Category Archives: political news

political news

Keeping record intact

My presidential voting record would look to the casual observer as a study in partisanship.

It dates back to 1972, the year I cast my first vote for president. I had been home from the Vietnam War for just a brief period. I was newly married and my first son was about to arrive in January of the following year.

I cast my first ballot for Democratic Party presidential nominee Sen. George McGovern. I was one of the “few and the proud” to do so, as McGovern got trampled by President Nixon that year, losing 49 states to the man who himself would resign from office in disgrace.

That all said, I want to stipulate two key points: I have voted Democratic every four years since; I intend to do so in 2024. But I do not judge candidates solely on the basis of their party affiliation. I consider myself a policy guy.

I have held my breath a time or two while casting votes for POTUS. I did so in 1976, considering whether to return President Ford to office for a full term after Nixon quit; I opted instead for that upstart former Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter. I admit to breathing deeply in 1992 before voting for Bill Clinton. I truly admired President George H.W. Bush, as I consider him to be the most qualified man ever to hold the office.

However, it is true that even though the policies espoused by Democrats are more in line with my own “good government progressive” view of the world, I remain an American patriot with an open mind. Indeed, the older I get the more open my mind becomes.

The qualities of the current crop of Republicans seeking their party’s nomination this time, though, all but eliminate damn near all of them. There are too many conspiracy theorists among them. I hate conspiracies and despise those who foment them. The state of the nation, moreover, is far better than the GOP would have us believe.

Who’s been in charge of our national well-being? The Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden.

It’s about policy, man. Therefore, barring some cataclysm between now and Election Day, President Biden is my man.

Are we clear? Good!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, national news, political news

Trump is a sure-fire loser!

All this media hype and hand-wringing over Donald J. Trump’s apparent skate toward the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination has me on the brink of screaming at the top of my lungs.

I’ll refrain from that, but I will declare here — once again! — that Donald Trump will never enter the Oval Office again.

Let me say it another way. He will not be elected POTUS!

OK. I have said this before about this clown. He proved me, and millions of other prognosticators wrong in 2016 when he slipped past the conventional wisdom and squeaked out an Electoral College victory.

He then proceeded to embarrass himself, the country and endangered the lives of millions of Americans through his negligence in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was impeached twice. He has been indicted by two grand juries and a third indictment is coming up damn soon. There will be others in store.

I am going to place a great deal of faith in the American electorate that rank-and-file Americans are not so stupid that they would actually send this guy back for another turn as head of state and commander in chief.

This individual is profoundly dangerous.

You may stop laughing at me at any moment. Yes, he defied every oddsmaker once already. However, I want to dredge up the saying that President George W. Bush once famously flubbed: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Are we really, seriously ready to send this soon-to-be-convicted felon back to power?

I think not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Exhibit recalls bygone era

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LITTLE, ROCK, Ark. — Well, I will now be able to check off No. 5 on my list of presidential libraries I have seen … and this one is quite special.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park is a gem. It shines brightly near the Arkansas River just adjacent to downtown Little Rock.

It reminds me foremost of an era when political leaders of different parties could squabble, take the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis and then work together for the common good.

That’s how it was during the two terms of the Bill Clinton presidency.

It has been said over the years that President Clinton is the master of “compartmentalization,” meaning he could put personal animus aside in one corner of his brain and work outside those emotions to craft constructive legislation with his ardent political foes. Clinton’s compartmentalizing was put to the extreme test during his second term as POTUS.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives impeached Clinton for lying to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. The library does not ignore that event. It mentions it on two panels displayed chronologically. It doesn’t mention the reason for the president’s commission of perjury, only that he lied to a federal grand jury. It also mentions that the House impeachment vote was virtually taken along partisan lines.

The president apologizes for his “conduct,” a display tells us.

Enough about that.

The library also tells of the myriad accomplishments that Clinton achieved: the peace treaty between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel; the ouster of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic; the balanced federal budget; his tireless work on behalf of racial minorities; a comprehensive crime prevention bill.

We have seen elements of this kind of cooperation between the GOP and the current Democratic POTUS. Here and there, though, is not sufficient to move the country forward constructively. President Clinton and the GOP congressional majority with whom he worked — while they were, um, testy at times — laid the groundwork for the way government ought to work.

