Category Archives: national news

national news

187 minutes of hell …

It took Donald J. Trump more than three hours after the rioters stormed the Capitol Building — at his urging — to more or less call them off.

The then-POTUS did so while expressing his “love” for them and while extolling that they are “special people.”

Key aides were imploring Trump to call off the rioters on 1/6. He resisted. He didn’t do or say a single damn thing to stave off the rioters. Then came that ghastly “we love you” plea 187 minutes after it began to men and women who had defecated on the floor of the Senate, beaten through windows, injured several Capitol Police officers.

They were chanting their desire to “Hang Mike Pence!” and went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by yelling “Nancy … where are you?”

Unbelievable. Un-bleeping-believable!

But it happened. We know it now through some extraordinary reporting by the Washington Post.

To think there remains a segment of our nation’s citizenry who buy into the crap peddled by the former Liar in Chief.

God help us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

So long, Rep. Kinzinger

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Donald J. Trump’s purging of the “disloyal” elements of otherwise outstanding Republican members of Congress is continuing.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has announced his decision to forgo another try at re-election in 2022. The GOP congressman is one of 10 members of his party to vote to impeach the 45th POTUS in 2020, an act that the former Insurrectionist in Chief has seen as an act of disloyalty to him.

The ex-Crook in Chief reportedly declared today that with Kinzinger’s planned retirement, that leaves just “eight more to go,” meaning eight more Republicans who voted to impeach him need to be purged from the ranks of Congress.

Kinzinger currently serves as one of two Republicans on the House select committee examining the events that led to the riot on 1/6; the other is Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who also faces a primary challenge in her state next year.

The actual culprit in Kinzinger’s departure is the Democratically controlled Illinois legislature that redrew the state’s congressional districts to make it harder for Kinzinger to win again. Still, the fact that the former POTUS is applauding his departure is a signal that No. 45’s desire is being met.

It makes me sick to my stomach to believe that a twice-impeached POTUS whose company has been indicted for tax fraud can have the kind of sway over a once-great political party. It is the reality of the current climate.

Sickening.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

POTUS to Pope: God love ya

Leave it to President Biden to, um, offer an everyman’s salutation to one of the world’s most beloved religious leaders.

Biden has flown to Rome to meet with our economic allies as part of the G20 summit. He paid a call on Pope Francis I in the Vatican.

At the end of the meeting, the president of the United States — the second Catholic ever elected to our nation’s highest political office — told the Holy Father, “God love ya.”

I don’t know how His Holiness responded to it. I trust that he took it in stride. Hey, he’s God’s vicar on Earth. I am sure he has heard just about all there is to hear from God’s other fallible human creatures.

Nice going, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Unity? Far from it!

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President Biden might have been able to declare some form of victory today had any Republicans had taken part in the negotiation that produced a $1.75 trillion spending bill that appears headed for final approval in Congress.

Sadly, he cannot. Why? Because the Grumpy Obstructionist Party won’t take part in anything pitched by a Democratic president.

This kind of obstructionism simply enrages me, a self-proclaimed “good government progressive” blogger/pundit/cheap-seat occupier.

I want the GOP to take part in this government, which does involve them as well as Democrats. Instead, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and his House counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, have opted to dig in against the Democrats and the POTUS.

Good government is a team sport. That means, in my view, the whole team comprising members of both parties. Instead, we’re getting a government run by roughly half of the House and the Senate along with the guy who sits in the big office in the White House.

President Biden vowed, in a manner of speaking, to bridge the gap between the parties that grew to enormous size during the administration of Biden’s immediate predecessor. Indeed, the 45th POTUS had no interest or skill in bridging that gap. Biden, at least, brought considerable legislative experience to the White House.

He has yet to bridge the great divide. I hope he can get there.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Let ’em talk, however …

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(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

I have no qualms — not a single one — about the First Amendment and the guarantee of free speech it enshrines.

But, dang! Why don’t the right-wing lunatics out there cease delivering the “fake news” and the “disinformation” about current issues of the day, not to mention about our efforts to end a killer virus that keeps sickening Americans.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene — a Georgia Republican QAnon queen — went on a podcast and said the Declaration of Independence instructs us to “overthrow tyrants.” Which she said was the intent of the 1/6 insurrection.

She is entitled to spew that trash. I just wish we could police such nonsense and send it immediately to the trash heap, where it belongs.

I never would consider watering down the First Amendment or any of our Bill of Rights provisions (yes, that includes the Second Amendment, which allows us to “keep and bear arms”).

I just want society to dismiss the crap that flies out of the mouths of loons such as Rep. Taylor-Greene.

I am game. Are you?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

If only he would call off the cultists

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This won’t happen, not ever, but I feel the compelling need to get something off my chest.

