Category Archives: national news

national news

Petulance becomes even more petty

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The longer Donald Trump continues his futile, feckless and reckless attack on the American democratic process the more petty he becomes.

The president of the United States is shrinking before our eyes.

The Electoral College voted today and certified Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the 46th president of the United States. Trump, meanwhile, is tweeting messages about how he has just begun to fight.

For what? For an office that is now officially out of reach?

The U.S. Constitution lays it out there. It is spelled out in the written word. The Electoral College determines who sits in president’s office. It won’t be Donald Trump after Jan. 20.

So the defeated president might continue to bluster and blather about alleged election thievery. It didn’t happen. Deep down in his gut Trump knows it, too.

It’s the  uncertainty of what might await him once he no longer is shielded by the trappings of immense power that seems to be driving this petty petulance.

It’s over, Mr. POTUS. Pack your bags and hit the road … for keeps.

national news

Biden transition needs to function on all cylinders

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(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, to be a fly on whatever walls surrounding the meetings that President-elect Biden is conducting as he prepares to become the next president.

The transition has begun officially. It was late getting started. Donald Trump, who lost the election to Joe Biden, dug in for too long after we learned that we had a new president waiting in the wings.

Then came the order from the General Services Administration, the agency that runs the transition: Start turning the wheels, the GSA said … undoubtedly on orders from Donald Trump.

I am heartened somewhat — but not totally — by the knowledge that President-elect Biden is a man of the Senate, that he knows how government works, that he has an enormous network of contacts throughout the legislative and executive branches of government.

Biden comes to the presidency being able to speak fluently in the language that bureaucrats speak to each other. There appears to be little on-the-job training for the new president. He served 36 years in the Senate, eight as vice president. He knows the ropes.

Contrast that with the absence of any exposure to government that Donald Trump brought to the job he inherited when he was elected in 2016. It showed from the get-go.

I do not expect the new president to make the kind of monumental hiring mistakes that Trump made. I could be wrong, of course. Indeed, I am wrong way more than I am right.

On this matter … I’ll stick with my assessment of the new president.

national news

These lawmakers need to be sanctioned

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t likely to happen, but it damn near should happen.

The 126 Republicans who joined a hideous lawsuit that sought to throw out the votes of millions of Americans in this year’s presidential election should be sanctioned.

A censure? Impeachment? A public scolding?

They signed a legal brief that joined a suit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who said the votes in four states that went for Joe Biden were cast illegally. He said the states changed their election rules in violation of the Constitution.

Paxton, a Republican (of course!) got 16 other state attorneys general to join the suit. Then came the brief signed by the members of Congress. Twelve of them are from Texas.

Congressional Democrats quite naturally are outraged that these individuals would seek to subvert the Constitution. That they would seek to undermine the electoral process. That they would deliberately and with malice seek to violate their oaths of office.

The Supreme Court threw out Paxton’s lawsuit. It was silent on the action of the members of Congress who agreed with the embattled AG’s complaint. I understand SCOTUS’s silence on that matter.

However, many of us out here in Flyover Country won’t remain silent. I certainly won’t.

These individuals — including the House’s top two leading GOP members, minority leader Kevin McCarthy and minority whip Steve Scalise — have richly earned whatever sanction that is available to the congressional leadership that can punish them.

They no longer represent the Republican Party. They are now members of the Donald Trump Party, even though they took an oath to defend the nation … not suck up to a president.

They sicken me.

national news

How will Trump react to the next nail in his political coffin?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the zillions of things I won’t miss when Donald Trump is no longer president is awaiting his reaction to matters involving his political future.

Example: The Electoral College is voting Monday on who will become the next president. Spoiler alert: It won’t be Donald Trump.

No, the Electoral College — as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution — will cast its pledged votes for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who won the presidency on Nov. 3. Biden has rolled up a 7-million vote margin over Trump, winning 306 electoral votes.

The Electoral College, which comprises delegates from all the states, will certify the election Monday.

What does Trump do? How will he react when the Electoral College certifies what everyone on Planet Earth knows what occurred? That remains to be seen and heard. Trump has mounted more than 50 legal challenges. He has lost all but one of them. The latest defeat came when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought to get the votes of four states overthrown.

