Category Archives: national news

national news, national security

Bolton discounts POTUS 45 return

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is no secret to anyone who reads this blog that John Bolton is far from my favorite public official.

He served for a time as national security adviser to the one-time Liar in Chief. Then he got fired, or he quit, or something in between happened.

He now says that the 45th POTUS won’t run make another run for the White House in 2024. He also said recently that the former Imbecile in Chief is “unfit for public office.”

Hmm. Really? Do ya think?

Of course Bolton is correct on that presumption. He found out the hard way, I suppose, when he took the job as national security adviser. He sought to give advice to the POTUS on threats to the nation, only to be rebuffed for reasons no one can quite grasp.

I am inclined under normal circumstances to wonder why Bolton didn’t declare his former boss’s unfitness for office in real time, while he was serving in the White House. Then it occurs to me: It wouldn’t matter to the base of Republicans who continue to hang onto POTUS 45’s every hare-brained pronouncement.

Whatever, Bolton’s view today of the ex-POTUS is worth more than a bucket of spittle.

national news

Right wingers pervert all they touch

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This is far from a recent revelation, but I just want get it off my chest and express it with crystal clarity.

It is that the right wing of the political spectrum has become a den of perversion of all principles they claim to adore and honor.

They have perverted the term “patriot” by insisting on The Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the 45th POTUS and handed to President Biden. The Pervert in Chief, of course, is the 45th POTUS his own self. He has developed a cult following that is unmatched in U.S. political history … and that goes back a spell.

The righties have perverted Christian beliefs, suggesting that Jesus Christ himself would endorse the notion of separating children from their parents. They ignore practically every New Testament tenet I can think of that condemns such harsh treatment of human beings.

They have perverted, for crying out loud, the very concept of Republicanism and the party that formed around it. The GOP came to be after the Civil War. It was the party of inclusion, of equality, of freedom and liberty for all Americans. It fought to enfranchise African-Americans who before the Civil War were deemed as three-fifths human.

The right wing has perverted the notion that bipartisanship stops at the water’s edge. It was the great GOP Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan who coined the truism. Now it’s OK to blast a president of the opposing party even while he travels abroad.

Patriots do not seek to overturn free and fair elections. They do not storm the Capitol Building, bust through windows, defecate on the floor of the legislative branch of government, threaten to hang the vice president of the United States. Patriots believe in elections. They accept the results even if they disagree with certain outcomes.

The nation’s right wing is running amok with perverts who claim to love the country. They in fact hate our great nation and I in fact hate the principles for which they stand.

national news

No end to stupidity

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There appears to be an endless supply of utter, abject and unqualified stupidity among American voters.

How else does one explain the so-called “audit” that continues in Arizona, where a group that calls itself “Cyber Ninjas” is examining the votes cast in Maricopa County for president of the United States in 2020.

The “audit” isn’t done yet. The nitwits are looking for “evidence” of vote fraud that resulted — they allege — in Arizona tilting in President Biden’s favor when the ballots were counted.

There will be no shifting of the state’s electoral votes from Biden to the idiot he defeated in the 2020 election. Nor will there be any “proof” delivered that showed any sort of vote fraud.

The stupidity, though, shows itself every time those dipsh**s suggest they are closing in on proving what they have alleged. Even more stupid are the gullible goofballs who believe what the Cyber Ninjas are suggesting.

They keep alive The Big Lie that their “hero,” the aforementioned disgraced, twice-impeached Republican ex-POTUS keeps muttering.

Meanwhile, the actual president of the U.S. of A., Joe Biden, continues to work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress on actual problems. You know, things like pandemic relief, infrastructure legislation, climate change, job growth, war and peace.

It’s time we pay attention exclusively to the real issues of the day, not the phony issues that occupy the vacuous skulls of seriously stupid Americans. If only the idiots would realize that their pursuit of vote fraud that does not exist only exposes their stupidity for the whole world to see.

It gives the rest of us plenty of reason to laugh out loud.

national news

Post-presidency getting weird

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The hits associated with the post-presidency of the twice-impeached, disgraced former Idiot in Chief just keep on comin’.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley now says he feared that the ex-POTUS might try to launch a coup attempt to stay in power after the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Biden!

The response from the ex-Nitwit in Chief? He writes: “I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our government. So ridiculous!” Trump wrote. He went on to clarify that even if he were interested in organizing a coup, he’d prefer if Milley weren’t there. “Sorry to inform you, but an election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.”

