Category Archives: national news

International news, national news, political news

Go ahead, Mr. POTUS, invite Donald

Protocol at times can be cause for heartburn, perhaps even a sleepless night or two.

President Biden has been invited as our head of state to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, set for Sept. 19. The royal family has left it up to all the invitees to determine who will accompany them to the funeral.

OK, so you might be wondering: Does the current president invite his immediate predecessor to accompany him to London to say farewell to the universally beloved queen?

My take? Sure. Why not?

You also might be wondering: Would Donald J. Trump accept such an invitation? 

My guess? Not in a zillion years.

Joe Biden is a firm believer, it appears, in presidential tradition and custom, unlike his immediate predecessor. So, it would seem only fitting for the current president to include all the living former presidents to join him. Indeed, all these men — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump — met with the queen during their times in office. They all have issued gracious statements in response to the death of the UK’s longest-serving monarch.

Trump, though, presents a unique set of issues. He hasn’t yet even acknowledged publicly that he lost to Biden. He continues to foment The Big Lie about “widespread voter fraud” that did not exist during the election. He has suggested he would issue blanket pardons for the treasonous assailants who attacked the Capitol on 1/6 were he sent back to the White House.

The evidence is mounting damn near daily that an indictment or three awaits the ex-POTUS for his role in inciting the violence on 1/6, not to mention the discovery of top-secret documents in the basement of his home in Florida. Sheesh …

Does he intend to play second-fiddle to Joe Biden on Air Force One? No way, man!

I believe President Joe Biden would be smart to extend the invitation … and then let Donald Trump live with the consequences of declining it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, national news, political news

Yeah, Donald, keep blathering

1 Comment

I am going to steal a thought that appeared first on social media from a member of my family.

My cousin Jim posted an item I want to share: And he recently referred to the sitting president of the United States as the “Enemy of the people.” In Russia, one would disappear after such a comment.

Indeed, think about the idiocy of Donald Trump’s latest rant about the man who defeated him soundly in the 2020 presidential election.

He calls President Biden the “enemy” after Biden rolled up 81.2 million votes, 7 million more than Trump collected, with a 51% majority of all votes cast.

Doesn’t the ex-POTUS understand the irony of making such a hideous statement? In Russia, which is governed by his good buddy Vladimir Putin, he would have been arrested and thrown into some gulag in Siberia simply by making such a ridiculous assertion. And, no, there is no guarantee in Russia of “freedom of speech or expression.”

I know the answer to the question I posed. Trump cannot think at all beyond his own narcissistic desires. Mention the word “irony” to Trump and you might as well be speaking Martian to him.

This individual is a disgrace.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, national news, political news

How do these candidates do it?

There can be nothing normal about today’s political climate, given what I understand is the amazingly strong showing among Republican candidates for high public office.

Bear in mind that these Republicans have been endorsed/anointed by Donald John Trump as heirs to the political idiocy to which he gave birth when he rode down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential candidacy.

For example, I just heard that dumb bell Herschel Walker is actually leading Sen. Raphael Warnock in the race in Georgia for Warnock’s seat in the Senate. The spread is just 3 percentage points, but the very idea that a dumbass like Walker can be taken seriously as a senatorial candidate simply blows my mind.

It’s neck and neck up yonder in Pennsylvania, where Trumpkin Mehmet Oz is running against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman for the GOP-held Senate seat that Pat Toomey is vacating. Oz doesn’t even live in Pennsylvania and has managed to make a hash out of damn near every issue there is to discuss. He’s still in the hunt.

Over in Ohio, another Trump cultist, J.D. Vance, is actually ahead of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in the race for the seat vacated by Sen. Bob Portman, one of the good-guy Republicans still in office.

These and other examples suggest to me that whatever political future Trump carves out for himself might be moot. He’s already won by leaving a large footprint on a once-Grand Old Party.

If he declines to run for POTUS in 2024, his candidates will carry the ball for him. If he decides to run and loses, he’ll still have that field of Trumpkins.

If he runs and wins … oh, jeez, I can’t finish that thought.

The 45th POTUS has endorsed a slate of losers, nut jobs and dumbasses. That much we know. What boggles my noggin is that some of them actually might win.

Go … figure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, local news, national news, State news

Nothing to brag about here, Texas

Well now, it turns out Texas is No. 1 in a category of states that should bring plenty of shame.

Texas has more Oath Keepers members than any other state in the Union. Who are the Oath Keepers? This is one of the groups involved in inciting the 1/6 insurrection against the government, the attack that sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election … the one that Donald Trump lost fair and square to Joe Biden.

Oh, but there’s more.

Among the more than 3,300 Texans listed as members of Oath Keepers, some of ’em are law enforcement officers. They include two constables and four chiefs of police.

