinger interviewed, the more I think he’s on the path to becoming a Democrat; maybe a conservative one, but a Democrat. He sounds more and more like one and less and less like even a traditional Republican. January 6th was really a watershed moment for him, I think.
Chris
@Michael Bersin:
I prefer the original formulation. “If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: You’re such an Elitist, Capitalist! /sarcasm
MomSense
@Alison Rose:
No, she did that for effect. That’s a boss bitch move.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Ol_Froth: Ditto Vern Buchanan. On all counts.
Ken B
I had a friend that worked for Liz Cheney at State. He was her front desk\admin\secretary guy for a couple of years.
Walt (my friend) worshipped her. She got him into a few Christmas parties that her dad threw, and he got photographed with Cheney the elder and had the photos framed. He would have cheerfully, well willingly, thrown himself in front of her to stop a bullet.
He died while Liz was throwing her sister under the bus during her Senate campaign. Some folks from State reached out to Liz so she’d know.
At the funeral, someone read out a very nice letter that Secretary Kerry had someone write, and sent out with his (Kerry’s) signature. It had some little anecdotes and listed some of the highlights of his time at State. They clearly put some time and effort on this, for someone Kerry had probably never met.
Liz sent and did nothing. Not even a Hallmark card.
dnfree
@geg6: As far as I can tell, Meijer stores are unionized. Would you pay $9+ a box for Great Grains cereal at Jewel rather than $5+ at Meijer? That’s the comparison I made in my comment to electoral-vote.com.The former Congressman is from the Meijer family, and he stopped being a representative because he voted FOR Trump’s impeachment. So I think your comment that he’s a “real asshole” is an overstatement.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/10/04/meijer-workers-contract-talks-union/71046598007/
Kay
I think where you run into trouble with alliances like this is with credibility. So, if you told base voters 20 years ago that neocons would destroy the country, most important election of their lives, etc and now those same base voters see a D alliance with neocons they start to think you’re always just screaming about an existential threat and tune you out.
I have real trouble thinking about some of these never trumpers as allies. Not all, but some. Honestly? I feel like Republicans made their fucking bed and it didn’t start with Trump and there isn’t NEAR enough soul searching on that on the Right. IMO their real turn towards authoritarianism began with Bush v Gore. Maybe Liz Cheney could address that, because I haven’t forgotten how their hack judges handed it to Bush. It’s just a hop skip and a jump from that to refusing to recognize results.
Frankensteinbeck
@cain:
IE, polite bigots.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Michael Bersin: Yeah, basically. When the GOP is so bad they make Satan look more competent, less evil, and more compassionate by comparison, then Satan 2024! is way you have to go.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I have learned from this blog that Republicans pose two grave dangers to our nation. One is their ruthless fascism. If Democrats cannot stop them, Republicans could end American democracy in our lifetimes.
The other danger is that some Democrats might think better of dissident Republicans like Liz Cheney than they deserve. If other Democrats cannot stop them, it could mean…we might see….
Wait a minute! What exactly is gonna happen if some Democrats think better of Liz Cheney than she deserves?
Cheez Whiz
@WereBear: close I think, but no cigar. Liz is one of the few smart enough to see the threat that matters is Trump is a threat to the Republican Party. The longer Trump controls the base, the longer the Party is an uncontrolled mob, whose money goes mostly into Trump’s pocket, and whose candidates lose more than they win, especially the critical swing states they need for the Presidency. When she talks about “democracy”, think “Republican Party”. That’s her real goal.
Kay
For myself, the only Never Trumper I find credible is Jennifer Rubin. I think she is not full of shit – a starighforward person- and probably can be trusted. They ended up with Trump for a reason- a lot of them lack character and are dishonest. Tied to that is the fact that a lot of them are also poor judges of character, so I don’t really want to take advice from them.
Baud
@Kay:
I’d be surprised to hear that our “alliance” with Cheney regarding J6 cost us credibility.
As an abstract matter, however, I agree.
Baud
@Geminid:
No problem at BJ. As we find out every election, there are always a handful of potential Dem voters out there who have wild political sensibilities. I can see them getting caught up in a Cheney buzz.
stacib
@dnfree: Do you know how many Meijer’s is on either the south or west sides of Chicago – ZERO. Same for Sam’s Club and Costco. Jewel’s, in many cases, is the only grocery store around, and hell, many folks would perform tricks just to have Jewel’s because right now they got nothing.
narya
@Soprano2: Check out the interview that Chris Hayes did with him on Hayes’ pod (Why Is This Happening?); it’s pretty interesting.
