Category Archives: national news

national news

Oz does what? Concedes?

Mehmet Oz did something that in another time wouldn’t be cause for comment. The here and now, though, prompts a brief response.

Oz lost his race for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania to Democrat John Fetterman. What did Oz do? He conceded the race and called for unity!

Why is that worth a hats off? Because Oz had been endorsed by Donald J. Trump, but shied away from some of Trump’s more outrageous mantras, such as The Big Lie about voter fraud tainting the 2020 presidential election.

Oz, though, stayed on the high road. Fetterman defeated the Republican by about 5 percentage points. Unlike his political benefactor, Oz had the good taste and grace to do with losing candidates have done since the beginning of the republic. He conceded the contest to his opponent.

If only the Big Liar in Chief would follow that lead.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Will majority be worth it?

Let’s presume that the conventional wisdom holds up in the wake of the 2022 midterm election, which is that Republicans are going to win a majority of the House seats and will be in charge when the next Congress convenes in January.

What I am going to wonder aloud is whether the House GOP leadership team can govern. Will it be able to control its own members, let alone dictate the flow of legislation that comes from the lower legislative chamber?

I doubt it. Seriously!

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy was thought to be a shoo-in for speaker if Republicans took command. Even that’s in doubt today.

McCarthy has pissed off the right-wing Freedom Caucus wing of his House members. He also has angered the establishment wing of those who call themselves Republicans. The MAGA lovers wanted a much larger majority; they won’t get it. The establishment wing of the GOP wants to work with Democrats on legislation; that likely won’t happen, either, given Democrats’ anger at McCarthy over his back-tracking on Donald Trump’s role in the 1/6 insurrection.

I keep seeing models suggesting Republicans will win 219 House seats; Democrats are slated to occupy 216 of them. The majority party needs 218 to take command. A one-seat cushion isn’t very, um, secure … you know?

This all makes the GOP majority practically worthless.

The current speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, is holding out hope that her party can squeak through by retaining a majority. That’s brave talk from a battle-tested political warrior.

Even though I am sitting in the peanut gallery, the cheap-seat view tells me that Republicans are going to eke out their cherished majority. However, I am going to wonder whether it’s worth having.

As the saying goes, elections do have consequences. We’re going to get a good look at how those consequences play out once the new Congress takes over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

This story needs to be told

The media are grossly underreporting a stunning result of the 2022 midterm election, which involves a Democrat flipping a GOP-held seat in the House of Representatives.

What’s more, this story takes place in a congressional district just across the Columbia River from my Portland, Ore., hometown. I now intend to give this story some of the attention it deserves.

U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler voted in 2021 to impeach Donald J. Trump after Trump incited the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. Beutler represents Washington state’s Third Congressional District, which includes Clark County, just across river from Portland.

Beutler also is a Republican. Her payback for voting to impeach the crooked POTUS was to face a GOP primary foe this year. Joe Kent, a MAGA-worshiping Trump sycophant defeated Beutler in the primary.

Oh, but wait! Then Kent, running for election in the midterm, got thumped out of office by Democrat Marie Gleusenkamp Perez.

Karma is wonderful … you know?

Washington’s Third Congressional District voters provided a stunning statement of disapproval of The Big Lie, of the Trump cult message of “fraud” that doesn’t exist.

It speaks as well as any individual House election result of just what drove voters to keep the Senate in Democratic hands and which could result in Democrats maintaining control of the House of Representatives. I acknowledge the latter event isn’t likely; but then again, they haven’t stopped counting the ballots in about 20 House districts.

The message to the MAGA lovers and the Big Liars out there ought to be crystal clear. The nation is weary of the conspiracy theories put forth by those who adhere to such nonsense.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Reason, sanity prevail

Let us praise the return of some semblance of sanity to the American political process with news out of Nevada that Democrats are going to retain control of the next U.S. Senate.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will return to Capitol Hill, ensuring that Democrats will occupy at least 50 seats on the upper legislative chamber. The number could rise to 51 if Sen. Raphael Warnock wins the Georgia runoff next month against Republican challenger Herschel Walker; I will root vigorously for that outcome.

