Mediaboss Marketing

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Texas House Republicans finally got their long-sought quorum Thursday by the skin of their teeth.

There were 99 members registered as present Thursday evening, the exact number needed to end the 38-day Democratic quorum break over the GOPs priority elections bill. But it quickly became clear that some of the 99 members were not physically on the floor and instead marked present by their colleagues.

That means that the House could be operating with a tenuous quorum in the coming days, even if more Democrats start returning though none were giving any indication of that Friday.

While some Democrats conceded Thursday night that the quorum bust was over, others were less willing to admit defeat.

Based on numerous media reports, it seems evident there was not a true quorum present today ironic, given this entire session is premised around Republicans preaching about so-called voter integrity, Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

A group of 34 House Democrats released a statement Friday that called it a questionable quorum and warned that Republicans will lie about the number of legislators present at the Capitol to establish quorum, keep Texans in the dark, and bend the rules to get their way.

In a follow-up interview, Turner said the apparent lack of a real quorum was of grave concern. He declined to speculate on whether the Democratic presence on the floor would grow when the House nexts meets on Monday.

Publicly, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beamont, is not showing any concern over the durability of the quorum going forward.

Speaker Phelan appreciates the growing number of members who are fighting for their districts in the State Capitol, Phelan spokesperson Enrique Marquez said in a one-sentence statement for this story.

It is certainly possible that enough Democrats return to the floor in the near future that any uncertainty over the threshold is put to rest. The next opportunity for any returning Democrat to show up is when the House meets next at 4 p.m. Monday.

The first Democrat quorum bust happened in the final hours of the regular session in May, when members filed out of the chamber to block the final passage of a GOP voting bill. They upped the ante in July when more than 50 members boarded a plane and fled to Washington, D.C., for the duration of the first special session and continued to refuse to show up at the Capitol for the first few weeks of the second special session, which began Aug. 7.

The GOP elections bill would, among other things, outlaw local voting options intended to expand voting access and bolster access for partisan poll watchers. Democrats and voting rights advocates say it restricts voting rights in the state. Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, say the proposal is intended to secure election integrity.

One of the Democrats who is still in Washington, D.C., Rep. Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, said he anticipates that maybe half of the remaining Democrats will return to the floor in the coming days while he and others will remain in Washington to continue their fight for federal voting rights legislation.

Im very disappointed, Reynolds said. Were disappointed that we had some members of the Democratic caucus return without a consensus, without a unified front.

Reynolds said he intends to stay in the nations capital at least through next week, when the U.S. House is expected to vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. He is still deciding what to do after that.

If the quorum margin continues to remain on the razors edge, Republicans cannot afford to have any absences and would have to continue showing up unanimously or close to it. They proved they were willing to go to those lengths Thursday with the attendance of Rep. Steve Allison of San Antonio, who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and registered as present while isolating in an adjacent room.

Allison tested negative Thursday and plans to be on the floor Monday and the following days that lawmakers are in session, according to his chief of staff, Rocky Gage.

The House cant do business without a quorum, which is two-thirds of the chamber, a threshold that stands at 100 when all 150 seats are filled. With two vacant seats pending special elections to replace former state Reps. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, who is now in Congress, and Leo Pacheco, D-San Antonio, who resigned effective Thursday to work for San Antonio College, quorum threshold is currently 99.

The special election for Ellzeys seat is Aug. 31, though it could go to a runoff at a later date. And the special election for Pachecos seat has not been scheduled yet.

The 99 members who effectively make up the current quorum include all 82 Republicans; 14 Democrats who, before Thursday, had never broken quorum or had already chosen to return to the floor; and three new Democratic defectors who announced their arrival shortly before quorum was met Thursday evening: Houston Reps. Armando Walle, Ana Hernandez and Garnet Coleman.

Without a mass return of the remaining Democrats, reaching a quorum in the coming days could still be a dicey proposition.

That is, of course, if House leaders actually count how many members are physically present something they have no incentive to do as they seek to put the quorum break in the past. Any member present can request strict enforcement of a vote, which would force a more accurate attendance count, but that did not happen Thursday.

Who is asking for strict enforcement? one of the Democrats still breaking quorum, Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, tweeted shortly before the House met and quorum was established.

