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Stay away from Empower Texans boss

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan should heed this piece of advice, were he to see it … and I hope he does.

Do not go anywhere near right-wing fanatic Empower Texans founder Michael Quinn Sullivan without first frisking the dude to ensure he isn’t wired with recording equipment.

The Beaumont Republican succeeded former Speaker Dennis Bonnen, who retired from politics at the end of this past year after rserving a single term as speaker. Bonnen drove his political career eover a cliff by being recorded by Sullivan offering the names of 10 GOP legislators whom Sullivan and Empower Texans could defeat at the ballot box this past year.

Furthermore, Sullivan said he had recorded the conversation. Bonnen denied saying the things Sullivan reported he said. It turns out Bonnen was, um, lying. We know he did say those things because Sullivan produced the recording.

Ouch, man!

Speaker Phelan has made a point of seeking to work with Democrats as well as Republicans. Empower Texans is not interested in bipartisanship. It is interested instead in building a far-right conservative movement that installs like-minded politicians in power.

Given what we know about Empower Texans and what Phelan has stated about how he intends to run the Texas House, well … he needs to just keep his distance from Sullivan and Empower Texans.

I hope you see this, Mr. Speaker.

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Abbott welcomes crooked company to Texas?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gov. Greg Abbott just couldn’t contain his joy at learning that the National Rifle Association has announced plans to relocate to Texas.

Why, Texas “safeguards the Second Amendment,” the governor proclaimed after the bankruptcy-bound gun rights group made its announcement.

Hold on, governor. The NRA’s decision to relocate to some still-undisclosed Texas location doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the Second Amendment. It has everything to do with allegations that the NRA’s top echelon has mismanaged donors’ money, spending it on lavish vacations and other perks that have no relation to the company’s corporate message.

Pardon the pun, but Gov. Abbott has missed the mark badly by throwing out the welcome mat to an organization that has been accused of being crooked to the core.

As Politico reports: The announcement came months after New York’s attorney general sued the organization over claims that top executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts for associates and other questionable expenditures.

NRA declares bankruptcy, plans to incorporate in Texas – POLITICO

Suppose the New York AG’s investigation proves that the NRA is guilty of what’s been alleged. Is that the kind of company that Gov. Abbott wants doing business in Texas? Really … governor?

Don’t misunderstand me on this point. I consider the NRA to be populated by demagogues at its highest level. These individuals have bullied politicians for decades into keeping their hands off any legislative remedies to the gun violence plague that continues to kill innocent Americans. The NRA contends that anything — any law at all — would usurp the Second Amendment’s guarantee that Americans should be able to “keep and bear arms.”

I, too, support the Second Amendment. I also believe it can be preserved while Congress can enact laws that make it impossible for lunatics to acquire firearms.

As for the NRA’s decision to bring its alleged corruption to Texas, well … no thanks.

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Scrap the personal possessive pronoun, Mr. POTUS-elect

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Here is a request that in reality isn’t as modest as it might appear.

I direct it to President-elect Joe Biden. It goes like this:

Please refrain from the personal possessive pronoun when referring to our government, the team you assemble to work with you in the executive branch of government.

Donald Trump was fond of referring to “my generals,” and “my attorney general,” and “my Cabinet.” To be candid, President Barack Obama did it, too, and it annoyed me even then as I generally supported the policies that Obama espoused. President Obama would refer to Vice President Biden routinely as, um, “my vice president.”

The Cabinet does not belong to the president. Nor do the generals and admirals who wear our nation’s military uniform. The Justice Department is our DOJ, and does not belong to the president. Nor do any members of the Cabinet or senior staff members who comprise the presidential leadership team.

I get the perception we all had that, for example, the attorney general too often covered the president’s backside. For instance, AG William Barr infamously reported falsely the findings that special counsel Robert Mueller released regarding his lengthy and exhaustive probe into the Russian collusion matter.

Trump himself would talk to us about what “my generals” were preparing to do enemies of the nation.

My message to President-elect Biden is a simple one. Don’t take personal possession of the government. It ain’t his. It’s our government. In fact, the new president needs to understand something that the lame-duck president never got … that in a representative democracy such as ours, we are the bosses.

Presidents work for us.

I hope we’re clear.

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MLB reworks minor-league alignments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A number of friends of mine who live in a city I used to call home are breathing a bit more easily now that Major League Baseball has announced plans to restructure its alignment with minor-league franchises.

MLB will allow each of the 30 teams in the Big Leagues to have four minor league affiliates. One of them will be a Double A team. Well, the relief comes because the Arizona Diamondbacks have a relationship already with the Amarillo Sod Poodles.

This means, as near as I can tell, that the D-backs and the Soddies will commence their relationship this season, which I certainly hope will be going forward in this era of the pandemic.

The Sod Poodles saw their Texas League season shelved in 2020 because of the pandemic. They couldn’t defend a league title they won in their first year of existence. Maybe they’ll get the chance this  year, or one should hope.

