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GOP firewall is collapsing

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now, the Republican firewall that held firm against attacks the president of the United States is finally starting to fall apart.

Donald J. Trump will be impeached by the House on Wednesday. What makes this impeachment so much more meaningful  than his first impeachment is the presence of GOP House members who are joining their Democratic colleagues.

The word is out. U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney will vote to impeach Trump; so will Rep Adam Kinzinger. Same with Rep. John Katko. They’re all Republicans. What’s more, Cheney comes from longstanding GOP stock, being the daughter of former Congressman/White House chief of staff/Defense Secretary/Vice President Dick Cheney.

Republicans begin turning on Trump – POLITICO

Oh, and there’s more. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s GOP leader, is expressing what is being called “broad support” of the impeachment movement under way in the House and is indicating a desire to vote to convict Trump once the single article finds its way to the Senate.

The House will impeach Trump on a single count of “incitement of insurrection,” which Trump clearly did when he exhorted a crowd of mobsters to march to Capitol Hill while Congress was meeting to ratify Joe Biden’s election as president. The mob, as you know, ransacked the Capitol Building, resulting in the deaths of five people — including a Capitol Police officer.

As a former Trump ally said, “If this isn’t an impeachable offense, I don’t know what is.”

This is getting pretty dramatic … ain’t it?

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POTUS-VPOTUS pairing more critical than ever

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The ghastly insurrection the world witnessed this past week has torn open many sores, revealed many flashpoints about our government.

One of them involves the relationship between the president and vice president. It is now on full display and that pairing becomes even more critical as we move in just eight days from one administration to the next one.

Donald Trump exhorted the mob to march on the Capitol Building, where at that very moment Vice President Mike Pence was presiding over a congressional session to ratify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Spoiler alert: Trump lost that one; President-elect Joe Biden won bigly.

Trump tried for days to browbeat Pence into doing something he had no power to do, to ignore the Electoral College results and declare that Trump won. Pence told Trump he had to follow the Constitution. That didn’t set well with Trump. He reportedly was furious with the VP.

The mob stormed into the Capitol Building. It occupied the speaker’s office, ransacked several other offices, stole computers … and sent the congressional session scurrying for cover. That included Pence. Oh, and rioters also were yelling “Hang Mike Pence!” while they were bludgeoning overwhelmed police officers with flag poles flying Old Glory.

It took Trump six days to even talk to the vice president after the attack. Did I mention that the rioters were intent on harming or killing the vice president?

I believe I can say this with confidence, but Trump never valued the experience that Mike Pence brought to the administration. Trump chose Pence because Pence is a darling of the evangelical Christian movement, which Trump manipulated during his term in office. Pence was a Trump toadie to the core, standing up for Trump even as the president embarrassed and shamed the presidency and even as he told lie after lie to the public.

They will be gone soon. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will bring an entirely new and presumably more constructive relationship to the executive branch of government.

Try to imagine President Biden turning his back on Vice President Harris were she put into the spot Pence found himself during the insurrection. It would never happen.

For that matter, Biden’s role as VP during the Barack Obama administration wrote a new chapter in that relationship that should become the standard for future administrations to follow. President Obama routinely refers to himself and his family as “honorary Bidens” and describes the new president as his “brother.”

Yes, this relationship is critical to the max. We are witnessing in real time just how dysfunction can ruin such a pairing and the potential it has for ruining the conduct of our government.

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Ready to use the term ‘president’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me this moment to boast.

I made a vow four years ago that I never would attach the term “President” in front of “Trump” consecutively, that I was so repulsed by Donald Trump’s election that I could not possibly bestow the title directly in front of his name.

My pledge rankled many of the Trumpkins who still read this blog. I stand as firmly behind that pledge today as I did when I made it to myself — and declared it publicly — four years ago when Donald Trump became president.

Indeed, the events of the past week only have solidified in my own mind and heart the decision I made. Accordingly, with a new president and vice president about to take office I gladly will refer to President Biden and Vice President Harris.

To be fair and in the interest of full disclosure, I have referred on this blog to Mike Pence as Vice President Pence. Why the VP and not the president? Because my loathing of Trump is so intense, so visceral and so personal that I just couldn’t bring myself to bestow the title of president on him while writing about him. Pence is not my ideal politician, but he at least knows how to conduct himself in the high office he will occupy for just a few more days.

OK. The past is going to recede quickly. I want to deal in the moment with what we have in front of us. To my way of thinking, we will welcome a president who will restore the office to the stature it deserves. We also will have a vice president who, if Joe Biden follows the script he and Barack Obama wrote when they took office in 2009, will be the last person in the room when it’s decision time.