It is unclear what incentive the members who are showing up have to call for strict enforcement they are mostly Republicans who are eager to get back to work and move past the quorum break. The same could arguably be said of the Democrats who have been present.

Reynolds said he is optimistic that as the Democratic numbers on the floor continue to grow, there will be more potential for strict enforcement.

We were disappointed that didnt happen yesterday, Reynolds said. But hopefully, as we go forward as a group, some of the returning members will agree to do that. I think theres already been a consensus of the members that are returning that are willing to do that.

Disclosure: San Antonio College has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Join us Sept. 20-25 at the 2021 Texas Tribune Festival. Tickets are on sale now for this multi-day celebration of big, bold ideas about politics, public policy and the days news, curated by The Texas Tribunes award-winning journalists. Learn more.

Read more:
Texas House finally makes quorum, but Democrats say Republicans cheated to get there - The Texas Tribune

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is not only fighting a COVID-19 infectionhes also on the front lines of a clash within conservatism. The Republican has declared his state the Freedom Capital of America. He has consistently prioritized cutting regulations on business, and in a 2018 opinion column boasted, Innovation and self-reliance are deeply rooted in the Lone Star State, and when freed from the stranglehold of over taxation and overregulation, new ideas flourish. By limiting senseless government restrictions, the opportunity to succeed in business is as limitless as the land itself.

The pandemic has given Abbott new avenues to push for freedoms. Abbott has, for example, barred state agencies and organizations that receive state funding from requiring vaccines for consumers. We will continue to vaccinate more Texans and protect public healthand we will do so without treading on Texans personal freedoms, Abbott said in a statement in April.

The public-health wisdom of this position is dubious, but it is consistent with the idea of limiting government restraints. Whats confusing is a bill that Abbott signed in June, which bans businesses from requiring customers to be vaccinated. With rising concern about, and case counts from, the Delta variant, the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission issued a warning on August 12 declaring that restaurants and bars that ask customers to show proof of vaccination might have their liquor licenses revoked.

Politicians who ban mask mandates and vaccine passports are not actually anti-government, as it might seem, but simply have a different view about how government should wield its power. Texas Republicans are caught between maximizing personal freedom (such as the freedom of patrons to vaccinate themselves, or not, and go to any business) and remaining opposed to government mandates on business (such as allowing private establishments to run their own affairs, freed from the stranglehold of regulation). Forced to choose between their stated commitments to individual and business freedom, Abbott and his allies in the state legislature chose individuals.

Although competing visions exist for where the conservative movement should be headed, they share a common bedrock: defending and expanding liberty. The tension that the coronavirus pandemic has uncovered is between what kinds of liberty to defend, and for whoma conflict that pits the freedom of people to choose whether they are vaccinated against the freedom of others to avoid sharing private spaces with the unvaccinated.

David A. Graham: Mitch McConnell learns it isnt personalits strictly business

Its wild to see conservatives hankering to place restrictions on private business, Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan (and an Atlantic contributor), told me.

The clash here is not merely a split between the traditional progressive focus on liberty as the ability to achieve ones potential and the conservative emphasis on negative liberty, or the lack of restraints imposed by government on citizens. (Of course, the conservative movement has not always extended this devotion to negative liberty to everyone, especially LGBTQ people and those wanting an abortion.) Contemporary American conservatives have followed a small-government philosophy and have tended to treat negative liberty as something that applies equally to individuals and to groups of them: Corporations are people, my friend, Mitt Romney said in 2011. Conservative judges have issued rulings that have extended protection of religious freedom and free speech, in the guise of political giving, to corporations. COVID-19 has shown, once again, that individuals and corporations interests are not always aligned.

This split comes amid a broader tension between American businesses and conservative politicians. In recent years, a growing number of corporations have spoken out on social issues, including support for LGBTQ rights and voting access. These positions are not necessarily signs that big business has transformed into woke capital, as some conservatives claim; rather, they represent entrepreneurs making judgments about what is best for their bottom line, having considered the views of employees, investors, and companies. Republican politiciansmost prominently Mitch McConnellhave howled with anger that companies are criticizing them after years of the GOP serving business interests.