Trump keeps tweeting that he’ll continue fighting to keep his job. He continues to insist the election was “rigged.” He produces no evidence of the scurrilous allegation.

The Electoral College certification would appear to be the final scene in the final act of this ghastly drama. Oh, how I hope that’s the case. However, we are dealing with a lunatic in the body of the man who has lost a presidential election.

Let us stay tuned.

national news

Legal wrangling produces a benefit for ordinary folks

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

All this wrangling about an election that took place freely, fairly and securely has produced at least one positive benefit for those of us sitting out here in the Peanut Gallery.

It has awakened our awareness of what the U.S. Constitution says about elections and about how strong and sturdy the nation’s governmental document framework remains.

Ken Paxton concocted a phony argument that went straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Texas attorney general, who’s turned our state into an international laughingstock, challenged the presidential election results in four states; none of them was Texas. The states all voted favorably for President-elect Joe Biden. The nation’s high court tossed Paxton’s lawsuit without argument.

What we learned is that the Constitution is crystal clear about national elections. It is that states retain the sole authority to conduct they way they elect presidents. Attorneys general, such as Paxton, cannot intrude on those states’ business.

Yes, I knew all of that intellectually. What is gratifying as a political junkie, though, is that the SCOTUS decision drags this issue into the glaring spotlight of international attention. We also have been exposed to the rank hypocrisy of politicians who, under previously “normal” circumstances, would stand foursquare behind Article II of the Constitution, which grants this electoral power to the states.

These aren’t normal times. The Republican Party has become the Donald Trump Party and is beholden — ironically, I should add — to someone who doesn’t give a sh** about anyone other than himself.

As we watch this needless, senseless, feckless and reckless drama play out, I am heartened by the knowledge we are gaining about the government our founders created. They didn’t create a perfect system for us to follow. Then again, they only sought to create a “more perfect Union.”

It has been made a good bit more perfect as this spectacle staggers toward its conclusion … which will occur on Jan. 20 the moment President Biden takes his hand off the Bible.

national news

Hey, GOP lawmakers … you need to resign!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A thought occurs to me that I want to share on this blog.

A number of those 126 Republicans who signed on to a lawsuit challenging the election of President-elect Joe Biden serve in the U.S. House of Representatives come from four critical states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

They ought to resign their House seats immediately.

You see, here is what happened. They signed a brief that endorsed a suit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought to throw out the results of those aforementioned states. Thus, the House GOP members admit they were elected illegally. If they believe in Paxton’s loony lawsuit then they also believe the voters in their congressional districts cast their ballots in violation of whatever Paxton sought to argue.

They won’t quit. The rank hypocrisy of them and that idiotic lawsuit speak terribly of the state of the Republican Party these days.

The Supreme Court decided to toss the complaint that Paxton brought. Two justices dissented: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The rest of them voted correctly, including Donald Trump’s three nominees: Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

The Constitution is clear. It says that states have the exclusive power to run their elections. The court said Paxton, as the Texas AG, has no standing to bring a complaint against how other states conduct their electoral business.

What about the House members from those contested states who joined the lunatic lawsuit? Should they remain in office? I can argue they should not. They should quit. As in right now.

If hey won’t quit, then the voters in their respective districts should remember in 2022 when they run for re-election what they did to subvert the Constitution they took an oath to defend and protect.

national news

It’s called ‘sedition’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have heard the term “seditious” used to describe a lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court by the Texas attorney general.

Sedition, as if I need to remind anyone, is a profoundly serious crime to commit against the Constitution of the United States. It means to incite rebellion against the United States.

The lawsuit that AG Ken Paxton has filed seeks to overturn presidential election results in four states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. Paxton, who was known only to us in Texas prior to entering this national debate, has become a national laughingstock. He also is much worse than that. He is a dangerous laughingstock.

More than 100 Republicans in the House of Representatives have signed an amicus brief that supports the imbecilic lawsuit that Paxton has filed. Critics have called it “seditious.”

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says that no one who commits an act of sedition can serve at any level of government. That means those who have joined the lawsuit are committing an act that disqualifies them from holding congressional office.

