Tag Archives: 2020 election

local news

Yes, welcome them, but no need to embrace them

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

An earlier blog post compels me to make a declaration.

In no way at all do I object to Amarillo (Texas) Mayor Ginger Nelson welcoming New Mexico Republicans to her city; the NM Republican Party took its annual conference across the state line because of objections to the state’s ongoing COVID pandemic protocols.

Fine. Whatever they want to do is fine with me. That’s their call.

Nor should it bother anyone in Amarillo, even if they disagree politically with the GOP, or the Democratic Party … any political organization on Earth.

Ginger Nelson’s welcoming of the New Mexico GOP conference crossed a couple of important lines.

One line is that the mayor — by embracing the ideology expressed by the likes of Reps. Ronny Jackson (the former Navy admiral who moved to Amarillo to run for Congress) and Jim Jordan of Ohio — has thrown in with the nuttiest of the nut jobs of the current Republican Party. Nelson did not advertise herself as a 2020 election conspiracy theorist when she won re-election earlier this month. Now, though, she has aligned herself with those nut jobs. Jackson and Jordan stand among the few and the ridiculous in their view of Donald Trump’s Big Lie.

The other line involves the non-partisan nature of her elected office. Her cuddling up to the GOP in this manner reminds of the time a 1990s candidate for Amarillo mayor, Mary Alice Brittain, sought to recruit “good Republicans” to vote for her over the incumbent mayor, Kel Seliger. I called Brittain out at the time for poisoning the non-partisan nature of the office she sought. The good news is that she didn’t win and has disappeared from the Texas Panhandle political grid.

I shudder to think that Mayor Nelson, who I believe has done a stellar job as the city’s presiding elected official, is about to cross the line that separates her non-partisan duties from partisan political hackery. 

Please say it isn’t so, Mme. Mayor.

national news

Trump: a national peril

REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I take no pleasure in asserting what I believe in my heart … that Donald J. Trump presents a dire and existential threat to the nation he once governed.

Of all the men who preceded him as president — and there have been some serious losers/wack jobs/crooks/criminals, none of them come as close to presenting the threat to our very governmental fabric that Donald Trump presents.

He continues to spew the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election. His minions in the House of Representatives are about to boot the GOP caucus chair from her post because she stood on principle. He threatens anyone who crosses him. Trump has not a shred of decency to stop the assault on our electoral process that is underway in Arizona, where conspiracy theorists are concocting scenarios they hope will deny President Biden the votes he won legitimately.

Donald Trump is a threat to our national security. To our very governmental fabric. To the balance of political power.

Do I like saying these things about him? No. Of course not!

When the votes were counted in the 2020 election, Donald Trump could have picked up a phone and congratulated the winner, Joe Biden. He could have wished him well. He could have pledged his support. Trump could have declared his intention to oversee a smooth transition of power. He could have welcomed the president-elect and his wife to the White House, shown them around the place and then sat there at the inaugural and clapped politely when the new president took his hand off the Bible as he was sworn in.

No. Donald Trump didn’t do any of that. Indeed, he incited a riot by a terrorist mob on Jan. 6. He turned his back on Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the certification of the Electoral College victory that Biden rang up. Trump has turned his back on Pence, who did his constitutional duty and had to be holed up in a secure location while the terrorists were yelling “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed into the Capitol Building.

To think, therefore, that most Republican voters have swallowed that poison that Trump has dished out — believing that the election was “stolen” — is utterly beyond anything I ever could have imagined.

Donald Trump continues to threaten the nation. Anyone with a sense of shame would be, well, ashamed. This individual simply defies any norm of decency, dignity and decorum.

national news

House GOP to define itself

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The U.S. House of Representatives Republican caucus is facing a defining moment this week.

It will have a chance to define itself as being willing to push forward a serious agenda or whether it will serve as a cabal of toadies for a disgraced, defeated for president of the United States, the former Liar in Chief who continues to foment the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election, that it was stolen from Donald Trump by “rampant vote fraud.” There was no rampant fraud. It’s a lie. It’s the Big Lie.

The moment will come in a vote over whether to replace Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as the Republican caucus chair and seat Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York in her place.

Cheney is a right-wing conservative lawmaker with serious GOP chops, being the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. She also is a principled conservative who was as appalled and aghast as others were at the insurrection that Donald Trump — the aforementioned Liar in Chief — incited on Jan. 6. She voted to impeach Trump.

That doesn’t sit well with most of the GOP caucus. They fawn over Trump and are fearful of what he could do them if they were to cross him, the way Cheney did.

