Monthly Archives: August 2022

national news, political news

How do you campaign on Trump coattails?

Harriet Hageman is likely to become the next Republican nominee to run for Wyoming’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If she defeats Rep. Liz Cheney in today’s GOP primary, she’s a sure bet to win the election this November against whomever Democrats nominate.

It causes me to wonder: How has Hageman campaigned against Cheney, whose only “sin” as I see it is that she has been highly critical of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior while he masqueraded as president of the U.S.A.

In latest primary night, 2 Trump critics face voters as Palin eyes a comeback (msn.com)

So, what does a Harriet Hageman stump speech sound like?

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Harriet Hageman and I am running as the protector of a twice-impeached U.S. president.

My opponent, Liz Cheney, has betrayed her office by standing for the rule of law. She has declared her intention to do all she can to keep the former president from getting anywhere near the Oval Office.  That is unacceptable!

Her voting record in Congress? That doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that she voted with Donald Trump more than 92% of the time. Or that she has been adamantly pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, fervently anti-tax and equally fervently anti-Obamacare. 

Has she represented the will of our state? No. Because she won’t profess fealty to Donald Trump.

***

That, of course, is an absurd example of how Hageman has campaigned for the office. I just don’t know how she can be “more conservative” than Liz Cheney, or how she can justify running against a House member who is faithful to her party’s long-standing platform of favoring the rule of law.

If the polls are correct, and I tend to believe they are, then the rest of the country is going to see what happens to a politician who is (a) faithful to her oath and (b) critical of a president who is faithful only to his own lust for power.

These primary voters will be forever cast in shame.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

FBI is now the enemy?

Never did I imagine — not one time in all my years on this good Earth — that we would see the Federal Bureau of Investigation become the target of hate among Americans.

What’s more, the FBI has become the target of a political demographic with a long and eloquent history supporting the agency’s effort to fight organized and other sorts of crime.

We now hear — and this is weird beyond belief — that we need to “de-fund the FBI.” Who’s making that absurd demand? Right-wingers who were so quick to chastise lefties for calling for de-funding the police in the wake of a string of police-involved shootings of Black men and women.

What in the world is happening to us?

The FBI now is a right-wing target because agents obtained a search warrant that enabled them to search the home of a former president of the United States because they had “probable cause” to believe the ex-POTUS had taken highly sensitive material with him from the White House to his home in South Florida.

Earth to right-wingers: That is against the law!

Don’t right wingers believe in the rule of law? That no one is above the law? Didn’t the attorney general, Merrick Garland, pledge to pursue anyone who has broken the law “without fear or favor”?

I must re-state what is obvious to me.

AG Garland followed the letter of the law in seeking a warrant from a federal judicial magistrate.  Federal law does not set a terribly high bar; it asks only that prosecutors can prove “probable cause” that a crime has been committed. The feds made the case to the judge, who then issued the warrant.

Moreover, Donald Trump’s legal team met the agents as they commenced their search. There was no “surprise,” no “siege” at Mar-a-Lago. It was done by the book.

For that the right-wingers want to “de-fund the FBI”?

I have said before that politics at times gets turned upside down and, for good measure, inside out. This is one of those times.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cultists need help? Uh, yeah!

1 Comment

“I’ve got to say if you’re out there and you believe those lies, even after they had been disproven, you’re stupid and you may want to call somebody — try to get in touch with a professional and see if you can be deprogrammed from the cult you’re now in.”

Who said this? Joe Scarborough said it. He’s a one-time Republican congressman from the Florida Panhandle. Scarborough is now an MSNBC morning talk show co-host; his wife, Mika Brzezinski is the other host.

He calls himself a conservative and I suppose he is. I mean, when he served in the House, he voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about the seedy relationship he had with the White House intern.

He’s also a “never Trumper,” a guy who takes a great deal of joy out of firing rhetorical shrapnel at the ex-POTUS.

And … I have to say I agree with what he said about the “cultists” who adhere to The Big Lie repeated constantly by Donald J. Trump.

The Big Lie that says the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump has been disproven repeatedly. There was no “widespread vote fraud.” There was no electoral theft, at least not as Trump has tried to define it.

The cultists out there? Get some help. You frighten many of us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

City needs to wipe away annexation myth

Whoever leads the Princeton, Texas, citizens campaign to approve a home-rule charter will have to destroy a myth that doomed the city’s latest effort at winning voter approval of this proposal.