Given the interminable trail of lies the ex-POTUS told during his term in office, are you inclined to believe his denial of ever thinking about a coup? Nah! Me neither.

national news

Biden calls out ‘Big Lie’

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

By all means, President Biden is correct to call out the Big Lie for what it is, an assault on democracy itself.

Moreover, the president is correct to lay the blame for this assault directly at the feet of the individual he defeated in the November presidential election.

Biden has joined the fight against Republican efforts to subvert Americans’ ability to vote. He also has joined the chorus of those of us out here who are appalled that POTUS 45 — who once swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution — has been leading the effort to undermine it … even while he served as president!

As The Hill reported:

Biden blasted efforts from Trump and others to sow doubt about the election months after it concluded, which have spurred action from GOP-led state legislatures to push new elections laws that would limit absentee voting and make it more difficult for certain groups to vote.

“It’s clear, for those who challenge the results or question the integrity of the election, no other election has ever been held under such scrutiny or such high standards. The Big Lie is just that, a Big Lie,” Biden said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Biden rips Trump’s ‘big lie’ in voting rights address | TheHill

By my understanding of the term, I consider the ex-POTUS’s effort to undermine a free and fair election to be an act of treason. He incited the Jan. 6 insurrection. He continues to tell the Big Lie about alleged voter fraud. He has broken state and federal laws by seeking to get state election officials to overturn balloting results.

And yet there are those among us Americans who want the ex-Liar in Chief to return to the White House? So help me, I don’t which factor angers me more: that the ex-POTUS keeps telling the Big Lie or the cultists continue to believe it … and act on it!

The duly elected POTUS has weighed in. I am glad to hear the stern language he has used to call the Big Lie what it is.

national news

Challenge to stay focused on future

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Photo by Alex Brandon/AP/Shutterstock 

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It remains a serious challenge for me to remain focused intently on the future when the immediate past POTUS keeps lying blatantly, incessantly and without regard for the consequences … if any exist within his realm of cult followers.

The former Nitwit in Chief told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that the terrorist who stormed the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 was “shot in the head” as she sought to come out of the building.

He is lying. The woman who was shot was hit in the shoulder and she was shot while she was trying to break into the building to do untold harm to whomever was unlucky enough to stand in her way.

The idiot continues to foment the Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen as a result of vote fraud. He lies about being reinstated as POTUS by the middle of August. He lies about every single issue under the blazing sun.

And yet …

The cultists believe him. I am going to share one brief notion about that, which is that the cultists who perpetuate the Big Lie are as guilty as the idiot who promotes it initially.

national news

Big Lie believers: lost cause

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As far as I know no one in my circle of friends or my immediate family members is a believer in the Big Lie fomented by the disgraced former POTUS and his legion of fruitcakes.

Accordingly, that saves me from having to do what I believe is an impossible task: persuading them that the Big Lie about “rampant voter fraud” in the 2020 presidential election denigrates our cherished democratic process.

President Biden won that election. He won a free, fair and legal process. It was certified by the Electoral College. There is no evidence to suggest anything approaching vote fraud on a scale suggested by the former Liar in Chief.

However, it became abundantly clear to me months ago that there is no persuading the cultists who follow that nitwit of the folly of their desire to overturn what has been called “the most secure election in U.S. history.”

And it is folly to the nth degree. 

The cultists have swilled so much of the Kool-Aid offered by their disgraced leader that there is no turning back. Just as the former Imbecile in Chief has demonstrated, the cultists are incapable — or unwilling — to acknowledge they are wrong.

They call themselves “patriots.” They are traitors to the Constitution. To the government they purport to love. To our country and its grand tradition of electoral security.

I just am happy that no one in my circle of friends and acquaintances has taken any form of ownership of the Big Lie. Were they to do so and were I to find out about it, well … our relationship would end on the spot! Guaranteed!

national news

This is no ‘space race’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This is what passes for a “space race” these days?

Two insanely rich business moguls — Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos — vying to see who between them can be the first to fly into the lower reaches of outer space?

Branson got there first. He did so today flying aboard his Virgin Galactic ship that he launched from an airborne vehicle that had taken off from a site near Truth or Consequences, N.M.

Branson and Bezos haven’t been calling it a “space race,” even though they both made a good bit out of the fact that Branson was going to get there first.

I damn near LOLed when I saw Branson chortling and chuckling about how the minutes-long suborbital flight was the greatest thrill of his life. It made me want to mutter: big fu***** deal!