But Texass anti-vaccine-passport law, and those like it in other states, show that the betrayals cut both ways. Seeing putatively hard-line conservative governments leap to place restrictions on businessesespecially regarding a question so fundamental as the health of entrepreneurs and their employeescould very well make business interests question the strength of their long-standing alliance with Republicans. Put differently, in the new paradigm, businesses might be sorted by their COVID-19 politics, not by the mere fact of being a business.

The pandemic has also sharpened an existing hypocrisy within the Republican Party over the importance of local control in government. As I wrote in 2017, growing GOP power in state capitals and more uniform liberal control in urban areas have created an inversion of traditional views about federalism. Liberals have come to view municipal government as a key center for progressive reform, while Republicans have become skeptical of their long-held devotion to local control and have enjoyed exercising state power to smack down city-level gun control, living-wage laws, fracking bans, and more.

COVID-19 has supercharged this tension. First came a round of clashes about mask mandates last summer. Liberal and liberal-leaning cities such as Atlanta, Houston, and San Antonio sought to require people to wear masks in public spaces. Conservative state governments passed laws or enacted executive orders preventing people from doing so. This is, once again, a valid exercise of governmental power, if not a wise one. But it is hardly a restrained one, and conflicts with the traditional conservative view that local populations know how to govern themselves best. Instead, these Republican officials once again decided that individual freedom was the more important value.

David A. Graham: The battle for local control is now a matter of life and death

Were now witnessing a reprise of this battle, especially centered on school districts. Education is another complicated space for federalism. Across the U.S., some choices are typically left to local authorities while others are controlled by the state. For example, all 50 states have laws requiring vaccines for some illnesses. In Texas, a legal battle is ping-ponging among courts over Abbotts ban on mask mandates, and local officials in San Antonio have announced that they will mandate masks and require teachers and staff to be vaccinated, notwithstanding the governors orders. In Florida, some school districts say they will attempt to mandate masks, despite a ban from Governor Ron DeSantis, also a Republican. The DeSantis administration threatened to defund districts that defy the ban and dock the pay of superintendents and school-board members who impose mandates, but later acknowledged that the state has no such power.

Progressive responses to the loosening conservative commitment to local control and business deregulation have varied. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would authorize the Department of Education to take legal action against states that block COVID-19 precautions. The liberal law professor Laurence Tribe wants to see the federal government step in to sue states on behalf of parentsa classic exercise of federal power.

In other cases, liberals find themselves in the unusual position of defending business against government interference. That is an outlier in recent political history, during which liberals have more often wanted government to force businesses to accept customers, as in the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case, which involved a baker who declined to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding, citing religious views. Yet though religious-freedom carve-outs and vaccine-mandate opposition appear to flow from a similar sense of conservative persecution by the culture at large, the comparison is superficial. Businesses are legally permitted to discriminate among customers all the timefor example, against patrons not wearing shirts or shoesand are barred from discrimination only along certain lines, such as race. The case for treating people who decline COVID-19 vaccines as a protected class, alongside historically disadvantaged groups, is flimsy, especially because transmission of the virus, unlike gender or sexual orientation, is a threat to others health.

Meanwhile, some conservatives are having second thoughts about the decisions they made earlier in the pandemic. This month, Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, said he regretted signing into a law a ban on local mask mandates. Whenever I signed that law, our cases were low, we were hoping that the whole thing was gone, in terms of the virus, but it roared back with the Delta variant, Hutchinson said. The governor and Republican legislators ignored a core principle of conservative political philosophy: to beware of changes to government that might have unforeseen consequences.

Hutchinson publicly pleaded for courts to invalidate the law. In early August, he got his wish when a judge blocked enforcement of the mask ban, saying it infringed on the rights of the governor, local health officials, and the state supreme court. If conservatives have to depend on the courts to restrain their own hands from unwise government impositions, what claim do they have on being conservatives?

Read more:
The Big-Government-Conservative War on Masks - The Atlantic

President Biden is in a tough spot: He campaigned on the ideas that he had the team to manage a pandemic and that his five-decade career as a Washington deal maker was just the ticket to overcome the countrys political polarization.

Thats not happening, not even a little.

Not only are Republicans resisting Mr. Bidens push to end the pandemic, some of them are actively hampering it. Republican governors slow-walked vaccination efforts and lifted mask mandates early. In Washington, G.O.P. leaders like Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican who himself didnt get vaccinated until about two weeks ago mocked public health guidance that even vaccinated people should wear masks indoors as government control.

