national news

Yes, I am surprised

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

National media are full of pundits, analysts and others who are proclaiming their lack of “surprise” at the horrifying events that unfolded in the District of Columbia.

I am not going to join that chorus. Instead, I am going to offer an apology to those I have spoken to privately that the tragedy we witnessed today caught me by surprise.

Maybe I am slow on the uptake. Maybe I just didn’t take Donald Trump as seriously as I should have when he continued to fan the embers of mistrust about the 2020 election’s integrity. Just maybe I overestimated the quality of the rank-and-file Trumpkin Corps of believers in this guy’s cult of personality.

I suppose my surprise makes the events that unfolded today seem all the more frightening. Having been blessed tonight with a bit of hindsight over what happened, I know understand more clearly that we all should have been more alert to what could happen.

The cabal of kooks who sought to challenge President-elect Biden’s victory over Trump in November have committed an act of sedition against the United States. I have no doubt about that.

As a member of my family said tonight, perhaps their being forced to lie face-down on the floor under their desks while protesters stormed the Capitol building will persuade them to cease this idiotic, moronic protest of the Electoral College tally.

One would think.

However, I am left now to ponder a reality I truly didn’t see coming. It is that Donald Trump is a Pied Piper who leads a horde of mindless minions who today proved their willingness to stop a branch of our federal government from performing their constitutional duty.

national news

Election stolen … now, ‘go home’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump has failed in a major way the nation he was elected to lead.

Rioters today have stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress was meeting to ratify an election that Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden. Someone was reportedly shot inside in the building.

Watch live coverage: Congress meets to count Electoral College votes – Bing video

We are witnessing a full-scale, frontal insurrection on our hallowed government and Trump says the 2020 election was “stolen” from him and that the rioters “need to go home.”

That’s it. He said he understands their anger, but that they have to cease and desist.

The Seditionist in Chief can do no better than that … for God’s sake?

Earlier in the day, he spoke to a crowd of Trumpsters, urging them to march on the Capitol. They did what he said … and look what in the name of all that is holy has happened!

This riot is on Trump. He is responsible for it. He is responsible because of his refusal to concede an election he lost, because of his unfounded insistence of “widespread voter fraud” in the 2020 election, because he cannot stand the thought of being labeled a “loser.”

It has come to this.

This is the most disgraceful political episode in our history. It belongs solely and fully to Donald J. Trump. That will be his legacy.

national news

Impeach him … again!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to endorse a notion that has gotten some traction in the past hour or so in the wake of the horrendous riot that erupted outside and inside the U.S. Capitol Building.

It is that Donald J. Trump needs to be impeached one more time. Right now! Two weeks from the end of his term in office!

Donald Trump this morning spoke to the protesters in Washington, D.C., which more than likely spurred them to march as they did on the Capitol Building while members of the House and Senate were meeting to ratify a vote tally that elected Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

The protesters stormed the Capitol. I cannot possibly comprehend the sight today of that dipsh** rioter standing next to the chair of the Senate’s presiding officer.

This riot — unprecedented in the extreme — rests solely on Donald Trump. He needs to be impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

Right … now!

national news

Words fail me

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Words cannot possibly do justice to what the nation is watching unfold before us on our TV screens.

Pro-Donald Trump mobsters have stormed the U.S. Capitol Building, egged on by their hero. They have disrupted a constitutional exercise aimed at determining who is the next president of the United States.

The nation’s capital is on lockdown. These vandals have inflicted damage not just on our physical structure, but on democracy itself.

And the president of the United States, the moron for whom these mobs are marching? He owns it … fully.

national news

It’s the context, man

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Context, like timing, is everything.

It shouldn’t be news that Vice President Mike Pence has pledged to uphold the law and the U.S. Constitution while he presides over a joint session of Congress to ratify Joe Biden’s election as president.

But it is news.

Nor should it be news that Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate are standing up “courageously” to support that same Constitution by doing their duty and refusing to contest the election result.

But, again, it is news.

Why is it news? Because of the context of a needless, pointless and self-serving fight to keep Donald Trump in power even though he lost a free, fair and secure election to President-elect Biden. Trump has been joined by a dozen senators and 140 House members who will contest the Biden victory ratification.

Opinion | Never Forget the Names of These Republicans Attempting a Coup – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The context of this event has lent shame and disgrace to the men and women who have placed their fealty to one man, Donald Trump, over their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. It also has placed unwarranted newsworthiness to officials doing what the law instructs them to do.

We live in a bizarre political environment.

national news

Doesn’t ‘feel right’?

J(Photo by Jeff Malet) (Credit Image: � Jeff Malet/Newscom via ZUMA Press)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

“I mean, he couldn’t draw 12 people into a classroom when my father was filling stadiums. No one believes that this guy got 80 million votes. It doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t look right.”

So said the nation’s dimmest No. 2 son, Eric Trump, when talking about the results of the 2020 presidential election.

That was the contest that Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes as well as scoring a substantial Electoral College victory, handing Donald J. Trump a defeat for the ages.

And yet, Eric, Don Jr., Ivanka and Jared and the Gang of Thieves/Thugs/Traitors surrounding the outgoing president of the United States suggest that Congress is actually going to subvert the Constitution to their wishes and declare Daddy Donald the winner of an election he lost bigly.

I agree that there is a handful of seditionists among the 535 House members and senators who make this decision final for all time. They include more than a few Texans, I am ashamed to say.