So up steps Stefanik, a Trumpster to the core. She has bought into the Big Lie. She is loyal to the Liar in Chief. And so … the House GOP caucus will get to choose her over Cheney, which they appear set to do on Wednesday.

It surely will mark a dismal moment in the history of a once-Grand Old Party.

There’s a glimmer of good news in this key vote. It well good pi** off enough serious Republicans to turn their back on the Big Lie … and on Donald J. Trump.

Joe Biden

Allegations were all phony

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz says his effort to derail the 2020 presidential election was not about keeping Joe Biden away from the presidency.

It was about answering “unprecedented amount of allegations” about the integrity of the election.

What a crock of sh**!

The allegations all were phony. They were meant to delegitimize President Biden’s election. They were all about the Big Lie that Donald Trump kept fomenting, even after the Electoral College had met and certified the results in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.

Ted Cruz said his election objections weren’t about blocking Biden. Then someone asked about it. (msn.com)

I just am not going to accept any sort of flim-flam coming from the one-time and likely future presidential pretender.

national news

Cheney fights back

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney does not lack political moxie. Nor does she lack the courage to fight back against the loons within her Republican Party who continue to foment The Big Lie that poured first out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

Cheney faces the prospect of losing her leadership post within the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives. Why? Because she isn’t backing down in her criticism of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election being “stolen” from him.

She said this on Twitter: The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.

The “anyone” to whom she refers would be the ex-POTUS himself.

I am going to stand with Rep. Cheney on this one, even though she represents — in most instances — the far right wing of a party in the midst of a civil war.

Cheney is on the right side of history. The Trumpkins who want her removed from her leadership post are flirting with disaster.

DC riot, Donald Trump

No, Sen. Hawley, they had no ‘right’ to do what they did

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will just speak from my gut.

Josh Hawley is a dangerous young man. The Republican U.S. senator from Missouri already had crafted his infamy by being among those senators to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, which chose Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

Then he said this just today about the mob of terrorists who were gathering at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6: “They had every right to be there.” 

If their intent was to storm the Capitol, to interfere with Congress doing its constitutional duty to certify the results of the election, to injure police officers and kill one of them, to threaten bodily harm to the vice president and speaker of the House, to defecate on the floor of Congress … then they had no right to be there.

And yet the junior senator from Missouri continues to stand by that hideous raised-fist photo of him saluting the mob waiting to storm the place where our Congress writes laws to which we all must obey.

Why did the rioters do what they did? Because the man who was soon to leave the presidency, Donald J. Trump, exhorted them to “take back” the government from forces he alleged had “stolen” the election and given it to President Biden. He continues to foment The Big Lie and members of Congress — such as Sen. Hawley — cheer on the disgraced ex-president.

Josh Hawley now is widely believed to aspire to a presidential run in 2024. How does that make you feel? Warm and fuzzy? Do you want to place the nuclear codes in the hands of an insurrectionist? Do you trust this guy to “defend and protect” the very Constitution he sought to destroy by challenging the result of a free, fair and duly certified presidential election?

What’s more, he now is defending the terrorists who committed the single greatest assault on our government since, oh let’s see, the Civil War.

The danger that Sen. Josh Hawley presents to this country cannot be overstated.

International news, national news

Russia is not our equal

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump was fond of telling us — perhaps he still is, for that matter — that it “would be nice if we got along with Russia.”

His strategy for making nice with Russia meant sucking up to its strongman, Vladimir Putin. It meant giving Russia a pass when it interfered in our election and denying our own intelligence analysis that said the Russians did interfere. It meant never challenging Russia over reports that it paid Taliban terrorists a bounty for killing Americans on the battlefields of Afghanistan.

Trump’s strategy didn’t work. Putin didn’t take the American president seriously. He played Trump like a fiddle.

President Joe Biden has taken over. He isn’t going to play nice with what is a third-rate military power and a fourth- or maybe fifth-rate economic power.

There can be no mistaking that Russia wanted Trump elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020. It hacked into our electoral system and sought to undermine the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Why? Because it would get a better deal — from their standpoint — with Donald Trump.

President Biden has made it clear that he intends to hold Russia accountable for the mischief it is making around the world.

Biden is only 102 days into the presidency. He wasn’t granted the courtesy extended usually to new presidents from those they succeed. Donald Trump did not allow his national security team to consult openly and freely with the new POTUS’s team.

I only can presume that President Biden will deal with Russia from his lofty perch as commander in chief of the world’s greatest military and as head of state of the world’s most vibrant economy.

