Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, national news

This is how POTUS should respond

At the risk of riling some of the Trumpkin Trolls who read this blog, I want to offer a brief word describing what I believe is an essential difference between the way Joe Biden handles his presidential duties and the way his immediate predecessor handled them.

Hurricane Ian hammered Florida with Category 4-level wind and storm surge. It marched across that state, headed out over water to regain its strength and then pummeled the South Carolina coast with more devastating wind and water.

President Biden’s response? He declared a federal disaster for Florida and well might do the same for South Carolina. He vowed to be there for all of those who suffered from nature’s wrath. Biden made a specific point that Republicans and Democrats alike will be treated with compassion from the government.

OK. How does that compare with how Donald J. Trump handled national tragedies? The wildfires that destroyed thousands of acres in California in 2019 became grist for Trump to lecture the state on how it should manage its forests. He would routinely castigate Democratic officials — who didn’t support him in 2016 — for their failures.

Biden, who didn’t carry either Florida or South Carolina in 2020, did not go there. He is president of all the United States, he reminded us … and he intends to carry out his response to the tragic hurricane accordingly.

There you have it. We elected a president who understands the unwritten job description he must follow.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, legal news, national news, national security, political news

Will Trumpism outlive its founder?

It has been said by more than one commentator that the movement Donald J. Trump spawned will live long past the time he no longer is a political factor.

Pardon the skepticism, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

I’ll start with this notion: I have doubt that Donald Trump is (a) going to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and (b) that the GOP has gone totally braindead to nominate him if he does enter the fray.

The Republican Party has shown itself in the past, oh, six years to be a party full of gullible numbskulls who are willing to swallow the swill delivered by Trump. They ignore the threat he continues to pose to our democratic process; they give him a pass on the idiocy that flies out of his mouth; they proclaim a desire to “defund the FBI” after the feds find top-secret documents squirreled away in his Florida home.

So, what is going to happen to Trump’s movement — his cult — once he’s no longer a political player. The way I see it, and I’ll admit it is from the cheap seats, whatever “movement” that Trump has stoked will disappear. Why keep telling The Big Lie about a “stolen election” if the Main Man is no longer calling the shots?

I am going to hold tightly onto my own hope that the law’s lengthy arm is going to corral The Donald sometime soon. The Justice Department is examining whether Trump broke the law in taking those classified documents from the White House; the House select 1/6 committee is considering whether to ask for indictment related to the insurrection that Trump clearly incited; the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney is looking into whether Trump broke state election laws by demanding that officials “find” enough votes to overturn that state’s 2020 presidential election result.

Oh, and the New York attorney general already has filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Trump Organization for allegedly falsifying its worth to obtain favorable loans.

We have, as they said in a movie, “a target-rich environment.”

The cult leader, it appears to me, is going down in flames. May the fire consume what is left of the movement that bears his name.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, local news, national news, State news

Impeach Biden? For what?

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Nancy Mace has revenge on her mind. So, too, do a number of other congressional Republicans who, according to Mace, will be ready to impeach President Biden if the GOP gains control of the House of Representatives after the midterm election.

Mace is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

She hails from South Carolina, and she says Republicans in the House will sharpen their long knives and get ’em ready to skewer the president. They will be full of vengeance because Donald Trump managed to get impeached twice by the Democratic-controlled House.

Rep. Nancy Mace, who voted against impeaching Trump, says there’s ‘a lot of pressure’ on Republicans to impeach Biden: ‘I think that is something that some folks are considering’ (msn.com)

Let’s see. Trump got impeached the first time because he placed a “perfect phone call” that sought a political favor from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump wanted to dig up dirt on then-former VP Joe Biden. Most members of the House said that constituted a violation of his oath of office. The House impeached him.

Then came 1/6 and the insurrection that Trump incited. A few Republicans actually joined that House impeachment and most senators voted to convict Trump of inciting the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. The only problem is that they needed 67 votes to convict; the Senate ended up with 57 votes.

Now the Republicans, if they gain control of the House, want to re-enter the impeachment battle, which they said the first two times involving Trump was all theater, that Democrats were “weaponizing” the impeachment process.