I am still trying to fathom what tangible, meaningful use is going to come from the flight or the one that Bezos is going to take in just a few days. I hear things about development of a vehicle that could make space travel more, um, practical and affordable for the run-of-the-mill shmuck who wants to fly into space. As for the cost of flying aboard the Virgin Galactic vehicle or the Bezos rocket, if you have a spare quarter-million bucks laying around, then you can be among the first.

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t always been this, um, cynical about shmucks in space. I applied to NASA to be the first “journalist in space.” That was in the 1980s. Then the Challenger exploded in January 1986 and all that went away as the nation grieved the loss of those seven astronauts — including the teacher picked to fly with them.

But this so-called “space race” bears no resemblance to the real space race that occurred after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 and then sent Yuri Gagarin around the world in the first manned mission in 1961. The finish line for that race was the moon.

Spoiler alert: We got there first … in July 1969!

I suppose the next real space race will commence once we get serious about sending human beings to Mars. I want to be around to watch that one unfold.

media news, national news

Keep looking forward

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Your humble blogger — that would be me — feels the need to affirm a vow from an earlier post.

It is that I will not become fixated on the blathering, bellowing, bloviating and bombast coming from the mouth of the 45th president of the U.S. of A.

He is going to make a lot of noise for the rest of this year and perhaps even part of next year. He is going to repeat The Big Lie — that the 2020 election was stolen from him — in the hopes of energizing that fanatical and gullible base of dipsh**s who continue to adhere to his irrational rants.

I do not intend to comment on each rant as if he were still the POTUS. He isn’t. I don’t expect him to ascend to the nation’s highest office ever again. Hell, I don’t even expect him to be a serious candidate for the White House.

My only reason for commenting on him today is because the lunatic/imbecile/moron/con man/fraud continues to hold considerable sway among a large minority of American voters. For the life of me I don’t know why or how … but he does.

My intent is to keep looking forward.

I am acutely aware that some critics of this blog are going to suggest that I remain “fixated” on the 45th POTUS’s pronouncements. I will answer them with a plain no … I am not. 

I’ve already declared that I continue to endorse the presidency of Joe Biden. He has restored a sense of dignity and decorum to the high and exalted office he occupies. We are recovering from the pandemic. Our economy is revving up nicely. President Biden is re-establishing our nation’s role as a world leader. We are re-engaging in vital international partnerships that his predecessor stripped away because he wanted to “put America first,” whatever that meant.

This American patriot wants President Biden to succeed. I intend to keep my focus aimed toward the future.

Be advised on one point: I will not remain silent if POTUS 45 gets himself into deep legal trouble or if his machinations gin up the fanatical base to do things that mirror, say, the Jan. 6 insurrection.

My keen interest will lie in where the current U.S. president intends to lead us.

national news

QAnon queen praises secessionists

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A young man has declared his candidacy for Congress in Georgia.

His name is Marcus Flowers, who calls himself an Army veteran who spent a good bit of time deployed in combat zones. He says he recognizes a “threat” to the nation when he sees it and he declares that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a threat to the nation she ostensibly serves as a member of Congress.

Flowers posted this item on Facebook: First it was sedition, now it’s secession. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is praising Americans who want to secede. 

Wow! Who’da thunk that?

Greene, a Republican, is the uncrowned QAnon queen of Congress. She was elected to her seat in north Georgia in 2020 and then promptly got stripped of her committee assignments because of the utter hideousness of her public comments.

I thought I might be done with this lunatic. I guess not.

She has spoken out to praise those who wish to secede from the U.S. of A. Well now, a few states in the South tried to do that in 1861. It didn’t work out well. The nation went to war with itself.

Greene continues to make an a** of herself despite being deprived of her committee posts. The thing that is so remarkable is that the Constitution she took an oath to defend grants her the liberty to speak what passes for her mind. Now she is offering praise for those who wish to break away from a nation that allows nut jobs like her to speak out in the manner that she does?

Unbelievable. Outrageous. Disgusting and disgraceful. It’s all of that and more!

Marjorie Taylor Greene is making the case as the runaway winner of the Congressional Numbskull Award. Although I believe East Texas’s Louis Gohmert would give her a serious challenge.

I know I shouldn’t be concerned about what a congresswoman from Georgia thinks and does while strolling through the nation’s Capitol. Except for this bit of hard truth: This loon votes on laws that affect every American. That means her conduct in office is as much my business as it is the business of those who vote on whether she stays in office in 2022.

I know nothing about Marcus Flowers, other than he is an Army vet. I wish him well in his effort to boot Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sorry backside out of Congress.