Category Archives: national news

national news

VPOTUS fighting back

Vice President Kamala Harris has been for years an inviting target for right-wing pundits and politicians.

So it comes as no surprise to yours truly that she now is being separated from the rest of the Biden administration and singled out for criticism that she is “underutilized,” that her office is in disarray and is dysfunctional and that President Biden is ignoring her best advice.

Hmm. Do you think perhaps there is some rumbling and grumbling out there that she might become the Democrats’ next best hope for the presidency? That perhaps she might seek to succeed President Biden if the incumbent decides to leave office after a single term?

Harris is answering the critics. She contends that all the tittering and chatter is just that and that she is a functioning member of the Biden team.

I get that some of the reporting on alleged discontent comes from mainstream media outlets, such as CNN and Politico. The reporting does feed, though, into the right-wing distortion machine that inflates any negative-sounding report into something unrecognizable.

President Biden has said he intends to run for re-election next time. I dislike the word “intend,” as it leaves too much for room for someone to change his or her mind. If he does, then my hope would be that he wins re-election in 2024.

If not, I believe the president has a fully capable partner in Vice President Harris. If only she could stop the rumor mill from grinding her to pieces.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Shut up, Matt Gaetz!

Leave it to a Florida flamethrower congressman to inject himself into a story that doesn’t deserve to be politicized any more than it already has become.

Matt Gaetz, a Republican (of course!), says his office is open to hiring Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old on trial in Kenosha, Wisc., for shooting two men to death during a protest over Black Lives Matter, as a congressional intern if he is acquitted of charges filed against him.

This clown Gaetz just continues to infuriate me. Never mind that he’s been associated with individuals connected with sex trafficking involving underage girls, but … well, that’s another story.

Now this?

Shut the hell up, Matt. You just pi** me off!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Why the delay and obstruction?

 (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

This has to rank, in my mind at least, as one of the great political mysteries in recent U.S. history.

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting he did nothing wrong while serving as POTUS for four years. He made a “perfect” phone call to the Ukrainian president asking for help in finding dirt on then-former VP Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. He insists he didn’t incite violence on 1/6, that he called for “peaceful” protest.

And yet …

This clown is engaging in the mother of stalling tactics. His minions won’t answer congressional subpoenas. Trump refuses to release his tax returns. He stalls, blocks, obfuscates. He is trying to run out the clock until the midterm election when, he hopes, Republicans get control of Congress.

Why this tactic if there is nothing to hide? If there is nothing see? If there was nothing wrong with the way he conducted himself in office?

Man, someone has to explain this one to me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

What happened to Congress’s better angels?

There once was a time when we expected our elected leaders to represent the very best in us, yes?

What, then, has become of that standard in the halls of our Congress?

A Republican member of the House, Paul Gosar of Arizona, could be censured by his Democratic colleagues for posting an animation depicting him killing Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden. Has there been any recrimination coming from the Republican side of the great divide? Has any of the GOP leadership scolded Gosar publicly for posting such a hideous depiction? No. Nothin’, man.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has said nothing. Nor has any of the leadership team surrounding him.

Gosar could be censured. That means he will have to stand in the well of the House and listen to  his colleagues excoriate him. The critics are likely to be Democrats only. But his conduct casts shame on the entire House of Representatives, which contains a significant number of Republicans as well.

The better angels of our elected House have gone silent.

What a horrible shame on them!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

A tip of the hat to Sen. Murkowski

Were I wearing a hat, I would tip it toward U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, who has announced her plans to seek re-election in the face of a challenge from someone who has earned the endorsement of the 45th POTUS.

Why has the former Liar in Chief endorsed someone other than the GOP incumbent? Because Murkowski has said some unkind things about the ex-Insurrectionist in Chief, which has drawn his ire. He just cannot tolerate anyone who puts the rule of law above loyalty to himself.

Sen. Murkowski announces reelection bid in a race featuring a Trump-backed GOP challenger (msn.com)

I have no stake in this fight other than to wish that the Senate remain under the control of senators who aren’t beholden to The Big Lie and the cultists who insist that the 2020 election was stolen from the former POTUS.

I’m standing with Sen. Murkowski as she seeks to fend off this primary challenge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cruz makes ass of himself … again

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Ted Cruz doesn’t have many pieces of legislation with his name on it. He does, though, have a remarkable ability to make an ass of himself.

Such as his most recent foray into the dumbass/dipsh** blind alley.

