Category Archives: Donald Trump

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why are we waiting to indict?

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

What’s with Barr?

More than a few Americans are wondering: What in the world has gotten into William Barr, the last man to serve as attorney general during the Donald Trump administration?

Barr succeeded Jeff Sessions as AG after Trump fired Sessions because Sessions refused to investigate the “Russia collusion” matter, citing potential conflict of interest; Sessions acted out of conscience and a standard of ethical behavior. Trump looked for an AG who he thought would be loyal to the president; he found one in Barr.

Barr did Trump’s bidding. His disgraceful whitewashing and deceptive misinterpretation of Robert Mueller’s probe into the Russian “collusion” matter will stand for all time as an attempt at pandering to the boss. Then he quit just near the end of Trump’s term. Barr had grown weary of defending Trump’s Big Lie about alleged widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election.

Now comes the “new” William Barr. He says Trump should never have taken those top-secret documents out of the White House and kept them in his Florida home. Barr’s critics say his “coming out” as Mr. Legal Straight Arrow is too little, too late. I am not going to pound Barr for his late-blooming fit of reason and sanity.

He’s speaking the proverbial truth to power. When is that ever a bad thing? He has been a frequent guest on Fox News talk shows to do precisely that. Indeed, he has walked into the belly of the beast to tell us all the truth about what is right and wrong in Trump’s pitiful attempts at defending the indefensible.

Why Barr is breaking from Trump — and the GOP — over Mar-a-Lago search | The Hill

I am going to give William Barr credit for telling the world what many of us knew already, that the ex-POTUS deludes himself with grandeur and visions of lifelong power. Do I wish Barr had spoken out while he served in the Trump administration? Certainly!

He’s doing so now. That’s all right with me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Rep. Jackson sings a single note

(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Ronny Jackson is becoming the master of a one-note samba, except that he’s terribly out of tune when he sings it.

Jackson is the Republican U.S. representative who lives in the Texas Panhandle. He’s a charter member of the Donald Trump cabal of cult kooks. As a physician assigned to care for the president, Jackson did that for Trump and for President Obama.

His time as the White House doc must make him — in what passes for his mind — an expert on the health of Trump’s presidential successor. Jackson keeps yammering about Biden’s mental acuity. He keeps saying incessantly that President Biden needs to submit to a cognitive ability test.

Bullsh**!

Jackson is no more qualified to question Joe Biden’s mental fitness for the job than I am. He’s never seen the president’s medical record. He’s never examined him. Jackson has never consulted with the president. Indeed, the idiot Trumpkin spends a good portion of his day appearing on right-wing media outlets and putting out Twitter messages talking about matters — such as Biden’s health — about which he knows nothing.

Here’s an idea: How about crafting legislation that will do some good for the Texans he represents in Congress?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Yeah, Donald, keep blathering

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