Well, what in the hell are we to believe if Republicans follow through on their stated threats to impeach President Biden?

How in the name of political vengeance can the GOP justify it?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, legal news, national news, political news

No need to ‘restore’ voter integrity

I have to say this as loudly and clearly as I possibly can say anything: The American electoral process is clean, fair and its integrity does not need to be “restored.”

Once again — ad nauseum — we hear adherents of the former Big Liar in Chief suggest that there is something fundamentally broken within the electoral system.

There isn’t. The system ain’t broke. The excuse mounted that declares “widespread vote fraud” is the result of one man losing the 2020 presidential election by 7 million ballots. He has succeeded in planting sufficient doubt in the gullible skulls of his cult followers about the integrity of the most recent presidential balloting.

Court after court, expert after expert all have determined that the loser’s assertion of widespread voter fraud is, in itself, fraudulent. The only theft of the election results has been the work of the loser’s attempt to toss out legitimate election returns.

Having taken a swing or two at the critics of the electoral system, I want to assert that the system isn’t perfect. Then again, it’s never been absolutely free of the occasional effort by someone, somewhere to cast an illegal ballot. Hey, it goes with the territory.

There have been reported isolated incidents of phony votes cast since, oh let’s see, the beginning of the Republic!

But to hear Republican politicians these days, you’d think the entire system is corrupt. That it’s crooked. That the integrity of the system is so compromised that it puts our national government in dire peril.

Only one problem has existed with this hysteria: No one has proven a word of it!

The midterm election is coming on quickly. There will be some election deniers on the ballot in several states. They will continue to promote The Big Lie as they try to persuade voters to send them to public office. The midterm election will be as clean and relatively corruption-free as the 2020 election turned out to be.

I just have heard all I can stand to hear from those who proclaim to seek a “restoration” of our electoral integrity. There is not a damn thing to restore.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, media news, national news, political news

What? Cheney will dump GOP?

“I’m going to make sure Donald Trump, make sure he’s not the nominee … And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican.”

Let’s ponder for a moment who made that statement.

It comes from Liz Cheney, the senior Republican on the House select 1/6 committee. She has been a Republican her entire adult life. Her dad is former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, a Republican’s Republican if ever there was one.

She has declared at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin that if Donald J. Trump is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, she will cease belonging to the party to which she has devoted her entire public life.

In one way that stuns me, given what I know about Cheney’s GOP credentials. In another way, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Wyoming voters cast her aside in August’s GOP primary. She sought another term as Wyoming’s lone member of the U.S. House. GOP primary voters said, in effect, forget about it, Liz; we don’t want you in the party. We censured you because you aren’t loyal to Trump.

According to the Texas Tribune: Cheney maintained that she is an ardent conservative on policy issues, voting in near lockstep with Trump’s legislative agenda when he was in office. But she warned a House Republican majority would give outsized power to members who have been staunch allies of the former president and his efforts to keep the White House, including U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Jim Jordan.

And she is all of that. Cheney also believes in the rule of law, in the oath she and Trump both took to “defend and protect” the Constitution.

Frankly — despite the fact that she represents an ideology that I dislike and my belief that Trump won’t be nominated in 2024 — I happen to be proud of Rep. Liz Cheney for standing firm on behalf of the truth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, legal news, national news, national security

GOP senators break with Trump … woo hoo!

It’s not every day one gets to salute U.S. Senate Republicans for doing the right thing as it regards the former president of the United States, the former Liar in Chief.

Donald Trump declared on Fox News the other day that he could “declassify” documents taken from the White House and stored at his Florida home simply by “thinking” about it.

No can do … Mr. ex-POTUS. Declassification is a complicated process, Sens. John Thune, Mike Rounds and Thom Tillis told CNN.

They said:

SEN. THUNE: There’s a process for declassifying documents. And I think it ought to be adhered to and followed.

SEN. TILLIS: There’s a formal process that needs to be gone through and documented … As I understand, the executive branch requirements there is a process one must go through.

SEN. ROUNDS: I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information, and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed, if they’re not stored properly.

