Category Archives: political news

political news, State news

How would Beto work with GOP?

Let’s suppose for a moment that lightning strikes and Beto O’Rourke is elected Texas governor in the midterm election.

O’Rourke is a Democrat who would have to work with the Republican-controlled Legislature. I have been rolling that notion around and have come up with a conclusion.

Given the obstructionist nature of the current GOP, I only can conclude that O’Rourke would have a huge hurdle to clear. That would be a vast difference from the previous time the state had a governor of one party and the Legislature controlled by the other party.

In January 1995, Republican George W. Bush took over as Texas governor. The Legislature that year was controlled by Democrats. The Senate’s lieutenant governor was the irascible Bob Bullock. The speaker of the House was the more amiable, but still fiercely partisan Democrat Pete Laney.

The two legislative leaders developed a tremendous working relationship with the newly minted, freshly scrubbed GOP governor. They became friends. Partners. Allies at times.

Legislative Democrats in 1995 seemed to have little appetite for fighting, fussing and feuding with Republicans, especially the one who moved into the governor’s office.

I am trying to imagine a Democrat such as Beto O’Rourke developing that kind of relationship with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Speaker Dade Phelan. Both of those legislative leaders are wedded to the MAGA world view.

Oh, how I would love to be proven wrong. I fear, though, that a Gov. O’Rourke would not get anything resembling the kind of feel-good introduction to governing that greeted Gov. George W. Bush all those years ago.

Do I believe that will happen? I am afraid not. Then again, there’s always hope.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, national news, political news

Borders aren’t ‘open’!

I want to dispel another bit of demagoguery that is beginning to dominate the 2022 midterm election season. It deals with our borders, north and south.

Now I shall declare that the southern border isn’t an “open border,” which is what Republican candidates for state and national office keep insisting.

Normally I might chuckle at some of the rhetoric coming from Texas GOP candidates. They keep attaching their Democratic opponents’ name to President Biden, suggesting that Biden and all other Democrats favor “open borders.”

This makes me want to pull my hair out … which is saying something, because I don’t have quite as much hair on my noggin as I used to have.

The demagogues, of course, refer to our southern border, which is where so many of these migrants are approaching. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently declared his department would send those from Venezuela back to their country if they seek to enter it without proper documentation. Is that the policy of an open-border-loving administration?

Hah! Hardly.

Yet the GOP continues harping on that falsehood. To suggest a politician favors “open borders” implies someone who wants to turn a blind eye to criminals who might be among the migrants seeking entry into the Land of Opportunity.

Well, demagoguery manages to score political points. It does nothing else if it doesn’t include policy proposals. I hear damn little in the way of policy discussion from the GOP demagogues.

I agree with those who contend that the Biden administration needs to treat the southern border problem as the “crisis” that many of us contend it is. However, I will not accept the notion that U.S. immigration policy has turned our borders into a thousand-mile-long sieve.

We continue to round up illegal migrants every day. Thus, the borders aren’t open.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Election deniers pose grave danger

I am trying like the dickens — with everything I can muster up — to be optimistic about the midterm election.

Except that those damn public opinion polls are showing an alarming — and frightening! — trend out there. It is that the election deniers, the MAGA Republicans, the Trump cult followers are faring shockingly well among voters prior to the balloting.

I am thinking about the race for Arizona governor, where MAGA fruitcake Kari Lake holds a slim lead over Democrat Katie Hobbs.

Hobbs is the secretary of state. Lake has vowed to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election and work to return Donald Trump to the presidency he lost during that election. President Biden won Arizona by roughly 11,000 votes. The MAGA goons brought in those phony election analysts to perform a “forensic audit” of the 2020 balloting and, guess what … they found that Biden actually won the election.

That ain’t good enough for Kari Lake and other MAGA goons who support.

She’s not the only one. We have that MAGA moron in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriani, pledging the same thing if he beats Josh Shapiro to be that state’s governor.

I cannot help but believe that if the MAGA wing of the Republican Party carries the day in these key elections that this country is in a serious world of hurt.

And what in the world is all this going to deliver for the 2024 election and the result it produces? If the election deniers hold public office, they promise to finish what the 1/6 insurrection effort sought to do after the 2020 election: overturn the result.

Are we really and truly prepared to walk down that path?

Man, if we are, then we are in much worse trouble than any of us ever imagined.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news, political news

An independent view? Yes!

Every now and then, someone among my social media friends network will ask: Are you a Democrat … or what?

I am going to answer that one. I am an “or what.” That is to say I consider myself an independent who leans more toward the Democrats than to the Republicans.

