Monthly Archives: January 2021

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Yes, there’s good news from Capitol Hill riot!

(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The drama we saw unfold this week on Capitol Hill as Congress sought to ratify the election of Joe Biden as president of the United States is a long way from its conclusion.

There will be more chapters to add to the tragedy we witnessed as Donald Trump incited a riot that threatened the men and women who sought to do their constitutional duty.

I am happy to provide what I hope is a glimmer of good news from the travesty. It is that any thought Donald Trump might have about running for the presidency in 2024 has vanished. Donald Trump’s political future is gone. Finished. He is toast. Stick a fork in him; he’s done.

Oh, I am sure there remains a radical fringe of Trumpkins who want Trump to seek the presidency in four years. They are beyond redemption, beyond hope, beyond any sort of revival.

There well might be a second impeachment in Trump’s immediate future. Or, he could be removed from office before his term ends in just 13 days if a majority of the Cabinet, along with Vice President Pence,  goes along with invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment. If either event occurs, that would end Trump’s political life.

However, if Trump manages to serve out the remainder of his term — which I venture to say is likely — he can kiss goodbye any thought he might harbor of trying to reclaim the office that President-elect Biden tore from his tiny hands on Nov. 3, 2020.

To be honest, I have sought to find signs of hope from the melee that erupted Wednesday. That is the best I can find at this moment. The rest of that drama has depressed me beyond all measure.

Donald Trump will continue to bloviate and bluster long after he leaves office. That’s fine. Let him bellow. He won’t matter to me or to anyone who takes seriously the future that awaits him.

He is finished.

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A new day dawns after a grim, tragic episode

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good morning, everyone. Did you sleep well last night?

I did, to my surprise. What’s more, I awoke to the news  that Congress completed the task that was interrupted Wednesday by the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol Building, vandalized our property, ransacked the offices of high government officials and generally brought heaps of shame onto the country they purport to love.

Congress had gathered to ratify the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president and vice president of the United States. Then he sh** hit the fan as Donald Trump incited the rioters to march to the Capitol Building and take back the government … from whom is a mystery to me.

Congress finished its task in the wee hours. After the cops cleared the Capitol, the Senate and House reconvened to receive the Electoral College tally of votes. Then Vice President Mike Pence announced to the world what we knew: that Biden and Harris will take office on Jan. 20.

We witnessed a shameful display of petulance gone utterly mad. Donald Trump lost an election but his refusal to concede fanned the fires of anger among his cult followers.

Oh, today Trump tweeted something about pledging an orderly transfer of power, which is his sorry way of admitting that President-elect Biden defeated him. We’ll have to wait with bated breath to see how this transition takes place. To be candid, I do not have faith in anything that flows from Trump’s Twitter account.

I remain fearful of what this evil individual can do over the course of the next 13 days. I am of the belief he needs to be reined in tightly. We have that constitutional amendment that allows for his removal. Yes, it’s a stretch to think that a majority of the Cabinet and Pence will go along with it. The House could impeach Trump again in the next couple of days if it had the guts to do so.

Donald Trump’s demonstration of his utter unfitness for public office was on full and ghastly display.

What must we do? We must hold the seditionists who sought to contest an election result on phony assertions of fraud accountable for their horrendous conduct. Texas, I am ashamed to say, stands at the front of that line of shame, with the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz and several members of the House joining in that charade.

Let’s all have a good day … shall we?

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Trump carves his legacy in stone

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump has carved his presidential legacy into stone.

It cannot be covered up, or ground clean, or wiped away. He stood this morning before a crowd of Trumpsters and egged them on, urged them to march on the Capitol Building, the heart of our government.

The mob took him at his word. They marched on the building, stormed into the House and Senate chambers. They sent our members of both chambers of Congress scrambling for their safety.

It’s all on Trump. It’s all on him. This insurrection, which forced a shutdown of Congress, ended a constitutional discussion aimed at ratifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

If there was a more graphic, hideous and profound example of Donald Trump’s unfitness for the presidency, the man himself showed it in all its ugliness.

A woman was shot in the Capitol and later died. Others were injured in the melee. The capital police, assisted by Virginia and Maryland law enforcement officers fought to restore order. They did so, but at a terrible cost to the nation’s international standing.

The rioters bred fear into the hearts of millions of us who were watching from afar, not to mention those who are watched it up close.

The person who deserves the lion’s share of the blame for this? Donald J. Trump, the lame-duck president of the United States.

He should resign the presidency. Or the House should commence impeachment proceedings immediately. Or, and this also is a possibility now, given the hideous riot we witnessed, the Cabinet should meet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to replace him immediately. Let the vice president serve the remainder of the current presidential  term.

And spare me the “all sides are guilty” argument. No. This hideous demonstration of incompetence belongs solely to Donald Trump.

This man is a dire threat to our national security.

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Yes, I am surprised

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

National media are full of pundits, analysts and others who are proclaiming their lack of “surprise” at the horrifying events that unfolded in the District of Columbia.

I am not going to join that chorus. Instead, I am going to offer an apology to those I have spoken to privately that the tragedy we witnessed today caught me by surprise.

Maybe I am slow on the uptake. Maybe I just didn’t take Donald Trump as seriously as I should have when he continued to fan the embers of mistrust about the 2020 election’s integrity. Just maybe I overestimated the quality of the rank-and-file Trumpkin Corps of believers in this guy’s cult of personality.

I suppose my surprise makes the events that unfolded today seem all the more frightening. Having been blessed tonight with a bit of hindsight over what happened, I know understand more clearly that we all should have been more alert to what could happen.