The Texas Republican U.S. senator decided that Big Bird is a commie and that he shouldn’t be touting the mandates requiring vaccines to battle the COVID-19 virus.

Earth to the Cruz Missile: Big Bird is a fictitious character, part of the PBS family of critters that entertains youngsters all across the nation.

Of course, this is the guy who decided to jet off to Cancun while Texans were freezing to death this past February; yeah, he came back home when the fecal matter hit the fan. The damage was done.

Now this clown has taken on Big Bird? Is this guy serious?

Don’t answer that. I know that he isn’t. He is a horse’s backside.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Eve of destruction? Hardly!

I see these social media posts and I shake my noggin.

“Joe Biden is destroying the country,” they say. Oh really? How in the world can anyone presume that we’re being “destroyed” when we have endured what we went through for the past four years prior to Biden become president?

While we’re at it, how did the country survive the turmoil of the 1960s, with the Vietnam War raging and protesters lighting fires in our cities? Or when we suffered through political assassination, starting with the murder of a president, then with the gunning down of a preacher and civil-rights champion and then the brother of the president who well could have become POTUS on his own?

Or how about during the Second World War, or the Civil War?

Yeah, we’ve been through a lot in this country. We have been on the verge of destruction many times already. We have managed to come out on the other side. Perhaps a bit tattered, battered and bruised.

Joe Biden is “destroying the country” because he wants to invest in some social programs? Please … spare me the hyperbole.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

More subpoenas on tap

The world continues to spin faster and faster and I am trying like the dickens to hold on with both hands.

The House select committee that is examining the 1/6 riot/insurrection/attempted coup has issued six more subpoenas. They are looking at more individuals who worked within the upper echelon of the Donald Trump administration.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is wasting no time firing these orders out. Now comes the question: Will the former Trumpkins answer the summons to appear before the committee or will they follow the lead set by former Trump senior policy adviser Steve Bannon and be held in contempt of Congress?

If it were me — and thank God in heaven it ain’t — I’d answer the summons. I would sit before the committee, take the oath to tell the truth and then … tell the truth!

If Donald Trump insists that he did nothing wrong when he incited the rioters to storm Capitol Hill, then there’s no reason to demand his cultists stay away. Isn’t that right?

Sure it is!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Defund police = losing strategy

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If an effort to “defund the police” can fail in a city such as Minneapolis, Minn., then where would any such effort succeed?

That is an situation facing progressive political groups and politicians as they ponder the results of this past week’s election in Minneapolis, the city that produced the horrifying image of the cop murdering George Floyd while making an arrest on an allegation that Floyd sought to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.

Indeed, writer Grace Curley says in an article published in the Spectator World, that the “defund the police” movement could be the death knell for Democrats everywhere.

She writes:

A ballot measure voted on this week read in part, “Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety?” Voters rejected Question 2 handedly, with 56.17 percent of residents voting no on the amendment.

The results should have sent a shockwave across the cocktail parties of the liberal bourgeois in DC, many of whom proudly shout about defunding the police from the rooftops of their fancy apartment buildings. How could an uber-progressive dream like this fail to gain support from voters — especially in a liberal city of all places?! If this Squad-stamped idea failed in Minneapolis, where, if anywhere, could it succeed?

Defund the Police will be the death of the Democrats – The Spectator World

The term “defund” is what has caught the attention of everyone. To “defund” something implies you take money away from it. Defunding police departments, therefore, suggests one does not want to pay to have cops patrolling the streets, arresting bad guys/gals and keeping us safe from those who would do us harm.

I don’t doubt that many officers have acted badly. They are overwhelmingly outnumbered by decent men and women who take their oaths to protect and serve seriously.

I hope the progressive movement can step away from the defund the cops notion. It’s a loser at the ballot box. It’s also a loser on our city streets.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Did POTUS take a beating?

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Let’s flash back for a moment about 30 years to the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

Going back that far, every new president suffered political setbacks in Virginia and New Jersey, meaning that the governors races in those states went to the winner from the opposing party.

Bush 41, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all suffered those embarrassments.

Joe Biden on Tuesday only suffered half of it. Virginia went from Democrat to Republican. New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, managed to win re-election.

Now, does this lessen the impact of this bellwether election? Is President Biden’s agenda now in the clear? Hardly.

It’s just that the president somehow managed to avoid the embarrassment that befell his five predecessors who saw the governorships in those key states flip from their own party to the party on the other side.

It’s complicated. Yes?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com