Geminid
@Baud: Sure, if Liz Cheney ever ran for office again. Personally, I think her life in electoral politics is over. Kinzinger may have a second act, but I think Cheney could never win another race whether she ran as a Democrat, Republican or Independent, and I think she knows it.
E.
@dnfree: Thank you! We should always consider the union status of any grocery store we patronize. Grocery employees are incredibly underpaid. I co-manage 33 people in my store’s bakery deli and I make 18/hour.
trollhattan
Sad. I’d have accepted “In his honor, we have invaded [country to be named later].”
Baud
@Kay:
I wonder how much of that is because their brains are wired to oppose a common enemy (us).
Baud
@Geminid:
Agree. I think there was a concern a couple of years ago that she would run for president in 2028. That seems highly unlikely now.
Miss Bianca
@TriassicSands:
I am not so certain about this.
trollhattan
@Geminid: At a minimum she’d need to parachute into a district where she’d be guaranteed a win (tons of precedent here) but that’s presuming she’s okay with returning to the House. At this juncture I don’t think she’d settle for less than a Senate seat, which is much tricker.
Move to Florida and kick out Rick Scott, Liz!
dnfree
@stacib: I know the availability of grocery stores in the inner city is limited (and I also know the problems they have with robbery and theft). The City of Chicago is even thinking of opening their own grocery stores.
The context of my comment on electoral-vote.com was not where stores are located, or which stores people may boycott for one reason or another. The context was that someone had written in attacking Biden for high food prices, and the prices named for routine products like eggs and milk were ridiculous. I said the person should comparison-shop, not blame Biden, because whatever store they are patronizing (they did not name the store) is high-priced.
FelonyGovt
@JML: And Trump is the most extreme example of this. EVERYTHING is ONLY personal to him, and he’s got the rest of the GOP so whipped that they worry about setting him off.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca: Same. I think Jen Ruben’s fraud radar is well-tuned.
wjca
This is both depressingly transactional and unrealistic besides.
Yes, people here dislike her political views. But consider this: she refuses to accept the view, held by a huge chunk of the country, that elections should be ignored when they don’t go how she prefers. Which IMHO puts her miles above those people. However loathsome someone’s views, if they will accept being voted out of office, and different policies enacted, that’s basically acceptable in the real world we live in today.
We may long for a world where everybody believes that, and we have the luxury to totally disrespect those we have policy disagreements with. But that ain’t what we’ve got. What we have is a real need for examples to our opponents; examples that it is possible disagree vehemently without junking democracy. And the need for that is not, unfortunately, going away any time soon.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think Hoodie has it right at #54 — Pelosi thought it was important to have Republican representation on the J6 investigation, not for Democrats but for America. I don’t know how Cheney’s participation will affect Dems — almost certainly some subset will conclude that means all the talk about Repub’s many evil deeds prior to J6 was a load of hooey. But Pelosi was sending a message to a larger audience, I think.
@trollhattan: I would not vote for her, but she wouldn’t be any worse than Scott. Every horrifying view she holds, he does too, plus he’s a Trump-humper. Come on down, Liz!
dnfree
@stacib:
I looked at Meijer locations and I don’t see any in Chicago at all, either north or south. In the south suburbs I see Evergreen Park, Orland Park, and Flossmoor, and one in northwest Indiana. Their home territory is Michigan, and their expansion beyond that is spotty.
lowtechcyclist
@cain:
She’s 57 years old. There’s only so long a game she can play, and it’s going to take more than ten or fifteen years for the MAGAts to cease to dominate the GQP. It’s going to have to take a generational change, and that generation will have its own leaders and will be uninterested in an 80 year old elder stateswoman who did the right thing a generation earlier.
stacib
@dnfree: I wasn’t being flip – just a bit more than pissed off at the options folks are presented with. Why are the most economically challenged people only given options that cost more whether it’s gas, groceries or housing, etc.?
lowtechcyclist
@trollhattan:
Didn’t know Home Dopey was run by a Trumper. I don’t do much business there, but I can see to it that I only deal with them when there’s no other alternative that works.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Former CEO.