What the returns tell me, though, is that American voters across the land are rejecting the Big Lie about alleged vote fraud; they want a return to reasonable debate and discussion; they are giving the heave-ho to notions promoted by those on the far right who condone violence as a form of political discourse.

We are seeing, it seems to me, a return of sanity and reason.

May it continue its regeneration from this day forward.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

’22 midterm: so much to digest

I am still trying to grasp what in the world happened this week during the 2022 midterm election.

  • Democrats were supposed to be eviscerated by Republicans. It didn’t happen.
  • First-term presidents always suffer badly during midterm elections. President Biden reportedly can’t stop smiling.
  • Republicans have vowed revenge as payback for the two impeachments leveled against the most recent GOP president. Their razor-slim House majority might get in the way.

I dare not even begin to predict what the consequences of this startling election will mean for the cause of good government. The U.S. Senate appears set to remain in slightly stronger Democratic hands. The U.S. House will turn Republican, but the GOP margin is likely to make their majority virtually unworkable.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s quest to become speaker might face some peril. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell could face ouster if enough Senate Republicans get their dander up over the Democrats’ stunning election result.

It just boggles my mind to consider what could have happened at the polls. The election deniers by and large got the boot. Many of the MAGA acolytes faced the same fate.

I won’t necessarily buy into the notion that Americans are happy with the state of the economy, although our nation’s economic health is far better than many partisan critics have described it.

It well might be that Americans are sick and tired of the dangerous rhetoric that comes from the MAGA/election deniers within the Republican Party. That message became the centerpiece of many Republican candidates for important offices, such as governor, members of Congress, secretaries of state.

Just maybe the American electorate said, “Enough is enough!”

If that is the case, then the cause of good government has received a much-needed and necessary boost. Not a bad outcome.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

2016 election, national news

Michael Moore: predictor in chief

Michael Moore is trying to emerge as the nation’s go-to guy on political predictions. Who’da thunk it?

Moore is a noted filmmaker whose works have chronicled key points in recent American history. He has taken on gun violence, terrorists, and political figures of all stripes with his films.

Now he has become a predictor of political trends.

Moore was one of the few public figures to say out loud that Donald Trump would win the presidency in 2016. I laughed at him. So did others.

Now he is on record — several weeks ago! — in predicting that Democrats would defy history and logic and Republicans by saying that Democrats would get the better of the GOP in the 2022 midterm election.

Pundits of all types scoffed at him.

But again … he was correct.

Wow! That’s all I have.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Senate control hangs in balance

Election runoffs depend on turnout, or so the saying goes. Which means that the candidate who wins a two-person contest will do so on the basis of getting his or her voters to the polls.

In normal circumstances, voters need to be motivated by factors that might not exist internally. They might exist elsewhere.

So … with that the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker might depend on what is about to happen in Nevada.

The stakes are, shall we say … huge man.

The Senate is tied at 50-50, with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. The midterm election is staggering to its finish. Arizonans just re-elected Sen. Mark Kelly to a six-year Senate term. Kelly becomes the 49th Democrat to be elected. The 50th Democrat well might be Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is locked in a fight with GOP challenger Adam Laxalt.

If Masto emerges as the 50th Democratic senator, does that render the Georgia runoff moot? Does it lessen the need for Georgia Democrats to ensure their guy, Sen. Warnock, gets enough votes to defeat Herschel Walker? Hardly!

If Warnock defeats Walker — which he damn sure must do — that would give Democrats a 51-49 majority in the next U.S. Senate, scenario few of us saw coming.

I cannot post this blog item without mentioning that Herschel Walker might be the most unfit individual to run for the Senate in the past, oh, 50 years. He was Donald J. Trump’s handpicked nominee, which tells me plenty about Walker’s qualifications to hold this valuable public office — which amount to zero!

