Ex-GOP senator suggests forming new party, calls Trump 'ringmaster' of Republicans

The Hill ^ | January 01, 2021 | BROOKE SEIPEL

[NobleFree]

William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and Defense secretary under former President Clinton, blasted GOP lawmakers challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election in a Thursday interview in which he suggested the formation of a new political party.

Cohen made the comments on CNN's "The Situation Room" while discussing Sen. Josh Hawley's (R-Mo.) plans to object during Congress's counting of the Electoral College vote on Wednesday. Cohen called Hawley's actions "shameful" but warned that Republicans are just following President Trump's lead, calling him the party's "ringmaster."

"We have to remember that the current occupant of the White House is a ringmaster and what he expects to do is snap his whip and all the elephants hop up on chairs," Cohen said. "What they have to understand is he is going to continue to snap the whip whether he's in office or out of office. And every time they're going to have to jump up and sit on that stool to satisfy him and his supporters."

"He is always going to up the ante, he cannot be satisfied. There's nothing in him. There's no moral core, and so they are going to be extorted or bribed in order to avoid a primary in 2022 or 2024," Cohen continued.

Discussing the future of the Republican Party, Cohen noted a clear divide among GOP lawmakers, saying more centrist Republicans such as Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah) and Susan Collins (Maine) are very different from Trump allies. He asked: Where are the lawmakers "standing up for the rule of law?"

"For Trump it is pathological, for those who are jumping up to support him, it's diabolical and I don't think it's diabolically clever. I think they will find they will be hostage for the rest of their time in the Senate and going forward if they are only there to appease the Trumpsters," he said.

Frustrations flare as $2,000 checks blocked for fourth straight day Giuliani, Trump Jr. among guests at Mar-a-Lago New Year's party... "Maybe it's time for a new party. One that abides by the rule of law," Cohen concluded. "But also faithful to the people of this country, who vote to elect them."

Cohen's New Year's Eve comments come just days before Congress's counting of the Electoral College vote. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Wednesday he thinks as many as 100 Republicans could challenge the results.

The move is considered a long-shot bid to overturn the election, but more Republican lawmakers have come out in support of the effort.

[Salamander]

RINO³

[Salamander]

If they had the sense God gave a goat, that would terrify them.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The GOP belongs to Trump now. The Never-Trumpers need to form their own party. They could call themselves the Rhinos!

[Kevmo]

Then maybe you should consider some other website as your base other than a constitutionalist site like this one.

Seems like a reasonable split to me.

[dsc]

I met him once. Work related. Was around him for an hour or so.

Don’t know if he was sick that morning or what, but he wouldn’t have been out of place in a zombie movie.

[nathanbedford]

Because there is no forum, no constitutionally established venue where this matter was transparently litigated Cohen's opinion is no more or less valuable than Josh Hawley's or mine, or yours.

This matter has never been litigated much less adjudicated except in the media and therefore there is no legitimacy to any result whether proclaimed by a senator or a Freeper even if the senator or the former Secretary of Defense is endorsed by the media.

The absence of legitimacy, however, does not imply the absence of inevitability. Indeed, the issue of legitimacy, as we Americans used to understand it, is of no relevance anymore. We are contriving results based on a postmodern ideology that disregards reason and "cancels" venues in which reason was traditionally sorted out.

Where is the Supreme Court? Where is Congress? Where are the state legislatures? They are virtually all inert.

We are embarking on a new intellectual dark age, an age that is the enemy of every virtue of the Enlightenment. A political dark age is lurking just behind.

[a fool in paradise]

You wouldn’t be able to vote their ilk out in the primary though.

[Kevmo]

Most of us conservatives already know this, so what’s the point?

[jonrick46]

Coming soon:

[Salamander]

I live in Maryland.

I vote in every election for spite, not actual effect.

:-\

[a fool in paradise]

They don’t need to steal an election to have their uniparty globalists in the winning office. Bush was in line if Reagan retired or perished and only won in 88 because he was inherited the ticket from his time in the previous administration. And his son was only there because he was there.

[Kevmo]

Well, yeah.

[piasa]

Trump has all the right enemies.

[piasa]

Scratch a Democrat or a RINO antiTrumper, find an ally of Communist China:

Mattis didn't disclose ties to China-boosting firm in column slamming Trump's 'America First' policy Just the News ^ | November 26, 2020 | Susan Katz Keating Posted on 11/26/2020, 9:23:36 PM by george76

In an online column denouncing President Trump's "America First" policy that includes measures regarding Beijing, ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis did not disclose his affiliation with an organization that fosters international business deals with communist China.

As coauthor with three other writers in a Nov. 23 Foreign Affairs column, Mattis did not mention that he works for the The Cohen Group consulting firm. Nor did he challenge China's tough talk against U.S. policies regarding Taiwan, nor the strict economic retaliation Beijing levied against Australia.