Chris
@Cheez Whiz:
I think it’s pure self-interest/self-preservation. She took one look at 1/6 and realized that a world in which the Beloved Leader is regularly siccing his mobs on politicians and laughing off his own political allies’ frantic phone calls for help, is a world that’s dangerous for her personally. Because she has no way of knowing that the Beloved Leader won’t wake up one day and decide her head is the one he wants on a pike. (And hey, props to her for realizing something that 90% of her peers haven’t).
Basically, she’s the equivalent of those Russian oligarchs who opposed Putin because they realized that having a mafia state consolidated around one all-powerful boss meant any of them could be expropriated and/or dropped out of a window at a moment’s notice.
Naturally, these people’s wealth and interests would have been much better protected if they’d spent the 1990s trying to help develop some sort of democratic and law-abiding state institutions in Russia. But, well, from their point of view, that sort of system is just as bad or almost as bad, because it doesn’t allow them to be smash-and-grab vulture-capitalists. Same here: people like Liz Cheney would undoubtedly be much safer if they simply helped the Democrats, but that wouldn’t be any fun. So she’s hoping the Democrats take care of Trump for her, somehow, while leaving a vacuum in the Republican Party that she can just waltz into, then things can go back to being like they were in the 2000s.
Geminid
@trollhattan: Cheney has a good life now. She has a genteel academic position teaching part time at U.Va’s Miller Center. There are plenty of like-minded people to hang out with in Albemarle County if she chooses to live there, and DC is only a couple hours away.
But Cheney wouldn’t win a Republican or a Democratic primary around here, and I can’t think of anywhere else she could. She’s a politician without a party now.
Jackie
@Miss Bianca: I agree. I truly believe Jen Rubin has seen the light. I believe she’s left the GQP party.
Gvg
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Remember though, it’s already been demonstrated that wavering commitment republicans are more influenced by other republicans than anyone who is already a democrat. There are actually a lot of normie type republicans who vote and think as their family and neighbors do which include tribalism and rejecting liberal and traitor sources. This means that some who inside themselves know the GOP is hopeless or that it was not just Trump and recent, can salvage more people by not yet saying that. Leading the miseducated out of a propaganda labyrinth takes time. Honestly, those silly voters were enablers and did at least tolerate racism and other moral failures and are not nearly as Christian as they tell themselves. Do you think they will change if anyone starts by telling them that? Blaming Trump lets them off easy, which makes it possible for more people to change life patterns. Maybe years from now when they have maybe become better people, they can look back and see themselves and cringe, but most people can’t. Maybe even Cheney is doing that for herself. It’s better for us and the country if more do that though, because changing things by vote is a lot better than civil war.
JML
@FelonyGovt: right. but Trump has also shown a lot of members of the GOP that grievance politics works for their base, and that’s always personal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think Liz Cheney has a future in electoral politics. She’s cooked in Wyoming, and VA– where I believe has been her primary state residence for most of her adult life– probably doesn’t offer her even a plausible House seat at this point
I think Chris Christie thinks he can triumph in the post-MAGA collapse– Sununu, Kemp, Hogan, maybe Haley. I don’t know if any of them is young enough to be viable that long, if indeed said collapse comes
ETA: Hawley, Cruz, one or other De Santis, Cotton, god know which others, probably want to claim trump’s MAGA mantle after the actuarial tables finally kick in. Do you think Wee Marco still dreams of inauguration?
dnfree
@stacib:
The lack of availability in the inner city concerns me, too. It just wasn’t the subject of my comment (which was about attacking Biden for ridiculously high grocery prices that make it seem the people who wrote in originally are not shopping based on price, but are blaming Biden). If someone is shopping on price, they can get eggs for $1.39 and a gallon of milk for $2.72 at Meijer, whereas the E-V commenter, without giving specific prices, said “Many items at my local store are over 50%, and sometimes 75%, higher than pre-pandemic. When I go to buy milk or bread, it absolutely pisses me off. I do most of the shopping. My wife went the other night to pick up a few items and came back just searingly angry about being gouged by the grocers.”
cain
@Geminid: yeah, makes sense. The dealerships has been really annoying that way because their entire business is a scam. They love finding ways to extract extra money from their customers like it is some kind of game.
lowtechcyclist
@brantl:
I just don’t get how she ever regains power. Neither party will nominate her for dogcatcher.
She is right about global warming*. She was right about the pandemic*. And of course, democracy. That’s three pretty big things right there. Once might be happenstance and twice, coincidence, but with three times at that level, you have to at least consider the possibility that she’s right about a number of lesser things as well.
