national news

Trump to linger a while

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This much is becoming evident the day after the U.S. Senate failed to convict Donald Trump of inciting the insurrection on Jan. 6.

The ex-president is going to remain within our field of vision for a good bit longer. As much as I want him to fade into the shadows, never to be seen or heard again, I fear my wish will go ignored.

The media cannot seem to get enough of this guy. He fired off a statement Saturday after 57 senators voted to convict him of inciting the riot that stormed Capitol Hill; the guilty votes weren’t sufficient to register as a conviction by the body, though. I’ll call it a “conviction” only because it was a bipartisan vote to punish Trump, with seven Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues to stand for the Constitution and the sacred oaths they took.

Now the talk centers on what it means for the Republican Party. Trump still commands a huge following among the GOP faithful, although their fealty is aimed at the man and not party principle or philosophy.

The 2022 midterm election already is looming just over the horizon and so the pundit class will examine the influence that Trump might exert on the GOP primary fields as they develop across the land. Given that I am not among the GOP faithful, it doesn’t matter very much to me, other than what it might portend for the future of a once-great political party.

I’ve had some critics of this blog suggest I cannot get past Donald Trump. They’re right to this extent: For as long as the media continue to pay attention to him, I feel compelled to offer commentary on what flies out of his mouth. I will do so, albeit a good bit more sparingly than when he was masquerading as president of the U.S. of A.

He’s still out there. Lurking, preening and prancing. That’s what narcissists do. I just want him to vanish.

national news

Scars to remain

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is now history and, indeed, it made history on its way into the books.

The former president’s “acquittal” by a minority of U.S. senators serving as jurors does not wipe away the scars created by the horrendous event that precipitated the House of Representatives’ impeachment of the former president.

The healing will take time. Lots of time. Maybe the time will outlast the terms of all the lawmakers currently serving in our Congress.

The insurrectionists who stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 inflicted damage not just on the physical structure of our Capitol Building, but also on the relationships among members of both political parties serving in the building.

The men and women who challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election have been cast aside by those who didn’t mount the challenge. We have heard stories of House members and senators being afraid to serve with colleagues, fearing physical harm; they have spoken of lawmakers carrying weapons with them in the halls of the Capitol.

We also have heard of House members and senators seeking to move their desks away from colleagues with whom they have served.

The Donald Trump Age brought us a new level of hostility that didn’t exist in the good old days. There once was a time when Democrats and Republicans could find common ground frequently. Now such discoveries become the subject of major news stories.

We hear about relationships being fractured. Men and women no longer speak to each other while the legislative body seeks to craft laws.

Yes, these are difficult times. I don’t have a formula for ridding the atmosphere in Washington of the toxicity that has poisoned it.

I have told you before that I am an optimist. I am going to cling to the hope, therefore, to a quaint notion, which is that the greater cause of public service will bring men and women of good will together. I just hope it is sooner and not long after many of us have, to borrow a phrase, “left the building.”

national news

Biden set to re-emerge

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While many of us around the country were fixated on the Senate impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, his immediate successor as president was, shall we say, lurking in the shadows.

President Biden chose to do the smart thing. He said virtually nothing about Trump’s troubles in the Senate. The president blew off questions from reporters on the impeachment trial. He said the Senate would do its work; that the managers would do their work; he expressed next to zero interest in the trial.

I don’t believe much of that. I cannot possibly know how the president spent the bulk of his day, but I feel reasonably certain he had one eye on the trial even as he sought to gather support for the COVID relief package he is ramrodding through Congress.

What I do find refreshing, though, is the relative public silence that President Biden has maintained. It’s remarkable, too, given that Vice President Kamala Harris’s name emerged as a possible witness in the Trump trial; Trump’s legal team reportedly was interested in issuing a subpoena for the VP. The “why” of it, though, remains a mystery to me.

The trial is now over. Donald Trump is officially acquitted of the charge that he incited an insurrection. Our attention now can turn to actual governance, actual legislation, actual negotiation between the head of the executive branch of government and those who lead the legislative branch.

Trump’s future as an active politician, by my reckoning, is likely finished.

I intend to focus more attention on issues that matter and on the politicians who have a direct hand in determining the direction of this great country.

national news

End of a disgraceful era

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The U.S. Senate could have convicted Donald John Trump of inciting an insurrection. It didn’t, falling 10 guilty votes short of the constitutional requirement for conviction.

Does this vote today now signal a revived Donald Trump, the guy who lost re-election to President Joe Biden? I am not going to endorse that scenario.

I am going to hold onto the belief that we have witnessed in real time the demise of a disgraceful era in American political history.

Trump won an acquittal in name only. We watched 57 senators vote to convict him, with 43 of them voting not guilty. The Constitution requires 67 conviction votes to make it official. Let’s face reality. Most of the Senate convicted him, by a healthy margin.