MLB is looking to reduce travel costs and employing other budget-cutting measures. The Sod Poodles could have been left standing alone, like some communities discovered. It’s not to be.

MLB Invites 120 Clubs To Be Minor League Affiliates; Here’s Who Made It And Who Didn’t (forbes.com)

Indeed, the Sod Poodles proved themselves to comprise one of the nation’s most successful minor-league franchises while playing ball in 2019. If only they could have continued that success in 2020.

What the heck. There’s always this year, this season. The Diamondbacks and the Sod Poodles can make a great tandem.

Here is looking forward to another banner year for the Amarillo Sod Poodles.

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Human rights need renewed emphasis

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If you could list all the key policy issues that went ignored by the Trump administration, you could say that human rights was arguably the most critical unattended issue of them all.

You see, Donald Trump once called North Korean murderer/despot/tyrant Kim Jong Un a “smart cookie” and professed to “falling in love” with the Marxist madman. Trump’s fealty to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has been chronicled on this blog countless times. Indeed, he has given a pass to the conduct of despots all around the world, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey to the Philippines.

So … with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris set to take office in four days it is good insist that they return human rights advocacy to the top of their agenda.

President-elect Biden has heralded the return of the United States to the family of nations, by re-engaging in international treaties and pacts to stem climate change, to fight international pandemics and to prevent rogue nations — such as Iran — from obtaining nuclear weapons.

It is imperative that as president, Biden insists that all nations work toward adhering to basic principles of decency and humanity when governing their own citizens.

Donald Trump never spoke to the nation about those issues in a forthright and authentic manner. He was too busy taking undeserved credit for matters that had nothing at all to do with advancing human rights abroad, let alone at home.

Human rights has been the linchpin of many previous presidential administrations. It is time to restore the issue to the place of prominence at the White House … where it belongs.

Joe Biden has pledged to restore our national “soul.” He contended during the campaign that Trump had inflicted heavy damage on our image abroad, if not at home as well. The quest for adhering to human rights issues should become paramount as part of President Biden’s soul-restoration project.

The first place he can start is by ending the coddling of murderous dictators that infected Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

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Pipe down, Rep. Jordan!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan needs to stuff a sock in his yapper.

You see, the Ohio Republican is so damn angry with his GOP colleague Liz Cheney — Wyoming’s sole House member — that he wants the House Republican caucus to replace her as caucus chair. Why is that? Because she had the guts, the courage and stood tall on principle in voting to impeach Donald J. Trump.

That ain’t flying in Jordan’s chicken coop.

Cheney was one of 10 GOP House members to vote to impeach Trump on an article alleging “incitement of insurrection.” You know the drill, right? Trump exhorted the mob in front of him Jan. 6 to march down the street to the Capitol Building and “take back” the government from unknown or unseen forces.

The rest, as they say, is history. The mob ransacked the Capitol, killed five people — including a police officer — and proceeded to attempt what is looking more each day like a coup against the government. And why do that? Because Congress was gathering to ratify that Joe Biden beat their guy, Trump, in a free and fair election.

Cheney couldn’t abide by what she saw. So she did the right thing and declared her intention to impeach the president. Which she did.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, I am happy to learn, is standing behind Cheney. He ought to take his rowdy colleague Jordan to  the proverbial woodshed.

If anything, the House GOP leadership can use more politicians who are willing to be faithful to their oath of office, to the Constitution and to our government than to one man who has hijacked the party and turned it into a cult of personality.

Jim Jordan is a member of that cult. He should be ashamed of himself and stop trying to shame Rep. Cheney because she acted out of conscience and principle.

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Where is Mike Pence?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A cogent question surfaced in our North Texas home this evening, which goes something like this …

If Mike Pence wants to be elected president of the United States, he will face questions about his management of the White House pandemic response team that Donald Trump formed in early 2020. Given that the rollout of the vaccines has been a disaster, and given the immense increase in death and illness from the coronavirus, where in the world is the vice president?

VP Pence has vanished, other than being in the news in the wake of that hideous riot that came dangerously close to sweeping him up in the melee that erupted on Capitol Hill. The pandemic, though, remains Crisis No. 1 in this country, inasmuch as Pence and Trump will be out of office in five days. The pandemic, however, will rage on and on and on.

Pence hasn’t been forced to answer a single question about what he is doing as head of the White House pandemic response team. Sure, the team no longer gives us “briefings” on its fight against the virus. Then again, it seems plausible to believe that Trump is keeping the VP under wraps, ordering him to keep his trap shut and away from reporters’ inquisitiveness.

If he runs for president in 2024, I am quite sure that reporters and others will ask him: What did you do to combat that killer pandemic and why did you keep such a low profile while the virus was killing 3,000-plus Americans every single day?

Hello? Mr. Vice President? Are you out there?

