Category Archives: national news

national news

Let the DOJ make the call

A non-surprising vote occurred tonight.

The U.S. House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection on Capitol Hill voted unanimously to charge former Trump administration policy guru Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress.

The issue goes to the full House. Then it goes to the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. And then it falls on the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, to pursue a criminal prosecution of  Bannon.

Oh, how I hope DOJ follows through.

The unanimous vote by the House panel is quite satisfying, given that two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — serve with seven Democrats. So, it’s a bipartisan vote to charge Bannon with a criminal act.

The panel had summoned Bannon to testify. He refused, citing executive privilege. He and the former POTUS, though, weren’t meeting on 1/6 to discuss national public policy matters. They were meeting to ascertain how Donald Trump could overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won … bigly.

It’s going to pass through the full House. It then will head to DOJ.

Steve Bannon needs to face the music.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

If only he could rise above the bitterness

There are times when one can wish that even the most venal and vile politicians among us can rise to some level of dignity and decorum.

The death of noted statesmen, such as Colin Powell, easily qualifies as a motive to rise above pettiness and petulance. Powell, the nation’s first black secretary of state, died Monday of COVID complications.

Four of the five living former presidents managed to offer heartfelt salutes and tributes to the former general, as did the current president, Joe Biden.

Then came this bit of bullsh** from the 45th president of the United States. Donald Trump issued a brief statement that reads:

“Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!”

There. Isn’t that just the kind of cheap shot, the trash, the rhetorical crap we have come to expect from Trump? Yes. It is.

To think that the King of RINO World would exhibit the chutzpah to call Colin Powell a Republican In Name Only speaks to the utter worthlessness of Donald Trump as a political public figure.

I would say “shame on Trump” … except that he has no shame.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Tributes pour in for Gen. Powell

Former President Barack Obama was one of many public figures — elected, appointed and otherwise — to speak highly today of the impact that retired Gen. Colin Powell had on their lives.

I read a statement from President Obama today after Powell’s death. One item in the statement stood out. It dealt with Gen. Powell’s endorsement of Obama’s presidential candidacy in 2008. Powell, a lifelong Republican, decided to endorse Obama because, I suppose in Powell’s view, that Obama was the best man for the job at the time.

Obama said this about Gen. Powell’s endorsement, which included a discussion about rumors at the time dealing with the presidential candidate’s faith: “The correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he’s a Christian,” General Powell said. “But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is?’ Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?”

What the former president didn’t include in that remembrance is that the U.S. Constitution specifically declares that there shall be “no religious test” for anyone who seeks public office in this country. That includes presidents.

Powell’s point, though, in endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency, is that there should be no constraint on any child, regardless of his or her faith, to seek the highest office in the land.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Contempt of Congress: what now?

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Steve Bannon, a one-time key aide to the former president of U.S., is facing contempt of Congress charges from the panel that has summoned him to testify about what he knows regarding 1/6.

Bannon has refused to testify until the courts weigh in on Donald Trump’s contention that he is entitled to presidential executive privilege.

Here is the question I am pondering: What can Congress do to enforce the contempt charge? Answer, as near as I can tell: Not much … just yet.

The Justice Department has to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Bannon, or against any other of the former Trumpkins who are likely to resist the subpoenas that the House select committee has issued.

The panel wants to know the truth behind what occurred within the White House on 1/6. So do many millions of Americans want to know. I am one of them.

Explainer-What’s at stake for Trump allies facing ‘contempt of Congress’? (msn.com)

Bannon is the keeper of plenty of secrets, I am certain. He needs to share them with the nation and the world.

Let me be clear about one more thing. What happened on 1/6 posed a dire threat to the very government we all cherish. The riot on Capitol Hill could have ended far differently than it did had the terrorists been allowed to achieve their mission to “Hang Mike Pence!” and to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election result.

Bannon and his former boss have no right to invoke executive privilege. I hope the DOJ sees it that way, too.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘No’ on executive privilege

Imagine my (non)surprise at news that the Biden administration said “no way” to a request to grant executive privilege stipulations to his immediate predecessor.

POTUS No. 45 asked No. 46’s administration to grant those privileges as the House select committee summons key aides to 45 to testify on what they knew about the events of 1/6.

President Biden’s team said “no way” to the request. Biden said in a statement that the nation needs to know the whole truth behind what happened on the day Donald Trump incited the riot that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election … which Biden won!

There’s no argument here as to what the House panel seeks. It wants all the information it get obtain. My sense is that the best place to look is into the records of those who worked most closely with the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

Go for it, House select committee!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How can this loser actually win?

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A whole array of political brainiacs are offering a chilling bit of news that foreshadows the 2024 Republican Party primary contest.

It is that Donald John Trump, the twice-impeached loser, is the odds-on favorite — as of this moment — to win the GOP nomination.

Let’s ponder that one for just a moment.

For starters, I am not yet convinced he is going to run for POTUS. He might find his sorry rear end indicted on felony charges relating to the 2020 election and his attempts to subvert the results that produced a victory for President Biden.

Setting that aside, are the GOP faithful actually so committed to this idiot to nominate him for a third consecutive election cycle to the presidency? He failed in his single term.

He lied incessantly. He botched the nation’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic; he kept secret from the public information he had learned privately about the severity of the illness. Time and time and time again he said things that contradicted the experts he brought aboard ostensibly to help him do battle against the pandemic.

