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Trump should alarm us all

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is no stretch at all to suggest that Donald Trump is setting up multiple alarm bells over his statements related to a “peaceful transition” from one administration to the next one if he loses the presidential election.

The election is 40 days out. Joe Biden continues to show considerable strength in most public opinion polling. He is strong in the states he needs to win the Electoral College and, thus, be elected president.

That isn’t derailing Trump’s dangerous talk about refusing to commit to a peaceful transition, or his efforts to suppress voter turnout, or his call to “throw out ballots” that he says would guarantee he would stay in office.

Indeed, this dangerous rhetoric has prompted the U.S. Senate to pass a resolution proclaiming its strong intention to ensure that a transition, were it to occur, would be done in a manner befitting our great republic: peacefully and without tumult.

Trump’s danger to the republic is on full display as the campaign heads toward the stretch run. He intends to cheat his way to a second term.

Look at what he’s done already: He has sought help from Ukraine in digging up dirt on Biden; he has continued to dismiss assertions from the FBI and other intelligence experts that Russia is interfering in our election as it did in 2016; he asserts without proof that mail-in voting is fraught with corruption that it breeds “rampant voter fraud”; he has said publicly that a Biden victory would mean the election is “rigged.”

When have we ever heard a president say these things? Hmm. How about, oh, never!

Donald Trump is a menace to the Constitution he took an oath to defend and protect. He is a danger to the very electoral system of which he took advantage to win the presidency four years ago. Trump is a danger to our system of government.

This man needs to lose this election, He needs to lose big. Trump needs to pack his bags and exit the White House.

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Founders are spinning

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Wherever they are, the men who formed the government that runs our beloved country surely must be so mad they could just spit.

Why? Well, they intended to create a federal judicial system that would be free of political pressure. They revealed that intent by creating judgeships that would last a lifetime. The idea was to free federal judges from political pressure by setting, say, limits on the amount of time they could serve.

It hasn’t worked out quite the way the founders intended.

We have another vacancy on our nation’s highest court and the political pressure is about the blow the roof off the Supreme Court building. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death wasn’t entirely a surprise, although it did sadden many of us … me included.

We now are going to watch a spectacle unfold in which a president with no discernable ideological base is going to nominate an arch conservative jurist to replace the progressive-leaning, trailblazing Ginsburg. The balance of power on the Supreme Court will be set for as long as the rest of the conservative majority remains seated.

Politics, anyone?

The pressure is going to go way beyond merely intense. It will become unbearable. Donald Trump promised to appoint archconservative jurists to the bench. He delivered with the appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, although they haven’t voted entirely the way the Trump administration would have wanted.

Now comes the next choice. It’s going to be a woman, Trump says. I won’t speculate here on who it might be. I’ll wait for the announcement that Trump said is coming Saturday.

Just know that the political hackles are going to be flying.

Dang. I just wish the founders were around to remind us all — in person — what they intended when they wrote that Constitution.

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Trump = extreme danger

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What in the name of political insanity is Donald J. Trump trying to do?

He has been asked many times about whether he would commit to a “peaceful transition” of power in the event he loses the election in November.

Trump won’t commit. He won’t say he’ll hand the reins of power to Joseph Biden. He won’t follow the example set by every single one of his presidential predecessors.

Oh, no! This president is saying we need to “get rid of the ballots” he insists are being sent out illegally to millions of Americans. He doesn’t offer a shred of proof for anything he alleges.

Folks, we have a dangerous man on our hands. We have a man who is fomenting fear of our cherished electoral system. He is seeking to undermine the process we have used since the beginning of the republic to elect our presidents.

“We’ll have to see what happens.”

That is Donald Trump’s statement regarding the election. See what happens?

What quite possibly will “happen” will be that Joe Biden gets more votes than Trump. He will acquire more than enough Electoral College votes than Trump. Biden will be duly elected as the 46th president of the United States.

Trump, though, is going to cast doubt on the outcome. Indeed, he is setting that table already. He is ignoring what the FBI says is occurring, that Russia is working to interfere in the election just as it did in 2016.