It’s the myth of annexation. More specifically, it is the myth that a home-rule charter gives a city carte blanche to seize property at will.

It does not.

The 2017 Texas Legislature enacted a law that requires property owners to grant approval of any annexation effort by a city. That includes, quite naturally, Princeton. Yet the city’s most recent election, which occurred after the law took effect, went down because property owners outside the city limits put the scare into residents over the annexation matter.

Well, the city has exploded in size since then. Thousands more people live in the city, which saw its population effectively triple from the 2010 census to the 2020 census.

Princeton long ago grew into a city that needs to govern its own future, rather than running as a “general law” city subject to laws enacted by the Legislature.

City Hall, of course, cannot campaign on behalf of this project. State law prohibits local governments from spending public money on political campaigns. That leaves the campaigning for this project up to a citizens panel.

My best advice is for the campaign committee to zero in on the annexation myth that — according to some City Hall observers — simply refuses to die.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Next up? Liz Cheney!

Liz Cheney is facing the fight of her political life on Tuesday and from all appearances, it’s a fight she is likely lose.

The Wyoming Republican congresswoman is being challenged by a candidate in the GOP primary who carries Donald J. Trump’s endorsement. The Trumpkin appears headed for victory in the primary.

Cheney is the final GOP member of Congress who voted to impeach Trump who will face an electorate angry over that vote. Most of the other nine Republicans who cast affirmative impeachment votes have fared poorly as well as they have sought re-election to Congress.

Am I going to shed a tear for Liz Cheney? Not really. I want her to win the Wyoming Republican primary. Not because of her staunch conservative voting record. Instead, because she has shown enormous fortitude in standing up to Trump’s lies, his quest for power, his flouting of the rule of law and his persistent retelling of The Big Lie about non-existent 2020 wide-spread voter fraud.

Something tells me, though, that even if Cheney loses the GOP primary in Wyoming that she is far from finishing her final act on the political stage.

I’ll just be left to condemn what has transpired in the Republican Party in this age of Trump, when lying, cheating and corruption become accepted behavior.

Shameful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Failed presidency? Hardly!

I have no clue whether President Biden is going to seek a second term in the White House. I hope he does because I now intend to seek to dispel the myth being kicked around that he stands over a “failed presidency.”

Whether he steps away after a single term or manages to win re-election in 2024, I believe Joe Biden can — and will — look at his current term as a successful venture.

One of the more remarkable aspects of Biden’s success has been his ability to achieve it without the kind of bipartisan support many of us — including yours truly — expected he would be able to generate.

The just-enacted Inflation Reduction Act is heading to his desk without a single Republican vote in either congressional chamber. No GOP senators or House members joined Democrats in endorsing a bill that seeks to slow inflation, makes a huge investment in clean/green energy and reduces the cost of prescription drugs.

That the president was able to resurrect a version of Build Back Better — which had been given up for dead — is itself a political miracle.

That was just the president’s latest success. He also was able — with a smattering of GOP help — push through a modest gun control bill in the wake of the Uvalde school and Buffalo supermarket massacres. He had help from GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who worked with Democratic Sen. Patrick Murphy of Connecticut in coming up with a legislative compromise that ends a decades-long stalemate on stemming gun violence.

Biden’s presidential success also must include his ability to muster international support for sanctions against Russia over its lawless, immoral and criminal invasion of Ukraine. NATO and the European Union have stood foursquare with us as Biden has taken measures to punish Russian goon/strongman Vladimir Putin for his criminal behavior.

Has the Biden term been flawless? No, it hasn’t. The most significant policy setback, in my view, has been along our southern border. Then again, the administration has not — as critics have suggested — created an “open-border” policy.

However, I will not accept any argument that Joe Biden has failed in the job to which he was elected.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

There’s no talking to them

I am going to wave a white flag of surrender. I give up. I no longer can — nor will I — seek to persuade the Donald Trump cabal of cultists that they are wrong in clinging to their man’s world view … whatever the hell it is!

Truth be told, I made that decision some time ago. I don’t think I have declared my intention publicly, out loud, for all the world to hear.

I have a few critics of this blog who weigh in when I have something critical to say about their hero. As a general rule, I don’t engage them in debate.