These individuals swore an oath to defend the Constitution. They did not swear an allegiance to Donald Trump. So did Ken Paxton, whose state oath also binds him to a pledge to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Is there a case to be made, therefore, to have these individuals expelled from Congress?

national news

Congressmen stay away from Paxton lunacy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I want to declare that the young man who represents me in the U.S. House of Representatives and the fellow who was my congressman until my wife and I moved to Collin County have reneged on joining the Ken Paxton loony bin parade.

U.S. Reps. Van Taylor of Plano and Mac Thornberry of Clarendon have declined to add their names to the seditious letter signed by 105 House Republicans in support of the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

I am heartened to report that sanity has taken hold in at least two House GOP members’ noggins.

Paxton has sued four states, seeking to overturn their voters’ results after they supported President-elect Joe Biden’s successful presidential campaign. Paxton’s lawsuit has zero chance of being approved by the SCOTUS. Indeed, some GOP senators — such as John Cornyn of Texas — have expressed serious doubt about the merits of the argument Paxton is presenting.

Taylor was just re-elected to the House from the Third Congressional District. Thornberry is stepping down after serving since 1995 in the 13th District. Indeed, Thornberry has accepted publicly and openly that Joe Biden is the next president, unlike too damn many of his GOP colleagues in Congress.

The Dallas Morning News has reported on Thornberry’s statements:

Asked what signal it sends to foreign governments that so many of his GOP colleagues refuse to accept Biden as the winner, he said that “other countries, as well as most Americans, understand and probably support President Trump making full use of all of the legal avenues … to contest mistakes or whatever he can find — flaws in the voting process. But I also am mindful that, whether it’s the attorney general or a host of others, nobody’s said they have seen any evidence of enough flaws to change the result.”

“Nearly everybody says that transition needs to move on. And we’re down to just a few days now before the Electoral College votes. We’re proceeding step by step through the normal constitutional process. And certainly, Dec. 14 when the electors vote — that’s how a president is chosen. So, things need to move ahead,” he said.

I take that to mean that Paxton’s moronic lawsuit will go nowhere. Count me as a Texas resident who is glad to know the two men who have most recently represented my interests in Congress have demonstrated that they have retained their sanity.

national news

Time makes Person of Year pick … sigh

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I’ll be candid: Time magazine’s selection for Person of the Year is not the choice I wanted the venerable publication to make.

It’s not that I object strenuously with Time naming President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris as its Person of the Year. It is that I wanted the mag to honor an entire category of human beings: those on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus … namely the first responders, health care workers, educators. Those folks are society’s heroes and they earned the honor of Person of the Year.

But that’s just me, I suppose.

As for the president- and vice president-elect, they indeed made history. They defeated the most corrupt, amoral, venal and disgraceful presidential administration in U.S. history. They did so convincingly. Joe Biden deserves kudos for making history by selecting Kamala Harris, the first black and first candidate of South Asian descent to run with him as vice president.

They both acquitted themselves well on the campaign trail. They have rolled up 81 million votes en route to a solid Electoral College majority. Biden and Harris are assembling a first-class team with which to govern.

In some ways, the Time choice is the politically safe choice. Winning presidents (and this case winning VPs) often get the Person of the Year nod.

However, the pandemic is the overwhelming story of 2020. The chief element of that story, in my view, has been the heroism displayed in hospital emergency rooms, ICU rooms and the bedsides of COVID-19 patients; moreover, there have been heroes abounding in our classrooms as educators seek to teach our children amid the threat of exposure to a potentially deadly virus.

And this heroism is a worldwide phenomenon.

So, I’ll accept Time’s choice simply as the editors’ call. It’s not one I would have made but it’s their magazine, their decision.

Just to be clear — one more time: I am delighted that we’re about to welcome Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our new president and vice president.

national news

106 House GOP members form an infamous cabal

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One hundred six members of the U.S. House of Representatives have formed a cabal that has joined what has been called an act of sedition against the U.S. government.

They signed on to a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to overturn the electoral results in four states that endorsed President-elect Joe Biden’s bid to become president.

Yes, roughly half of the GOP House caucus has signed on to a plan to undercut the democratic process. They want to throw out the votes of millions of Americans. They want those states’ electors to vote for Donald Trump and not Joe Biden, even though the president-elect earned more votes than Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

They are shameful seditionists who should be defeated when they stand for re-election in 2022.