As for whether “no one believes” President-elect Biden got that many votes, here’s a flash for the young Eric Trump. I believe it and I was among the millions of Americans who cast their votes proudly for the next president.

My straight forward advice to Eric and the rest of the sedition caucus … shut the hell up!

national news

Cornyn stays sane

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s kind of a mixed bag for Texans who are interested in the political process and waiting for that process  to play out in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

The Senate and the House will meet jointly to ratify the Electoral College vote that will select Joe Biden as the nation’s next president.

One of our great state’s senators, Republican Ted Cruz, is leading the Sedition Caucus in the Senate to challenge the free and fair election results. He wants Congress to flip those votes in favor of Donald “Seditionist in Chief” Trump.

Good news: Texas’s senior U.S. senator, Republican John Cornyn, won’t join the wacko corps; he will not contest Biden’s clear victory over Trump.

More good news: My congressman, Van Taylor, a Republican from Plano, won’t sign on to the insurrection, either.

So, there you have it. A number of Texans are going to resist Congress doing what it will do, which is ratify the Electoral College result.

They are to be shamed.

medical news

Words to live by … literally!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Check out the image I attached to this blog post. It contains some powerful words of wisdom that the nimrods of this world need to heed. It showed up today on my Facebook feed, so I thought I would share it with you.

The pandemic that has killed something north of 350,000 Americans is still running amok. Donald J. Trump has ridiculed those who wear masks. He actually needled the man who beat him in the 2020 presidential election because he wears a mask when he ventured into the public.

The Trumpkin Corps of Kooks has bought into their man’s cavalier attitude toward the masks and even toward the danger the pandemic has posed.

I had an up-close look at one of them recently in a Princeton, Texas, supermarket. This woman went off on a store employee about how Gov. Greg Abbott was being dictatorial by requiring Texans to wear masks.

She should see the message I attached to this blog post. Hey, maybe she’s seen it on her own social media network.

I am one American who does not object to wearing a mask; nor do I object to maintaining distance between myself and the other guy waiting in line; nor do I mind washing my hands or cleaning surfaces with sanitary wipes.

If it keeps my family and me healthy and COVID free, I am all for it.

national news, political news

Trump displays breathtaking ignorance

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump displays a breathtaking degree of ignorance about a government he is about to leave behind.

Let’s ponder what is about to transpire.

Vice President Mike Pence is going to preside Wednesday over a joint congressional session that will ratify what we already know as stone-cold fact: that the Electoral College has certified that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the president- and vice president-elect respectively.

They defeated Trump and Pence in the Nov. 3 election.

Yet we hear that Trump is badgering/hectoring/threatening Pence, ordering him to challenge the results he is about to receive while swinging the gavel over the joint congressional session.

Except for this: Pence cannot do a single, solitary thing about the result. He must accept the result and then declare to the world that Biden and Harris will take office on Jan. 20.

Axios and other media are reporting that Trump didn’t know about the vice president’s ceremonial role until just recently. Still, having learned that VP Pence cannot change a vote, he cannot alter a result per Trump’s urging, that he must adhere to the U.S. Constitution, Trump continues to pressure Pence to violate the law.

So help me, Trump’s rebellion against the government he took an oath to defend and protect has crossed the line into criminality.

He demanded that Georgia’s secretary of state change the outcome of that state’s presidential outcome. He has badgered election officials in other swing states to do the same. He has filed and lost lawsuit after lawsuit seeking to cling to power.

I have not yet tried to analyze to my own satisfaction why Trump cannot or will not do what is normal, which is to accept defeat like a man and move on to the next phase of his life. It must be that he isn’t really a man, that he is a petulant little boy disguised in a man’s overfed body.

But … good news awaits us in just 14 days. Just two weeks! Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take their oaths of office. They will restore knowledge of government to the individuals who will run it. They will usher in an end to the failed experiment of being governed by a president who brought zero public service experience to — or knowledge of — the most exalted public office in the nation.

I am waiting anxiously.

national news

GOP exhibits stunning duplicity

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The hypocrisy and duplicity among congressional Republicans as they prepare to challenge an electoral result is simply breathtaking in its scope.

Consider what Republicans were saying during the Donald J. Trump impeachment inquiry in 2019. They opposed impeaching Trump because, they said, the people deserve the right to be heard. Let the people decide at the ballot box whether Trump is worthy of staying in office.

Well, voters made their decision in 2020. They elected Joseph R. Biden Jr. president of the United States. He corralled more than 7 million votes than Trump. He collected well more than enough Electoral College votes to secure the election.

The GOP stance now? They don’t trust the vote. The election was rigged. Democrats stole the election from Trump. Widespread voter fraud erupted all across the nation. Now a handful of these nimrods want to challenge the Electoral College results on Wednesday when the House and Senate meet jointly to canvass the votes and ratify the result: that Joe Biden will take office on Jan. 20 as the 46th president of the United States.

What in the name of electoral integrity are these clowns trying to do? Whatever their aim, it will fail. GOP opposition to this insurrection is building, with key Republican senators voicing their intention to endorse Biden’s election when they get the chance.

Still, I am trying to catch my breath while watching the GOP congressional caucus wring its hands over what constitutionally is set up as a mere formality.

The moron cabal of the GOP is being led by a man — Donald Trump — who is totally ignorant of what the Constitution allows. They all deserve each other.

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