Monthly Archives: January 2021

Uncategorized

‘Big Lie’ emerges from the morass

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump did the impossible.

Yes, that’s right! He managed to elevate one lie above all the thousands of other lies he told during his term as president. I will call it The Big Lie that incited the terrorists to storm into the Capitol Building on Jan. 6; they sought to stop the counting of Electoral College votes that produced Joe Biden’s election as president.

The terrorists sought to do physical harm to the speaker of the House and the vice president of the United States, for God’s sake!

The Big Lie that Trump fomented was that the 2020 election was “stolen,” that Biden got elected on the basis of “widespread voter fraud.”

Well, we saw the result of how terrorists react to The Big Lie. They presumed the worst even though there isn’t a shred of evidence to support The Big Lie.

Trump has gone silent in the final few days of his term in office. That means he isn’t lying. The Washington Post tabulated a running count of Trump’s lies. The last I heard the Post had counted more than 30,000 of them.

This one, though, is an epic lie. It’s even more critical of a lie than Trump’s previous Big Lie, which was that President Obama wasn’t constitutionally qualified to run for the presidency because of his place of birth. The former Big Lie didn’t result in  the violence that the voter fraud lie produced.

So that lie stands as the winner of the unofficial title as The Big Lie. It is one for the history books. I didn’t think it was possible for Donald Trump to lift one lie above all the mess of lies he told.

But … he did! Wow!

national security

No briefings for ex-POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Millions of us are aware of all the norm-busting practices of Donald Trump’s administration, starting with Trump’s refusal to receive “daily presidential briefings” aimed at alerting him to national security needs and potential crises.

Here’s another norm that needs shattering into a million little pieces. Former presidents often are given national security briefings from their successors. Donald Trump should not get anything of the sort from President Biden’s administration.

Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, through his reckless use of Twitter — prior to it being yanked — to say things that could jeopardize our national security. He had that infamous meeting in the Oval Office with Russian visitors and blabbed about security issues relating to Israel’s defense posture.

I have noted several times that Trump is unfit to be president. He’s only got two days left before he hightails it to Florida. He will stand trial in the U.S. Senate for the second time. This allegation deals with incitement of insurrection.

Does this clown need to know the nation’s top secrets once he becomes a private citizen? Not a chance!

Giving former presidents intelligence briefings is not a requirement. It has been a common practice. Former presidents at times are given those briefings to alert them of what might lie ahead and also to solicit advice on how they might handle a situation that could arise.

U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Trump is untrustworthy and must not be allowed access to anything regarding national security.

I could not agree more. Keep this individual as far out of the loop as one possibly can do.

national news

Thank you, Mr. POTUS

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It occurs to me that I owe Donald John Trump a debt of thanks.

Not a huge debt, but one nevertheless that compels me to mention it here. So I will.

Trump will be president for just two more days. He has for more than four years given High Plains Blogger ample grist on which to comment. For that, I am saying “thank you” to Donald Trump.

I’ll be candid. Once we get past this man’s shenanigans and chicanery I might find myself hard-pressed to keep the blog going at the pace it has kept up during Trump’s term in office. I will do my level best.

To be sure, I am not done with Trump just yer. He will be out of office, but he will undergo that Senate trial after being impeached by the House for the second time. That in itself is a record. What’s more, he is set to issue more pardons on his last full day in office; that will occur Tuesday, reportedly, and my gut tells me we will get to witness in real time once again this individual’s venality.

I have chronicled fairly thoroughly over the course of his first campaign for the president, during the Trump presidency and his failed bid for re-election why I believe he is profoundly unfit for public office of any sort … let alone for president of the United States.

This blog features commentary on public policy and politics. Therefore, it is imperative that I maintain that focus given that Trump occupied the most visible and revered office in the land. He will surrender that office to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in just two days (thank God in heaven!).

At one level I look forward to commenting on policies put forth by the new president. I also am going to miss — maybe for just a little while — the opportunity to spill my guts over the idiocy, lunacy, chaos, confusion and controversy that Trump relishes.

I hope to get past my Trump-dumping soon.

Donald Trump issued many new eras into the American political scene. One of  them is how his presence poisoned so many relationships among Americans. I regret that differences of opinion over Trump’s conduct have ruined some of my friendships. I am happy to report, though, that many longtime friendships have survived the tumult.

I am even happier to report that I still love my family members who voted for Trump and who stuck with him through it all; I hope they still love me. I’ll have to ask them.

So, with that I am looking forward to heralding in a new  era. It’s all yours, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

As for Donald Trump, thank you, Mr. President, for giving me so much material with which to work.

Now … get the hell out of my sight!

national news

Cruz is doing what?

3 Comments
(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ted Cruz is going where, doing what? The junior U.S. senator from Texas is going to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th president of the United States?

