Category Archives: national news

national news

How does Trump fulfill these customs?

The U.S. presidency is chock full of custom related to a president’s time in office and that period after he leaves the White House for the final time as our head of state and commander in chief.

Many of those customs involve bringing the president back to the White House. You know the drill: ceremonies take place honoring past presidents; occasionally they return to unveil portraits of themselves and their wives; current POTUSes might call their predecessors to lead humanitarian missions.

Can anyone imagine President Biden asking his immediate predecessor to join him in a White House ceremony? Is there any possible scenario that could bring Donald Trump back to the White House for even the gauziest of events?

Heavens, no! Not a chance on this good Earth! 

Even if none of the investigations into Trump’s role in fomenting the 1/6 insurrection result in a criminal indictment do I see any chance that The Donald would return.

Trump laid down that marker after Election Day 2020 when he declared that he won an election he lost. He defamed election workers across the entire nation by declaring the system to be corrupt. He has been revealed in public testimony to have been actively involved in seeking to overturn those election results.

The customary return of Donald Trump to the White House, therefore, has been blown to smithereens by the hideous conduct of its former occupant.

Custom matters not one bit to this guy … which is fine with me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stand tall, counselor

Pat Cipollone is about to get his 15 minutes of fame, notoriety, infamy … whatever the case may be.

On Friday, the one-time White House counsel during Donald Trump’s term in office, will talk to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. He’ll get a chance to tell the panel what he said to Trump while the then-POTUS was seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election … the one that Trump lost to Joe Biden.

An earlier witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, told the committee about things Cipollone said, warning Trump that the actions he was proposing would end up sending everyone in the White House to prison.

Now the former White House lawyer gets to say it all himself, out loud and on the record.

The walls continue to close in on the former Nitwit in Chief.

This is so much fun to watch!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Graham shows his duplicity … again!

Can there be a more duplicitous hypocrite serving in the U.S. Senate than Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina?

Oh, there likely are a lot of ’em serving alongside Graham, but he’s outdone himself this week.

Graham declared that he won’t comply with a subpoena issued by Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis, who wants to talk to Graham about why he sought to intervene in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election returns.

You know the story. Georgia voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The ex-president sought to pressure election officials to “find” enough votes to turn the state into a Trump victory. Graham took part in that coercion. Fani Willis wants to talk to him about that.

Hence, the subpoena.

Graham, though, won’t comply with it. He calls it “all politics.”

Here’s an idea. If Graham insists he did nothing wrong and if he also insists that the exercise is a political stunt, why doesn’t he go and “set the record straight”?

I think I know why he won’t comply. It’s because DA Willis has an ironclad case of bullying and coercion on Trump’s part and on Graham.

Let’s remember that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger recorded Trump demanding that Raffensberger “find” enough votes needed to flip Georgia. The ex-POTUS committed an act of tampering with a state electoral process.

For my money, Fani Willis has potentially the most airtight case of all of them proceeding against the former POTUS.

As for Graham, who has been a major Trump suck-up ever since he dropped out of the 2016 GOP presidential primary, he is defying what should be obvious, that no one is above the law. When a duly elected prosecutor summons you to testify before a grand jury, you do what you’re told. Indeed, Graham has served as an Air Force lawyer and no doubt has issued that warning to witnesses summoned during courts martial.

I am heartened only by my belief that the walls are closing in on Donald J. Trump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Sanity must prevail

Those of us who believe the world is full of far more sane people than insane individuals must cling to that notion tightly as we watch the 2024 presidential election field take shape.

Thus, it falls on me to declare once again that I believe sanity is going to win the day. Republicans are not going to commit an act of insanity by allowing a twice-impeached president, a two-time loser of the popular vote and an individual who well might be indicted for seditious conspiracy against the government to carry the party’s banner into the next presidential campaign.

Donald J. Trump cannot possibly believe he can be elected again to the nation’s highest office. Surely there exists a sufficient body of sane Republicans who also can prevent that catastrophe from occurring.

I say this because I have stated already that I do not believe that Trump is going to run for POTUS in two years. This individual has a sh**load of trouble awaiting him.

His business is failing.  He is in debt up to that muskrat-covered skull of his. The 1/6 insurrection probe has revealed to the world that Trump knew in advance that the attack he provoked would bring trouble and that he didn’t give a damn that the traitorous mob was screaming “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed the Capitol Building.