Would I want her on a Democratic ticket? Hell no. But I’m willing to allow for the possibility that she’s better than we give her credit for.
*How do I know this? Well, remember that clip of the concluding remarks in the WY GOP debate in 2022 when she was unsuccessfully defending her House seat? She took those positions there. This blog may have front-paged it.
Steeplejack
@artem1s:
I think the text means McCarthy’s about-face, from blaming Trump for January 6 to embracing him again.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sure Rubio still harbors presidential ambitions. His behavior now is in character because he’s always been a windsock. He jumped on the tea party bandwagon for a while, got off when it became a liability, opposed Trump when most of the party did, jumped on the Trump train when it became an advantage. Now he’s just waiting to see which way the wind blows when Trump dies, literally or politically.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
And can’t forget the Brooks Brothers Riot that stopped the Miami-Dade recount.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Bingo.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud: OK, that makes a big difference.
RevRick
@cain: Car dealership owners are single biggest group of people who earn over $1 million a year. The NADA is one of the biggest backers of Republicans.
Archon
When this is over after some sort of political reform, civil unrest or even war it would be good for us to remember that not every right wing conservative was a fascist.
It should have been a low bar but still, hats off to Liz Cheney for her patriotism and loyalty to our Republic.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: I think that once the shock of the attempted insurrection wore off, McCarthy and McConnell could see that the loyalty of Republican voters to Trump was unshaken, and this explains their pusilanimous course ever since.
Martin
The thing with Cheney is that honest actors that you disagree with can be worked with better than dishonest actors that you agree with.
That’s the rub with Cole’s ‘tire rims and anthrax’. It’s not that your date cannot be compromised with, it’s that their position is dishonest – they don’t actually want to eat tire rims and anthrax. So there’s literally nothing you can do with them but walk away.
So, I can live with Cheney.
RevRick
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian martyred by the Nazis for his participation in a plot to assassinate Hitler, noted that Jesus had said both, “Any who aren’t against us, are for us,” and “Any who aren’t for us, are against us.” Bonhoeffer explained that under ordinary circumstances, those who aren’t actively supporting you are working against your interests. For instance, the apathetic can be as detrimental to unions as actual scabs. But in extraordinary times, even those who are unconcerned or even hostile to your goals can be useful allies in the greater challenge. In his situation, he was willing to make common cause with military leaders, intellectuals, and trade unionists who thought the church sucked.
Martin
@Miss Bianca: I agree. The problem is even though I can say that given a choice between say Manchin and Cheney, I trust Cheney more, you’re never voting just for that individual, but also which party you want to see in control. I think the stakes are such now that even ‘good’ republicans must be defeated until they purge the fascism from their party. That’s what got our otherwise excellent registration of voters to out of office. He was legitimately great in the job but as a Republican he could no longer be trusted.
I suspect Rubin recognizes the same thing. I think Cheney might even recognize that. This is why I think the GOP is so close to a split. It’s not that there are some fascists in the Republican Party, it’s that you need to be fascist to be a Republican. The Project 2025 document makes that exceedingly clear.
Geminid
@Geminid: McConnell, McCarthy, Rove and the rest of them cannot solve their key problem: how can they get rid of Trump but keep his voters?
This may account for the passivie neutrality Republican elites have shown towards Trump’s election campaign. They know he’s not a fit candidate and many are pessimistic about his prospects. But they can at least hope that enough Independents who are fed up with the guy might split their tickets and help put some more Republicans into the House and Senate. No one knows how many Trump loyalists would stay home if he was not the nominee, but if it was very many Republicans would have no chance to hold the House and reclaim a Senate Majority.
geg6
@dnfree:
I am quite well aware of who he is. I read about his recent decision to run for Senate as a typical Republican woman hater. So he’s…an asshole.
ETS: As for what I’m willing to pay at the grocery store, the price difference between Walmart and Giant Eagle is pretty significant. I don’t need you to lecture me on what people are willing to pay. I make that choice all the time. I know it must be a shock, but I am not wealthy. I am not even making the median US income. So fuck off.
Manyakitty
FWIW, my last shopping trip to Giant Eagle was great. Everything was priced like the before times. Groceries are coming down, at least in Fairlawn, Ohio.