Trump spoke correctly about becoming a “wartime president,” but then didn’t act on it.

Literally dozens of this guy’s inner circle have been indicted and some have been convicted of illegal activity. Yes, these were among the “best people” he pledged to help him govern.

Are we really going to head down that path yet again with a Republican nominee who cannot tell the truth, who cannot negotiate, who cannot strike deals, who doesn’t know the first thing about governance?

Man, I hope the political intelligentsia is all wrong as it examines the possible future of a once-great and viable political party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Is our grumpiness terminal?

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The thought just occurred to me.

Could it be that we have entered a period of terminal grumpiness, that our dissatisfaction with government is a carryover that cannot be shaken loose no matter how well our politicians are functioning in the moment?

I see that President Biden’s job approval rating stands at just a bit north of 43%. It’s about 9 points less than his disapproval rating.

Voters’ opinion of Congress is worse than that. We are feeling testy toward the speaker of the House, the minority leader of the House, both party leaders in the Senate.

What’s going on? We well might be turning the corner on the pandemic; we’re still adding jobs to an economy battered by the disease, albeit at a too-slow rate; joblessness is down. Yes, we have immigration issues that need to be resolved. Our lawmakers cannot get our nation’s budgeting process figured out.

But damn! I just get this nagging notion that public opinion polling suggests a restiveness that might be carrying over from years past, or from months past.

I don’t see data that examines what is driving Americans’ distrust in government. I hear plenty of anecdotal stuff stemming from the previous administration’s tenure, about how the ex-POTUS was constantly railing against the “deep state” and those who collected all that power. Voters bought into a lot of what he was saying. I wasn’t one of them. My faith in government remains quite strong as does my belief that government can — and eventually will — right itself.

I don’t want there to be a state of terminal anger. There are too many good things waiting to occur. At least that’s my hope.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Abbott has lost his mind

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Greg Abbott has lost his ever-lovin’ mind.

He is off his rocker. His butter has slipped off its noodles. He’s gone ’round the proverbial bend.

The Texas governor has decided that no entity — private or public — should require vaccine mandates for employees or for the public.

Weird, huh? Well, I think it is.

Gov. Abbott once more is wielding his heavy hand, telling locals they can take no extraordinary measures to protect the public from a killer virus.

“In yet another instance of federal government overreach, the Biden Administration is now bullying many private entities into imposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, causing workforce disruptions that threaten Texas’s continued recovery from the COVID-19 disaster,” Abbott said in his executive order.

“Causing workforce disruptions?” Seriously, governor?

The Biden administration is trying to save lives, for God’s sake! Abbott, meanwhile, is seeking to cozy up to those who are resisting the government’s efforts to protect them against a virus that is still killing us.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bans any COVID-19 vaccine mandates | The Texas Tribune

I grew weary long ago of Greg Abbott’s insistence that he knows better than local government officials on how their communities should cope with this crisis. Yet he persists. Meanwhile, school districts issue mandates of their own, such as Dallas’s decision to require masks for students and faculty members.

Gov. Abbott appears to have adopted Donald John Trump’s view that “I, alone” can fight the COVID virus.

Bullsh**!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Yes, but he still lost!

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Those who adhere to the cult beliefs of the 45th president of the United States keep telling us that the will and wishes of “74 million American voters” should not be ignored.

OK. I get that. More than 74 million voters cast their ballots for the guy who finished second in the race for the presidency in 2020. That is the second-greatest vote total ever recorded; the greatest vote total was rolled up by President Biden, who pulled in more than 81 ballots.

And, yes, they were legitimately cast ballots.

So, to the sore losers who cannot accept that their guy finished second in a two-man for the presidency in 2020 I say only: Get the fu** over it!

They won’t. Not as long as their cult hero continues to foment The Big Lie about vote fraud and insist that even with all the “forensic audits” he is demanding that he still won the 2020 election.

There have been many photo finishes over many decades of presidential elections. Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy by 100,000 votes in 1960; he accepted the result and moved on. Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000; that election wasn’t settled until the Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida with Bush leading by 537 ballots; Bush was awarded the state’s electoral votes and he took the oath … after Gore conceded defeat and pledged his support of the new president.

The yammering that continues to this day about POTUS 45 collecting 74 million votes ignores the obvious, which is that his opponent received 7 million more votes and won the election!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Hypocrisy rules within GOP

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Senate Republicans such as Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas have gotten their shorts all knotted up over the debt ceiling increase pitched by their Democratic colleagues.

And yet they had no trouble voting to increase the debt ceiling during the four years that Donald J. Trump was seeking it from the White House.

Ted Cruz and John Cornyn have mixed histories with debt-ceiling votes | The Texas Tribune

What gives? Why the change in heart? Oh, yeah. President Biden is a Democrat; Trump is a Republican. Politics has nothing to do with it, right? OK, let’s just say the answer is obvious: politics has everything to do with it.

Some Republicans kinda caved this week when they voted to allow a vote on whether to increase the ceiling. Cornyn was one of the GOP senators who went along with it. Cruz didn’t. He bitched about his colleagues surrendering to Democrats in a Senate floor speech.

Back to my question. Why was it OK to do it during the previous administration, but it isn’t OK now?

The GOP’s blatant partisanship and obstruction is so obvious.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com