The Clinton library tells us that story. I am glad to have seen it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

What’s so wrong with ‘career politicians’?

You’ve heard it said millions of times, that someone is unfit for public office because he or she is a “career politician.”

I want to speak in favor of those who choose politics for a living, those who select public service as a career goal. I’ve never quite understood why these “career politicians” so often are held up as figures to be ridiculed, denigrated, reduced to four-letter words.

I am not a Pollyanna about this stuff, mind you. I’ve been watching career pols do their jobs for a long time. I spent nearly 37 years in the journalism trenches reporting and commenting on their activities. Some of them were, um, less than noble. I concede that point with no hesitation.

I’ve watched a few of them up close attain national stature. The meanest of them no doubt was the late Jack Brooks, the Democratic congressman from the Golden Triangle of Texas. He used to refer to himself as Sweet Old Brooks. Yep, he was an SOB, but he was “our SOB,” or so the saying went in Beaumont, Port Arthur and throughout Brooks’s congressional district.

Here’s the thing about Brooks: He got things done for his district. His constituents re-elected him many times because his staff did a good job of listening to people’s needs, concerns, gripes.

Career pols comprise a shrinking portion of Congress these days. Voters have expressed themselves with their ballots, turning away politicians who perhaps overstay their welcome. They bring in newcomers. In this current climate, many of the newbies see themselves as media stars, pushing their way into view of TV cameras. I cannot predict how they will wear over time.

I am not going to dismiss them immediately as flashes in the pan, although I am quite willing to make an exception to that rule: e.g., GOP U.S. Rep. George Santos of New York, the serial liar who needs to get the boot at the next election.

All told, though, I welcome career politicians. Someone has to do this job. Those who are willing and able to make public service a career and are willing to serve honorably, well … may they continue in their chosen field.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news, national news, political news

Time limit on campaigns?

Does it seem like an hour or so ago that the 2020 presidential election came to a conclusion … and already we are in the midst of the next campaign for the U.S. presidency?

It does to me. It also makes me wonder whether the Europeans have the right idea on how to manage these campaigns.

It varies from country to country, but many nations — and I am looking at Europe at the moment — place a time limit on when candidates can campaign actively for high office.

I cannot recall the specifics, but I have heard anecdotally about campaigns for head of government or head of state lasting no more than six weeks or so.

Given the nature of our presidential campaigns, including the incessant and relentless fundraising that must occur to pay for them, I am willing at least to consider implementing such restrictions here.

The 2020 campaign began almost immediately at the end of the 2016 campaign and on and on it has gone through the past many presidential election cycles.

It never ends!

The news media feel compelled to report on the comings and goings of candidates in and out of, say, the early primary states. They speculate on who’s in and who’s just out for a weekend eating bad fair food and kissing children.

I lose interest in the early reporting of these campaigns. I get it back closer to the stretch drive. In the meantime, though, I have to suffer through endless news reports of what this potential candidate is saying about himself or herself and about the other candidates.

Hey, I consider myself a political junkie. Maybe I should change that to “recovering political junkie.” My recovery, though, is made more difficult by the non-stop campaigning that just won’t cease.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

My wish? Ban Trump from public office

As strange as it might seem for readers of this blog, I want to declare that I have no burning desire to see Donald J. Trump tossed into prison if he is convicted of the crimes for which he is under indictment.

My stronger wish is to ensure that Trump never again is allowed to seek — let alone hold — public office.

The 37-count indictment handed down by a south Florida grand jury is damning in the extreme. It looks to be ironclad. Special counsel Jack Smith has a mountain of evidence to pore over and present a trial jury eventually.

If Trump is convicted, then I suspect there will be prison time involved. He stands accused of taking classified documents in violation of the Espionage Act; he is accused of obstructing justice and of abuse of power. He is the first former POTUS to be charged in a criminal indictment by the Justice Department.

Dark days lie ahead for this individual.

He never should have been elected president in 2016. But he was. He got the rebuke he so richly deserved in 2020 when he lost to Joe Biden.

I do not want him anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.

You know what? There might be a deal to be had to help this crook avoid prison time. It might involve a permanent ban from seeking public office. I don’t know what Jack Smith is inclined to pursue, nor do I know what Trump is inclined to accept.

But as a red-blooded American patriot, I am fine with ensuring we keep Trump away from any public office. I want him out of public life altogether. He sickens me to my core.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

Has GOP gone mad?