The findings come from the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to rooting out evil among us. They have hit the mother lode when it comes to Texas’ involvement in the Oath Keepers, many of whom were photographed prancing through the Capitol on 1/6 carrying Confederate flags and shouting “Hang Mike Pence!”

Hey, you want more? Try this: One of the constables serves a precinct in Collin County, where I live with other members of my family. When I saw the Collin County connection to this far-right-wing group of fruitcakes, my thought turned immediately to a gentleman I have gotten to know — who happens to be a constable in Collin County.

My friend ain’t that guy. What’s more, you know of course that constables in Texas also happen to be elected politicians who run for the office either as Democrats or Republicans.

For the record, the Collin County constable associated with the Oath Keepers is Joe Wright, who serves Precinct 4. Constable Wright has some explaining to do to his constituents who might be concerned about this fellow’s link to an organization involved in one of the darkest days in U.S. history.

More than 3,300 Texans were members of the Oath Keepers, report says | The Texas Tribune

This is a strange turn that makes me decidedly not proud of the state where my wife and I chose to relocate more than 38 years ago.

I consider the Oath Keepers to be replete with traitors.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, national news, political news

Love the tradition

You at this moment are reading the words of a sucker for pageantry, ceremony and even a little bit of pomp. It was with that bias that I was able to watch the return of a longstanding White House ceremony laced with good humor, good tidings and gratitude.

President and Mrs. Biden invited former President and Mrs. Obama back to the White House today to unveil portraits of the Obamas that will hang in the people’s house alongside — as President Obama noted — “George and Martha.”

OK, this isn’t normally the stuff that would fill a blog such as mine. Except for the proverbial elephant that one could almost hear trudging through the White House room where they unveiled the Obamas’ portraits.

That was the memory of the single term of the man who served as president between the terms of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Donald J. Trump could have had a ceremony honoring the Obamas. He chose to throw that tradition aside, alongside other traditions that Trump chose to ignore.

No one mentioned Trump’s name in their remarks to the nation as the pictures were unveiled. There was no need. The Obamas and the Bidens all referred to the “tradition” they were honoring, just as the Obamas did when they unveiled portraits of President and Mrs. Bush, and just as the Bushes did when they welcomed back President and Mrs. Clinton for precisely the same ceremony.

I should point out that in both those instances, presidents of one party honored his predecessor from the opposing party, setting aside partisan differences and disagreements over policy to honor their service to the country.

So, now for The Big Question: Would there be such a ceremony in which Donald and Melania Trump come back to the White House for a portrait unveiling? I almost laughed out loud when I typed those words.

Given all the hatred and the violence that preceded the transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden’s administration … do not hold your breath waiting for the Trumps to return to the White House.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, military news, national news, political news

Equal justice? Hah!

Donald J. Trump is supposed to be subject to the same standards as every U.S. citizen now that he no longer is president of the United States.

Isn’t that the rule? Isn’t that what Attorney General Merrick Garland has implied all along while stipulating that “no one is above the law”?

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, though, has a different take on it. Cohen, who served as defense boss during the Clinton administration, said today that had he taken the documents now believed to have been found among the cache of papers in Trump’s home that he would have been arrested on the spot and taken into custody.

Which begs the question: If Donald Trump now is just an ordinary citizen of this country and has been found to have taken highly classified documents home with him as he left the White House for keeps, why hasn’t he been arrested and charged with, oh, violating the Presidential Records Act or the Espionage Act?

Former Secretary of Defense walks through what would happen to him if he took the documents Trump did (msn.com)

I am acutely aware that all of that would take us down a path on which we have never walked. However, it does appear to be more than just scuttlebutt that Trump had in his possession documents containing — gulp! — nuclear secrets.

What in the name of MADness was Trump going to do with this stuff?

This brings me to another question: Is Donald Trump ever going to be treated like any schmuck who takes official documents illegally?

Allow me to borrow this phrase: Lock him up!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news, political news

Hillary is right about Trump

Say whatever you want about Hillary Rodham Clinton, who grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2016 presidential election … but she is correct in asserting that the man who defeated her then is a criminal.

Donald Trump, said 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Clinton, has committed an act of “seditious conspiracy” against the federal government. She is convinced of the evidence that has been gathered and she wants him prosecuted.

So do I and so do millions of other Americans.

Clinton told CBS News what many of us already know, that she was unhappy that she collected 3 million more votes than Trump but lost the Electoral College vote, which is the count that matters in electing presidents.

“Did I consider for a nanosecond” an effort to overturn the results of that election? Clinton asked. “No!” she answered with stunning emphasis.