Trump acquitted, denounced in historic impeachment trial (msn.com)

How does Trump now parlay that knowledge into a run for the presidency once again in 2024? My view is that he cannot. Trump has been handed his genitals on a plate by a Senate vote that officially fell short of conviction, but which has delivered an important symbolic conviction that will stain him forever.

Trump incited the insurrection that damn near brought our democratic process to a halt. The riot he provoked could have killed many more people than those who did die. It could have brought harm to Vice President Mike Pence, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or any other political leader who could have been trampled by the rampaging mob. Thank goodness it didn’t.

I never will accept the Senate’s final verdict as an “acquittal” in the true sense of the term. Trump, though, is going to trumpet the verdict as a triumph. It was nothing of the sort.

That all stated, I now intend to give Donald Trump’s future political adventures all the attention they deserve.

Which is none.

Don’t misunderstand me. I will comment on the damage he has done. I will offer perspective on the work that President Biden and others are doing to repair that damage. Be sure, too, that we all should keep our eyes and ears open to the investigations under way in places like New York and Georgia, where local prosecutors are examining whether to file criminal charges against the ex-president.

Donald Trump’s political future? I believe he is a goner.

national news

Trump skates … again!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s over.

The ending didn’t produce a result that I wanted. Fifty-seven U.S. senators voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection against the government of this country; 43 of them voted “not guilty.”

But … the U.S. Constitution requires 10 more “guilty” votes to hold the ex-president accountable for what I know he did on Jan. 6, which was to whip an angry crowd into a frenzy, to march on Capitol Hill and to subvert Congress’s effort to certify a duly conducted free and fair election for president.

I acknowledge that the result is final. Most of our senators put country ahead of party or ahead of a man. Seven Republicans mustered up the guts to do the right thing.

There will be a lot of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over the post-vote speech delivered by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, which was riveting in its own right. McConnell had just minutes before cast a not guilty vote for Donald Trump. Then he stood before the nation and said, in effect, that Trump did all the things that the impeachment article alleged he did. He incited the crowd, which acted on the then-president’s own words.

McConnell also said that Trump didn’t get away with anything, that he will be held accountable later. Hmm.

So, we can move on to more pressing matters that are relevant to the here and now. President Biden is at work seeking to press Congress for COVID relief; we need help to jump-start the economy; we have environmental concerns that pose an existential threat to our national security; we have racial unrest still boiling in communities across the land.

I am ready to put this sorry episode aside. However, I won’t forget it.

Nor will I ever forgive Texas’s two senators — Ted Cruz and John Cornyn — for refusing to recognize what we all witnessed in real time, that Donald John Trump interfered in a free and fair election.

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What did POTUS know and when did he know it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The ghost of a great Republican U.S. senator has been revived in the closing hours of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Howard Baker of Tennessee once asked witnesses appearing before the Senate Watergate Committee: What did President Nixon know and when did he know it? What did the president know about the break-in at the Democratic Party offices, the coverup and all that followed that infamous scandal of 1973-74? We found out. Nixon resigned. The rest is history.

Now comes the latest iteration of that query. What did Donald Trump know about the danger facing Vice President Mike Pence during the Jan. 6 riot at Capitol Hill and when did he know it? Trump’s lawyers say he didn’t know anything. Two GOP lawmakers — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Tommy Tuberville — say something quite different. They told Trump that Pence was in trouble and that the mob was looking for the VP as he sought to do his constitutional duty of certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

Trump didn’t respond. He didn’t express concern about Pence’s well-being. He did nothing to quell the violence.

Will any of this change minds? Hardly. Still, I am intrigued by the channeling of a long-departed political icon — Sen. Baker — into this current bit of drama.

local news, media news

Blog about to reach new milestone

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Once long ago I read that it is good for bloggers to write about their blog. So that’s what I’ll do with this brief post.

High Plains Blogger is about to reach a milestone of sorts. That would be 600 consecutive days of fresh posts. Why brag about that?

Well, let’s just say that I am so darn happy to be able to write about things that are near and perhaps not so dear to me. I enjoy venting. Ranting is good, too. So is handing out bouquets on occasion.

I enjoy sharing my life’s journey with you, along with tales of our adorable puppy, Toby, who we refer to as Puppy.

Yes, I also enjoy keeping up with current political trends. Brother, we have had ’em over the past few years, yes? I get worked up over things I see occurring that displease me. As we enter a new presidential era with the departure of No. 45, I look forward to offering commentary — positive and negative — on policies enacted by No. 46. I will admit that my criticism likely won’t be as visceral as it was during the previous presidential administration, but what the hell … that’s just me.