Yes, I get that Russia still has all those nuclear weapons left over from its Soviet Union era. I also know that the doctrine of mutual assured destruction if they chose to use them has kept the rival nations from going, um … “MAD.”

Making nice with Russia? It’s a non-starter. Period.

national news

Why defend myself?

3 Comments

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We live in strange times these days.

The strangeness was brought to us in full bluster by none other than Donald J. Trump, who had the good luck (for him) of winning the presidency in 2016. He’s out of office now (which is so very good for the rest of us).

However, I find myself having to defend my support of President Biden, especially when I compare him to Trump. To be sure, there really is no way to compare a seasoned, lifetime politician — and I mean that in a positive way — to someone with zero political skill, which I believe is an essential quality one needs in a president.

I also want to make this point once again. Joe Biden was not my first choice to succeed Donald Trump. However, when he emerged from the huge field of Democratic primary contenders, then I was all in. We needed to get rid of Trump. Which we did in November 2020.

President Biden is far from the perfect pol but he’s a damn sight better than the imbecile he defeated. He has served in public life for half a century. Trump has served in public life for four years; the rest of his adulthood he spent enriching himself and trashing other human beings.

To that end, I am comfortable expressing my pro-Biden bias. I know it’s out there for all to see. I make no apologies for it.

As for Trump, the less I can say about him, the better it is for me. Not to mention for the rest of us, given that he will be off our radar.

political news

It’s a never-ending cycle

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It never ends.

We finish an election cycle and the next one begins. Immediately. There is no cooling off. No respite from the rhetoric. No rest for voters or for those of us who comment on these cycles.

As much as I enjoy being able to offer these comments, I admit that it wears me out.

I am not sure when it began to wear me down and out. Maybe it began with the 2000 election cycle. Or perhaps when social media began to take a firm hold on our attention, providing so much information and pseudo-information. It only has accelerated over the two decades since that time.

We finished the 2020 election cycle, which was a blessed event for those of us who wanted the presidential campaign to end the way it did. But now …

Lo and behold, the 2022 mid-term election campaign has begun. Republicans want to take back Congress from them nasty Democrats before turning their sights on the White House in 2024.

In fact, the 2024 campaign rhetoric already is getting ginned up. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is seeking to obstruct President Biden’s nominees at every turn, offering pointed and wrongheaded criticism of Biden.

Give me a break … will ya?

It’s only going to ratchet up more rapidly as Election Day 2022 approaches and then, by golly, we’d better batten ’em down in preparation for the 2024 election.

Are you ready? I clearly am not! I had better get ready … or else!

State news

George P. might run for AG? Yes!

(AP Photo/LM Otero)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush says the state’s attorney general must be “approve reproach.”

So … with that the nephew and grandson of two presidents has declared for all the world that he is giving serious thought to running to become the state’s next top legal eagle.

I cannot attest to the kind of lawyer George P. Bush has been over the years. However, I believe I can speak to the seriously damaged reputation of the current AG, Ken Paxton, who is facing a pending criminal trial in state court on allegations of securities fraud and is under investigation by the FBI over a whistleblower complaint brought by several of his former top legal assistants.

Bush is the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the grandson of the late President George H.W. Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush.

I saw P. once in person at the 1992 GOP presidential nominating convention in Houston when, as a teenager, he brought the house down with his exhortation of “viva Boosh!” while speaking on behalf of his “Gampy,” the 41st president of the United States. It was Bush 41, you’ll recall, who famously referred to Jeb’s children as “the little brown ones,” given that their mother, Columba, is of Mexican descent.

George P. Bush says he may primary Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton | The Texas Tribune

Paxton needs to quit. I’ve said so already on this blog. The securities fraud allegation — resulting in a Collin County grand jury indictment — is bad enough. Then came the resignations and firing of several key Paxton legal assistants who blew the whistle on their boss, alleging that he is partaking in illegal activities while serving as AG; one of the allegations involves bribery, for God’s sake!

I have been frustrated beyond belief that Texans actually saw fit to re-elect Paxton, who was indicted for securities fraud in his first term as AG. Then, perhaps emboldened by his re-election in 2018, Paxton decides to sue several states where voters cast most of their ballots for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The Supreme Court tossed Paxton’s lawsuit aside, saying the Texas AG didn’t have jurisdiction in telling another state how to conduct its election.

Put another way, the highest court in the land told Paxton to butt the hell out!

I am, therefore, going to applaud the notion that George P. Bush wants to challenge Paxton in the 2022 Republican Party primary for Texas attorney general. I have had enough of Paxton’s dirtiness in an office that demands its occupant be above reproach.