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Hypocrisy rules!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The hypocrisy ringing throughout the halls of the nation’s Capitol Building is becoming the stuff of legend.

Four years ago, Republican U.S. senators said time and time again that no president should be allowed to fill a Supreme Court seat during an election year. They didn’t qualify the assertion. They didn’t stipulate presidents of any particular party.

They said no president, none, should move forward with selecting a justice when we have a presidential election on tap.

You will recall in early 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly. President Barack Obama wanted to name a successor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “not so fast.” He slammed the brakes on a nomination.

GOP senators stepped up and said the same thing. No president should select someone for a lifetime during an election year.

Recall that Scalia died nearly 10 months before the 2016 presidential election. Now we have Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died just 48 days prior to the next election.

Republican senators are ignoring their own assertion. They now want to rush a nomination forward before the Nov. 3 election.

What happened to the 2016 mantra of “giving the people a voice” in who should sit on the Supreme Court? Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida even went so far as to say he would make that demand when we have a Republican president. Hey, Marco, we have one now … bub! What say you these days about seating someone to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg? I know. It’s full steam ahead!

The people still deserve a voice before the Senate acts on Donald Trump’s expected nomination of someone to succeed the great Justice Ginsburg. If the Senate GOP thought it was true in 2016 when Barack Obama sought to fill a post vacated by Justice Scalia’s death, then it should hold to that philosophy now.

Right? Oh wait! The Party of Trump doesn’t believe in ethics, fairness, truth-telling and honor.

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It’s visceral, man

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been voting for president in every election since 1972.

Not once have I felt such intense personal loathing for the man who sits in the president’s office … until right now.

Actually, my visceral animosity dates back to the evening when I heard Donald Trump had won enough Electoral College votes to become the nation’s 45th president.

Then it started. The intensely personal and persistent rage at the thought that Americans had sent this carnival barker into the Oval Office, given him access to the most dangerous weapon system ever created and handed him the keys to governing a nation that in a fit of anger forgot about the standards is used to set for the individual who they choose to lead us.

It’s not that I oppose Trump’s ideology. He doesn’t possess anything of the sort. He has no set of guiding principles. Trump does not adhere to a fundamental set of values. He views political relationships as transactional events; you do this for me and I’ll do that for you.

This individual had zero public service experience under his belt. He continues to exhibit zero interest in public service even now as he occupies the presidency.

The record of chock full of anecdotes and recollections of those with whom he has worked about how he talks about others, how he feels about Americans who idolize him. There is the prevailing sense that he detests the rank-and-file Trumpkins who flock to his rallies and cheer the lies that fly out of his mouth.

I have harbored these thoughts about Trump since before he became president. I didn’t want him to win the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016. I damn sure didn’t want him to defeat Hillary Clinton who, despite her own flaws, was eminently more qualified to serve as our head of state and commander in chief than the individual who won the election.

So, here we are. Another election is on tap. Trump is in pandering mode to be sure. He will select someone to sit on the Supreme Court in the wake of the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. My hunch is that he doesn’t know the first thing about any of the finalists he is considering, other than how they might appeal to elements of his political base.

He has failed the test of leadership at every level possible.

Yes, it’s personal with me. I want him gone.

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Time of My Life, Part 51: A new beginning

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I understand that Scripture tells us about new doors opening when one slams shut.

It happened to me in 2012. A career in print journalism came to a screeching halt in August of that year. I was adrift for just a little while.

Then a friend from Panhandle PBS got in touch with me. Linda Pitner was general manager of the public TV station — affiliated with Amarillo College — at the time. She wanted to know if I would like to write a blog for the stations’ web site.

Would I? Of course I would! With that, a career that came to an end got restarted in an entirely new form at Panhandle PBS. I was doing things for public TV that my former employer at the Amarillo Globe-News didn’t think I could do. I had joined the world of online journalism.

I have to say that I had a serious blast writing that blog and doing the kind of video blogs — such as the one I attached to this brief post. The gig didn’t last an overly long time. Panhandle PBS brought in a new GM eventually and he decided that my services no longer fit the direction he wanted to take the station.

We parted company. That didn’t end my blogging time.

