Category Archives: national news

national news

Waiting for the end

I am officially tired of the 2022 midterm election campaign.

There. Having gotten that off my chest, I now will explain what has drained me of my enthusiasm. Admittedly, it’s a partisan matter.

You see, I was filled with a bit of new enthusiasm when Democrats appeared poised to retain control of the Senate and possibly the House of Representatives. Then — pfftt! — they lost their momentum. Just like that!

All across the political landscape I keep seeing reporting that tells us of once-sure-fire Democratic victories becoming nail-biters. Republican dumbass MAGA-loving candidates actually appear to be poised to upset their foes.

It’s making me wonder: What the hell is wrong with this country?

I won’t sign any surrender documents until they count all the ballots next week. Some of these contests might not be decided until, oh, late next week … or maybe into the following week!

Whatever. My enthusiasm is waning. I fear a political bloodbath might be in store. I continue to have faith that our cherished Constitution will see the nation through.

It’s just going to be a rough, tough fight.

Now, having made all this gloomy prediction, the polls have been wrong a lot in recent years. Maybe they’re wrong now.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Debate becomes casualty

One of the casualties of the current political climate happens to be a major battlefield loss for those of us who long for a return of political civility.

It is debate. Yes, it is become virtually impossible to debate those with whom one might have a political difference. The nastiness and the doubling down by the Trumpkins who read this blog has forced me to hunker down and no longer engage in active and lively debate over the issues.

It has come down to this: What is the point?

I know too many people on the other side of the wall with whom I once might have been able to argue a point, but who now stand wedded strongly to their point of view.

Come to think of it, so do I!

Political debate too often — even in the halls of government — morphs into name-calling, epithet-hurling, threats of physical harm. The same can be said among friends out here in Flyover Country.

Too many friendships have been torn apart, tossed aside because of political differences. Man, it ain’t supposed to be that way … you know? But it is.

Given the toxic environment that exists today, I am going to resist the temptation to engage anyone in serious discussion about political differences. Almost immediately, we end up talking past each other.

The value of debate, therefore, is lost.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cannot comprehend the stupidity

Make no mistake about it. I will go to my grave never understanding how supposedly mainstream Americans can buy into the stupidity being peddled by so many Republican candidates for public office.

Yes, the midterm election is coming up rapidly. It appears that the GOP is going to wrest control away from Democrats in at least one congressional chamber. The House appears to be vulnerable to the potential politics of revenge that awaits once Republicans seize the gavel and committee chairmanships from Democrats.

What just utterly astounds me, though, is the idiocy being blathered by the MAGA-loving, election-denying cult followers of the most recent former GOP POTUS.

They belong to what I should refer to as the Dumbass Wing of the GOP. The espouse treasonous views that seek to undermine the integrity of our electoral process. Some GOP candidates for governor and secretary of state vow to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election. Why? Because they have bought into the Big Lie about the election being “stolen.”

What is stunning beyond all measure is that so many Americans have signed on to that bullsh**, believing the rubbish being spread about election integrity.

We have utterly incompetent candidates running under the Republican banner who stand a good chance of being elected to important public offices. They will then be able to foist their idiocy onto the public that believes it. I am left to wonder how long their supporters will hang with them once we’re all exposed to the chaos and confusion their policies are likely to bring.

I am going to offer all kinds of karma and prayer that seeks to stop on the onslaught I fear might be about to swamp Congress, some of our statehouses and even some of our school boards, which could elect book-burners and those who believe we need to purge our public schools of that phony “critical race theory” principle.

I am feeling the pangs of fear … and I don’t like it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news

When will indictment arrive?

All the smart money — and even some of the dumber dough — believes that Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to indict Donald J. Trump … for something!

So many questions lurk on the edges and even some in the guts of the issue.

When will the indictment(s) come? How far will the AG go in charging the former president of the U.S.A. with committing a criminal act? How does an indictment affect the former POTUS’s plans for running for the presidency again, if he’s indeed going to do so? What will be the response of Trump’s diminishing — but still frothing rabid — base of supporters?