He won’t commit to a peaceful transition in the event of a Joe Biden victory?

This is a dangerous man.

national news

Mr. POTUS, you have failed this test

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The juxtaposition of two events is startling to behold.

Donald Trump told Fox News that he gives himself an A+ grade in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

He said that on the day the U.S. death count from the virus surpassed 200,000 people. Their lives have ended and the lives of their loved ones have been changed forever.

Outside the White House, a reporter asked Trump how he responds to the death count. His answer? He turned to another reporter and asked, “Next question?”

The commander in chief cannot speak to the death count, he won’t answer for it, he won’t hold himself accountable at any level for the misery that has occurred on his watch.

Yet he grades himself with an A+?

Is this guy serious? Of course he thinks of himself in the most glowing, glorious and gleeful terms.

The rest of us know better.

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‘Not written in the stars’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I kinda think U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah has missed a key point in the fight over whether Donald Trump should proceed quickly with nominating someone to the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.

Romney said he would support moving forward quickly, endorsing the idea of a rapid-fire confirmation process, despite assurances from many key GOP senators in 2016 that they would oppose such a thing, even with a Republican president awaiting the chance to nominate someone in a presidential election year.

Sen. Romney declared Tuesday that there nothing “in the stars” that requires the SCOTUS to be a “liberal” court. That was his public declaration in stating his support for moving ahead. I am scratching my head over that one, Mitt.

We all get that elections have consequences. Trump promised to select conservative judges. He is delivering on the pledge. It’s the timing of it, the idea that an election now no longer stands as an impediment to the president being able to select someone. The GOP sang an entirely different tune in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died and President Obama sought to name Merrick Garland to the high court. GOP Senate leaders — namely Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — slammed the brakes on that, declaring that the “people deserve a voice” in determining who sits on the Supreme Court.

Well, they deserve as much of a voice today as they did then.

That’s the beef. It has little to do with whether a president can select who he wants.

I was hoping Mitt Romney would put principle above party — just as he did when he was the lone GOP senator to vote to convict Trump of abuse of power in his Senate impeachment trial.

Silly me. Mitt let us all down.

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Candidate touts military heroics?

(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I’ve been stewing about this ever since I saw the ad the first time a couple of weeks ago, so now I will vent just a bit.

M.J. Hegar is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas occupied by John Cornyn. She defeated state Sen. Royce West of Dallas in a Democratic Party primary runoff for the right to challenge the Republican incumbent.

But I think she’s treading into an off-putting campaign strategy, one in which she seems to boast about her own military service in Afghanistan. She talks about her time as an Air Force helicopter pilot, about being shot down and then kind of crows about being awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for her actions on the battlefield.

I don’t begrudge Hegar’s service. I honor it and I respect it greatly. I do, though, believe it is unbecoming for her to seemingly boast about her service in a paid political ad. That is the kind of commentary that should be left for others to say on her behalf. Those who perform heroically in combat customarily are reluctant to talk about such deeds.

Yes, other political candidates have run for office after serving with valor and heroism on the battlefield. I don’t recall hearing them — speaking in their own voice — seemingly boast about it.

I don’t believe I am alone in feeling this way.

Bad call, Ms. Hegar.

national news

McCain endorses Biden

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I guess you could say that politics at times can travel full circle.

Consider this: The wife of the man against whom Joe Biden ran in 2008 has endorsed the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominee’s bid for the presidency of the United States.

Cindy McCain, wife of the late senator and Vietnam War hero John McCain, says Biden is the “only man” who speaks for the nation’s values.

At one level this endorsement isn’t surprising. Biden and McCain were the best of friends. They came from different parties; they differed politically and philosophically. They also shared a love of country and a commitment to serving the public. Biden’s path took him to the Senate by the time he turned 30 while McCain’s journey took him to the Navy and then to the Vietnam War, where he was shot down and imprisoned (and tortured repeatedly) for more than five years; he came home in 1973 and became a successful politician.