Glory be! Shut my mouth! Ruffle my hair and call me Frankie!

This comes after the Republican flamethrower fought against certifying Biden’s election as president, fomenting the Big Lie about voter fraud that didn’t exist in the 2020 presidential election.

Cruz has been vilified, pilloried and pounded … with good reason for the obstructionist tactics he employed while trying to block the Senate’s vote to ratify the Electoral College vote.

The Texas Tribune reported: “Millions of Americans who have peacefully expressed their deep concerns regarding election integrity deserve to have their voices heard,” Cruz said in a statement after the Capitol siege. “I very much wish Congress had not set aside these concerns, but I respect the position each of my colleagues took. Debate in the two houses of Congress is the proper way to resolve our political differences, not through violent attacks.”

Ted Cruz, John Cornyn plan to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration | The Texas Tribune

This news actually leaves me with mixed feelings. I detested what Cruz did to sour the mood over Biden’s election, which was all done above board, fair and square … and totally secure.

I’m glad he’ll attend the inauguration of the clear and decisive winner of a presidential election. It’s the very least he can do as a sitting U.S. senator, even one from the opposing party.

Cruz could make it better were he to admit he erred in contesting the most secure election in the nation’s history.

Will he do that? I don’t think so, either.

national news

Biden inherits historic burden

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s flash back a few decades, shall we?

President Woodrow Wilson served while the nation was battling a killer pandemic; President Franklin Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression, with an economy in free fall; President Lyndon Johnson assumed office with the nation struggling with racial tension.

President Joe Biden? He’s about to take office to battle a raging pandemic, an economy in dire peril and a nation torn by racial strife.

Oh, and let’s add that his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, will be standing trial in the U.S. Senate for inciting an insurrection that resulted in a deadly riot on Capitol Hill.

The new president is going to have a full plate, you know?

These are challenging times. I am heartened by the knowledge that the new president spent a professional lifetime in government. Thus, he knows which buttons to push, which levers to pull, whose arms to twist.

He will need all the skill he has developed over his years in the Senate and as vice president of the United States. President Biden’s lengthy career should hold him in good stead. It also should serve well a nation that needs significant repair from the damage done by the man who is heading out the door.

DC riot, national news

Videos keep worsening Jan. 6 tragedy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So help me I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

The New Yorker magazine today released a video from the Jan. 6 invasion of Capitol Hill by the horde of terrorists. It sent chills up my back; it made the hair seemingly stand up. Videos such as this provide ample and graphic evidence of what Donald Trump incited that morning while exhorting the crowd gathered in front of him.

Oh, and then we had Don Trump Jr. saying something like “coming after you” those who don’t turn from “zeroes to heroes” and Rudy Giuliani calling for “trial by combat.”

It just gets more repulsive daily, it seems, as video after video surfaces to show the world — yes, the entire planet — what kind of moron this nation saw fit to elect as its president four years ago.

The latest video shows terrorists busting through windows at the Capitol Building. They are marching under Old Glory, wearing those hideous MAGA hats, yelling “Where’s f***ing Nancy (Pelosi)!” They chant “Hang Mike Pence!” The video shows rioters pulling a police officer into the crowd and beating him within an inch of his life with flagpoles.

And  they scream “USA, USA, USA!” while attacking the very seat of our national government!

How in the name of decency does any of this make any godd*** sense?

The House impeached Trump one week later. He now will stand trial in the Senate. Trump will be out of office. Following true to form Trump said his conduct was proper. He takes no responsibility for the “incitement of insurrection” that he clearly and without any serious question is guilty of committing.

A Senate conviction won’t remove him from office. It can bar him from ever seeking public office again. That punishment would be good enough for me, even though I preferred a conviction during the first impeachment a year ago would have prevented all of this tragedy from unfolding in the first place.

Three days to go before President Biden takes the reins.

Oh, my. Let’s hold on for dear life.

national news

Commence the trial quickly

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. senators say it so often it sounds practically cliche, but I get their point.

They say they “walk and chew gum at the same time,” that they can conduct an impeachment trial and debate, discuss and enact policy matters crucial to running the country simultaneously.

I’ll take them at their word. Which is my way of suggesting that senators need to commence Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial quickly while deliberating over the confirmation of President Biden’s national security team.

Trump will be out of office. It doesn’t matter one little bit whether he is president of an ex-president. What he did on Jan. 6 was punishable and he needs to be held accountable for inciting the riot that sought to subvert our democratic process.

The terrorists who stormed into the Capitol Building sought to end the congressional act of ratifying Biden’s victory in the election. They acted on a message delivered on The Ellipse from Donald Trump. Trump’s impeachment came with 10 GOP House members voting “yes.” It was a bipartisan impeachment!