Welcome aboard, President Biden and Vice President Harris!

DC riot

Respect for the flag?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Millions of us have seen the videos of the rioters storming into the Capitol Building.

One segment is particularly galling. You see images of rioters beating a Capitol police officer … with a pole attached to Old Glory. Yes! The rioter in that sequence is using the Stars and Stripes itself to bloody and injure a law enforcement officer who was trying to prevent the riot from spilling into the halls of our government.

It is ironic in the tragic extreme.

The mob descended on the Capitol Building at the urging of Donald J. Trump, who now stands set to be impeached a second time on a charge of “inciting an insurrection” against the very government he swore to protect and defend.

Think, too, of the hideous hypocrisy of the terrorists who profess some sort of perverted “love of country” while using the very symbol of our beloved nation as a cudgel to batter public servants who are charged with, um, protecting the public.

This is just one more example of the tragedy that unfolded in real time this past week and why we need to be on guard against those who proclaim faux piety about how much they love our nation.

Donald Trump

Take a look at this!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hey, everyone. Take a few minutes out of your busy day and read what I am posting with this ever-so-brief message.

It is the resolution that the House of Reps wants to enact calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, remove Donald Trump from the presidency and then serve out the remainder of the Trump-Pence administration.

House Resolution Calls On Pence To Assume Powers Of Presidency | 88.9 KETR

It’s a heck of a good read. Trust me on that.

national news

By all means, Sen. Cruz … resign!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

An editor of mine used to say that “when one person calls you an ass, you blow it off; when many of them say so, then you need to start shopping for a feedbag.”

A lot of Americans these days are calling for the resignations of U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Why? Because they led the Senate’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. They both will couch their intentions behind merely seeking to “ensure the integrity” of the electoral process.

That is a pile of steaming bullsh**. They intended to somehow restore Donald Trump’s political fortunes and return him for a second term as president. Never mind that a majority of Americans endorsed Joe Biden as the next president or that the elections in each of our 50 states and the District of Columbia were conducted under the tightest security in history.

Yeah, these two clowns need to quit. They won’t go anywhere. At least not until someone finds something incriminating about them and can prove it … which is more than Cruz, Hawley and the other vote fraud conspiracy theorists were able to do with their phony allegations of “widespread” corruption of the electoral process.

Both of these nimrods won’t stand for re-election until 2024. They both have earned censure in the Senate, as do  the House members who joined them in that moronic effort to subvert our democratic process. Cruz, the Texas Republican, and Hawley, the GOP’er from Missouri, need to be stripped of their committee assignments and sent to the back of the Senate chamber.

Will any of that happen? Oh, probably not. However, enough Americans are calling them asses for what they tried to pull off that they surely have earned the scorn they are receiving.

national news

VP ‘boasts’ worst job in D.C.

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A lot of jobs in Washington, D.C., during the Trump administration can qualify as the worst of the bunch. I want to offer my latest suggestion: vice president of the United States.

VP Mike Pence suffered perhaps the most frightening experience of his political life this past Wednesday when he scurried for cover in the face of the riotous mob that stormed the Senate, which was in the midst of ratifying Joe Biden’s election as president.

Pence was huddled with congressional leaders while the cops cleared the chamber and the entire Capitol Building of the insurrectionists who sought to overthrow the government.

Some of them yelled “Hang Mike Pence!” 

How long did it take for Donald Trump to call the VP? To talk to him? To, perhaps, ask him if he was OK? Oh, let’s see. The two of them spoke finally on Monday. Five days after the act of sedition.

Let’s remember, too, how Trump hectored Pence prior to the ratification, suggesting publicly that the VP had the power to overrule the votes of states, that he could just declare Trump to be elected. Pence had to remind Trump, uh, no Mr. President, I cannot do that. The Constitution doesn’t allow it, which reportedly pissed Trump off royally.

So, with that, Vice President Pence has been delivered a real-time reminder that Donald Trump’s loyalty goes only in one direction, which is that those who report to him must demonstrate it. Trump does not believe in reciprocity … you know?

Congressional leaders are pressuring Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, enabling for the removal of a president because he is no longer able to carry out the duties of the office. Pence so far is balking, although there are reports that he hasn’t removed it from the list of options to take.

Still, despite all that, despite the hideous snub from the president, Pence remains loyal to Donald Trump. His office said after the two men met that the VP is intent on showing to the world that the United States has a functioning executive branch of government. Therein lies the outward display of loyalty.

Do you think that privately, deep down in his gut that Pence is seething? I would think so. I would hope so, given the conduct that Trump has demonstrated throughout his term as president.

