Tag Archives: 2024 election

national news

GOP pursues backward strategy

It is with decidedly mixed feelings that I offer a commentary on the pursuit of Republican presidential candidates — some of whom are announced, others are presumed to be running — to win back the White House in 2024.

Their strategies are backfiring. Rather than reaching out to the middle class, to independents, to women appalled at the GOP’s assault on their reproductive rights, the party is shoring up its support with his shrinking — but still fanatic — political base.

Why the mixed feeling? Because as a good-government progressive, I want Democratic President Joe Biden to be re-elected next year. GOP candidates are playing right into Democrats’ wheelhouse with their rigid ideology.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of the presumed Republican candidates for POTUS, is going after the Disney Corporation, which makes me go … huh?

DeSantis is faithful to the “don’t say ‘gay'” doctrine that seeks to denigrate gay Americans. He wants to ban books from public schools that teach students about racism. DeSantis and other hard-core Republicans also resist any effort to seek solutions to the gun violence that continues to kill innocent Americans seemingly every day. And, of course, he wants to invoke a nationwide ban on abortion.

DeSantis and the 45th president of the United States are the presumed frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination. The ex-POTUS still cannot stop harping about The Big Lie and the long-since-debunked notion that the 2020 election was pilfered from him. No! The dude lost the election!

He also has been indicted and faces the probability of more indictments to come.

There likely will be others who will seek the GOP nomination. Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson are in. Ex-VP Mike Pence might run, too.

Who among them will break away from the MAGA base’s infatuation with the ex-POTUS? Whoever does will proceed at his or her risk, as the MAGA wing controls the flow of events within the party.

How does that make this voter feel? Let ’em fight among themselves.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Mixed feelings about POTUS 45’s campaign

I remain fairly convinced that the 45th president of the U.S. isn’t going to stay in the race for the White House in 2024.

It doesn’t bother me in the least that he would drop out to concentrate on fighting the bucketloads of legal trouble standing before him.

Nor does it bother me were he to stay in. Why? Because the moron remains a highly beatable Republican nominee for POTUS if the GOP faithful is stupid enough to nominate him in 2024.

The first indictment from the Manhattan grand jury appears to be just the first of several such actions awaiting the ex-POTUS. The more serious charges — tampering with election results, inciting the insurrection on 1/6 and squirreling away classified documents — all are grounds for criminal prosecution … in my humble view.

Thus, it seems to me that it is unlikely that even this idiot can continue to campaign for the White House.

If he does, big fu***** deal!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Waiting for hell to freeze

Hell will have to fall into the deepest freeze imaginable for me to accept the poll findings that suggest that Donald Trump could actually defeat President Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup in 2024 for the White House.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot fathom where or how or who is supporting the twice-impeached former POTUS as he pretends to seek the presidency for the third time.

He slithered into the White House in 2017 after narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote by 3 million ballots. Then he got thumped by Joe Biden in 2020, garnering 7 million fewer votes than the eventual president.

Between those two elections he got impeached twice by the House for violating his oath of office. He managed to piss off damn near every ally this nation has in the world. He vilified Americans who opposed his election. He went through four White House chiefs of staff, an untold number of Cabinet officials and behaved for all the world like a moron who didn’t know what the hell he was doing with all that executive power at his disposal.

Now he is on the verge of being indicted possibly by three prosecutors, two at the state level and then the U.S. attorney general.

Oh, did I mention the insurrection he incited on 1/6? There. I just did.

And yet he remains — reportedly — the favorite for the GOP presidential nomination next year. God help us all!

Trump said he’s going the distance regardless of any indictments that end up in his lap. Fine. I am just waiting for the hammer to drop on his severely coiffed noggin.

Someone among the officials examining the crimes I believe he committed is going to make history by indicting a former POTUS for the first time in our nation’s history. Look also for the others to follow suit when the first indictment falls out of the sky.

Meanwhile, someone will have to explain to me how this clown can pretend to be a serious contender for an office he damn near destroyed during the single term he occupied it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

Has GOP gone mad?

