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WASHINGTON Kayleigh McEnany, who just in the last week moved from CNN to Trump TV, will become the new voice of the Republican Party.

The Republican National Committee said Monday it has namedMcEnany, an outspoken television surrogate for Trump during last year's campaign, as the GOP's new national spokesperson.

Her wealth of experience will be invaluable to the RNC as we continue to support President Trump and build on our majorities in Congress as we headinto 2018" said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

The appointment comes less than a week after McEnanyleft her CNN gig and began anchoring a pro-Trump "news of the week" video an appearance that critics likened to governmentpropaganda.

In taking her new assignment,McEnany said,Im eager to talk about Republican ideas and values and have important discussions about issues affecting Americans across this country.

The RNC noted thatMcEnany has degrees fromHarvard Law Schooland Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and "hasyears of experience developing communications strategies and key messages."

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Trump television stalwart Kayleigh McEnany named Republican Party spokesperson - USA TODAY

Russian-linked bots and trolls have caused a surge in use of the hashtag #ResignPaulRyan on Twitter over the last 48 hours, just as the Republican speaker of the House was returning to his home state of Wisconsin for a month-long respite from Washington, D.C.

The unusual boost in Russian bots targeting a Republican lawmaker was first observed by the German Marshall Funds Alliance for Securing Democracy, created after the 2016 presidential election to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions.

Related: Trumps Twitter bot army is afake news machine obscuring facts

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A monitoring dashboard established by the Alliance noted the uptick Monday morning.It coincided with surges in the use of other hashtags by Russian bots, including #TrumpTV, #Magnitsky, #Fake and #ConfessYourUnpopularOpinion.

A chart shows the use of several hashtags surging among 600 Twitter bots linked to Russia August 7, 2017. The Alliance For Securing Democracy

It hasnt been a common occurrence for the Alliances dashboard to pick up on Russian bot activity targeting members of the GOP since the site was launched last week by former FBI special agent Clint Watts. But Ryan wasnt the only member of Trumps party to face countless bots demanding his removal. A campaign calling on the president to fire National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster received widespread support from bots and trolls over the last several days using the hashtag #FireMcMaster, eventually getting picked up by some right-wing fake news sites that seem to have the presidents full attention, including Breitbart.

The Russian-sponsored attacks against his aides and colleagues could easily reach the president's timeline as he takes his17-day vacation at his luxury golf course property in Bedminster, New Jersey. In between golfing and enjoying his day outside of Washington, D.C., Saturday, Trump thanked an apparent Twitter bot named @ProTrump45 for a supportive message about his presidency.

That account, which was quickly discovered to be a fake, pro-Trump spam page, has since been suspended by Twitter.

Twitter bots linked to Russia and other foreign adversaries have typically fueled support of Trumps agenda on social media, with nearly half of the presidents followers appearing to be fake or spam accounts, as Newsweek previously reported.

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Russian Bots Are Starting to Attack the Republican Party - Newsweek

The New York Times reports that some Republicans may be contemplating either a presidential run if President Trump isnt on the ballot in 2020 or some type of primary challenge. Those Republicans who have cheered Trump incessantly and who might run as the heirs to Trumpism (Vice President Pence, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton) in 2020 would carry the burden of Trumps policies and morals. Theyd need to explain their willingness to go along with Trumps xenophobia, incessant lying and attacks on the rule of law.

More interesting than the Trump-wannabes are the Republicans who might run against the Trump legacy if Trump did not run, stage primary challenges, create a third party or run as independents. (Those who have been passive, kept their heads down and refused to take hard votes to defend principles wouldnt be in this category.) The anti-Trump center-right conservatives would need to do more than denounce Trump. What would they offer? Reversion to far-right conservatism of the type embodied in Obamacare repeal proposals and in tax plans designed to give big breaks to the rich has already proved intensely unpopular with voters. We suggest 10 basic planks or principles for the anti-Trump aspirants:

1. Character matters in public life, and those who have demonstrated a propensity to lie, bully, discriminate, eschew personal responsibility, put personal interests over the public good and embrace know-nothingism have no place in elected office.

