DC riot

Biden faces Jan. 6 challenge

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden is facing a quandary.

He wants Congress to create a bipartisan commission to examine the cause and impact of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Congressional Republicans have dug in deeply against it, wanting to protect themselves perhaps as well as Donald John Trump, the imbecile who instigated the riot that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

So, what does the president do? He could create a commission on his own. He could allow House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to appoint a select committee.

The U.S. Senate backed away from furthering a House-passed bill creating the commission. Newsweek reported:

On Saturday, Virginia Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly called on Biden to bypass Republicans and instead create a presidential commission.

“In light of the GOP’s cowardly filibuster of a bipartisan Jan 6th commission I urge President Biden to form and appoint a Presidential Commission to fully investigate the insurrection of January 6th at the US Capitol,” Connolly tweeted.

Calls Mount for Biden to Form Presidential 1/6 Commission After GOP’s ‘Cowardly Filibuster’ (msn.com)

Even though such an idea is fraught with concern over how impartial such a presidential commission can be — given that the current president’s victory in the 2020 election is the reason for the insurrection in the first place — I am willing to endorse its creation.

I have a caveat to offer: President Biden must ensure the bipartisan nature of a presidential panel and then he should simply back away and let the group do its job without any hint of interference from the Oval Office.

Joe Biden has been around the halls of power long enough to understand what is proper. My sincere hope would be that the president would ensure a thorough probe into the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot by the mob of terrorists. If only he could persuade the Trumpkins out there of its honesty.

They are likely to hang instead on the Big Lie that their idiotic hero keeps telling.

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Nut Job Wing holds GOP sway

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter 

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It well might be that the Establishment Wing of the Republican Party is about to throw in the towel in its fight against what I am willing to call the Nut Job Wing of the GOP.

The Nut Jobs within the party are being led by a cabal of fruitcakes, know-nothings, airheads, conspiracy theorists, goofballs … dare I go on? You get the point.

Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the woman I have dubbed the QAnon Queen of the GOP caucus, is just the latest example of a nut job who has grabbed the party by its proverbial family jewels. She compares Democrats to Nazis and says mask and social distancing mandates aimed at protecting us from a killer virus are akin to what Jews suffered during the Holocaust.

Do you get the connection? Democratic “Nazis” are making us do things that compare to sending innocent people to the gas chamber.

The congressional GOP leadership condemned MTG for her idiocy, and then ran for the tall grass. The Georgia congresswoman has been stripped of her committee assignments, to be sure. That hasn’t silenced this idiot. She continues to spew hate-filled garbage, which of course is her right; we do have that First Amendment that all honor, even when it protects nut jobs such as MTG.

The Republican establishment just cannot bring itself to drop the hammer on the likes of MTG, Rep. Matt “The Alleged Sex Trafficker” Gaetz … or certainly not even the former Liar/Imbecile/Carnival Barker in Chief, Donald J. Trump.

It leaves me utterly flabbergasted.

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Rep./Dr. Jackson needs to shut the hell up

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s official.

The individual who now represents the congressional district where I lived for 23 years has established himself as a first-rate a**hole.

Republican Ronny Jackson said this via Twitter: Fauci and Democrats have been covering for China for over a year about the origins of this virus. They’ll badmouth America any chance they get, but with China, they’re SILENT. Wonder why that is??

This guy is a menace. To think that he gets to vote on laws that affect all Americans, not just those in the Texas Panhandle — where he moved to run for Congress in 2020 after spending his entire adult life far away — is reprehensible on its face.

He succeeded Republican Mac Thornberry, who served the district with dignity for 25 years, even though I rarely agreed with his politics. Jackson has taken to Twitter to taunt Democrats, just like his hero, Donald J. Trump.

He sickens me.

International news, media news

Sanctions against Belarus? Uhh, yes!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Think for just a moment how the immediate past president of the United States might respond to the act of state-sponsored thuggery that unfolded in Belarus the other day.

Donald Trump well might applaud the action that took a journalist into custody for — get this — criticizing the autocrat who runs his country.

President Biden is planning to invoke sanctions against Belarus and also has hinted that the audacious display of ham-handedness will be on the table when he and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin for their first summit.

Biden administration to reimpose sanctions on Belarus over diverted flight | TheHill

You know the story, yes? A jetliner took off from Athens en route to Lithuania the other day. When it crossed Belarus air space, air traffic controllers ordered the plane to land, contending it might have a bomb on board. The plane landed. Authorities found no bomb. Instead, they arrested Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian journalist who also is active in the opposition movement against Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator who runs the country.

This act of repression borders on terrorism, in my humble view. This kind of aggression cannot be allowed to stand.

It is my fervent hope that President Biden follows through with his threat to deal strongly with the dictator who has demonstrated a callous disregard for basic human rights. Indeed, the entire issue of “human rights” has returned — thankfully — to the West Wing of the White House, where for the previous four years it was ignored by the Strongman Lover in Chief.

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Six GOP heroes emerge

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well, just as I was castigating the congressional Republican caucus for being packed with cowards and suck ups, we see six GOP heroes emerge from the Senate ranks to do the right thing regarding a bipartisan commission to examine the Jan. 6 insurrection.

These six Republican senators voted to advance the bill creating the commission; the problem, though, was that the bill needed 10 GOP senators to carry it out.