For the life of me I cannot come to grips with the astonishing hold that a twice-impeached, likely-to-be-indicted former president of the U.S.A. has on the Republican Party.

I keep seeing these polls that suggest that the aforementioned disgrace continues to lead the GOP field in the preliminary jockeying for the 2024 party presidential nomination.

Maybe I should be thankful that Republicans continue to slobber over themselves at the notion that the party convention actually could nominate this moron in the summer of 2024.

It does make me wonder: What in the name of all that is holy has happened to a party that once was the champion of equal rights, of racial equality, of fiscal responsibility and adamant opposition to tyranny and tyrants?

It has been hijacked by a first-time politician who had no clue what to do when he got elected to the presidency in 2016 and then proceeded to engage in two impeachable offenses. The only thing that saved his sorry ass from being tossed out of office was that sickening loyalty he demanded from those in the Senate who refused to do the right thing and convict him of the crimes for which the House impeached him!

OK. I’ve gotten all of that off my chest. I am going to stand by my earlier assertion that I remain dubious that this idiot won’t be nominated.

But if he is … then my ol’ trick knee tells me there is no way on God’s good Earth that he will be elected. I just hope the trick knee doesn’t let me down.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

DeSantis: No. 1 GOP target

As I wend my way through Collin County’s back roads, I have seen precisely one 2024 campaign flag flapping in the North Texas breeze.

It has Ron DeSantis’s name on it; the flag flies in the yard of someone living off Farm to Market Road 546 between Princeton and McKinney.

So … with that I want to say a few words about the Florida governor who, I presume, is going to declare his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

He’s every bit the charlatan as his political daddy, Donald J. Trump.

The dude wants to ban any discussion in Florida’s public schools about Black history. He has launched a “don’t say ‘gay'” campaign in the state’s public school system. DeSantis is dismissing the vaccines that have saved millions of American lives in the wake of the COVID pandemic. He attacks the mythical “critical race theory” curriculum he says is being taught.

The guy is a right-wing, MAGA-loving nut job of the first order.

In a way, though, I am kinda/sorta pulling for him to defeat Trump for the GOP nomination, although I cannot quite explain why. They’re both stomach-churning demagogues. Furthermore, I am still not yet convinced that Trump is going to get his campaign off the ground, given what I believe will be a series of criminal indictments coming down that will accuse him of some very serious crimes against the government he once swore to protect.

DeSantis, though, is a goofball who needs to be exposed for what he is. A fraud and a fruitcake.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How does he do it?

How in the world — in the name of political sanity — can one explain Donald J. Trump’s bizarre hold on what remains of the Republican Party?

I keep seeing this polling data that has the the twice-impeached former president, who is headed for criminal indictment in the lead (for the moment) for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2024.

Maybe I should be applauding this idiocy. Maybe I should welcome the fact that Trump, who is severely weakened by his moronic behavior and the acknowledgement among many leading GOP pols that he is doomed to fail, might well steal the nomination next year.

Hey, I am biased to the max against this moron. But you know that already. I want President Biden to win re-election next year. I ought to welcome a Trump candidacy. It would be run the way the first two were conducted: slipshod, chaotic, no-preparation, no-platform.

Hey, dude won in 2016. I get that. He lost in 2020 because he couldn’t formulate a vision for the future and then has continued to promote The Big Lie about voter fraud that did not exist.

So, I am going to relax for just a bit and not worry about Trump’s seeming standing among Republicans, who apparently are so damn gullible that they well might nominate a certifiable idiot.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Can’t wait for Cruz to declare

Ted Cruz well might declare his intention to run for president of the United States for the second time.

Good. I look forward to his declaration that he intends to be elected commander in chief and head of state. Someone surely will be waiting in the weeds to reveal to the rest of the nation what the Texas Republican U.S. senator did in February 2021 when thousands of Texans were freezing in the Winter Storm of the Century.