2. American institutions, including an independent judiciary and free press, must be defended against demagogues. Separation of powers requires Congress to assert its rightful authority as a check against the executive. States cannot be dragooned into executing federal initiatives (e.g., immigration raids) that conflict with policies and priorities in areas reserved to the states (e.g., local policing). Attacks on the legitimacy of the courts and threats not to follow their rulings are inimical to the rule of law.

3. Equality before the law is enshrined in the Constitution. Politicians who pander to sexists, racists and xenophobes and echo their hateful and divisive rhetoric have no place in public life.

4. The laws of the United States should be enforced without resort to mandatory minimum sentences, civil forfeiture, extended detention,incarceration of nonviolent drug criminals (who should be routed to anti-addiction programs) or harassment of journalists.

5. Free trade, reasonable regulation, legal immigration, and a tax code free from special corporate carve-outs and subsidies are essential for economic growth. Refusing to accept globalization or trying to close off America from the world is impossible and counterproductive. Myths and falsehoods about trade, climate change, immigration and other economic realities should be rejected.

6. Moderation not mushy compromise but humility, balancing of interests, aversion to divisive and polarizing rhetoric is a virtue.

7. A secure social safety net must operate alongside a market-based economy with the goal of enabling non-elderly, non-disabled adults to enjoy the rewards of work. Safety-net programs should not be slashed for the sake of saving money; but reform and modernization of existing programs should be undertaken with the sole purpose of helping their recipients enjoy productive lives.

8. Globalization cannot and should not be reversed, but new resources and focus must improve Americans ability to compete in the 21st-century economy through K-12 school reform, apprenticeship programs, alternatives to four-year college, and continuous worker training and retraining.

9. American leadership in the world is required to preserve the international liberal order that has existed for 70 years. In conjunction with allies, the United States should use all levers of soft power and, when required, the judicious use of military power, to defend our interests. Support for human rights, democratic governments and free peoples is part and parcel of our national identity and a necessary component of our foreign policy. We cannot separate our national values from our foreign policy. Our democratic norms and institutions must be reinforced at home if they are to serve as models for others.

10. Government must be transparent and free from conflicts of interest, cronyism and nepotism. Public officials must disclose all financial information and divorce themselves from holdings and activities that create even the appearance of a conflict.

Sadly, the Trumpified GOP does not stand for any, let alone all, of these. That leaves a void in the center of American politics that must be filled by anti-Trump voices, be they in one of the two major parties or in a new party or movement. If the GOP cannot be recaptured from Trump and Trumpism, it should be discarded for in its current state it represents a threat to the republic.

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What a Republican anti-Trump agenda should look like - Washington Post

Villagers crowded the meeting room at Panera on Monday morning, passionate about protecting President Donald Trump.

The crowd was so large,they were fortunate a fire marshal didnt stop for coffee at the Lake Sumter Landing eatery.

Their size was dwarfed by their passion.

Tony Ledbetter speaks Monday morning at Panera.

Volusia County GOP Committee leader Tony Ledbetter revved up thegroup and offered a playbook for protecting Trump and pushing his agenda.

He said the president is under attackfrom the media, Democrats and even fellow Republicans.

He encouraged the people in the room to take Trumps revolution to the next leveltheir local Republican party.

Ledbetter was a Tea Partier who took over his local Republican Party. Volusia County had been dominated by Democrats.

Now we are a red county. We have more Republicans than Democrats, he said.

If youre not inside your local Republican Party, youre not going to change it, Ledbetter said.

There was plenty of dissatisfaction with the Republican status quo.

Those in the room described their unhappinessas a groundswell of growing anger.

They bared their teeth at the mention Marco Rubio, John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, all United States senators who have been at odds with Trump.