Walker is an abortion hypocrite on the basis of two women who say he paid for their abortions. He has next to no relationship with many of his children, yet he campaigns as a staunch anti-abortion family man.

OK, I got that off my chest.

Back to the point, which is that the pending outcome in Nevada does nothing to the importance of the Georgia runoff. Democrats already have made plenty of history by bucking what was supposed to be a political shellacking.

I am going to hope they make more of it next month by re-electing Sen. Warnock to the Senate.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news, political news, State news

Bidding farewell to nutjobs

Let us now bid a hearty and heartfelt adieu to the bevy of blowhards who sought to infect government at all levels with their toxic views about election denial and how they intend to “make America great again.”

Many of them — not all, I am sad to acknowledge — got their proverbial melons thumped by Democrats in the 2022 midterm election. They were — and are — unqualified and unfit for public office. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania is my example du jour of the kind of nut case that had no business taking a much more qualified opponent, John Fetterman, to the distance before losing the contest for the U.S. Senate.

Oz had been selected to run as a Republican by Donald John Trump. Oz’s political credentials, simply put, do not exist. He’s gone. I hope he’s gone forever.

Trump’s fingerprints are all over the political corpses that litter the roadway to oblivion. Election denier Doug Mastriano lost his bid to become Pennsylvania governor. Another denier, Kari Lake, might win the Arizona governor’s race over a more qualified Democrat, Kelly Hobbs; then again, those results could go either way.

Americans from coast to coast have been “treated,” if that’s the right word, to the foolishness and rubbish that come from so damn many so-called Republicans these days.

Texas, where I live, has its share of GOP dipsh**s as well. I’ll single out Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won re-election to a third term despite being indicted — just months after taking office in 2015 — for securities fraud and for showing time and again that he cannot be trusted to represent the state’s interests with competence and fairness.

So … with that I want to say “so long” to the cabal of kooks who populated our ballot. I am proud to say that none of you got my vote or my stated support on this blog.

I remain committed to the policy of good government and I long for the day when we can return to a two-party system that produces vigorous discussion and debate on issues based on truth. The Big Lie needs to die as miserable a death as possible.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Election was for the ages

 

Midterm Election Day 2022 is now in the books and I am still trying to wrap my arms around what in the name of political punditry occurred.

Republicans were supposed to capture complete control of Congress, flipping perhaps dozens of seats in the House and pilfering perhaps a six to eight Senate seats.

It didn’t happen. Democrats well might retain control of the Senate; indeed, if the Georgia runoff goes to my satisfaction and a Democratic incumbent wins re-election in Arizona, then Democrats might pick up on seat in their majority.

Oh, and the House? That remains an open question. The GOP is poised to take control, but with a fraction of the seats they expected to gain. Maybe by three or four? Several contests remain too close to call, so they could go either way.

I am left two days after Election Day to scratch my head and wonder: What the heck is going on?

I am trying to parse some of the reasons for this unexpected result. Donald Trump might have been poison to many of the MAGA adherents who fell short. President Biden’s message that “democracy is on the ballot” might have stuck more tightly than anyone imagined. Women might have turned out to protest the assault on their right to decide how to manage their own body.

Not every pundit saw a Red Wave swamping the political landscape. They were laughed or jeered out of every room where they offered a contrary view.

I guess they were smarter than many of us cared to admit.

Whatever. Midterm Election Day 2022 has provided yet another example of how topsy-turvy conventional wisdom has become. What you think will happen almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for something else occurring.

In this case, I welcome the surprise.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Election jumble boggles the noggin

The Donald Trump Era of contemporary politics has managed to upset conventional wisdom all over the place.

Consider that the former TV celebrity/real estate mogul/stable genius entered presidential politics … and no one gave him a chance of winning the presidency.

Then he did.

Four years later, he lost his re-election effort. He continues to mix it up. And those wacky polls are spreading conflicting messages. They told us Republicans would seize control of Congress. At this writing, that takeover remains an open question.

What the hell?

Conventional wisdom no longer exists.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com