You’ll recall he jetted off to Cancun, Mexico while hundreds of Texans were freezing to death. The media uncovered Cruz’s getaway, ratted him out and then he returned … only to blame his daughter for talking him into going to the warm Mexico beaches.

The man is numbskull of the first order.

He ran against the GOP field in 2016 and was the last contender standing in Donald Trump’s way before bowing out. He called Trump all but the spawn of Satan. Then he became part of Trump’s Senate suck-up squad in the Senate after Trump got elected in 2016.

The guy is a gutless wonder. Go ahead and declare your candidacy, Ted … and then be prepared to answer for your cowardice.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden

Biden remains my first choice

I declared more than once prior to the start of the 2020 presidential campaign that Joe Biden was not my first pick to be nominated by the Democratic Party to run against Donald Trump.

My preference then was that Democrats should go with a new voice, a fresh face, some new approaches to good government. It didn’t work out that way.

The former vice president ended up as the man for Democrats around whom they would rally. I joined that crowd when it became clear that Biden would win the nomination.

That all stipulated, the president remains my first choice for the next presidential election. He should be re-elected and my hope is that he would win a second term by an even more handsome margin than he won the first time.

I have long admired the man’s tenacity. Yes, he is ambitious. He ran for president the first time in 1988, only to pull out after he got caught plagiarizing speeches delivered by a British Labor Party pol. He went after the Democratic nomination 20 years later, only to get steamrolled by a young senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who then selected Biden to serve as VPOTUS; they won the 2008 election.

Biden has scored enough legislative victories to signal a successful term as president. Gun legislation, infrastructure rebuilding, climate change investments, tax cuts, deficit reduction, alliances are strengthened … and lastly, his steadfast support of the Ukrainians in their struggle against the Russian invaders.

Indeed, President Biden’s stance against the Russian goons who attacked Ukraine has helped strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO has held together more tightly than ever before.

Joe Biden appears to be getting ready for an announcement that is coming not long into the new year that looms just ahead.

The man is hitting his stride as president. Joe Biden needs to stay on the job.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Vaccines aren’t evil, Ron

Ron DeSantis is showing us what kind of presidential candidate he likely will become; he will trade on voters’ unjustified fears about proven medical treatments designed to rid the nation of a killer virus.

The Florida governor, likely to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, vows to launch a probe into the evil nature of the various vaccines approved by the federal food and drug agencies to fight the COVID-19 virus.

DeSantis, certainly no medical doctor, is getting some shi**y advice from his staff on what to say about the vaccines. Every infectious disease I have heard has said they are safe, they are effective and they shouldn’t be cause for worry among those who need to take them to fight off the virus … that is still killing Americans.

What the hell is DeSantis talking about?

I believe he is blowing it out his backside. It sounds like a precursor to a GOP nominating campaign that is going to trade on more lies and deceit.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news

Not all Rs are evil … honest!

Contrary to what some readers of this blog might presume, your blogger doesn’t hate all Republican politicians. Far from it.

The detestable Republicans out there are the subscribers to the MAGA cult doctrine espoused by believers in The Big Lie.

These are the pols among the cabal of cultists who refused to impeach or convict a president who incited the assault on our government, who sought to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election. Beyond that, there exists to this very minute Republicans who are willing to put country ahead of party.

These also are Republicans whose future concerns me as we move past the midterm election and look ahead to the 2024 election. About one-third of the Senate will be on the ballot and among those up for re-election are the likes of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the lone Republican who voted to convict Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial.

We witnessed already the damage that election deniers and MAGA worshipers can do to Republican officeholders. I am concerned, thus, for the future of the likes of Sen. Romney, who values his oath to the nation more than loyalty to an individual.

My congressional district in North Texas is going to be represented by a MAGA follower. I look for Republican Rep.-elect Keith Self to be front and center on the calls to look high and low for dirt on Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci and would vote to impeach President Biden for make-believe transgressions.

We need more thoughtful pols — Democrats and Republicans — who understand that compromise is the most critical ingredient in creating good government.

I know they’re out there.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com