Wednesday, May 5, 2021

 After a brief respite, the storms that whipped on the Deep South earlier in the week came back in full force. The area was a little wider and folks as far as North Carolina had to deal with the nasty weather. Here closer to home, a business in Fulton – the county seat of Itawamba County – had its roof ripped off due to high winds. All told, three people – two in Georgia and one in Tennessee – were killed by falling trees and states are still counting up the monetary damage to homes and business.

 A cold front has moved in and it’s notably cooler outside, with lows projected to reach the high 40s, but it’s otherwise been a clear, crisp day. The forecast says it’ll remain much the same through Saturday, but rain will come back sometime late Sunday. The Deep South will see a couple more days of rain and wind, though how bad it will be is unknown.

 So enough of that. This is not a weather blog, it’s a news blog. And, brother, the news this week is entertaining as hell. The ongoing civil war within the Republican Party continues as calls for Rep. Liz Cheney to be booted from the third-highest position within the party’s House of Representative contingent gain strength. Both Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise has called for the Colorado representative – and daughter of former Vice-President Darth Cheney – to be booted from the position. They’re throwing their weight behind New York’s Elise Stefanik for the new chair of the House Republican Conference.

 Stefanik has been called a rising star not only within the party but also in American politics. Flipping a formerly blue district in 2015, she was the youngest person elected to high office until fellow New Yorker Alexandra-Ocasio Cortez was elected in 2018. They call it “Baby of the House,” and, no, I’m not kidding. Anyhow, Stefanik has gotten praise for being an independent thinker and bipartisan, breaking with the party of LGBT issues and against the 2017 tax cuts. She’s also one of the few in the House to go along with President Joe Biden, with only 20 GOP Representatives with higher percentages.

 That voting record is interesting, as Stefanik voted with Trump less than 50 percent of the time while Cheney is closer to 97. So what has Liz Cheney – reliable conservative voice – done to earn the ire of her colleagues? Well, she condemned Trump’s culpability in the Great Temper Tantrum of January 6 as well as his continual push of the Big Lie that there was no way 81 million people hated his guts enough to elect Joe Biden the 46th President of the United States.

 And Stefanik? What has this maverick, left-conservative done that’s won her both the back of the House Republican leadership as well as kudos from the Former Guy? Well, she’s vigorously defended Trump against both charges of impeachment, was one of the Big Lie’s biggest cheerleaders, and that’s about it far as I can tell. There’s a lot of hoo-hah about “Biden’s radical socialist agenda” and how Stefanik would fight against it despite its popularity with the American public, but let’s be real here. For Republicans and conservatives in general, “socialist” has less real meaning than “woke” or “cancel culture” or “patriot” these days.

 Still butthurt over his walloping and blaming everyone but himself, Trump called Cheney a “warmongering fool” even though Stefanik has saved her harshest criticism for the few dovish actions he took in office – like pulling troops from Syria – while Cheney backed him. Not everyone is voting for her as the new Chair, though. The Club for Growth, one of the plethora of conservative “think tanks” pulling the party’s strings and concentrating mainly on economic issues, isn’t down with her at all. Citing her record of voting against conservative policies and flat-out calling her a liberal, the group is the first major one to call it against her.

 The conservative Wall Street Journal has also said the change would be a bad idea, citing this is pretty much a pissing match between Cheney and McCarthy. The House Minority Leader initially condemned the January 6 Temper Tantrum and Trump’s role in it but that lasted until he was summoned to the Former President’s chambers to be punished and reminded of just where he fits in the hierarchy. This is all wrapped up in the party’s continuing struggle to get out from under Trump’s thumb and, more specifically, entice his rabid fanbase which makes up almost the entirety of the GOP voters to vote for someone else besides just him.

 Like I said, funny as hell.