GOP Sens. Tillis, Thune, Rounds Break With Trump: “There’s A Formal Process” For Declassifying Documents | Video | RealClearPolitics

Do you get what I mean here? Donald Trump, once again, is making things up in what passes for that brain in his thick skull.

It’s getting might cramped in that space surrounding The Donald as the walls keep closing in.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, legal news, national news, political news

I told you so … ?

As a general rule I am not one to gloat or to say “I told you so” when it regards political predictions, given that my record on that score is so abysmal.

However, I believe I might have earned the right to say “I told you so” as it pertains to whether Donald J. Trump is going to run for president of the United States in 2024.

I have expressed profound doubt that Trump would be able to mount any sort of credible campaign for POTUS. The federal judiciary, I am delighted to affirm, seems to be giving my assertions a good bit of weight.

A three-judge panel — with two judges having been nominated by Donald Trump — has essentially tossed into the crapper a ruling by another Trump judicial appointee any thought that the ex-POTUS could derail the FBI seizure of classified documents from Trump’s glitzy mansion in Florida.

Trump now is facing the prospect of having to withstand the full weight of the Justice Department probe into whether he violated the law by taking documents from the White House and “hiding” them in desk drawers in his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Furthermore, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel says the documents belong “to the people of the United States.” They aren’t Trump’s. They don’t even belong to the White House. They belong to you and me, man!

And then there’s the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James that has the potential of wiping out Donald Trump and forcing three of his adult children to file bankruptcy. AG James alleges that Trump engaged in criminal falsification of his assets in order to obtain favorable business loans.

It is the by far largest lawsuit Donald Trump has ever faced … and, brother, he’s faced a bunch of ’em in his adult professional life!

All of this leads me to conclude — with a healthy dose of caution — that I see no way on Earth that Donald Trump can possibly seek the presidency ever again.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

business news, crime news, Donald Trump, economic news, national news

What about the lenders?

The news networks tonight are all over the story from New York in which the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has filed a comprehensive lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and three of his adult children.

Her allegation? That the Trumps falsified their business’s net worth in obtaining loans. They allegedly fudged the value of their assets, allowing them to get loans at a favorable rate.

Something has raced past me. How did the Trumps fool lenders into thinking their assets were greater than they were?

Financial institutions are regulated by the feds. If a borrower simply says he or she is worth X amount of money, do the lenders take them at their word? Of course not! They can check tax rolls to know the truth, right?

I am waiting for an explanation into how the Trumps (allegedly) fooled the banks.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, legal news, national security

Special master proving, well … he’s OK

Donald Trump’s insistence on the appointment of a “special master” to oversee the seizure of those classified documents at his Florida mansion was a troublesome event, to be sure.

Then a remarkable thing happened. The former president’s legal team and the U.S. Justice Department settled on a fellow with impeccable legal credentials. They both supported the appointment of senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie as special master.

Then another astonishing event occurred just yesterday. Judge Dearie — first appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan — began exposing glaring weakness in Trump’s assertion of “executive privilege” in spiriting those documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.

What do you know about that? A man thought to be a possible Trump toadie is turning into, um, someone who takes the rule of law seriously.

Mar-a-Lago: Trump Push for Special Master Appears to Be Backfiring (businessinsider.com)

Dearie is hearing evidence about whether Trump ever de-classified any of the documents. There appears to be zero evidence that Trump did anything of the sort and Dearie appears to be wise to that reality … and is acting accordingly.

This isn’t my original thought, but I’ll buy into the notion that Trump’s gamble about getting a special master to handle this case is blowing up in his overfed face.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, national news, political news

Why are we waiting to indict?

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Donald Trump’s legal difficulties should not be seen as some sort of uniquely American experience.

Other nations’ former presidents have been arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison for their crimes. How is it that Donald Trump so far has avoided being read his Miranda rights, forced to don the cuffs and marched off to the slammer?

I think it’s because we ourselves as a nation that treats defendants with dignity. We don’t rush to arrest someone formerly in power. We are an “indispensable nation” that values the “rule of law.”

It’s fair to ask whether Donald Trump would treat other defendants with dignity. Or would he lead campaign rally cheers to “lock him up”?

We all know the answer.

Still, I get the feeling that time is not necessarily Donald Trump’s friend.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com