The six heroes are: Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

I had heard already that Romney would vote “yes” on the bipartisan commission bill; I also had surmised Murkowski would vote to move the idea forward. I couldn’t predict what Collins or Sasse would do, as they have been a bit up-and-down on this issue of holding Donald Trump accountable for inciting the insurrection.

Six GOP crossover votes, though, weren’t enough. The commission needed 10 Rs to advance the bill.

But I’ll stand and cheer the six GOP senators for forgoing the bullying and bluster that Trump no doubt will level at them and voting their conscience … and for doing the right thing in seeking the whole truth behind the insurrection.

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Party of Lincoln becomes Party of Cowards

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ah, yes. Here we are with the Party of Lincoln now standing tall as the party of cowardly fealty to a fraud posing as one of their own.

That’s all I can surmise now that the Republican Party leaders in Congress have torpedoed a bill that would create a bipartisan commission to study the causes, effects and consequences of the Jan. 6 insurrection that could have toppled our democratic government.

Congressional Republicans have stonewalled a move by Democrats to create a commission comprising members of both major parties that would have sought to lay bare all the events leading up to the insurrection.

The GOP is now the party that is beholden to the cultist who sat as president for a term that ended in January. Donald Trump has bullied, blustered and bellowed his way into the skulls of politicians who now do not dare do anything to anger the ex-POTUS.

We are witnessing a shameful abrogation of the oath they all took when they assumed office.

These men and women signed on to a once-great political party that used to fight for equal rights for all Americans. It now fights to protect the backside of a politician foments the Big Lie about alleged electoral “theft.” Donald Trump doesn’t want a bipartisan commission to examine the intricate details of an event that threatened the safety of politicians doing their constitutional duty, which was to certify the results of a presidential election.

The Republican Party has become a haven for cowards.

local news

A curious exception to open-carry law

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Texas Legislature has approved a bill that allows any yahoo in Texas who wants to carry a gun to do so.

Yep. No need to take a test to prove competence with a firearm. No requirement for a license. Texas legislators say the U.S. Constitution is all the requirement anyone needs to pack heat.

Get this, though: The Legislature said you cannot carry a gun into the State Capitol Building, where legislators work! Hmm. Why is that?

I am reminded of the time back in the 1990s when a publisher with whom I worked in Amarillo questioned a state senator about a similar exception the Legislature sought when it considered its concealed-carry legislation. My boss, Garet von Netzer, quizzed the late Teel Bivins, an Amarillo Republican, why he and his colleagues won’t allow someone to “carry a six-shooter on their hip” when they walk into the Capitol. I don’t recall what Bivins said at the time, but von Netzer made a good point then … which is that if you’re going to allow Texans to arm themselves, then open it up to any venue in the state.

I only can presume that legislators have a secret fear of potential mayhem in the halls of state government when Gov. Greg Abbott signs this abomination into law.

Donald Trump

Trump is the GOP ‘curse’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Listening and reading Donald Trump’s response to real Republicans’ criticism of him makes me laugh out loud … even though nothing about the ex-president is hah-hah funny.

Former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is the latest target of Trump’s vitriol. Ryan said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan library that the GOP is in deep trouble if it continues to adhere to the ruminations of Trump.

The former Insurrectionist in Chief calls Ryan “weak” a “Republican In Name Only,” and a pretender to what Trump says is actual GOP policy. Good fu**ing grief!

If anyone politician in memory has done more than Donald Trump to damage a major party’s brand, someone will have to present that individual to me. I ain’t seeing it! Trump has been a disaster not just to a party he purports to represent, but has posed an existential threat to the very government he took an oath to defend and protect.

Trump fires back at Paul Ryan: ‘Curse to the Republican Party’ | TheHill

Trump is the “curse.”

But don’t mistake this rant as an endorsement of Republican Party leadership. It has enabled this fraud to continue to foment the Big Lie about alleged “theft” of the 2020 presidential election. It has kowtowed to this idiot’s bluster and bellowing. And, yes, Paul Ryan is among the cowards who failed to call this imbecile down when they shared power with him while he was president of the U.S.A.

Man, oh man. Donald Trump is as infuriating as ever!

national news

Get her the hell out of there!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

MTG is certifiably NUTS.

That would be Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon queen who masquerades as a member of Congress representing a district in northern Georgia.

Now this nut case Republican lawmaker is comparing Democrats in Congress to Nazis. She already has said that COVID-19 mask mandates compares to the Holocaust, which killed more than 6 million Jews before and during World War II.

Now she is doubling down on her loony bin rhetoric by comparing Democratic lawmakers to the demons who initiated the Holocaust.

Get this woman the hell out of my House of Representatives!

State news

What about those Texas pols?

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(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As we travel around the country and we tell folks that we hail from Texas, I get a certain question in various forms.

It goes something like this: What is going on in Texas, with those politicians down there?

One of the issues that drives the question deals with what they call in Austin “constitutional carry” of firearms. Gov. Greg Abbott is going to sign a bill that enables any Texan who isn’t a convicted felon to carry a firearm with any permit.

That’s right. Any yahoo who wants to pack a pistol on his hip can do so. There you go. More guns makes us a safer place, the politicians tell us.

My answer to the question is that I do not understand what rattles around in the noggins of those who think of such idiocy. I am left to utter a four-letter word or two to describe Gov. Abbott, a politicians I for whom I used to harbor positive personal feelings. Not any longer, man.

The political climate in the state where my family and I have lived for nearly 40 years is giving me the willies.

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