A local CBS affiliate GM asked me the same thing Pitner did: Would I like to write for KFDA-NewsChannel 10? Of course I would, I told Brent McClure. So, he hired me as a freelancer to write features for the website. I would write them and then the on-air news anchors would introduce the features in a brief segment during the evening newscasts. They would assemble video presentations to complement the text I had submitted to the website.

That, too, was a seriously good time for this longtime print guy. The KFDA gig, though, came to an end when budget constraints kicked in. No worries for me.

My wife and I gravitated from Amarillo to the Metroplex in 2018. The fun continues.

Another friend of mine — who is news director at KETR-FM public radio — gave me a shout. Mark Haslett and I worked together at the Globe-News for a time; prior to that he was an executive at High Plains Public Radio in Amarillo, so we knew each other pretty well.

Haslett asked if I would — you guessed it — write a blog for KETR, which is affiliated with Texas A&M University-Commerce. Why, yes! I would! So I have been writing a blog for KETR and once again am having the time of my life.

That’s not the end of it. When we settled in Princeton, just east of McKinney and just a bit northeast of our granddaughter in Allen, I put a feeler out to the publisher of the Princeton Herald. Did they need a freelance reporter? The publisher, Sonia Duggan, said “yes.” So … she and I agreed that I could write for the Farmersville Times, which is another weekly newspaper in a group of weeklies Duggan owns with her husband, Chad Engbrock.

Therefore, I have come full circle. I am now covering city council and school board meetings for a weekly newspaper, along with banging out the occasional feature article.

It’s where and how it all began for this old man.

And I am still having the time of my life.

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Impeach him … again?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I almost couldn’t believe what my own ears had heard come from the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Nancy Pelosi actually said she is keeping possible impeachment of Donald Trump in her “quiver” of weapons to use against the president as he seeks to name a successor to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wow, man! Let’s ponder that one.

The House already impeached Trump. The Senate led by Republicans acquitted him in trial. The House, though, made its point by impeaching Trump on charges that he abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress’s effort to learn the whole story behind alleged “collusion” with Russians who interfered in our 2016 presidential election.

Is the speaker serious? Is she really prepared to impeach Donald Trump again? 

Let me be clear on this point: I do not want the House to re-impeach Donald Trump. My reluctance has nothing to do with the merits of an impeachment. It has everything to do with the blowback I believe would occur if the House were to proceed with such a drastic move.

It might be merely that Pelosi, as tough a pol as there is in Washington, is firing a barrage across Trump’s bow. She wants him to hear from her that she is quite serious in preventing Trump from acting on his appointment prior to the presidential election.

Pelosi told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos this morning that she is not taking anything out of her arsenal of weapons to use against Trump.

It enrages me in the extreme to hear Mitch McConnell thump his chest anticipating a quickie hearing and vote on a lifetime judicial appointment that is likely to affect the balance of power for a generation.

I am hopeful there can be a way to forestall this pending appointment … without impeaching Donald Trump. I fear such a move would loose the hounds that well could propel the president to a second term.

I can barely type those words without breaking into a cold sweat.

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How to fill a SCOTUS post

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, how might the unfolding drama surrounding the selection of a Supreme Court justice play out?

I want to offer something of a best-case scenario for you to ponder. Ready? Here goes …

Congress stymies Donald Trump’s nominee, which he is going to announce in the next day or two or three. Democrats could pull off some political hocus-pocus to prevent the Senate from voting on a nominee prior to the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Then we elect Joe Biden president of the United States. The president-elect demands that the nominee withdraw. We go back to Square One.

Meanwhile, Democrats take control of the next Senate, possibly ousting the leading obstructionist in that body, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mitch is out. Still following me? Good!

Then we swear in President Biden, who then gets to make a selection to succeed the legendary Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the high court. Is he obligated to select a woman? No. He hasn’t committed to anything in that regard. I mean, he did select a woman as vice president.

So, why not roll the dice and ask a highly regarded federal judge who once got tapped by President Obama. Yep, I refer to Merrick Garland, whom the Senate GOP stiffed when they refused to grant Obama’s selection a hearing, let alone an up/down vote to join the court after Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016.

I might be willing to bet real American money that Judge Garland would be up for a hearing before a Senate controlled by Democrats.

Is any of this likely? I have no idea. First things first: Democrats need to find a way to prevent Trump and McConnell from shoving the pending nominee down our throats and pushing the court so far to the right that it is in danger of destroying health care legislation, women’s reproductive rights and a host of other protections that prior courts have ruled to be constitutional.

