Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

Polling data = real-time snapshot

All the polling data we are seeing these days showing a neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and the man he defeated in 2020 remind me of historical precedent.

Which is to say that today’s polling data don’t mean squat this far out from an upcoming election.

Yes, I have commented on my frustration that Donald Trump even can collect 35 to 40% of the electorate’s favor, given all he has said, done and demonstrated since he became a politician in 2015.

But I want to revisit some recent presidential polling history to remind you of how volatile these polls can become.

Remember that public opinion polls are merely a real-time snapshot of what is on people’s minds. Opinions change.

Prior to the 1984 election, Walter Mondale was seen as a legitimate challenger to President Reagan. The president was re-elected with an 18% margin and a 49-state Electoral College wipeout. In 1992, Ross Perot actually led President George H.W. Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Perot finished with 19% of the vote and zero Electoral College votes, while Bill Clinton breezed to election.

Four years later, Sen. Bob Dole was neck-and-neck with the president, but then lost decisively. In 2008, Sen. John McCain was seen as a possible winner against Sen. Barack Obama; it didn’t happen. Obama was in danger four years later of losing to Mitt Romney; he won comfortably.

Today’s polling data mean next to nothing. Trump is going on trial on at least two of the indictments leveled against him prior to the GOP primary season. Americans are going to get a snootful from courtrooms about the way he conducted himself during his time in office and, most damaging, after he lost the 2020 election.

I am going to stand squarely on my view that Donald Trump is not electable in 2024. Period. He has no vision for the future, other than telling us how he intends to exact revenge on his foes. His unfitness for public office cannot be stated any more starkly than that.

The polling data will be there to remind us … in real time.

crime news, legal news, national news

FBI says ‘no insurrection’? Hmm …

I have been schooled by a critic of this blog who tells me the FBI can find no evidence of an “organized plot” to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.

This, for instance, comes from the Daily Beast: Over 570 alleged rioters have been arrested since the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January—but the FBI has reportedly found little evidence that the riot was an organized plot to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat.

All righty. I will accept that. I must have been looking the other way when the FBI made that determination. I never have declared myself to be all-knowing all the time.

But … what does any of that do to the case leveled against Donald Trump? In my mind? Not much.

The grand jury that examined the 1/6 assault on our government did not cite “insurrection” as a specific charge against Trump. It speaks to obstruction of justice and other assorted crimes allegedly attributable to the ex-POTUS.

I am going to stand with the findings — as I have understood them — of special counsel Jack Smith’s team that Trump impeded efforts to quell the violence that day.

Again, from the Daily Beast: Reuters reports that the FBI has so far found scant evidence to suggest that the riot was centrally coordinated by far-right groups, the former president himself, or his close allies. 

OK, then. However, no one can deny the attack occurred. Nor can anyone deny that Trump delivered a speech that morning on the Ellipse that stirred a lot of individuals up. Many of them were video- and audio-recorded saying they were acting at Trump’s behest, which he delivered to them on the Ellipse. Is that a “centrally coordinated” event? Not in the strict sense of the terminology.

However, he could have stopped it. He could have issued a statement urging the mob to go home. He could have taken to Twitter to issue that call. He didn’t do anything of the sort. He watched it unfold from the White House.

And did nothing!

Am I a bit wiser now about the FBI’s view of what happened? Sure I am. I also remain convinced that Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his role in what transpired on that horrible day.

national news

Who is this new carnival barker?

Who in the world is Vivek Ramaswamy, who I believe is trying to emerge as the Republican Party’s new snake-oil vendor of choice?

Dude is 38 years of age. He’s never held a public office. I don’t yet know how he acquired his wealth … I’ll have to look it up. He talks some wild game about opposing further aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and then says Donald Trump’s actions on 1/6 were “abhorrent” but he remains in Trump’s camp if the twice-impeached, four-times indicted former POTUS gets nominated by the GOP next summer.

Ramaswamy is weird, man.

This political newbie might be making some waves among Republican base voters, aka the MAGA morons on the far-right wing of a once-great political party.

What part of Ramaswamy’s background concerns me the most? It might be his lack of political exposure or experience. We saw what happened the last time Americans elected such an individual. He shot off his mouth and got impeached for seeking a political favor from a foreign head of state; he got impeached again for inciting the mob to storm the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes after the 2020 presidential election.

Do we want to hand another political neophyte the nuclear launch codes?

Hmmm … hell no!

crime news, national news, political news

Why not debate ’em … Trump?

You know, it doesn’t really matter to me whether Donald J. Trump will be on a Republican Party primary presidential debate stage with the other guys who want to knock him off.

Truth is, I don’t give a royal rat’s rear end about Trump, or today’s version of the GOP. However, his reported absence from the upcoming debate stage does pose a question or two for me, which I would like to speak to briefly. So … I will.

Some of the GOP frontrunner’s foes are taking aim at him. Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson all have spoken critically of him, his conduct, his lack of “vision” for the future.