Which brings me to my point: which is that there is no point in arguing with someone whose mind is made up, who does not listen or comprehend what I know to be the truth about their guy.

He is, as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah — a fellow Republican — said in 2016 a “phony” and a “fraud.” He cannot tell the truth. However, the sad reality is that truth-telling doesn’t matter to the cult cabal. They buy into his lies, they repeat them and then dare the rest of us to challenge them. I can challenge the lies, but I cannot challenge the purveyors of the falsehoods.

You’ve heard the saying — or something like it — that warns against trying to talk sense into someone who is blind to any possibility that their guy suffers a fatal flaw. That, in my view, sums up the Trump cabal.

I know what you might be thinking: If I am going to accuse the Trumpkins of being blind to the truth, am I as equally blind to the views expressed on the other side of the great divide?

Not a chance. They are wrong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Trump’s post-presidency as weird as presidency itself

There can be no denying what it so blatantly obvious, which is that Donald J. Trump’s post-presidency is as weird and chaotic as the presidency itself.

So much of it is because of Trump himself.

Roll it all up into a single stream of thought and you get the picture.

The man never conceded an election he lost; he didn’t attend the inaugural of the man who defeated him; he left the White House the morning of Joe Biden’s inaugural and took classified documents with him to Florida; a congressional committee is examining his role in planning and executing the 1/6 insurrection; he could be charged with felony crimes; he is teasing his cult followers into thinking he might run for the office a third time in 2024; he continues to bash Republicans and Democrats, sowing seeds of distrust and outright hatred among many politicians.

How does this guy ever make it right? He cannot. He refuses to do so.

Will there be a White House ceremony in his future? Hah! He cannot possibly be invited by President Biden to attend, say, an event commemorating the accomplishments of any great American. Trump never says the right thing.

Donald John Trump is an outcast. You know what? I have reason to believe he likes it that way!

Wow!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

How did we do it in the old days?

How in the name of technology did we survive without cell phones? That’s the question I keep asking — rhetorically, of course — as I learn about how school districts are cracking down on students’ packing cell phones into the classroom.

Richardson Independent School District, just down the highway from where my wife and I live, is the latest district to experiment with a plan to force students to lock up their phones before going to school.

I want to applaud Richardson ISD. Indeed, my hope is that school administrators make the ban a permanent one. I also believe school systems all across the country would do well to follow Richardson ISD’s lead.

I’m an old man. I recall the old days when the only way Mom or Dad could contact me in school was to call the school secretary and leave a message. The office staff would get the message to me and I would call back; it was usually Mom who would place the call.

No worries back then.

These days, though, are different. Moms and Dads need to be able to speak immediately to their little darlin’s.

Here’s the thing: Richardson is taking a proactive approach to reducing classroom distractions. Children attend school to learn their lessons. Their parents send them to school to learn as well. Cell phones can be a major distraction, not to mention serving as a tool for bullies and others who would inflict potential harm on those precious children.

I applaud Richardson ISD’s effort to restore a learning environment and I hope other school systems follow suit.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Garland’s stock keeps rising

Merrick Garland’s stock keeps appreciating, in my humble view, as he weathers the storm of criticism being heaped on him by the far-right wing of the political horde that awaits some finality in what the U.S. attorney general determines regarding Donald J. Trump.

We have at least one nutjob member of Congress filing impeachment papers against Garland. Why? Because he ordered the search of Trump’s Florida home for classified papers the ex-president squirreled away … illegally!

Right-wing media hounds keep referring to the search as a “raid,” implying that the FBI agents pounced on the former president’s home, behind his back. Good grief! Garland performed this act by the book. It was legal and totally constitutional.

He is defending the agents and others within the Justice Department who have come under fire by the right-wingers who — were they investigating a Democratic former president — would be the darlings of the conservative media.

And I was struck by a particular phrase he used in defending the agents and other DOJ staffers. He declared his pride in “working alongside them.” Think of that for just a moment. There was no self-aggrandizement in that statement, no sense of “they work for me, therefore I am better than they are.” No. He stands shoulder to shoulder with the men and women he calls “patriotic public servants.”

Garland is a stellar public servant himself. I am glad he’s on the job. I also am grateful that President Biden persuaded this top-notch legal mind to stand firm in the face of criticism he had to know was coming his way.

Stand tall, Merrick Garland … and stay strong. The nation needs you.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com