Biden ran as vice president on a ticket led by Barack Obama in 2008. They defeated the GOP ticket led by U.S. Sen. McCain, who ran with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Biden and McCain never let their political differences interfere with the deep affection and respect they had for each other.

So it was today that Cindy McCain endorsed Joe Biden’s bid to become president. Sen. McCain would be quite pleased.

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McConnell: hypocrite in chief

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will spare you the various and assorted nicknames that have been plastered onto U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

He stands before me now as the government’s premier hypocrite. The hypocrite to end all hypocrites. The man who gives hypocrisy a bad name.

I know that he’s far from alone in the hypocrite cabal. Government is full of them. And yes, both parties have their share of hypocrites.

However, the Kentucky Republican is relishing in his hypocrisy. The man who stiffed President Obama from filling a Supreme Court seat because he didn’t want to do in an election year is ramrodding a Donald Trump pending selection to probable confirmation … in an election year!

The difference? Obama is a Democrat; Trump is a Republican.

And yet the hypocrite in chief blames Democrats for “playing politics” with the federal judiciary. Excuse me while I puke!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had the bad form to die less than 50 days prior to the next presidential election. That hasn’t stopped McConnell from unleashing his partisan hounds.  He vows to get a nominee confirmed before the election.

Oh, what about that presidential election year taboo? Well, that was then. Principle doesn’t apply when there is a partisan political advantage to be explored.

Dang, I almost wish I could move to Kentucky to campaign actively against this clown’s re-election. That won’t happen. I will have to rely on this blog to vent my rage at the way this guy manipulates the levers of power to his maximum political advantage.

Maybe I should admire how this guy can do this. I would, except that his ends all work at cross purposes with my own world view. I do not want Donald Trump to nominate a third justice to the Supreme Court. He is going to select some far right-wing ideologue … while pretending to agree with whatever judicial philosophy guides her.

And this is being brought to bear by the hypocrite in chief.

This, I suggest, gives us all the reason in the world to vote Donald Trump out of office.

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Electoral consequences? Yep, we have ’em!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It has been said more times than I care to recall that “elections have consequences.”

That truism is playing out in real time as I write these few words.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has opened the door wide for the most unfit man ever to hold the office of president to nominate his third selection to the nation’s Supreme Court.

You want consequences? The court, if Trump’s nominee gets confirmed, will be locked in a solid 6 to 3 conservative majority possibly for a generation.

Yes, this is what we get when we elect someone with no moral compass, no ideological basis, no authentic sense of what justice really means to the nation’s highest office.

Trump says he’s going to nominate a woman to succeed Ginsburg.  I always am struck, by the way, at Trump’s use of platitudes to describe individuals. He calls Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of the frontrunners to be nominated, as “fantastic,” that she’s a “brilliant lawyer,” that she’ll do a “great job.” What is missing in these platitudes is any sense that Trump knows anything of substance about the individuals he is considering.

How in the name of electoral power do we rectify what’s about to happen? I believe the first and perhaps last option is to ensure that Trump gets defeated, that Americans elect Joseph R. Biden as their next president. I know that electing Biden won’t undo the damage that Trump might inflict on our federal judiciary — given his penchant for heeding the advice of far-right-wing commentators and thinkers. Electing Biden does set the predicate for a longer-term repair of the damage that Trump will inflict.

Thus, the upcoming election — shall we say — has intense consequence on the future of our nation.

If you disbelieve the value of elections and the consequences they can produce, I present to you Exhibit A: Donald John Trump’s fluke victory in 2016.

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Will POTUS pay respects to RBG?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s fair to ask: Is Donald Trump going to venture to the Capitol Building to pay his respects to the first woman ever to lie in repose in that structure?

Yes, that would be the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Trump has said that Justice Ginsburg led an “amazing life.”  So far, that’s the extent of his public comments on the passing of the judicial icon.

Make no mistake that politics plays a role here. Does Trump possibly anger the wacky MAGA base of supporters who fervently oppose virtually all the opinions that Ginsburg rendered during her 27 years on the high court simply by appearing next to RBG’s casket?

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