One man can stop the intimidation, bullying and threats against local election workers, if only he possessed a shred of decency.

Donald John Trump is wholly responsible for fomenting the anger that continues to fester against those who do their jobs the best they can, only to be undermined by the former POTUS who continues to insist that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him via “widespread voter fraud.”

It wasn’t. President Biden won fairly, legally and ethically.

Yet the former POTUS continues to inflame passions with The Big Lie. He is posing a dire threat to those who acknowledge publicly that the cultists who follow the former POTUS are threatening them. Worse, they are threatening election officials’ families, including their children.

One such official from Pennsylvania told a congressional hearing today about the continual threats he gets from supporters of the man who lost the 2020 election. Supporters of the ex-POTUS have called this fellow a “traitor” because he refused to reverse the results of the election. Traitor! Think about that for a moment … maybe two.

This is the new normal? Is this where we have sunk? Is this the kind of nation we have become, that individuals who do their jobs in accordance with the law cannot go through the day without facing verbal and actual threats by those who disagree with the outcome of a free and fair election?

One guy holds the key to bringing all of this to an end. He could call a press conference and demand without equivocation that his supporters must stop … as in right now.

He won’t do that. Because he lacks the moral character to do the right thing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Fake news, now it’s rigged elections

Just as he did by accusing the media and others of peddling “fake news,” Donald Trump is engaging in another form  of irony by insisting the 2020 election was “rigged.”

The 45th POTUS was the master of peddling fake news. He kept up the lie about President Obama’s birth and whether he was qualified to run for the presidency. He talked about losing all those “friends” during the 9/11 attack but there is no record of him attending a single funeral for a victim of the terrorist attack.

And yet he keeps accusing others of telling fake news? Amazing.

Now he is trying to “rig” an election that was in no way on Earth “rigged” to elect Joe Biden as president. He asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to swing the state that Biden won to his own column.

Rigged election?

To think that there are Americans walking among us who actually believe this crap. Amazing!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How can we rid ourselves of POTUS 45?

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(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Donald John Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

He should be all rights and normal behavior be gone. He should be yesterday’s news. He should be doing whatever it is former POTUSes do; in his case that would be, oh, playing golf.

However, the former Nimrod in Chief won’t go away. He continues to lurk near the edges of the political stage. The former Liar in Chief keeps lying, keeps fomenting The Big Lie about alleged theft during the most recent presidential election.

A famed former secretary of state dies and the former Disrespecter in Chief takes a moment to denigrate the service that Colin Powell delivered to the nation he loved.

You may count me as one American patriot who wants this clown — the former POTUS — to vanish from the scene. However, he just won’t relent. He won’t fade away.

A member of my family asked me recently to stop writing about him. Sorry. I cannot stop, not as long as he maintains a presence in our national conscience. A critic of this blog insists that the former Numbskull in Chief has invaded my noggin. Nope. He hasn’t. I am just doing what I should do, which is comment on the nonsensical trash he keeps muttering/blathering/bellowing.

But I want more than anything for this idiot to simply go away.

Be gone! Dammit!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Death leaves lingering sadness

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My sadness over Colin Powell’s death is bidding me a reluctant farewell.

It seems to want to linger for a while longer. It’s hard to get over the loss of this man I admired from the time he served as national security adviser to President Reagan. He only burnished his standing when he became Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman for President Bush 41 and then secretary of state during the Bush 43 administration. Powell blazed a trail in all three of those endeavors, becoming the first African-American ever to occupy the offices.

The retired Army general offered snippets of wisdom regularly. I took most of them to heart.

Now that he is gone, I am left wishing to hear more from him.

We hear it said about musicians who pass on that “their music lives forever.” I guess you can say the same thing about statesmen such as Gen. Powell, that their “words of wisdom” will endure through the ages.

So it must be.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Character still matters

Do you remember a time when Republican politicians recited the mantra that “character matters”?

I do. It became vogue when Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton sought to become president in 1992. Republicans got wind of some alleged indiscretions involving the young governor. They whipped it all into a frenzied rally cry that sought to undermine the candidate’s presidential aspirations.

Well, character still matters. Except that Republicans have gone deaf and blind on what the rest of us have seen about a prominent GOP politician. That would be … umm, Donald J. Trump.

The former POTUS is an admitted sexual assailant; an admitted philanderer; he has denigrated prisoners of war, calling them “suckers” and “losers.”

Character, anyone? Yeah, it still matters now just as it did in the early 1990s when Republicans sought to make character an issue in another presidential campaign.

Except that these days the GOP is turning away while one of its own flouts the very institutions he once vowed to preserve and protect. His lack of character also revealed itself when he disparaged a great American, Colin Powell, only hours after the great man’s death.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com