Geminid
@geg6: When Peter Meijer got into politics his grocery store business was probably an asset. This time, when they have debates, the other candidates are gonna say, “My first priority as Senator will be to stamp out this rampant inflation that’s crushing the middle class!” Then they’re gonna turn and stare at Peter Meijer.
JaySinWA
Dahlia Lithwick at Slate has a look at the Trump rhetoric and who supports it. Looking at the 1A arguments as mostly a distraction.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/trump-rhetoric-who-listens-types.html
I found it through a Silverman Bluesky thread https://bsky.app/profile/silvermansecurity.bsky.social/post/3kfdu3ejp342m
that I hope he reposts here for the rest of us. He looks at it from a “revolutionary warfare” perspective.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@stacib:
With groceries in urban economically disadvantaged areas, its because of theft and other violent crime. People in crime ridden neighborhoods have few choices because people are either afraid to open businesses there or end up losing too much money when they do.
With rural economically disadvantaged areas, there isn’t a big enough customer base. Plus, transporting to those out of the way areas is expensive. They have to up the costs to make owning a business there worthwhile.
Rural or urban, housing is usually cheaper in poor areas. Rural housing is the cheapest of all, but there is usually a pretty high vacancy rate in the least desireable urban neighborhoods. So, housing can be gotten, it just isn’t in places people want to live.
With gas, in out of the way rural areas, it is expensive (again for transportation reasons). In the cities, though, gas is higher in nicer neighborhoods and cheaper elsewhere.
dnfree
@geg6: Sorry if you were offended by my comments. That was far from my intent. I was surprised by Peter Meijer’s recent statements. Unfortunately he seems to be trying to fit in with the more extreme Republicans now. I don’t know that it will work for him.
I wasn’t trying to convey any judgment at all about your personal shopping decisions or budget. My point at E-V was VERY simply to reply to someone who in my experience was greatly exaggerating the percentage increase in prices by giving an example of current prices. That’s it. Not to endorse Meijers other than using their prices as an example.
Your retort is an example of why my comments here are few and far between. You’ve read something into my simply sharing my pleasure at being cited on a blog, and now I’m sorry I bothered sharing.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Bernie Marcus (according to wikipedia) retired in 2002.
No need for a boycott based on Marcus’s politics.
Miss Bianca
@Martin:
You said it. Or you need to be fash-adjacent or complacent, which amounts to the same thing.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
I agree. I just think artem1s was having a sort of Emily Litella moment getting wound up about the wrong person’s about-face.
artem1s
first of all, I do not believe Pelosi ever said that to her staff – at least not those words or sentiment. Do you seriously think Nancy Smash hadn’t heard every single item on that proverbial list? It does sound like some condescending authoritarian-loving GOPer would talk to their underlings. But the worse problem with this statement is that Liz obviously missed or is covering up the real takeaway. Liz thinks she gets to sell this as an endorsement of the GOP strong arm tactics. It’s expected that the Dems should always bend the knee when it comes to bi-partisanship no matter what dirty skeevy tactics their GOPer colleages have used to disparage Dems in the past. Do you honestly think Liz wasn’t badmouthing Hakeem Jeffries about the McCarthy MTV just like the rest of the House GOPers? This whole fairy tale is unbelievably condescending and dismissive to Speaker Pelosi and her lifetime of service and relationship with her district, staff and colleagues.
Bill Arnold
@Jackie:
IMO, she embarked on a personal project to find her own way, questioning all political beliefs, and ended up closely aligned with the current Democratic party.
WaterGirl
@Michael Bersin:
That is awesome.
Paul in KY
@Ken B: That’s the vibes I get from her. Ice cold muthafucker.
Paul in KY
@dnfree: We have one in Lexington.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: A true statesman he is. Sen. Dirksen wouldn’t have employed him as junior bootlicker.
piratedan
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I’d say that your melanti’ was in order…
Betty Cracker
@artem1s: I like Searcher’s theory at #4 — that it was a set-piece for dramatic effect.
Seriously? I think Pelosi comes across as the bad-ass in that scene, regardless of whether that was Cheney’s intent. It’s in keeping with her refusal to allow personal slights to get in the way of a win.
Bill Arnold
@JaySinWA:
That Dahlia Lithwick piece is excellent.
And sobering.
We should all be ready to light into anyone who uses or even condones fascist-talk in our presence. As in, call them anti-American, enemy of the USA, etc.
Ryan
before we assess the not eating thing, do we have an assessment of how much ketchup was against the wall?