Clinton lost the 2016 election in one of the most bizarre political flukes in U.S. history. Trump pilfered states that by all rights should have ended up in Clinton’s column. She lost them and I, for one, am not going to dispute that Trump was elected president in 2016. Thus, he benefited from a peaceful power transition that he denied the man to whom he lost four years later.

And in denying that peaceful transition to an opponent, Joe Biden, who defeated him decisively, Trump committed a criminal act of “seditious conspiracy.”

The record is now chock full of evidence presented to a select House committee. Just think: this is just one of at least three probes into criminal activity involving the twice-impeached former president of the United States of America.

The beat, as they say, just goes on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news, State news

Lame-duck courage: overrated

One would think that a politician who declares his or her intention to walk away from a public office would be infused with all manner of courage to say things about which he or she would normally remain quiet.

It is not so.

How do I know that? Because I know many politicians in this era of hyper-division who have announced their intention to bow out of the public arena but who don’t go public with how they really feel about other pols and public policy issues.

Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley over the weekend, for instance, said out loud that he would vote for Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Mike Collier over incumbent Republican Dan Patrick. Big deal? Yeah, it is. Whitley is a stellar, stalwart mainstream Republican politician who told WFAA-TV that he won’t back arguably the state’s most power GOP politician.

Why does Whitley stand out? Why aren’t there many more politicians willing to say what Whitley said. It doesn’t take a whole lot of courage for a lame-duck pol to speak from his or her gut when they no longer face a political campaign.

Yet, for reasons that escape me too few of them step up and speak their minds.

Might it be that they don’t want to face their next-door neighbor who would challenge their intelligence? Or the guy in the grocery story who would recognize them? Or perhaps the husband and wife who sit next to them in the house of worship on Sunday?

What does take courage is for a politician who continues to run for re-election to challenge the party’s leadership. I give you Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who has condemned Donald Trump in the strongest terms possible … only to lose huge in the recent GOP primary in her state.

We’re seeing a large number of Congress members retiring this year. However, we are seeing a surprisingly limited number of them speaking from their gut about the future of their party … or the nation.

That frustrates me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news, national security

Is she a ‘Trump judge’?

Donald J. Trump’s past blathering about “Obama judges” and “Clinton judges” ruling against him in various legal battles gives me pause as I try to weigh the legal significance of a federal judge who has ruled in the ex-president’s favor in his fight with the FBI over those classified documents he squirreled away at his Florida estate.

Legal and constitutional scholars have been quick to condemn Trump’s assertion that those decisions with which he disagrees are the result of the political leanings of the judges who delivered them. They have said that judges take solemn oaths to be faithful to the Constitution and that’s what they have done in issuing their rulings.

Now we have a Trump-appointed federal judge — Aileen Cannon — deciding that it’s OK to appoint a special master to pore through the documents seized by the FBI in its search for possible criminal evidence.

The Justice Department argued against the appointment of such a special master. It well could appeal the decision by Judge Cannon.

But I am left to ponder something. If the ex-POTUS is going to rant and rail against judges who happen to occupy their seat on the bench because they are appointed by political rivals of his, is it OK for others to do the same thing when a Trump-appointed judge issues a key ruling in the former president’s favor?

Just askin’, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news

Trump gets special master … what’s next?

Do not look for me or listen for my voice among those who might be inclined to complain about a federal judge’s decision to grant Donald Trump’s request for a special master to investigate the FBI seizure of records from Trump’s posh Florida estate.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is a Trump appointee and today she ruled that a special master can be selected to examine claims of lawyer-client privilege as Trump seeks to block the probe into why he took classified documents from the White House to his glitzy estate in south Florida.

I am going to presume that Cannon is following the law as she sees fit. She ruled that the investigation by Congress and the Justice Department will continue and that she doesn’t see any overly long delay coming up as the courts look for a special master.

I do have one worry, which is that Cannon might bend to the idiocy being pitched that Trump is entitled to “executive privilege,” even though many other judges have ruled that as a former POTUS … he does not! Trump is declaring that he does enjoy that privilege, despite the fact that he left office in January 2021 and that, as one judge noted in an earlier ruling that “we only have one president at a time.” Trump ain’t it.

But, as The Hill reported: Prosecutors also said Trump could not claim executive privilege as a former president against the current executive branch, but Cannon said the DOJ’s position “arguably overstates the law.”

Judge grants Trump’s request to appoint special master to review Mar-a-Lago documents | The Hill

I am going to offer a word of hope that we can get this special master issue settled, get someone appointed, have that individual make rulings in a timely manner and that we can get to the bottom of the “probable cause” for criminality that resulted in the FBI search classified documents.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, to my way of thinking, has the goods to indict Trump on several counts. The question now becomes, will he get the chance to exercise his own constitutional authority?

The special master ploy mustn’t get in the AG’s way.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com