However, I vehemently oppose straight-ticket voting. I applauded the Texas Legislature for eliminating that option for voters.

We don’t “register” in Texas with either party. Our primaries are considered open voting events. We go to the polling place and decide when we get there which primary will get our vote: Democrat or Republican.

I have entered the GOP primary many times over the years, particularly when we lived in Randall County, Texas. The Panhandle county is as exclusively Republican as any in the state, which means that Democrats rarely field candidates for countywide or legislative offices. That leaves voters such as me to decide to vote in the Republican Party primary to have our voices heard in government.

We have since moved from Randall County to Collin County, which is a more diverse region. We have seen our share of “Vote Republican” lawn signs, but we also see a smattering of “Vote Democrat” signs as well as we travel around the county. Such Democratic-leaning signs are not to be seen in good ol’ Randall County.

My point is to tell you that my voting record does lean heavily in the Democrats’ direction, but it is far from exclusively so. I am reluctant to attach a party label to my political principles.

My hope always has been that both Republicans and Democrats can believe in and work toward “good government.” Sadly, at this moment only the Democrats appear inclined to achieve that noble end.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Most important election in history? Yep, this is it!

You hear it, without fail, every two years, that “this is the most important, most consequential election in our lifetime, if not in history!

It’s being bellowed and blustered again as the 2022 midterm election approaches. You know what? This one just might fit the bill, given what’s at stake and what could be the fate of the democratic system of government that we all say we cherish.

The importance of this year’s midterm election has its root in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump refused to concede that he lost to Joe Biden. Then came the 1/6 insurrection, the assault on our Capitol Building, the effort to stop the certification of the election results.

Trump continues to foment The Big Lie about “widespread voter fraud.” His lying has spawned a new category of candidates. We call them “election deniers.” They are running for seats in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, for governorships, for secretary of state in many states where they serve as chief election officers.

They are running neck-and-neck in many states with “mainstream” candidates who want them defeated not just to protect their constituents from the lunacy they are promoting, but to protect our democratic system of government.

It’s the closeness of many of these contests including candidates who continue to deny the 2020 election result that simply boggles my noggin. The Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race, the race for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat, the battle for the Senate seat in Georgia, campaigns for governor in Pennsylvania, Arizona and even in Texas.

The U.S. Senate is divided 50-50, but Democrats hold the edge — for the moment — because they have a vice president who can break tie votes. A swing of a seat or two in either direction means (a) that Republicans will take control and become even more obstructionist for the next two years of President Biden’s term or (b) that Democrats can gain something close to a governing majority and move on important legislation aimed at restoring some sort of balance of power.

It’s being said that a “presidential-year turnout” bodes well for Democratic candidates, and a “normal midterm election turnout” bodes well for Republican candidates.

Me? I am hoping for a huge turnout that rivals what we saw in 2020, with Joe Biden and Donald Trump together polling more than 155 million votes. It was a stunning turnout. It means that democracy is alive and well.

May it continue to show good health and vitality this year, too.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, national news, political news

The Trump hits keep coming

Donald J. Trump is clearly the gift that keeps on giving, with every revelation, every new development, every single lie he is caught uttering.

Now comes word that he sought to work out a deal with the National Archives to keep secret information related to his 2016 involvement with Russia during that year’s presidential campaign.

The deal never came through, but the revelation adds more fuel to the inferno that is beginning to consume the former president and his efforts to keep presidential records away from the public … which is the rightful owner of these documents.

Legal experts now say it’s no longer a matter of “if” Trump gets indicted by the Department of Justice, but now is a matter of “when” the attorney general will drop the hammer.

Legal experts: Russia link to Trump documents means it’s a matter of “when, not if” he is indicted (msn.com)

I cannot stop shaking my noggin over this stuff.

It reveals all the things many of us feared the moment Donald Trump took the oath of office to become POTUS, that he had no understanding of the importance of managing high-level communications. He treated all of them as they were his personal property. They aren’t.

Now we have this latest bit of drama.

Ugghh …

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news, State news

Beto tosses in towel?

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Photo by Richard W. Rodriguez/AP/REX/Shutterstock 

I can’t stand it when candidates I support say the kind of thing that came from Texas Democratic Party candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke.

O’Rourke responded to a question involving a recent poll showing that he continues to trail GOP Gov. Greg Abbott in the head-to-head race for governor.

“The only poll that counts,” said O’Rourke, “is the one on Election Day.”

I winced when I saw those remarks. You see, that is the kind of response one sees coming from trailing candidates who seem to secretly acknowledge that they’re cooked, that they have no chance of catching the opponent.