I want someone to ask Trump this question: What in the world do you have in the way of agenda for the next four years and beyond? This individual has none. He doesn’t speak to the future. Instead, he chooses to relitigate the 2020 election … which he lost to President Biden!

Let’s not be coy, either, about the indictments. He’s got four of them stacked up, waiting for trials. The feds have indicted him twice; two states, New York and Georgia, have indicted twice as well.

Trump can spare us all the BS about “not wanting to elevate” the others’ standing. The truth is he has no solutions. He cannot speak coherently about the future. He vows to be his fans’ “retribution.”

He is the frontrunner among the MAGA morons who dominate the GOP. And why is that? Because his “base” is too damn ignorant and gullible to realize how seriously damaged he has become and how much damage he brings to a once-great political party.

OK, I fibbed about not giving a “rat’s rear end” about Trump. Of course, I do, which is evident in the frequency of my writing about him. I care about Trump’s future only because I love my country and I do not want it sucked down the toilet drain of Donald Trump’s so-called “ideology.”

As to whether he belongs on the stage with the other GOP presidential candidates … sure he does, but only because he needs to be held accountable politically for the nonsense he continues to barf onto the public stage.

crime news, national news, political news

Irony runs through indictments

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The ironic aspect of the indictments handed down against Donald J. Trump is so rich one almost can choke on it.

Let’s consider what is happening in real time.

Two grand juries — one in D.C. and one in Fulton County, Ga. — have concluded that Donald Trump conspired to “rig” or “steal” an election he lost to Joe Biden in November 2020. The grand juries, I must point out, comprised just plain folks summoned to do their civic duty under federal law and laws of the state of Georgia.

The grand juries have accused Trump of doing precisely the kind of thing he has said occurred on Election Day 2020. He says Democrats conspired to rig elections in several states that Biden won. Yes, he made that assertion, but without offering any evidence of it occurring.

Indeed, “forensic audits” of election returns in several key states have determined there was no voter fraud. Trump ignores those findings.

Instead, he launched his own election-rigging effort, complete with rounding up individuals posing as Electoral College members who would cast their votes for Trump instead of for Biden, which is required under the Constitution.

Trump has accused the system of being “rigged” against him. But now two duly constituted grand juries — both legally assembled and following the rule of law — say the former POTUS did precisely what he accuses others of doing to him!

Remind you of anything? How about the “fake news” mantra that has become so popular in Trump world. How in the name of truth-telling can this clown say any of this “fake news” crap with a straight face, given that he birthed the “fake news” baby with his lies about Barack Obama’s place of birth?

More irony, indeed!

This individual is a liar … and a bad one to boot!

crime news, legal news

Four for four for Trump

Well … it looks like the Donald J. Trump indictment parade has reached its end, or maybe there’s more to see down the road.

Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis has delivered yet another gut punch to the ex-POTUS, indicting him and 19 co-conspirators on 10 counts of conspiring to defraud the government and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This fourth criminal indictment against the 45th POTUS presents a most interesting turn of events, don’t you think?

Those who are indicted and then convicted in a state-run criminal trial cannot be pardoned by a future POTUS; Georgia law prohibits it. Willis’s announcement is thorough and comprehensive and it includes several individuals who worked with Trump (allegedly) to overturn the results of the election; special counsel Jack Smith chose to limit his indictments to just Trump, seeking to ensure a speedy trial.

What just blows my noggin to bits is Trump’s announcement that on Monday he is going to provide proof that the 2020 election was rigged. Really! That’s what he said. Why wait, dude? Give us the goods now, man!

Well, he won’t prove anything. Why? Because experts on these matters have concluded already there was no fraud in the election, which means Trump is blowing this all out of his overfed a**.

Meanwhile, the criminal defendant who once served as POTUS continues to defy U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s warning against popping off. She said Trump’s continuing challenge could force her to schedule the trial on the D.C. indictment handed down even earlier.

Donald Trump’s in a heap of trouble. He knows it. He is acting like the desperate criminal I believe he always has been.

crime news, political news

DA about to drop hammer?

For as long as Donald J. Trump has been out of office — and subject to criminal investigations — my thought during that time has been that the Georgia case was the most provable and possibly the most damaging.

Well, it now appears that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is about to deliver the goods to a grand jury that is going to consider whether to indict the 45th POTUS on allegations that he sought to rig the Georgia results of the 2020 presidential election.

Joe Biden won the state’s Electoral College votes. Trump, though, called Georgia Secretary of State Doug Raffensberger and demanded that he “find” enough votes to swing the state into the Trump column. Raffensberger said, in effect, “No can do, Mr. President. The Constitution doesn’t allow it.”

What did Trump do then? He threatened Raffensberger with criminal prosecution.

Here’s the best part: It’s all been recorded for posterity. 