Theres little Mr. Biden can do. Nearly a year and a half of pandemic living has revealed precisely who will and wont abide by public health guidelines.

Just in the last week, in my Washington neighborhood, which has among the highest vaccination rates in the city and voted 92 percent for Mr. Biden, people began re-masking at supermarkets and even outdoors in parks.

In places like Arkansas, hospitals are over capacity with Covid patients and vaccination rates remain stubbornly low. The anti-mask sentiment is so strong that the states General Assembly passed legislation forbidding any mandate requiring them. On Thursday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, declared a special session of the legislature to amend that anti-mandate law he signed in April so that schools would be allowed to require masks for students too young to receive a vaccine. Good luck with that, his fellow Republicans in the legislature replied.

That leaves the president in a pickle. As the Delta variant shows itself to be far more contagious and dangerous than previous iterations of the virus, the people he most needs to hear his message on vaccines and masks are least likely to.

Six years of Donald J. Trump largely blocking out all other voices in his party have left Republicans without a credible messenger to push vaccines, even if they wanted to. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, may be using his campaign money to air pro-vaccine ads in his native Kentucky, but he is hardly a beloved figure within the party and is viewed by its base as just another member of the Washington establishment.

Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Life Expectancy

There are certainly other communities of vaccine resisters, including demographics of people who have historically been mistreated by the federal government (and also a small-but-vocal minority of professional athletes and Olympians), but it is Republicans and Republican-run states that have emerged as the biggest hurdle in Americas vaccination efforts.

With little ability to persuade the vaccine-hesitant and little help from the party he had pledged to work with, Mr. Biden and the federal government were left with a move he had resisted for weeks: make life more difficult for the unvaccinated, to try to force them to change their minds.

Which brings us to the presidents news conference on Thursday. Mr. Biden said that, for the first time, all federal employees would have to show proof that theyve been vaccinated (or else wear a mask at work), submit to weekly testing and maintain social distance.

He stopped short of a vaccine mandate, saying such a requirement was a decision for local governments, school districts and companies. He said that if things got worse, and those resisting vaccines were denied entry from jobs and public spaces, maybe then things would get better.

My guess is, if we dont start to make more progress, a lot of businesses and a lot of enterprises are going to require proof for you to be able to participate, Mr. Biden said.

This maneuver essentially a shifting of responsibility away from the federal government is consistent with the way that Mr. Biden often tries to project a hopeful tone while airbrushing the reality of a starkly divided nation.

July 31, 2021, 7:40 p.m. ET

The market for disinformation in America is larger than ever, with Mr. Trump, despite starting the program that has led to the full vaccination of 164 million Americans, leading the charge to discredit the same program during the Biden administration.

But it wasnt Mr. Trump and Republicans who ran last year on ending the pandemic it was Mr. Biden and Democrats who successfully made the election a referendum on managing a once-in-a-century global public health crisis.

Now, just weeks after he celebrated the great progress made against the pandemic, Mr. Biden faces a new wave. And it probably wont be long before Republicans who have done all they could to resist measures to combat it start to blame the president for not getting the country out of the crisis he pledged to solve.

SO EXCITED. SO PROUD, Ka Lo, a Marathon County Board member, wrote in a series of jubilant text messages on Thursday. ITS SOOOOOO GOOD!!!

How much of a boost Ms. Lees triumph gives to local efforts for Hmong recognition in Wisconsin remains to be seen. Both Marathon County and Wausaus City Council have rejected Community for All resolutions, leading to a proliferation of Community for All yard signs and yet another effort to pass the measure at the county board.

The next vote of the county boards executive committee is scheduled for Aug. 12.

Sometimes even presidents get some schmutz on their chin.

Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos.

On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.

Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

Link:
Biden, Republicans and the Pandemic Blame Game - The New York Times

About 47 percent of Republicans believe that a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands, according to a George Washington University poll on Americans faith in election systems and democratic values.

The GW Politics Poll, conducted among more than 1,700 registered voters from June 4 to June 23 and released this week, found that support for principles like free and fair elections, free speech and peaceful protest were nearly unanimous among Democratic and Republican voters. Approximately 55 percent of GOPrespondents, however,said they support the potential use of force to preserve the traditional American way of life, compared to just 15 percent of Democrats.