I will not believe that Republicans would dare nominate someone so corrupt, crooked, immoral and indecent as the guy who stumbled and bumbled his way into office, only to be revealed that he, indeed, is every inch the “phony” and the “fraud” that 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney described him.

My eternal hope still burns brightly with the belief that the world has more sane minds than insane minds.

Let it be so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

AOC offers sound idea

Here’s a thought that comes from a member of Congress but is one I want to present here as food for thought.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the House’s most outspoken progressive members has suggested that any member of Congress who sought a pardon from the president of the United States should be expelled from that body.

Follow me on this.

AOC noted that during the House committee hearings on the 1/6 insurrection we learned that several House members sought a pardon from Donald J. Trump. According to AOC, one who seeks a pardon is admitting his or her guilt in committing a crime.

Hmm. Fascinating, yes?

Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louis Gohmert, Mo Brooks and Marjorie Taylor Greene all were identified by witnesses as House members who sought pardons from Trump. Why? They must have known all hell was going to break loose on 1/6, as did Trump.

They’re all right-wing, wacko Republicans. Thus, you could expect that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — an ardent Democrat — would take a hard line on whether her colleagues should remain as members of the people’s House. However, AOC — with whom I have some problems in the past — makes a valid point about whether these GOP nimrods deserve to keep their seats in the House.

If they have admitted to a crime for which they sought a pardon from the lame-duck POTUS, then they have admitted that they have committed a felony. If that is their admission, do they then deserve to remain in their House offices, drawing pay from taxpayers’ wallets and making public policy decisions that affect every American?

No! They do not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney a ‘sellout’?

Roll this one around for a moment: A critic of this blog believes U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is a “sellout” because she doesn’t profess loyalty to Donald J. Trump.

This critic, a fellow with whom I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News — and a guy I still consider to be a friend — predicts that Cheney will lose badly in the Wyoming GOP primary in August. He’s probably right. However, it is worth asking: why?

She is likely to lose because most Wyoming Republican primary voters believe the same as my critic/friend, that she has “sold out.”

To whom? Or to what?

I want to be clear about something. Liz Cheney remains an ardent conservative lawmaker. She is far too conservative for my taste. However, she takes her responsibilities seriously and is faithful to the core of her being to them.

My view is that she has sold her soul to the search for truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. Cheney has sold out, too, to the oath she took when she joined Congress nearly eight years ago. That oath was to the United States Constitution, to the laws of the land and to the government; she did not pledge an oath to an individual.

Cheney is a “sellout”? If that’s how these right-wing, Trumpkin Cabal of Kooks define the term … well, I welcome it!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stay strong, Mr. President

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Democrats are beginning to grumble about President Biden. They fret over his poll numbers, suggesting he isn’t showing enough decisive leadership in times of crisis.

Most of the griping comes from the progressive wing of the party, the fraction of Democrats who want to pack the Supreme Court with more liberal justices; they want to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate; they want the president to forgive all student debt.

They cannot understand why the president — who proclaims himself to be a progressive Democrat — isn’t joining them in their zealous quest for political perfection.

I’m going to give Joe Biden a bit more credit than progressives are giving him. The man has been a creature of government since before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. He knows politics and understands the value and the need for compromise.

Some progressive politicians say at this moment they cannot bring themselves to endorse President Biden for a second term should he decide to run in 2024. He has declared his intention to run for a second term, which — of course! — could change. I learned long ago that a pol’s “intent” doesn’t always translate into a forever condition.

Joe Biden has been dealt a tough hand. Vladimir Putin went to war illegally in Ukraine. That conflict has affected the price of fossil fuels. Inflation is raging. But, seriously, what can the president do unilaterally to bring it under control?

All that said, I am not going to acknowledge publicly that the economy is in the tank. We’re still adding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment is down to pre-pandemic lows.

And, yes, we have those midterm elections coming and the prospect — although it’s not certain — that Republicans are going to win control of Congress.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, though, can count this chump blogger as one who is going to stand with the president.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney to become GOP martyr

As a general rule I dislike attaching the word “martyr” to run-of-the-mill politicians, even when they do extraordinary things.

Liz Cheney is one of those pols who also happens to be doing something that in an earlier era wouldn’t merit the kind of praise she is about to receive from this blog.