For the life of me I cannot come to grips with the astonishing hold that a twice-impeached, likely-to-be-indicted former president of the U.S.A. has on the Republican Party.

I keep seeing these polls that suggest that the aforementioned disgrace continues to lead the GOP field in the preliminary jockeying for the 2024 party presidential nomination.

Maybe I should be thankful that Republicans continue to slobber over themselves at the notion that the party convention actually could nominate this moron in the summer of 2024.

It does make me wonder: What in the name of all that is holy has happened to a party that once was the champion of equal rights, of racial equality, of fiscal responsibility and adamant opposition to tyranny and tyrants?

It has been hijacked by a first-time politician who had no clue what to do when he got elected to the presidency in 2016 and then proceeded to engage in two impeachable offenses. The only thing that saved his sorry ass from being tossed out of office was that sickening loyalty he demanded from those in the Senate who refused to do the right thing and convict him of the crimes for which the House impeached him!

OK. I’ve gotten all of that off my chest. I am going to stand by my earlier assertion that I remain dubious that this idiot won’t be nominated.

But if he is … then my ol’ trick knee tells me there is no way on God’s good Earth that he will be elected. I just hope the trick knee doesn’t let me down.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

What’s so terribly wrong?

Listening the past two days to Nikki Hailey makes me ask: What in the world is she talking about by proclaiming the need to repair a broken nation?

The declared Republican presidential candidate — and former South Carolina governor — is talking up some goofy notion about the alleged “failures” of the nation during President Biden’s time in office.

Let me think. Record numbers of jobs created; a historically low jobless rate; alliances affirmed around the world; infrastructure bills enacted; anti-gun violence legislation approved; tax cuts for middle-class Americans; reductions in the budget deficit.

What am I missing?

We aren’t cratering, Ms. Hailey. Indeed, the nation is doing quite well. Really! We are!

What is it that Hailey proposes to repair? The only drawbacks I can discern are coming from the right-wingers who insist on banning abortion, who want our kids to stop studying racial bias in school, who are going to war against what the call a “woke” society.

Nikki Hailey also refuses to condemn or even criticize any policy promoted by the other Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump. Is she going to run against him, or not? If she is, then spell out differences. If not, then just say so … dammit!

Hailey is just a chump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

Pollsters deserve a break

Political polling organizations have been taking their lumps over the past several years from those who mistakenly — I believe — contend they are wrong far more than they are right.

Pollsters need some respect and I am about to give them some.

The major incident polling critics cite is the result of the 2016 presidential election. I truly beg to differ.

Let’s remember that polling outfits tracked the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hourly right to the end. Most of them placed Hillary Clinton marginally ahead of Trump in the final results released just before Election Day.

Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. Her margin of “victory”? 2.09% That matches just about what all the pollsters said would occur. They were right!

Except that the popular vote doesn’t elect presidents. That is done through the Electoral College and Trump managed to peel off at least three states that everyone thought would fall into Clinton’s vote ledger: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Did those states’ results negate what the national polling said would occur? No. It meant only that Clinton’s team misjudged the level of support she and Trump had; they overplayed their own hand and low-balled Trump’s support.

The 2020 election also produced a result that pollsters said would occur. Joe Biden carried the day with a 4.46% popular vote margin over Trump. He also took back the three states I mentioned earlier to seal the victory.

Polling at times can be an inexact exercise. Respondents have been known to tell pollsters untruths when they are asked, “For whom will you vote for president?”

However, in the past two presidential election cycles, pollsters have gotten a bum rap. I want to stand with them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Just quit, Rep. Santos!

What you see with this brief blog post is an example of just why a disgraced Republican member of Congress should no longer serve in the People’s House of Representatives.

George Santos lied his way to election from a New York congressional district. Now we hear he might be guilty of campaign fraud and assorted other crimes.

It is no “crime” to lie to your constituents. Still, that this nut case — who lied about every aspect of his personal, professional and educational life on his way to winning a 2022 congressional election — would continue to serve as a member of Congress is offensive on its face.

Furthermore, he cannot be taken seriously, as this meme suggests. It is just one of countless such pictures depicting this fraudulent member of Congress being someone he clearly is not.

Resign from Congress, George Santos … and go far, far away.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com