The mass shooting in a Buffalo, NY, grocery store has caused an already panicked left to bring the crazy. The paramedics had scarcely arrived on the scene when the nutters were dispensing their hot takes affixing blame.

"If you do condemn the replacement theory and the Buffalo white supremacist terrorist's actions and manifesto, why are you repeating it? Why do you create ads saying the same exact thing he wrote?"

– Any good DC journalist should ask Republicans this question this weekend.

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) May 15, 2022

If you think the shooter’s politics resemble anything in the GOP (The Buffalo Shooter’s Ideas and Beliefs in One Easy Thread Helps Paint a Larger Picture), there is a good chance that you are insane. Read my colleague Jeff Charles’s post, Don’t Let Them Lie About Great Replacement Theory to Smear You.

Naturally, where there is blood on the floor, there is a grift, and among the first to the trough was Liz Cheney, soon to be ex-GOP representative from Wyoming and probably a co-host of The Young Turks or something similarly elegant.

The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 16, 2022

This kind of statement makes you wonder what planet Cheney lives on. Throwing around accusations of this kind, particularly when they are patently untrue, simply marks Cheney as the low-rent, amoral grifter we’ve come to know during her time in Congress. So naturally, her statement gave the progressive media the opening needed to make her case for her. In fact, the New York Times lead editorial today was devoted to hammering home that theme The Buffalo Shooting Was Not a Random Act of Violence.

Some Republican lawmakers have openly promoted white nationalism. In February, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona participated in a conference organized by Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, ultimately called their actions “appalling and wrong,” but he did not formally rebuke or punish them.

While top Republicans have been less overt than some of their hard-right colleagues, many of their attacks on Democrats appeal to racial and ethnic grievances and share themes with replacement theory, which posits that Western elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to replace and disempower white Americans.

I don’t endorse what Fuentes says, but it is entirely up to him if he wants to hold those views. If other people want to go to his conferences, that’s their right, and it is our right to judge them on it at the polls or in our personal interactions. I don’t find him or his views any more hateful, offensive, or ridiculous than those held by Ibram X. Kendi and Robin D’Angelo or any critical race theory proponent. If society has determined that it is appropriate to criticize, and indeed punish, people based on their race and that races have the right to self-segregate, it doesn’t get to decide to which races the #NewRules apply. The bottom line is that no one gets the right to endorse a variety of racial discrimination, bigotry, or hatred that they find comforting and demand that no one else have the same right.

Here we get to the nub of the matter. Elise Stefanik is considered something of a rising star in the GOP. If the House flips in November–and barring the use of the same voting and vote-counting rules that put Joey SoftServe in the White House, it will–she will probably hold a senior leadership position. So this is just a chance to rough her up, and when she is elected to a leadership role, the media can say, “Look, the GOP has a white nationalist and anti-semite in its leadership.”

Much of the focus in the wake of the shooting has been on Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who represents a district in Northern New York and who replaced Ms. Cheney last year as the No. 3 House Republican.

Ms. Stefanik has pushed the false claim that Democrats were planning to legalize undocumented immigrants in order to replace American voters and install themselves in power.

In September, she released a campaign ad on Facebook claiming that Democrats were plotting “a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” by granting “amnesty” to undocumented immigrants, which her ad said would “overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”

She and other Republicans have also falsely accused President Biden in recent days of sending pallets of infant formula to the children of undocumented immigrants at the expense of Americans who need it, amid a national shortage.

Just because the New York Times calls something false doesn’t make it false. There is a reason that the Democrats are allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to move unimpeded across our borders. There is a reason they fought President Trump tooth-and-nail when he tried to restrict that flow. There is a reason that Democrats don’t want Voter ID laws or require proof of citizenship to register to vote. There is a reason Democrats actually allow illegals to register to vote and vote. It is because they believe a vulnerable population, held hostage by its dependency on government handouts, will be a reliable voting base for generations. So to claim that the left is pushing open borders is based on concern for the welfare of migrants is just stupid or dishonest or both.

Likewise, with the claim on baby formula. Is formula in short supply in facilities for illegal aliens? No, it isn’t. Is it in short supply in grocery stores where American citizens shop? Yes, it is. Right there, you have ironclad proof that illegal aliens receive treatment by the US government that is preferential to that received by Americans. It isn’t the market that is making the choice on the distribution of baby formula; it is government intervention. There may be all kinds of reasons and excuses for that preferential treatment, but to say it does not exist is a lie.

Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and an ally of Ms. Cheney, said other party leaders should be called to account for Ms. Stefanik’s statements.

“Did you know: @EliseStefanik pushes white replacement theory? The #3 in the house GOP,” he wrote.

Of course, the sad little twit, or something like that, said that. That’s all he can do because that’s what he is.

Liz Cheney is an angry and embittered grifter who sees her grift coming to an end. She’ll get a comfy “political analyst” slot on CNN or MSNBC and use it to bash her former colleagues and constituents. Just think of her tweets and statements as a bizarre form of cover letter for a resume, and it makes perfect sense. Then, in a couple of years, she’ll be kicked to the curb because nothing she says is interesting, and there is a limited market for GOP quislings.

What we can’t do is get drawn into trying to convince the left that we aren’t what they claim we are. Don’t get dragged into the Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain trap. If they are accusing Elise Stefanik of being an anti-semite and proponent of “white replacement theory” by stating the obvious, Democrats want millions of illegals as a political base and will do what it takes to achieve that goal; there is nothing you are going to say that will refute their lies.

The proper response to every such “journalist and reporter” is “Shut up, regime journalist. I don’t talk to hacks. Kiss my ass. You can come back to me when you’ve done an in-depth profile on the parade and subway assholes. Buzz off.” https://t.co/WCIZ6mREzj

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) May 15, 2022