Instead, Mattis criticized Trump administration policies toward Beijing. Such policies, touted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are not in line with The Cohen Group's approach toward international business dealings with Beijing.

China is a market of enormous opportunity and complexity," the group states on its website, adding that the group's China Practice "has a solid record of success with professionals in offices in Beijing, Tianjin and Washington, DC."

The Cohen Group is run by another former Defense Secretary. William Cohen, who has been involved with China since 1978, when he went there to meet with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, according to the organization.

"Since then, he has been a constant presence in the U.S.-China relationship, including commercial development and security cooperation," the organization states, noting that Cohen serves on the Board of Directors of the U.S.-China Business Council.

Mattis joined The Cohen Group in 2019 as a senior counselor.

Mattis was among a group of retired four-star officers who drew criticism earlier this year for denigrating Trump in a series of articles, tweets, and other commentary.

[4Liberty]

Sounds like Trump's gonna win this!

[Defiant]

They could call the party “Dem Lite”.

[piasa]

William Cohen RINO kleptocracy ping...

... Deng, who died in 1997, invigorated the Chinese economy by investing heavily in development projects, welcoming foreign investment and keeping ideologues from exerting too much sway. He is remembered for folksy expressions delivered in his thick Sichuanese accent, like his call for pragmatism: “It doesn’t matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat. As long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.”

At the peak of his power in the 1980’s, he allowed his top underlings to explore ideas like holding democratic elections and creating an independent judiciary. He separated the party from the bureaucracy and from day-to-day economic management.

But after popular protests for democracy culminating in the mass demonstration at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Deng ordered a violent crackdown on dissent. He also purged the most liberal leaders. Serious political reform became taboo. The notion that the Communist Party could increase its popularity by easing its grip on power also fell into disfavor with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Even after giving up all of his politicalposts, Deng kept the party focused on generating high economic growth, which he believed would mitigate demands for political change and prolong Communist rule.

That calculation proved right. Chinese Communists do not face any organized opposition today, a decade and half after their Communist allies in Eastern Europe tumbled.

Yet the price is that China has become something of a kleptocracy, with tens of millions of government and party officials using largely unchecked political powers to enrich themselves. Top leaders have called corruption a cancer that is eating away at the party’s legitimacy and posing the greatest challenge since the street protests of 1989.

Mr. Ren, the former party chief of Guangdong Province, wrote that a recent raft of corruption cases was “the tip of the iceberg.” He said the party had to focus on the ultimate goal of a “democratic political system” and submit itself to the rule of law.

“Hasn’t the central leadership repeatedly stressed governing according to law and protecting human rights?” Mr. Ren wrote, referring to official propaganda. “But if we have laws and don’t follow them, there can be no talk of the rule of law.”

-——Chinese Advocates of Reform Seek Help From Deng’s Spirit
NY Times ^ | August 21, 2004 | JOSEPH KAHN

[piasa]

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1590715/posts

In fact, at least two senior outside advisers to Senator Clinton were attempting to get business out of the Port Deal, and President Clinton was the go-between. Associates with the Glover Park Group, which houses just about the entire shadow staff for Hillary's run-up to a Democratic presidential bid, were attempting to get a slice of the DPW deal before the deal was made public about three weeks ago. According to current and former President Clinton staff, Hillary Clinton's Senate office was aware that Glover Park was in the running to do work on the DPW deal.

"She was also very much aware of President Clinton's financial arrangements with the UAE," says a former Bill Clinton staffer. "We're talking about more than a million dollars, some of paid out soon out after they left the White House. That income helped the Clintons buy the properties that allow them to live both in New York and Washington, D.C.. This was not an insignificant financial arrangement."

What is not clear is whether or not the junior Senator from New York was aware that Clinton was acting as an agent of a foreign principal, which Clinton clearly was. According to sources with knowledge of the deal, President Clinton was advising members of the DPW buyout team in the UAE, London and Washington before the deal hit the headlines. He encouraged them to hire a number of people working in consulting firms based in Washington with whom he had both personal and financial ties: The Cohen Group, the Albright Group, and the Glover Park Group. Other sources claim that longtime Clinton confidante and golf partner Vernon Jordan's name was also suggested as potential helpful fixer in the capital.

[wardaddy]

Ive never been GOPe rah rah like talk radio

I don’t care

Trumps new party suits me

[House Atreides]

“Trumps new party suits me”
*******************************
Me too... it’s called the REPUBLICAN PARTY. Let the weak sisters, the globalists and the accommodate-the-left crew leave...it’s OUR PARTY now, not theirs. Let’s not be stupid and abandon it!