Only 9 percent of Democrats agreed with the statement that "a time will come whenpatriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands."

Additionally, Republicans were significantly less likely to have a strong amount of faith in local and state elections.

Eighty-fivepercent of Democrats expressed trust in local election officials, with 76 percent saying the same of state officials, compared to 63 percent and 44 percent, respectively, for GOP voters.

University researchers measured a drop in Republicans confidence in the 2022 elections compared to the period leading up to the 2020 elections, with just 28 percent of Republicans saying they were confident in the upcoming midterm elections compared to 46 percent measured before the 2020 general elections.

Comparatively, 76 percent of Democrats said they were confident going into the 2020 elections, and close to 75 percent say the same going into next years political contests.

Republicandoubt in the integrity of U.S. elections has been growing in large part due to unsupported claims from former President TrumpDonald TrumpMeghan McCain: Democrats 'should give a little credit' to Trump for COVID-19 vaccine Trump testing czar warns lockdowns may be on table if people don't get vaccinated Overnight Health Care: CDC details Massachusetts outbreak that sparked mask update | White House says national vaccine mandate 'not under consideration at this time' MORE and his allies that widespread voter fraud resulted in inaccurate 2020 election results.

Efforts to restrict access to the ballot box have been passed or advanced in GOP-led states nationwide in the wake of the November vote.

Danny Hayes, professor of political science and co-director of the GW Politics Poll, said in a statement,Most of the state and local officials who run our elections are long-time public servants whose goal is simply to help our democracy operate smoothly.

But if weve gotten to a place where voters trust the electoral system only when their side wins, then that undermines the idea of non-partisan election administration, which is essential for democracy, Hayes added.

Some of the diminished trust in elections has culminated in violent threats being made toward election workers, prompting the Department of Justice on Thursday to launch a task force aimed at combating such threats.

The GW poll, conducted by YouGov, was the final wave in a four-wave panel that began in October with 2,500 voters.

Read the original post:
47 percent of Republicans say time will come 'to take the law into their own hands': poll | TheHill - The Hill

Republicans have long faced uphill battles against mainstream media pundits, especially since many are so sympathetic to Democrats.

"The media are enforcers for the Democrats. If Democrats step out of line, they immediately attack them," Dan Gainor told Fox News.

However, every so often there are a few Republicans who appear to actually receive admiration from mainstream journalists, even after years of scorn. That only happens when they oppose someone the media hates or go against their own party. Its a pattern that has become increasingly clear over the past few years.

Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois are the latest examples as the media had nothing but love this week for these Republicans when they stood front and center as the only two elephants on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Democratic-led committee to investigate the Capitol riots on January 6.

Cheney was once the object of constant disdain from journalists not only for her father Dick Cheneys record but her own politics.

In 2013, MSNBC host Chris Hayes said the following of Cheney: "[She] boils up a stew of the most repugnant factless fear-mongering propaganda to rile up the darkest forces of the far political fringe."

In 2019, CNN analyst Chris Cillizza referred to her as "nonsensical" for arguing on behalf of President Donald Trumps decision to pull troops out of Syria. "Cheneys argument would be funny if she wasnt serious about it," he wrote.

The Washington Post also featured multiple articles and opinion pieces against Cheney, including "Liz Cheneys empty words."

However, these opinions changed when Cheney placed herself in direct opposition of Trump and his claims that 2020 presidential election was "stolen."

"The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system," Cheney wrote on Twitter in May.

CNNS JOHN AVLON PRAISES CHENEY, KINZINGER FOR STEPPING UP ON JAN.6 COMMITTEE: THIS IS ABOUT PATRIOTISM

Republican lawmakers ultimately voted to remove Cheney as House GOP Conference chair. Amid the strife, Hayes came to Cheney's defense, referring to the Republican Partys treatment of her as "Orwellian."

"The tendency on display hereto turn a simple statement of fact, of reality, of what happened into a political litmus testis unnerving to say the least," Hayes said.

The Washington Post also allowed Cheney to defend herself in an op-ed on May 5.

Cheney's sudden hero status in the mainstream media was only elevated when she agreed to be part of Pelosi's January 6 committee.