There could be a huge surprise waiting for us, though, once the grand jury hears from the DA. The panel might decide against indicting Trump. I say “might” because, well … you just never know what they’ll hear and what they’ll decide.

But I don’t believe that will happen.

Trump already has accused Willis, a Black prosecutor, of conducting a “racist witch hunt.” It’s the same language he used to condemn the indictment issued in New York by a grand jury after it heard from another Black prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. Do you believe any of that goes down smoothly with either of these two officers of the court?

Obviously not!

If an indictment comes forward this week, it will be the fourth such pending criminal proceeding filed against Trump. Two come from state courts, the other two from the Department of Justice, the agency Trump once pledged under oath to “defend and protect.”

The man is in a world of pain. Am I going to worry about him? Not for a nano-second!

legal news

Judge is in charge … period!

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan today told the entire world just who is in charge of Donald J. Trump’s life.

For starters, it is not Donald J. Trump. That role now falls on a jurist who was selected randomly to preside over a trial involving charges that the former POTUS conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Chutkan reportedly doesn’t suffer fools at all, let alone lightly. She delivered a ruling today that is both fair and it tells the criminal defendant, Trump, that he needs to cease hiding behind a “free speech” argument in his defense. He is free to say the 2020 election was rigged, she said, but he is not free to issue veiled threats against the prosecutors, jurors or the judge.

Chutkan told Trump that free speech is not “absolute” and that criminal defendants — such as Trump — have limits on statements they can make.

Thus, we have just received a sterling civic lesson on how an individual who prides himself on being “in charge” of all he sees, who once boasted that “I, alone” can fix the nation’s ailments, is now beholden to a federal judge.

Therein lies the wisdom of the founders who created a federal judiciary that has the authority to keep anyone — even a former president — on a short rhetorical leash.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

‘Alternative facts’: greatest nonsense ever uttered?

Kellyanne Conway, the one-time Donald Trump political strategist and White House senior adviser, will go down in history as the author of arguably the greatest nonsensical statement ever uttered.

I mention this because her former sugar daddy is using that statement as a mantra to defend himself against 78 counts of alleged misdeeds that have been filed against him by multiple grand juries.

Conway once infamously told NBC News “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that falsehoods muttered by her boss were “alternative facts.” Todd was astonished, answering that anything that is not factually based is a “falsehood.”

Conway stood her slippery ground.

Here we are in the present day and “alternative facts” are coming forth in Trump’s defense against allegations that he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election by hiring fake electors to cast votes for him in states that went for Joe Biden.

Alternative facts do not exist. They are a figment of a political operative’s phony glossary of verbiage. You have facts and you have non-facts … which are lies if the teller of non-facts knows that he or she is saying is false.

In this new age that now accepts lying as normal, alternative facts have become something of an accepted version of what passes for the truth. It is an amazing thing to witness for those of us who used to deal with reporting and commenting on facts.

I did that for nearly 37 years. I knew a lie when I heard it. Never did I consider them to be an alternative to facts. I guess I’m just old school in that regard.

It’s a new day, indeed. I am going to continue to hammer away at falsehoods when I hear them. I will call them what they likely are: lies told those who know what they are saying is false.

I suppose I ought to thank Kellyanne Conway for providing us with such a graphic and descriptive model for the art form that lying has taken in this bizarre time.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Strike three … Trump!

Now we know what we have suspected all along, which is that special counsel Jack Smith has indicted Donald Trump on four counts of conspiracy to mount a coup to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

To think that Trump has bellowed since losing to President Biden that the election was “rigged,” that it is illegitimate.

Smith made monumental political history today. Is this reason to cheer? To high-five each other? To applaud the legal team that has assembled these incredibly detailed charges against a former president?

No. It is a time for serious reflection and for hoping the criminal justice system works its will.

I am not cheering tonight. I am trying to digest what has come forth.

Smith’s indictment reportedly is detailed. It is meticulous. It is historic in a way that many of us are having difficulty measuring. Trump is the first former POTUS ever indicted by the Justice Department. The indictment handed down today by a grand jury alleges that the former POTUS sought to overturn a free and fair election.

What in the name of democracy is up with that?

Jack Smith made it clear once again today that Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but said he intends to press for a “speedy trial.”

Trump continues to tell us he did nothing wrong on Jan. 6, 2021. If so, then let this individual mount his defense and seek to persuade a jury that he should be acquitted. Does an innocent man seek to delay the proceeding? No, yet Trump is almost certain to obstruct the progress of this prosecution.

What now? The nation is about to enter a historic chapter in its long and glorious story. Donald Trump stands indicted on allegations that he sought to overturn an election he lost. It was a fair and legal determination by American voters … and one of the counts of the latest indictment alleges that Trump sought to deny voters that sacred right.

This is no time to cheer and slap the backs of our friends and political allies. It is a time to take seriously what a duly constituted grand jury has determined, that a one-time president of the United States committed a criminal act against the very government he took an oath to “defend and protect.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com