Vice President Pence now finds himself in the vise-grip of political options, none of which is attractive.

The good news? Pence and Trump will be out of office in eight days.

national news

Yep, Trump is, um … consequential

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump has redefined the term “consequential,” as in he has been a “consequential president” for most of the four years he held the office.

The greatest consequence of the Trump tenure as president is about to occur this week. The U.S. House of Representatives is a lead-pipe cinch to impeach for the second time. To be clear, it appears to be equally certain that this impeachment won’t result in Trump’s removal from office. He’s only got nine days to go before President Biden takes the oath of office.

However, the guy who always wanted to make a name for himself — whether it was in business, in entertainment and now in politics — is going to hit the big time, if you know what I mean.

President Andrew Johnson got impeached and came within a single vote in the Senate of being convicted. President Bill Clinton got impeached and the Senate never came close to convicting him on any of the three articles it considered. Then came Trump’s first impeachment. He, too, skated clear with little to worry. Why? Because the GOP caucus in the Senate — except for Mitt Romney of Utah — lacked the guts to do what needed to be done; Trump needed to be convicted for seeking dirt on Biden from a foreign government.

Now he’s done it! He incited the riot that damaged the Capitol Building. It killed five people, including a D.C. Metro police officer. Trump called for an insurrection against the government. It’s on the record. We all saw him do it. We heard the words. He wanted the mob to prevent Congress from ratifying Biden’s election as president in 2020.

Now the House is going to make history by impeaching Trump a second time. House members will make the case that Trump must be barred from holding any federal office in the future. I am not at all confident they will persuade enough Republican senators to show the courage they need to keep this presidential idiot out of public office for the rest of his life.

But … by golly, Donald Trump has shown himself to be a “consequential president.” 

military news, national news

What would Dad think?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You have seen this picture already, but I want to share it again to make a point about what is happening in our deeply divided nation.

The fellow on the left is a British Marine. The sailor is my father. They were standing guard aboard ship in the Mediterranean during World War II.

They joined their nations’ respective militaries to fight tyranny, to defeat the Nazis. I cannot speak for the Marine, but I damn sure can speak for Dad … who I am as certain as I am sitting here today that he would be appalled at the state of affairs in the country he loved dearly.

What would Dad think of the sight of rioters, some of whom were wearing Nazi paraphernalia while storming the Capitol Building in Washington? What would he say to someone who sought to justify such a thing? How might he respond to the sound of a president lie incessantly about an election outcome and, thus, fuel the rage that erupted on Capitol Hill this past week?

Dad wasn’t a particularly political man. He and I didn’t talk much about public policy or the effects of policy on our family. He didn’t identify with either major political party.

However, he was a patriot through and through. He got into fight of his life on the very day that Japan attacked our fleet in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941. He loved our country and all for which it stood.

I must believe that he would be horrified to see a president desecrate our government in the manner that we have witnessed during the past four years … which he did in spades just the other day when he exhorted the mob to “take back” our government from mysterious, nefarious forces.

What would Dad think? He would be full of rage.

national news

How can Trump avoid conviction for this act?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s worth asking, which I will do.

How in the world can Donald Trump walk away from a nearly certain impeachment by the House of Representatives? It’s a rhetorical question, but it’s worth pondering.

Trump stood before a crowd of rioters and urged them to walk to Capitol Hill and try to “take back” the government that someone allegedly stole it from them.

Where I come from, that is inciting a riot. It is against the law. If “no one is above the law,” which Trump has actually acknowledged, then how does the president of the United States avoid being convicted of “inciting an insurrection,” which the single impeachment article alleges against him?

The Democrat-controlled House is all but certain to impeach Trump for the second time in his term as president. The question of the day, of course, rests with the Senate. The House needs a simple majority to impeach, the Senate requires a two-thirds vote to convict. The new Senate will be split 50-50, which certainly makes Senate conviction problematic, given the gutlessness of most Republicans in that body.

By my count, at least three Republican senators are speaking as though they could convict Trump: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mitt Romney of Utah. The rest of ’em? It’s a crap shoot for some of the GOP caucus, not so much for too many of them.

What remains to be seen and heard, though, is their rationale for voting “no,” if it comes to that.

Trump has few political friends, especially now that he has incited the riot that sought to topple the very fabric of our government. Were the Republicans who serve in the Senate who plan to acquit Trump had any sense of the gravity of what he has done, they would pivot immediately and do right by the Constitution they all swore an oath to protect.

To my earlier point, I will await the discussion on why Trump should walk free of the serious crime he clearly has committed against the government he once ran.

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