I’ll reach 600 consecutive blog-post days sometime next week. I might acknowledge it in the moment. If I forget, I’ll get to it eventually.

Meantime, I want to thank you in advance for reading this blog and sharing it with your friends and loved ones. It keeps me going.

local news

Winter blast is coming

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You have read blog posts from me over the years about the retirement journey on which my wife and I have embarked.

Well, this weekend that journey is going to provide us with a blast from the past. You see, we moved to the Metroplex a couple of years ago from the Texas Panhandle hoping — among many things — to escape the vicious winter weather that occasionally clobbers the High Plains region of Texas.

They’re telling us we’re going to get a good bit of snow. It will accumulate. The temperature is going to drop from an already frigid 20-something degrees to something a bit below — gulp! — zero degrees Fahrenheit.

I gotta tell ya, I didn’t count on this.

It’s not that we expected to move to the tropics when we relocated from southwest Amarillo, Texas, to Princeton, just a bit northeast of Dallas and, more to the point, only a handful of miles from our granddaughter in Allen.

It’s been said of the Panhandle that one could experience all four seasons in a single day. It’s true! We experienced it a time or two during our 23 years up yonder and, boy howdy, it got really cold.

I will give props to Panhandle motorists on one point. They know how to drive in the snow, in the wind. That’s not quite the case in the Metroplex, or so I have been told.

We’re just going to lie low for a few days waiting for the nasty weather to blow on by.

Our retirement journey has been a joy for both of us, even in this pandemic era through which we all are living. Now we have to cope with Mother Nature’s winter wrath.

Life is good … eh?

DC riot, national news

Impeachment still matters

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Unless hell freezes over — and that seems remotely possible as North Texas shivers from an Arctic blast — we are going to witness a U.S. Senate trial acquittal of Donald John Trump.

It’s good, though, to think of what an impeachment really means and whether it really still matters.

I am willing to argue that it matters a lot. It matters even when the politics of the moment dictates a preordained outcome that doesn’t result in what ought to be a sure conviction and some form of punishment for the president who stood trial.

Indeed, I will maintain for the rest of my life that Donald Trump committed a high crime against the government by inciting that riot on Jan. 6 that damn near wiped out our democratic process. The politics of this moment, though, precluded a conviction.

Why? Because a 50-50 Senate split required 17 Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting Trump. You can bet your last greenback that Democrats would stand together; the GOP caucus is more split, with some of them voting with the Dems. But not enough.

Impeachment, though, remains a viable option for the legislative branch to act against a rogue president, who runs the executive branch of government. Make no mistake at all: Donald Trump ran rogue, roughshod over the government.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who led the first House impeachment trial team in early 2020, predicted that he would run wild if he were acquitted. He was and he did.

Political tides do ebb and flow. Their influences are subject to change. The tides of the moment just wouldn’t allow GOP senators to do the right thing. Trump’s hold on the Republican Party remains formidable, I suppose. So we have to live with an outcome that many of us detest.

None of this detracts from the value of impeaching a president who commits a high crime … and oh brother, the 45th president of the U.S. surely deserves to be convicted.

national news

Let’s move on … but do not forget!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Our latest national nightmare is winding its way to a conclusion.

I’ll toss a single bouquet at Donald Trump’s legal team. It took next to no time to finish its job in defending their client in the U.S. Senate trial against charges that he incited an insurrection against the U.S. government.

I don’t believe Trump’s team made the case. But that’s just me. He did what the House of Representatives alleged he did in its impeachment article. The remaining task will be for the Senate to cast its vote.

I do not expect a conviction. Trump will walk away. The Constitution sets a high bar for conviction, two-thirds of the senators have to agree; they won’t get there.

What now? Well, it is time to move on. It is not time to forget. Nor is it time to shove aside what happened on the Sixth of January. What happened was an egregious attack on our system of government. It was an attack on our democratic process.

The terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill intended to stop Congress from fulfilling its constitutional duty of certifying the results of an election that Donald Trump lost. He still hasn’t accepted his defeat, that Joe Biden is now president.

The Senate very soon can get busy with other pressing matters. COVID relief needs approval. There needs to be attention paid to economic revival. President Biden can now step out of the shadows cast by the impeachment trial and insert his own efforts at fixing what ails the nation.

I am fine with that. I only wish we could anticipate a more just outcome from the Senate trial. We won’t get it.

Instead, we are going to witness a majority of Republican senators continue to lick the boots of a cult figure. There might be a few crossovers, just not enough of them.

If I was King of the World, I would suggest that the Republican Party needs to assess whether it believes that “character matters,” and that it hues to the tenets of inclusion that made it a great political party. The Party of Trump represents none of it.

But, hey, that’s politics, right?

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience