Category Archives: national news

national news, State news

Cruz misfires with impeachment threat

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Ted Cruz has lost his marbles. His butter has slipped off his noodles. He has gone ’round the bend. He is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas — the guy who once described Donald Trump as a “sniveling coward” but then became Trump’s primo suck-up senator — believes President Biden can be impeached if Republicans take command of the House after the midterm election.

According to the Texas Tribune: “​​Democrats weaponized impeachment,” he said, referring to House Democrats twice voting to impeach former President Donald Trump. “They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/04/ted-cruz-joe-biden-impeachment/

Wow! I am trying to catch my breath.

The Cruz Missile has misfired — again! Democrats didn’t impeach Trump for “partisan purposes.” They impeached him for trying to persuade a foreign leader to do him a political favor; then the House impeached Trump for inciting the riot on 1/6. The weaponization of the impeachment process occurred on the Republican side of the great congressional divide when all but a dignified handful of GOP House members and senators decided to give Trump a pass when he clearly committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

For Cruz to suggest that President Joe Biden faces potential impeachment if the GOP takes command of the House is tantamount to inviting a constitutional crisis where none should exist.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Ready for grim remembrance

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Let’s be clear: Tomorrow will be a day of grim memories; there will be no cause for celebrating an “anniversary” of an event that still roils our political system.

It was a year ago that an angry mob stormed Capitol Hill. You know what happened next, so I won’t belabor the point with this blog post.

What we are learning in the year since has been Donald Trump’s response to it. How he did nothing for 187 minutes after the insurrectionists first breached the Capitol grounds. We also have heard about the multiple takes it took for him to complete a video in which he said he “loved” those “special people” who wanted to “Hang Mike Pence!”

What’s more, we have heard how his oldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., implored Daddy POTUS to stop the rioters, to call them off, to end the violence. Daddy Donald did nothing. He is, therefore, complicit in the damage brought to the Capitol and to the lives that were harmed — and lost! — in the melee.

This gives us reason to cheer? Hardly! The men and women who stormed the Capitol were not patriots by any measure or any way you can define the term. They were intent on destroying our democratic process. They were traitors to the nation.

So, too, was the lunatic who incited the riot.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Faith wavers, however …

My faith in this country’s democratic fabric is beginning to stumble, stagger and is wavering in light of what might lie ahead as we slog through the midterm election and then approach the 2024 presidential election.

I keep hearing dire predictions of democratic doom if Donald J. Trump gets nominated by the Republican Party in 2024 and then wins the presidency; FYI, it pains me greatly just typing those words at the front end of this sentence.

I am not going to predict that Trump will be the GOP nominee, let alone be elected POTUS in three years.

You see, I possess a gigantic reservoir of faith in the strength of our governmental system. I will continue to cling tightly to my belief that Americans are smarter than what many of our national pundits are suggesting. The fear is being expressed from the left side of the great divide. Progressives say they are concerned that the coup attempt that failed on 1/6 could be revived if Republicans gain control of Congress after the midterm election; I believe GOP emergence is far more likely than not.

Through it all, though, my sincere hope and belief is that our democracy will find a way to emerge from the smoldering wreckage.

Let’s be clear about a thing or two. We have endured tremendous crises in our history. We fought among ourselves in a Civil War that killed 600,000-plus Americans; we emerged victorious in two bloody worldwide conflicts; we watched a president resign in disgrace just ahead of an impeachment over an extreme abuse of power and constitutional authority; we endured three more presidential impeachments, in 1998, 2020 and 2021.

I agree that the final impeachment was the direct result of a POTUS inciting an insurrection and then doing nothing to call a halt to it as rioters carrying flags with the POTUS’s name stormed the Capitol Building while seeking to halt the certification of the 2020 election results.

And we are still dealing with the fallout of that riot, which has caused those progressive pundits to express fear for the future of our democracy.

I want to stipulate once more than our nation’s founders built a government designed to withstand these challenges. Those men knew what they were doing.

I am going to place my faith in our founders’ wisdom, even as my faith is showing signs of wear and tear.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

When will lying stop?

Someone once said — and I am going to paraphrase it — that a lie can lap the field before the truth jumps out of the starting blocks.

So it is with the myriad lies that continue to flood our minds, our airwaves, our newspaper columns. The lies deal with mostly with The Big Lie, the one that suggests that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. It wasn’t, of course.

When will the lying run its course? When will enough of us will say, “Enough is enough; enough, already!”?

Will that moment arrive sometime in this new year that is about to dawn on us? Someone needs to tell me, “Yes. It will happen.”

Too many Americans continue to kneel in front of the cult leader who once occupied the U.S. presidency. He is perpetuating The Big Lie. He has yet to say out loud that Joe Biden defeated him in the freest, fairest, most legal, most secure presidential election in U.S. history. He talks about the election being “rigged” in 2020 and yet he seeks to rig it in real terms by persuading state election officials to pursuing legal avenues to overturn the results of the most recent presidential election.

Do you see the irony in this “rigged election” scenario?

I am acutely aware of the naivete in wishing the lying will stop. I know that politicians of all stripes aren’t always truthful. They say they are, but we all know better. The lying that comes from the Trump cultists takes that truism an illogical step further.

Accuse me of being naive if you wish. I will declare right here that I want the lying to stop and I will express the hope that my wish will come true.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

What’s happening to me?

I cannot believe what is happening to me. I find myself actually defending Donald J. Trump, albeit on a limited basis and focused only on a single issue.

The 45th POTUS — the former Imbecile in Chief — is defending vaccines as a way to fend off the scourge of the COVID-19 virus that is still sickening and killing Americans. He took the vaccine in the final days of his single term as president; he has taken the booster shot, too.

Now there’s this conservative anti-vaxxer, Candace Owens, saying Trump is “too old” to know better than to contest the vaccine and the booster.

I am not that far behind Trump in age, so I kinda resent her remark.

Moreover, while I know that Trump has never actually been an anti-vaxxer, he was silent about the efficacy of the vaccines while he served as POTUS. So, for him to say now that he believes in the vaccine is a good thing. I am going to offer a timid golf-clap form of applause for his coming around.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Feeling a form of remorse

One of the things I never want to be able to say to a survivor of a horrific natural disaster is, “I know how you feel.”

And yet on this Christmas I feel the need to express my sincere sorrow and a bit of remorse over the suffering that so many of my fellow Americans are experiencing today so soon after Mother Nature delivered her killer blow.

My reference is to the tornadoes that tore through several states a few days ago. We have seen those horrifying pictures of Mayfield, Ky., a town that was virtually wiped off the map by a tornado that measured more than a mile across the ground as it ripped through the community.

I have been sitting in my comfortable living room watching the horror unfold as survivors pore through what is left of their homes. All I am left to say — mostly to myself, under my breath — is “My God in heaven, how do they recover from that?”

Then my remorse is assuaged a bit by the sight of all those folks rushing to help each other. Bear in mind that the neighbors, too, have endured tremendous suffering and pain with their own loss. Yet they roll up their sleeves and lend a hand where others need it.

Do I know what they are feeling? Do I understand their pain? No and no.

All I have is my heartfelt sorrow while wondering: How in the world do you wish someone who grieves in this manner a Merry Christmas?

May all of them keep — and embrace — the faith.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Yes, Virginia …

I have shared this editorial with you before. I am doing so again today. And maybe next year and the year after that.

It is an iconic piece of writing by Francis Pharcellus Church, editor of the New York Sun. He wrote it in 1897 in response to an 8-year-old girl’s plea for him to dispel what her friends had told her.

Here is his response.

***

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Manchin makes me angry

Joe Manchin has emerged in the most dubious manner possible. He has become the most maddening politician in America.

Yes, the West Virginia Democratic U.S. senator is driving me batty. Nuts. Crazy.

The senator who represents one of the nation’s poorest states, where residents overwhelmingly support President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation, has decided to vote “no” on the package. His opposition seems curious, given that he offered a counter proposal that Biden reportedly accepted.

Now the senator has turned his back on it. He calls it too costly.

My goodness, the legislation aims to do a lot of good things for all Americans. Oh yeah. That means West Virginians, too. Which explains why the residents of that state favor it so dramatically.

What makes me nuts is that I happen to support the BBB package. It’s not that Manchin and I are on the same page. He has emerged as an outsized player in a drama that is building daily. Sen. Manchin does not deserve to play such a huge role in killing legislation that is going to help Americans from coast to coast.

Manchin has taken a “my-way-or-the-highway” approach to this matter. He knows he holds more power than he deserves given that he serves in a Senate made up of 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats (and a couple of independents who caucus with Democrats). Any “no” vote among Democrats can kill this package, as no GOP senators have signed on.

Joe Manchin’s arrogance defies description.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Manchin serves to obstruct

Joe Manchin must think he is the smartest man in politics this side of Donald J. Trump. He knows more than the West Virginia residents he represents in the U.S. Senate.

Why else does he oppose President Biden’s Build Back Better package, the one supported by most West Virginians? Does he know something no one else on Earth knows? Does he really represent the individuals who elect him every six years to the Senate?

Manchin told a TV interviewer today he’s a “no” vote on the $1.7 trillion social spending bill that Biden wants the Senate to approve. Manchin, a Democrat, said he wants to concentrate on COVID-19 relief. Plus, he told “Fox News Sunday,” the national debt is too big, that the BBB bill would add too much to the debt.

Does this signal the death of Build Back Better? No, it doesn’t. Joe Biden is likely to tinker with it — some more. The president doesn’t exhibit any inclination I can detect that he will dig in on every single nickel and dime.

He wants a legislative triumph to go along with the infrastructure bill that Manchin managed to support.

As for the senator from West Virginia, my sense is that he is relishing his fame as a deal-breaker. Never mind all those doggone public opinion polls that tell him his constituents would benefit from the legislation he opposes. He is digging in. A 50-50 Senate split means curtains for the package if Manchin’s resistance holds up.

Yes, I get that West Virginia voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. The former POTUS, though, is on the sidelines. The here and now tells me that Sen. Manchin would do well to listen to what his constituents want. I sense that it isn’t to crush this deal.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No more denials, please, about 1/6

It is becoming abundantly clear that what happened on 1/6 was a direct, full- frontal assault on our cherished democracy.

It was not, as more than a few GOP members of Congress have suggested, “a peaceful protest” over the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Thus, the sooner that the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection can complete its work, the sooner that opponents of those members of Congress can assemble their campaign strategies to attack them for their foolish trash-talk.

Before you attack me for reminding of the obvious — that no one has been charged formally with an “insurrection” — I want to stipulate that I know what the criminal defendants have been accused of committing. It runs the range of criminal charges: aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, vandalism.

There well might be insurrection charges forthcoming. I would most assuredly support such an allegation being leveled.

What needs to happen foremost, though, is for the individuals at the top of the government in that moment to face criminal prosecution, too. That includes the man who was the POTUS on 1/6, Donald J. Trump.

I cannot predict what the House panel will decide. However, I can offer a request, or call it a suggestion.

Which is that Donald Trump’s rhetoric, spewed on the Ellipse on the morning of 1/6, incited the mob to attack Capitol Hill and the men and women inside who were doing their job, which was to certify the 2020 presidential election results.

There must be some accountability for that action.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com