A new president deserves the opportunity to make this call. Not one who well might get defeated, and certainly not a Senate that well could see control shift from one party to the other.

I am hopeful.

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Hair cutter/law breaker seeks Senate post

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Shelly Luther might be a wonderful hair stylist.

Is she qualified to serve in the Texas Senate? Not even close!

The Dallas hair salon owner is running for a seat being vacated by state Sen. Pat Fallon, who is likely to be elected to the U.S. House from Northeast Texas, succeeding Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, the Fourth Congressional District’s former congressman.

I cannot ascertain how Luther will do when they count the ballots on Sept. 29 for the Texas Senate District 30 seat. I hope she loses the special election. She is trying to parlay her 15-minutes-of-fame status into a political office.

You will recall that Luther defied an order from Gov. Greg Abbott to close her business during the pandemic that is still sickening and killing Texans. Luther decided to forgo the mask. She was cited by authorities, she spent a little time in jail. She came out and hasn’t stopped talking since.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Dallas from Houston to get a haircut at Luther’s salon. That, too, was a bit of political showmanship.

Whatever, Luther is another in a long line of grandstanders who seek to use their celebrity status as a pathway to public office. However, she does have some big financial backing. As the Texas Tribune reported: The conservative megadonor Tim Dunn is backing Shelley Luther in her Texas Senate bid with a $1 million loan, a large amount for such a race.

Look, she isn’t qualified. I would be willing to wager that she likely doesn’t know the first, second or third thing about legislation or how to legislate. But by golly, she wants to be elected as one of the state’s 31 senators.

Sheesh! Spare me the malarkey about a businesswoman seeking to “reform” the system of government.

I see her signs all over the place. In Farmersville. In Princeton, where I live. Even along the Central Expressway in McKinney and Allen. I haven’t seen any TV ads touting Luther’s desire to represent Senate District 30.

I am wondering what such an ad would trumpet: Elect the businesswoman who decided to break the law and expose herself and her customers to a deadly pandemic.

Give me a break!

***

Blogger’s note: This item was posted initially on KETR-FM’s website.

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Elect first, then choose SCOTUS justice

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A suggestion from embattled U.S. Sen. Susan Collins sounds eminently fair and reasonable.

“In fairness to the American people, who will either be re-electing the President or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the President who is elected on November 3rd.”

Doesn’t that just make a ton of sense? It does to me.

Collins is in the fight of her political life and she might lose her Senate seat when they count the ballots on Nov. 3. However, she is correct in asserting that the choice for selecting a successor to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg should come from the individual who wins the presidential election.

Time is short. We have 45 days until Election Day. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is hell bent on voting for a new justice before Election Day.

Hey, fair is fair, right? Except that McConnell doesn’t play fairly. He uses power to his maximum advantage. He is trying to do so now with this pending nomination.

This fight is going to get mighty bloody.

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Anyone can get elected to this office

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque 

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Barack Hussein Obama used to boast — and I imagine he still tells audiences this factoid — that he is proof that “anyone can get elected” president of the United States.

He is of mixed race: half black and half white. He came from a broken home. His mother and his maternal grandparents reared him into a university graduate, where he excelled at Harvard Law, becoming the first African-American to edit the Harvard Law Review.

Yes, Obama’s story is compelling.

However, he is a piker in the “anyone can get elected” category. The hands-down winner of that contest, such as it is, would be Donald John Trump, the immediate successor to Barack Obama.

Now, having said that, I forewarn you that what I am going to say next will be far from complimentary. While I continue to hold the former president in the highest regard partly because of his life story, I hold the current president in the lowest regard, also partly because of his life story.

Trump was born into wealth. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and then from Penn’s Wharton School of Business. He went into business, riding a multimillion-dollar stake from his father. He bought commercial real estate. Trump built office buildings and apartment complexes.

Trump managed to grow his inherited wealth into something even bigger. Along the way, he had business failures. He filed multiple bankruptcies. He schmoozed with fellow developers, some of whom had questionable dealings (see Jeffrey Epstein, as just one example).

Then he got involved with “reality TV.” He hosted a game show. He managed beauty pageants.