The Wyoming Republican congresswoman is standing tall for the rule of law. She is calling a former GOP president precisely what he is: an existential threat to the nation’s representative democracy.

Cheney is likely to pay a grievous political price soon in the Wyoming Republican primary. She appears slated to lose her primary fight for a fourth term in the U.S. House.

‘She knows it wasn’t stolen’: Liz Cheney challenges Republican primary rival over false Trump election claims (msn.com)

And why? Because Wyoming Republican voters have swallowed the swill offered by the former Liar in Chief. Donald Trump’s Big Lie has gained traction among the gullible voters who appear to be the most dedicated among the GOP faithful.

Liz Cheney said this week that Republicans cannot possibly be faithful to both the Constitution and to Donald Trump. Of the two, which is more essential? Hmm. Let me think. I’ll go with the Constitution.

As we have learned during the House hearings on the insurrection — which Cheney has been a key principal — Trump doesn’t give a rat’s a** about the Constitution. His loyalty belongs only to himself and he has demanded it of those who worked for him in public life.

Liz Cheney has pushed back against the ex-POTUS’s sociopathic tendency only by insisting that he follow the law.

That she would be punished for that is reprehensible in the extreme. Yet, polling data suggest at this moment that Liz Cheney is going to lose her primary battle to return to Congress.

It boggles my mind that anyone with half a noodle in their noggin could believe the liar who once masqueraded as president of the United States.

I fear that such a travesty is going to unfold and a congresswoman who is fighting for the truth will pay the price for such ignorance.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Ratings don’t matter

Donald Trump and his cabal of cultists can complain all they want about the allegedly low “rating” the insurrection hearings are getting.

What matters, though, is the testimony that is being produced from these televised events. Not only that, the witnesses are talking to a limited audience. They are speaking to prosecutors and investigators working for the Department of Justice.

The most recent testimony offered by mid-level White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson already has come under fire. Donald Trump cultists say she offered “hearsay” testimony. Oh, really?

Others around her said incriminating things about the 1/6 insurrection … and she was present to hear what they said!

Hearsay? That’s hardly a defense when someone delivers the kind of damaging goods that Hutchinson dropped onto the laps the1/6 House select committee examining the insurrection.

Cassidy Hutchinson told a compelling — and damning — tale of corruption within the White House on that horrible and horrifying day as Donald Trump’s time as president was staggering to its conclusion.

Whether the vast bulk of Americans are not yet paying attention doesn’t matter one damn bit to those who are paying attention. They are the legal professionals who are preparing to decide whether to file criminal charges against those who did the bidding of the most corrupt president in U.S. history.

And, yes, whether they will file charges against the president himself. It looks for all the world to me that the Justice Department is being left with few choices other than to take a historic leap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Foes, not enemies

The collage of pictures you see with this blog post remind me of a time that now seems almost quaint, and yet I wish for a return to this sort of political imagery.

Democratic and Republican politicians can still be friends even as they joust — sometimes ferociously — with each other over matters of principle and purpose.

We are living these days in an era where members of Congress are physically, viscerally afraid to be in the company of their foes. This is an era in which at least one presidential candidate — that would be The Donald — urged his rally supporters to “beat the crap” out of protesters; he then offered to pay their legal bills if they needed help defending themselves in court.

So damn many of Trump’s cult followers have taken that advice all too seriously.

As I look at the images accompanying this brief blog item I am struck by how recently they were snapped. Yet the individuals pictured come from a bygone era of comity and collegiality.

President George W. Bush, you should recall, went to the White House after serving as a successful Texas governor. A large part of Bush’s success as governor came from his willingness and ability to work with politicians from the other party. Bush is a dedicated Republican, yet his alliances with Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney became the stuff of recent Texas political legend.

That’s just one example worth noting in this brief post.

I no longer recognize the political process I used to watch with respect that bordered on awe as I was coming of age.

These days we see politicians who cannot stand to be in the same room with each other, let alone working together to find common ground. That made the recent gun legislation so remarkable, as Democratic and Republican senators searched for and found common purpose in crafting legislation that is far from perfect … but it signaled a constructive start.

The compromise reached recently in the Senate comes from a time-honored tradition that’s been present all along. The only thing that politicians must do is look for it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com