The cabal of kooks who sought to challenge President-elect Biden’s victory over Trump in November have committed an act of sedition against the United States. I have no doubt about that.

As a member of my family said tonight, perhaps their being forced to lie face-down on the floor under their desks while protesters stormed the Capitol building will persuade them to cease this idiotic, moronic protest of the Electoral College tally.

One would think.

However, I am left now to ponder a reality I truly didn’t see coming. It is that Donald Trump is a Pied Piper who leads a horde of mindless minions who today proved their willingness to stop a branch of our federal government from performing their constitutional duty.

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Election stolen … now, ‘go home’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump has failed in a major way the nation he was elected to lead.

Rioters today have stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress was meeting to ratify an election that Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden. Someone was reportedly shot inside in the building.

Watch live coverage: Congress meets to count Electoral College votes – Bing video

We are witnessing a full-scale, frontal insurrection on our hallowed government and Trump says the 2020 election was “stolen” from him and that the rioters “need to go home.”

That’s it. He said he understands their anger, but that they have to cease and desist.

The Seditionist in Chief can do no better than that … for God’s sake?

Earlier in the day, he spoke to a crowd of Trumpsters, urging them to march on the Capitol. They did what he said … and look what in the name of all that is holy has happened!

This riot is on Trump. He is responsible for it. He is responsible because of his refusal to concede an election he lost, because of his unfounded insistence of “widespread voter fraud” in the 2020 election, because he cannot stand the thought of being labeled a “loser.”

It has come to this.

This is the most disgraceful political episode in our history. It belongs solely and fully to Donald J. Trump. That will be his legacy.

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Impeach him … again!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to endorse a notion that has gotten some traction in the past hour or so in the wake of the horrendous riot that erupted outside and inside the U.S. Capitol Building.

It is that Donald J. Trump needs to be impeached one more time. Right now! Two weeks from the end of his term in office!

Donald Trump this morning spoke to the protesters in Washington, D.C., which more than likely spurred them to march as they did on the Capitol Building while members of the House and Senate were meeting to ratify a vote tally that elected Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

The protesters stormed the Capitol. I cannot possibly comprehend the sight today of that dipsh** rioter standing next to the chair of the Senate’s presiding officer.

This riot — unprecedented in the extreme — rests solely on Donald Trump. He needs to be impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

Right … now!

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Words fail me

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Words cannot possibly do justice to what the nation is watching unfold before us on our TV screens.

Pro-Donald Trump mobsters have stormed the U.S. Capitol Building, egged on by their hero. They have disrupted a constitutional exercise aimed at determining who is the next president of the United States.

The nation’s capital is on lockdown. These vandals have inflicted damage not just on our physical structure, but on democracy itself.

And the president of the United States, the moron for whom these mobs are marching? He owns it … fully.

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It’s the context, man

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Context, like timing, is everything.

It shouldn’t be news that Vice President Mike Pence has pledged to uphold the law and the U.S. Constitution while he presides over a joint session of Congress to ratify Joe Biden’s election as president.

But it is news.

Nor should it be news that Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate are standing up “courageously” to support that same Constitution by doing their duty and refusing to contest the election result.

But, again, it is news.

Why is it news? Because of the context of a needless, pointless and self-serving fight to keep Donald Trump in power even though he lost a free, fair and secure election to President-elect Biden. Trump has been joined by a dozen senators and 140 House members who will contest the Biden victory ratification.

Opinion | Never Forget the Names of These Republicans Attempting a Coup – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The context of this event has lent shame and disgrace to the men and women who have placed their fealty to one man, Donald Trump, over their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. It also has placed unwarranted newsworthiness to officials doing what the law instructs them to do.

We live in a bizarre political environment.

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Doesn’t ‘feel right’?

J(Photo by Jeff Malet) (Credit Image: � Jeff Malet/Newscom via ZUMA Press)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

“I mean, he couldn’t draw 12 people into a classroom when my father was filling stadiums. No one believes that this guy got 80 million votes. It doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t look right.”

So said the nation’s dimmest No. 2 son, Eric Trump, when talking about the results of the 2020 presidential election.

That was the contest that Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes as well as scoring a substantial Electoral College victory, handing Donald J. Trump a defeat for the ages.

And yet, Eric, Don Jr., Ivanka and Jared and the Gang of Thieves/Thugs/Traitors surrounding the outgoing president of the United States suggest that Congress is actually going to subvert the Constitution to their wishes and declare Daddy Donald the winner of an election he lost bigly.

I agree that there is a handful of seditionists among the 535 House members and senators who make this decision final for all time. They include more than a few Texans, I am ashamed to say.

As for whether “no one believes” President-elect Biden got that many votes, here’s a flash for the young Eric Trump. I believe it and I was among the millions of Americans who cast their votes proudly for the next president.

My straight forward advice to Eric and the rest of the sedition caucus … shut the hell up!

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Cornyn stays sane

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s kind of a mixed bag for Texans who are interested in the political process and waiting for that process  to play out in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

The Senate and the House will meet jointly to ratify the Electoral College vote that will select Joe Biden as the nation’s next president.

One of our great state’s senators, Republican Ted Cruz, is leading the Sedition Caucus in the Senate to challenge the free and fair election results. He wants Congress to flip those votes in favor of Donald “Seditionist in Chief” Trump.

Good news: Texas’s senior U.S. senator, Republican John Cornyn, won’t join the wacko corps; he will not contest Biden’s clear victory over Trump.

More good news: My congressman, Van Taylor, a Republican from Plano, won’t sign on to the insurrection, either.

So, there you have it. A number of Texans are going to resist Congress doing what it will do, which is ratify the Electoral College result.

They are to be shamed.