I happen to believe that Garland could indict Trump on obstruction of justice, on violating his oath of office, potentially on contempt of Congress, on conspiracy to commit sedition.

It all turns on the events of 1/6. Trump incited the insurrection and no one on Earth is going to persuade me he didn’t do it.

However, Merrick Garland is nothing if not a realist. He knows the stakes are huge. If Republicans gain control of Congress after the midterm election, he faces the prospect of impeachment by Republicans still steamed over Democrats’ decision to impeach Trump twice.

The biggest obstacle to impeaching the AG, though, is that he is doing his job. Unlike the “high crimes” that produced two impeachments against Trump — seeking political favors from a foreign government and inciting the attack on the Capitol — Garland merely would be doing his job in accordance with the law.

That likely wouldn’t stop the GOP from seeking to make Garland “pay” for the impeachment of the former POTUS.

This is all part of the drama that awaits as Merrick Garland ponders what appears to be an inevitable action. I am waiting to see how this drama ends.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Is this the nature of our politics?

What are we to surmise about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the U.S. House speaker?

An assailant broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home, asking, “Where’s Nancy?” Then he and Paul Pelosi started struggling and the assailant beat his victim brutally, fracturing his skull and inflicting assorted other injuries.

The police came while the fight was underway and arrested the suspect.

The motive for the attack hasn’t been established officially, so I am left to offer a bit of conjecture that I believe is on point.

It is that the assailant was looking to harm the speaker of the House for political reasons.

I have put two and two together and have come up with four. My strong hunch is that the idiotic assailant is a MAGA-loving adherent to the far-right wing of the Republican Party.

Is this the nature of disagreement these days? That those who believe in a different world view are going to physically assault their foes?

I am acutely aware that violence has existed in the American political system since the beginning of the Republic. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton to death in 1804 while settling some sort of political dispute.

But … that was then. We’re supposed to be a more “civilized society” these days. Now, though, we have instances of violence erupting, such as what occurred in the home of Paul and Nancy Pelosi.

I’ll conclude with this observation. I believe this sort of insanity should give all voters pause as they ponder for whom to vote during the midterm election. Do they really want to endorse the candidacies of politicians who espouse the idiocy that appears to have motivated the assailant to damn near kill the husband of a powerful politician?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stop the lies!

The current political climate is giving me pause, forcing me to rethink a pledge I made on this blog many years ago, which was that censor or block anyone on my social media network because of their politics.

You know, of course, that I consider myself to be a “center-left” blogger. I extol what I call “good government progressivism.” That’s another way of saying that I do not accept some of the wacky progressive notions being tossed around. Free college for everyone? A non-starter, man.

But wait! There are a ton of individuals on the MAGA right wing of the great divide who keep telling lies. They use my blog to foment those lies when I comment on them. They will respond to a comment I offer about why I consider The Big Lie – the one about alleged theft of the 2020 presidential election – to be a threat to democracy. They say there was widespread fraud. Yet they provide the same amount of evidence of such fraud as the Godfather of The Big Lie, Donald Trump: none!

I am not going to be a pansy about criticism of my comments. I don’t mind receiving barbs. Seriously. It’s OK with me. What troubles me are the lies that critics use to buttress their shameful responses.

They contend that President Biden is suffering from a lack of cognition. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They continue to insist that Biden wasn’t elected POTUS legitimately. Texas has a congressman, first-term Republican Ronny Jackson, who insists that Democrats are seeking to destroy the nation’s democratic process. He is full of sh**!

All of this leads to ponder whether I want to renege on my pledge to allow this blog to be an open forum for discussion. Well, I won’t take it back. I am not going to allow the fomenting of lies.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, religious news

Protecting all civil liberties

“Well, the radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion. But it’s nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend.”

The comment here is attributed to former Vice President Mike Pence, as if that’s any surprise.

I want to take a brief moment to challenge the ex-VPOTUS’s assertion.