It’s a form of political code-speak.

I hope that’s not the case with O’Rourke. Quite clearly, I cannot read the candidate’s mind, unlike some pundits out there who believe they can do the impossible.

Maybe it’s just a throwaway line that O’Rourke decided to toss into the air. Whatever, we have a month to go before Midterm Election Day. Abbott still must be held accountable for his non-response to the Uvalde school massacre, for his showboating by sending migrants to New York and other “liberal” states.

I just don’t want to hear O’Rourke seeming to give up a fight that still is worth the struggle.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Cheapening of values

Americans of all stripes are witnessing in real time how our political values no longer hang on politicians’ stated views of key issues and their actions juxtaposed to their stated policies.

Consider what is occurring in Georgia, where the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate — Herschel Walker — has been revealed to be a stunning hypocrite on an issue that demands absolute sincerity.

In any other era, revelations that a staunch opponent of abortion would allegedly have demanded a girlfriend abort a pregnancy would spell the end of a candidacy. Herschel Walker would have resigned his candidacy and left the campaign for someone else to salvage.

These days? Georgia GOP voters are shrugging it off. Party leaders are backing Walker, doubling down on their support for this ignoramus who actually has said that “there is no shame” in demanding an abortion “if I had done it.”

Oh, there’s more. It has been revealed that Walker has four children with four women and has been estranged from at least one of his sons since the young man’s birth.

Remember, too, that Walker is campaigning as an evangelical Christian who opposes — he says — abortion in all cases; he makes no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or the health of the mother.

Despite all of that, Walker remains a potential spoiler in the race against Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the incumbent who is seeking election to a full term.

Walker could still win this race! Why? Because it’s all about power! Republicans want to get control of the Senate. They are driven solely by the prospect of Herschel Walker — an individual with zero knowledge of any public policy — defeating a competent senator who, by the way, also serves as senior pastor of Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta … the same house of worship where the great Martin Luther King Jr. preached to the faithful.

Yes, we are witnessing a degradation of policy and the ascent of power as this hideous issue plays out.

It is a sickening turn of events.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news, national news, political news

Fighting internal battle

Those among my friends who know a lot about me likely presume that I tend to think the best in people … until others prove my initial belief in them is wrong.

They would be correct in making that assumption.

With that said, I must declare that I have been in the middle of an internal struggle as I seek to maintain that generally optimistic view of our fellow travelers. Yes, I want to maintain what I consider to be a charitable view of others.

It’s the current mood out there that has tainted damn near everything for me. Political adversaries no longer are just friendly foes; they are enemies. Make no mistake about the source of that visceral anger. It comes from the MAGA crowd, the individuals who parrot the nonsense spewed forth by titular head of today’s Republican Party, the 45th president of the United States.

The anger is pervasive. It permeates so much of, well, damn near everything. The 45th POTUS told us during his inaugural speech about he intended to stop the “American carnage.” He waved the clenched fist, which has become a sort of symbol of the rage he embodies to this day.

Meanwhile, instinctive optimists such as yours truly are caught in the maelstrom that threatens to suck us under. We get pulled into the negativity that emanates from others. I can’t speak for others, but from my perspective, I dislike the feeling that keeps boiling up within me. It goes against my nature … you know?

A few of my journalism colleagues over the years have dismissed my optimistic view of others. They all cling to some notion that they needed to reserve a level of “cynicism” when encountering sources or assessing the context of a discussion. I would suggest to them that I know the difference between “cynicism” and “skepticism.” Accordingly, I was able to maintain a certain skeptical eye.

The mood out there has gone beyond simple skepticism and has devolved into a cynical view I find unhealthy.

Thus, I shall fight to retain — or recover — my instinctively positive view of the world … even as the forces around me seek to drag me down.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news, political news

Waiting for barrage to batter POTUS

Let’s all wait for what many of know is coming if federal prosecutors decide to indict Hunter Biden on allegations involving tax violations and the purchase of a firearm.

What I am sure we’ll see will be Republican efforts to link President Joe Biden to his son’s activities. They’ll seek to paint the president with the same broad brush that they’ll use to slather Hunter Biden.

It will be a shameful display of demagoguery, which many of us have come to expect from the Grand Old (Obstructionist) Party.

I will continue to pull for the president to weather this storm … if it opens up.

Reports indicate that investigators think they have enough to prosecute. It’s not their call. The decision rests with the U.S. attorney. If the attorney decides to go forward, I intend to ignore the rubbish that will pour fourth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com