The real estate mogul got married, then divorced. He married and divorced again. He is now married to his third wife. Along the way, he accrued more wealth, lost some of it through more business failures. He produced five children with the three women he married.

What is missing from this brief background? Give up? OK, here it is: public service. Unlike Barack Obama, who became a “community organizer” right out of law school, and then a state senator in Illinois before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Donald Trump devoted not a single second of his time to serving the public.

Nothing. Zero. It was all about Trump.

So I am left to wonder how in the name of presidential politics was this guy able to parlay his life experience into assuming the most powerful and most exalted public office on Earth.

I am all in favor of “anyone” seeking public office. To that extent, I suppose I shouldn’t begrudge Donald Trump seeking the presidency after pursuing a career in business and … well, whatever else he decided to do.

Barack Obama, though, remains in my estimation the idealistic version of the cliche that “anyone can get elected” to the nation’s highest office. He rose quickly to be sure. His life, though, was a testament to public service.

Donald Trump’s life was a testament to self-service.

And it has shown itself demonstrably during his time in the only public office he ever has sought — or ever will seek.

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It’s not just ‘Trump hate’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I read a lot of conservative commentary during the day as I look for topics on which to fill this blog and I see a few overarching themes on all the essays I see.

One of them deals with that many of them call “hatred of Donald Trump.” Sigh …

I won’t delve too deeply into what I have said about Donald Trump since he announced his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015; goodness, it seems actually longer ago than that!

I just feel the need to summarize my belief about this individual: The man brought no public service experience into politics; his entire life has whirled around self-enrichment; he has no empathy; he lacks compassion; he is unfit for public office. There you have it.

Is that alone going to be fuel that drives me? No.

I do have a deep abiding respect for the presidency. I want its occupant to restore the office to its intended stature. That is why I am all in for Joe Biden.

To be candid, former Vice President Biden was not my first pick among the Democrats. I actually didn’t have a favorite among the two dozen (or so) candidates who burst from the starting gate. Biden stood near the front of the second tier of candidates in that initially large field.

But he got through it. He survived several beat-downs in the debates. He won key endorsements and them steamrolled to the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He emerged as the candidate to run against Trump. I now am all in — with Biden!

I know enough about Biden to understand how he wants to restore the nation’s “soul.” Biden believes Trump has robbed our national soul of the TLC he believes is an essential part of good government. I go along with that.

I have said before — to some derision among critics of this blog — that I am driven by love of my country and not hatred of Donald Trump in opposing his presidency. I will stand proudly by that declaration.

I love my country enough to go to war for it when ordered to do so, to want my president to be a role model for all Americans, and to be able to criticize my government when I believe it is messing up.

That’s love of country in a nutshell, man. So spare me the “you hate Trump” nonsense.

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Due diligence anyone … anyone?

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Who needs due diligence when you have a power-hungry hypocrite in charge of a U.S. Senate confirmation process?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Due diligence is as important as it always is when considering whom to seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. That ain’t stopping Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from unleashing the confirmation hounds on a nominee Donald Trump intends to send to the Senate upon the death of the iconic Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Let’s see how this goes. The presidential election is 46 days away. Trump hasn’t yet pitched a name at the Senate. He will do so quickly, or so we are led to believe. McConnell said the Senate will receive the nominee’s name, the Judiciary Committee will conduct a hearing and then the Senate will vote on the nominee … before we decide the presidency and before we decide who sits in the Senate!

How in the name of legislative due diligence is that supposed to happen?

Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, say the Senate should wait until after the election. Yeah … do ya think?

A number of Republicans might lose on Election Day. Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Collins, and possibly even McConnell in Kentucky are prime targets for defeat. How does a lame-duck Senate session vote, therefore, on a Supreme Court nominee when several of the body’s members won’t be there to stand before their constituents?

Let us not forget how McConnell stonewalled President Obama’s pick to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia in early 2016, with McConnell saying that the president didn’t have the right to make an appointment during an election year. We’ve got that now, only magnified by an untold factor given the closeness of the next election!

Back to my point: How also does a Senate do the kind of due diligence required to thoroughly examine the quality of the person nominated by the president to serve as a member of nation’s highest court?

My view is that it cannot. The Senate must not steamroll a nominee to the Supreme Court in a fashion that screams political expediency.

Mitch McConnell’s hypocrisy is on full and inglorious display.

He sickens me.

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