And so the trial will begin. I do not want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to delay sending the single impeachment article to the Senate. I want her to do so quickly to enable the Senate to prepare to put Trump on trial for inciting the mob to run rampant over the very Senate floor on which our distinguished senators will convene the trial.

Think for just a moment about that. Senators will conduct a trial in the very crime scene that Trump created by inciting the rioters to act in the manner that they did.

Can this jury of 100 senators hear the evidence submitted in the trial in the morning, break for lunch, and return in the afternoon to consider who President Biden has nominated, say, for defense secretary, CIA director or the director of national intelligence?

Of course it can! And it should!

Uncategorized

Stay away from Empower Texans boss

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan should heed this piece of advice, were he to see it … and I hope he does.

Do not go anywhere near right-wing fanatic Empower Texans founder Michael Quinn Sullivan without first frisking the dude to ensure he isn’t wired with recording equipment.

The Beaumont Republican succeeded former Speaker Dennis Bonnen, who retired from politics at the end of this past year after rserving a single term as speaker. Bonnen drove his political career eover a cliff by being recorded by Sullivan offering the names of 10 GOP legislators whom Sullivan and Empower Texans could defeat at the ballot box this past year.

Furthermore, Sullivan said he had recorded the conversation. Bonnen denied saying the things Sullivan reported he said. It turns out Bonnen was, um, lying. We know he did say those things because Sullivan produced the recording.

Ouch, man!

Speaker Phelan has made a point of seeking to work with Democrats as well as Republicans. Empower Texans is not interested in bipartisanship. It is interested instead in building a far-right conservative movement that installs like-minded politicians in power.

Given what we know about Empower Texans and what Phelan has stated about how he intends to run the Texas House, well … he needs to just keep his distance from Sullivan and Empower Texans.

I hope you see this, Mr. Speaker.

Uncategorized

Abbott welcomes crooked company to Texas?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gov. Greg Abbott just couldn’t contain his joy at learning that the National Rifle Association has announced plans to relocate to Texas.

Why, Texas “safeguards the Second Amendment,” the governor proclaimed after the bankruptcy-bound gun rights group made its announcement.

Hold on, governor. The NRA’s decision to relocate to some still-undisclosed Texas location doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the Second Amendment. It has everything to do with allegations that the NRA’s top echelon has mismanaged donors’ money, spending it on lavish vacations and other perks that have no relation to the company’s corporate message.

Pardon the pun, but Gov. Abbott has missed the mark badly by throwing out the welcome mat to an organization that has been accused of being crooked to the core.

As Politico reports: The announcement came months after New York’s attorney general sued the organization over claims that top executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts for associates and other questionable expenditures.

NRA declares bankruptcy, plans to incorporate in Texas – POLITICO

Suppose the New York AG’s investigation proves that the NRA is guilty of what’s been alleged. Is that the kind of company that Gov. Abbott wants doing business in Texas? Really … governor?

Don’t misunderstand me on this point. I consider the NRA to be populated by demagogues at its highest level. These individuals have bullied politicians for decades into keeping their hands off any legislative remedies to the gun violence plague that continues to kill innocent Americans. The NRA contends that anything — any law at all — would usurp the Second Amendment’s guarantee that Americans should be able to “keep and bear arms.”

I, too, support the Second Amendment. I also believe it can be preserved while Congress can enact laws that make it impossible for lunatics to acquire firearms.

As for the NRA’s decision to bring its alleged corruption to Texas, well … no thanks.

national news

Scrap the personal possessive pronoun, Mr. POTUS-elect

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Here is a request that in reality isn’t as modest as it might appear.

I direct it to President-elect Joe Biden. It goes like this:

Please refrain from the personal possessive pronoun when referring to our government, the team you assemble to work with you in the executive branch of government.

Donald Trump was fond of referring to “my generals,” and “my attorney general,” and “my Cabinet.” To be candid, President Barack Obama did it, too, and it annoyed me even then as I generally supported the policies that Obama espoused. President Obama would refer to Vice President Biden routinely as, um, “my vice president.”

The Cabinet does not belong to the president. Nor do the generals and admirals who wear our nation’s military uniform. The Justice Department is our DOJ, and does not belong to the president. Nor do any members of the Cabinet or senior staff members who comprise the presidential leadership team.

I get the perception we all had that, for example, the attorney general too often covered the president’s backside. For instance, AG William Barr infamously reported falsely the findings that special counsel Robert Mueller released regarding his lengthy and exhaustive probe into the Russian collusion matter.

Trump himself would talk to us about what “my generals” were preparing to do enemies of the nation.

My message to President-elect Biden is a simple one. Don’t take personal possession of the government. It ain’t his. It’s our government. In fact, the new president needs to understand something that the lame-duck president never got … that in a representative democracy such as ours, we are the bosses.

Presidents work for us.

I hope we’re clear.