When I took my oath upon being inducted into the U.S. Army in 1968, I presumed in the moment that I was going to protect the U.S. Constitution. That means all of the civil liberties enshrined in the document. One of those liberties includes the First Amendment’s protection against the government imposing a state religion.

Pence to revisit religious freedom act – High Plains Blogger (wordpress.com)

The amendment does in fact guarantee citizens the right to avoid religion if that is their choice. It isn’t mine, but I have no right to presume that every American should follow my lead. They are free to worship whatever or not worship any religious deity.

Are we clear? Good!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Candidate victimized by snickers

By any reasonable measure, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman should be elected U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in a few days.

His opponent in the midterm election is a former physician, Mehmet Oz, who boasts not one moment of public policy experience. Furthermore, Oz doesn’t even live in the state he allegedly wants to represent in the Senate.

As I write this brief blog post, Fetterman is running slightly ahead of Oz in the polling. Why is that? Because Oz and his Republican allies — led by Donald J. Trump — have made a stroke that Fetterman suffered a few months ago a campaign issue.

Has Fetterman lost any mental acuity? Is he less smart now than he was before the stroke? No and no. However, he has suffered what he admits to are “auditory” issues. He has trouble stringing sentences together.

I want to mention all this because of the nastiness that permeates the campaign to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. The result of this election well could determine which parties controls the Senate in January; the Senate now is split 50 to 50. It’s a big deal, man!

I would hate for this campaign to turn on one side’s tittering over a serious man’s cognitive ability … which hasn’t diminished because of a stroke.

However, the cheapness of debate is exemplified in this contest and others featuring campaigns that include election denying/MAGA-loving Republicans and their Democratic foes.

That is what is playing out in Pennsylvania. It should not have come to this, with the result of a contest between a tested public policy veteran and a fraudulent carpetbagger now being too close to call.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, religious news

We are free from religion!

I want to express my outrage at politicians who continue to insist that the United States is a Christian nation and that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee that we are guaranteed to free ourselves from religion of any stripe.

There. I just did express my intense anger.

Too many pols keep insisting that their Christian devotion is good enough for everyone. Therefore, they advocate foisting Christian beliefs on students in public schools.

There can be no greater perversion of what the Constitution lays out there than the idiocy being pitched by the likes of, oh, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

She recently declared that this country is a Christian nation. It is nothing of the sort. The First Amendment to the Constitution spells out in clear, concise language that “Congress shall make no law” that establishes a state religion. As I have noted already on this blog, I cannot find a single mention of the words “Christian,” “Christianity” or “Jesus Christ.”

Boebert’s congressional wing woman, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, called herself a “Christian nationalist.” Thus, she is proud to foist her religious beliefs on every other American simply because she was elected to Congress.

The Constitution makes it abundantly clear — and the courts have affirmed it — that Americans are free to rely on the faith of their choice and that they also are free to be religion free.

It is not illegal in this country to be an atheist, or an agnostic.

Politicians who imply that it is illegal are as un-American as anyone in public life … and they should be tossed out of office.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news, political news

Politics delivers bruising blows

LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. — I guess it was the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen who I heard say that in Texas, “politics is a contact sport.”

Yes. It is. However, a brief visit to a real-deal battleground state such as Arizona has exposed my bride and me to what has become a “contact sport” that can draw a good bit of metaphorical blood.

Arizona is where Donald Trump sought to delegitimize his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. It has carried over to the midterm election, where the ballot in Arizona is peppered with election deniers seeking to overturn the results of the election that President Biden won freely, fairly, legally and morally.

My favorite commercials happen to be those featuring Republican voters who say that GOP governor candidate Kari Lake is “too dangerous” to become the state’s next governor.

It’s been fun watching this campaign play out from our ringside seats. It’s a brief look, to be sure. We’ll get to watch the Texas campaign play out as Midterm Election Day approaches.

It’s coming on. Rapidly.

I am ready to cast my ballot and then get on with the rest of retirement living.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com