Even Adam Putnam,the states agriculture commissioner eyeing the Governors Mansion,got a few boos.

Hes a squishyRepublican, Ledbetter said.

The only Republican other than Trump who won cheers was Congressman Ron DeSantis, who has visited The Villages.

Last year, loud and rowdy Trumpersshouted down more traditional Republicans at aGOP straw poll conducted at Savannah Center.

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Trumpers encouraged to set sights on takeover of local Republican Party - Villages-News

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Southern Gothic is a literary genre and, occasionally, a political style that, like the genre, blends strangeness and irony. Consider the current primary campaign to pick the Republican nominee for the US Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. It illuminates, however, not a regional peculiarity but a national perversity, that of the Republican Party.

In 1985, Jeff Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship. Democrats blocked him, calling him racially insensitive. In 1996, he got even by getting elected to the Senate. Twenty years later, he was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, who carried Alabama by 27.7 points.

Sessions, the most beloved Alabaman who isnt a football coach, became attorney general for Trump, who soon began denouncing Sessions as beleaguered, which Sessions was because Trump was ridiculing him as weak because he followed Justice Department policy in recusing himself from the investigation of Russian involvement in Trumps election.

On Aug. 15, Alabamas bewildered and conflicted Republicans will begin picking a Senate nominee. (If no one achieves 50 percent, there will be a Sept. 26 runoff between the top two.) Of the nine candidates, only three matter Luther Strange, Roy Moore and Rep. Mo Brooks.

Strange was Alabamas attorney general until he was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley to Sessions seat. Bentley subsequently resigned in the wake of several scandals that Stranges office was investigating or so Stranges successor as attorney general suggests when Bentley appointed him. The state Ethics Commission recently postponed a hearing into campaign-finance violations until Aug. 16, the day after the first round of voting.

Twice Roy Moore has been removed as chief justice of the state Supreme Court. In 2003, removal was for defiance of the US Supreme Court regarding religious displays in government buildings. Re-elected, he was suspended last year for defiance of the US Supreme Courts decision regarding same-sex marriages.

Yet Brooks is the focus of ferocious attacks on behalf of Strange, financed by a Washington-based PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

They stress some anti-Trump statements Brooks made while chairman of Ted Cruzs 2016 Alabama campaign. For example, Brooks criticized Trumps serial adultery, about which Trump has boasted. The PAC identifies Brooks, a conservative stalwart of the House Freedom Caucus, as an ally of Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren. Another uses Brooks support for Congress replacing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force with an updated one, and his opposition to interventions in Libya and Syria, to suggest that Brooks supports ISIS.

Brooks contributed to Trumps general-election effort, and says he supports Trumps agenda, including potentially its most consequential item ending Senate filibuster rules that enable 41 senators to stymie 59. Strange sides with McConnell against Trump in supporting current rules.

Yet the PACs theme is that Brooks support of Trump is insufficiently ardent. Such ardor is becoming the partys sovereign litmus test.

A recent poll had the three in the 20s, with Moore leading: The PACs attacks are driving some Brooks voters to him. Among voters who say theyre familiar with all three, Strange is third. A runoff seems certain, and if Moore (sometimes called the Ayatollah of Alabama) is in it and wins, a Democrat could win the Dec. 12 general election.

Anything that comes out of the South, said writer Flannery OConnor, a sometime exemplar of Southern Gothic, is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.

But, realistically, Alabamas primary says more about Republicans than about this region. A Michigan poll shows rocker-cum-rapper Kid Rock a strong potential Republican Senate candidate against incumbent Debbie Stabenow. Rock says Democrats are shattin in their pantaloons because if he runs it will be game on mthrfkrs.

Is this Northern Gothic? No, it is Republican Gothic, the grotesque becoming normal in a national party whose dishonest and, one hopes, futile assault on Brooks is shredding the remnants of its dignity.

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The Republican Party turns grotesque - New York Post