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This is ‘peaceful transfer’?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Whatever we were told about a presidential inauguration symbolizing the United States’ tradition of a “peaceful transfer of power” from one administration to the next one has been trampled under a stampede or rioters.

The mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 has inflicted potentially mortal wounds on the nation’s tradition of that transfer of power. We used to boast about how we can change presidents peacefully even after bitter campaigns. How in the world can we make that claim in light of what has occurred since Nov. 3, when Donald Trump lost his re-election bid to Joseph Biden?

Trump built his resistance to Biden’s election on a lie, that the election was tainted by “widespread vote fraud.” The lie resulted in what transpired a few days ago when the terrorists marched to Capitol Hill and stormed into the center of our democratic government. It killed five people. The rioters ransacked the Capitol Building.

We have not experienced a peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump’s administration to a government led by the man who beat him, Joe Biden, who will be inaugurated in a city swarming with 25,000 Army reservists deployed to deter rioters from repeating what they did the other day.

It is going to take a long time to repair the damage done by the terrorists and by the man for whom they marched against our system of government. It surely won’t be repaired in time for President Biden to launch his administration. Or the next president or the one after that.

It is not too much of a leap to suggest that we have lost another element of our national innocence. I hate to consider the notion that our peaceful presidential transition was merely a delusion. That it really didn’t exist except in our imagination.

It did for more than two centuries. It survived world wars, the Civil War, a Great Depression, constitutional crises.

Then we had an election between a career politician and a businessman who masqueraded as a president, a guy who said after he won the 2016 election that the vote count then was fraudulent as well. The result in 2020 turned Donald Trump out and he has resisted the outcome to the detriment of our entire nation.

I never thought I would witness this kind of transition. It is a nightmare in broad daylight.

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Biden facing tough prosecutorial call

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid down an important marker a while back when he said he had no interest in pursuing federal criminal charges against his predecessor as president of the United States.

I’ll just get this off my chest: I think that was the correct course for President Biden to take. However, Biden made that judgment prior to the events that occurred on Jan. 6, which is the insurrection that Trump incited with that hideous speech on The Ellipse.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump a second time just one week after that tragic event. Joe Biden will take his oath of office just one week after the impeachment.

Trump will stand trial in the Senate. What the senators do, of course, remains the Question For the Ages. A conviction won’t remove Trump from office; he’ll be long gone from the White House. It would deny Trump the ability to seek public office ever again.

Should the Justice Department pursue criminal sedition charges against a former president if it determines there is evidence that he committed a crime by telling the mob to walk down the street and “take back the government”? If it doesn’t pursue them, does that let Trump off the hook, letting him get away with a punishable felony?

Here’s another question. Would a federal prosecution put the soul of the nation — which President Biden vowed to restore — in even more dire peril? Would such a prosecution inflict mortal wounds on our national psyche?

I now am officially undecided on the pledge that President-elect Biden made, that he has “no interest” in prosecuting Trump.

Joe Biden might have to assess the national mood in real time as he faces whether DOJ should proceed with prosecuting Trump.

I am not suggesting that Trump should avoid all prosecution. State authorities are looking into myriad other allegations leveled against the president. They involve campaign finance violations, his personal finances, the activities of his closest advisers and even his own family and a host of other matters. Local prosecutors’ ability and willingness to prosecute Trump are beyond the federal government’s reach, which renders DOJ’s view irrelevant.

What’s more, I also believe that local authorities need to keep looking until they determine whether they have enough to level charges. And if they don’t …

President Biden’s lengthy political career, burnished by his legal background, prepared him to ponder the decision he likely must confront.

If only Donald Trump had exhibited a scintilla of decency on Jan. 6 by telling the rioters to stand down. He didn’t. He incited them to attack the bastion of the government of this great nation.

That’s why President Biden faces an agonizing decision.

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Why not tell ’em to ‘stand down’?

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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t going to happen, but it’s worth raising this issue nonetheless.

Now that he is just five days from exiting the White House, this could be a time for Donald J. Trump to revive the shattered remnants of his hideous legacy. How might he do that?

By going on national TV, sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and telling his frothing fanatics to stand down, to call off whatever mayhem they intend to commit prior to and on the day of President-elect Biden’s inauguration.

The rioters vandalized and looted the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. Five people — including a D.C. police officer — died in the melee. The rioters reportedly intended to bring physical harm to elected officials while stopping them from certifying the results of the presidential election.

Trump then issued a statement professing his “love” for the rioters while urging them to “go home.”

He then came back with another, more fulsome statement, but it wasn’t believable.

Accordingly, there might not be any way on Earth that Trump can say anything at all that we could believe. Reports of states ramping up security at their capitols troubles me terribly. It troubles millions of other Americans as well.

I don’t believe Trump will do it, but given the blind loyalty the Trumpkin Corps gives to the words that come from their guy, a call for the lunatics to end their siege against the federal government could calm the storm.

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