Former foe Cillizza suddenly praised Cheney in his analysis titled "Every Republican should be required to read Liz Cheney's opening statement."

"Because of Cheney's willingness to risk her career to take a stand on something she believes in deeply, it's worth listening when she talks," he wrote.

The media's portrayal of Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger has followed a similar pattern. Although not a high-ranking Republican, he originally received some backlash from media pundits for defending Trumps border wall initiative. In an MSNBC interview in 2019, Kinzinger argued in favor of the wall.

"How is a wall immoral? I have four walls around my house. They keep bad people out and critters out," he said.

The Washington Post later ran a piece with a headline claiming that Kinzinger compared immigrants to "critters." CNN responded in a similar way. "What is the proper context for comparing people to critters?" Kinzinger was asked.

All was forgiven with Kinzinger after the Jan. 6 riots when he emerged as the first Republican to demand Trump's immediate from office and joined Democrats in a call to invoke the 25th Amendment. Trump is the common denominator for Cheney and Kinzinger - the more they opposed him, the more the media loved them. Their decision to go against their party and serve on the January 6 committee only further fueled their newfound popularity in the press.

CNN analyst John Avlon later complimented both Kinzinger and Cheney for their actions, claiming they were "stepping up."

"Kinzinger and Cheney are stepping up," Avlon said. "And it's very clear that, you know, this is about patriotism. This is not about party."

Dan Gainor, VP for Free Speech America, Business and Culture for the Media Research Center, said the media's change of heart on Cheney and Kinzinger is standard procedure for a Republican in the public eye.

"The only respectable figure on the right has to say what the media wants. If you do, they boost your career," Gainor told Fox News. "That only escalated during the Trump era. As figures would go out there, the media would skewer them until they stabbed Trump in the back."

PELOSI INSISTS ON NO PARTISANSHIP IN JAN. 6 COMMITTEE AFTER REJECTING 2 REPUBLICANS

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and late Arizona Sen. John McCain had similar experiences with the media.

McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war, faced intense scrutiny and disgust during his presidential run in 2008 against Barack Obama. As Larry Elder noted in 2018, the New York Times had described McCain as "running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism."

However, after McCain's death in 2018, the Times lauded the Arizona senator, saying he "gave hope for the future. His example still does." This praise came after McCains frequent feuds with Trump as well as hiss vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Romney likewise faced severe attacks from the press during his 2012 presidential run. CNN previously reported three times as many negative stories compared to positive ones. CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin at the time implied Romney was sexist, claiming his comments "made it sound almost like working women are some mail-order product you can order out of colored binders."

However, in 2020, after Romney was the only Republican senator to vote in favor of convicting Trump during his first impeachment trial, CNN correspondents found a newfound respect for the Republican politician. Jim Acosta referred to his vote as a "profile in courage." Avlon agreed, saying, "That was the sound of a man who had wrestled with his conscience, who tried to think bigger than partisan politics, and ultimately kept faith with his oath, his promise to God."

The one lesson learned in the cases of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, John McCain and Mitt Romney is this: The mainstream media love rogue Republicans who align with their ideology and further the Democratic Party's goals.

"When people agree with them, they get attention. When people dont agree with them, they get no attention," Gainor told Fox News.

By contrast, Republicans who criticized the committee or other Democrat initiatives continued to face harsher treatment, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. In the meantime, Democrats have faced criticism from media pundits only when diverting against Democratic goals, such as West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and his opposition to ending the filibuster.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"The media use Republicans who want to be popular with them as foils against the right, but they dont do the same with the left," Gainor explained. "They use liberal people to drag the Democratic party to the left, and they use wild card people within the Republican party to bring their party to the left."

In Cheney and Kinzinger, their addition to Pelosis committee gave credence to her claims that the investigation would have "no partisanship." Meanwhile, Kinzinger has emerged as a new national figure as an outspoken Trump critic among his fellow congressmen.

Despite this fame on CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times, these Republicans continue to face criticism from their fellow Republicans in both Congress and the media.

"Theyre simply jockeying for book deals and future career opportunities, and the media are helping them. As long as the Republican Party will exist, this will be their tactic," Gainor said.

Read this article:
Cheney and Kinzinger: The latest turncoat Republicans the media suddenly loves - Fox News