Tag Archives: impeachment

crime news, national news

Trump Fatigue sets in

You may choose to believe or disbelieve what I am about to say, but it’s true … which is that I am getting weary of all things Donald John Trump.

Yes! I want this to end! I want to stop thinking about what this idiot might do next to call attention to himself. I want to get on with serious policy discussions about serious policy differences between serious political leaders.

Trump offers nothing serious or sober to any of this. He offers only drama, chaos, narcissism, threats against democracy.

He is in the middle of multiple legal battles, none of which is likely to end well for him. If he’s convicted, say, of violating the Espionage Act in hiding those documents at his joint in Florida, he’ll fight the prison sentence that awaits him.

People such as me will comment on it, as we must. I don’t want to do it, but I will.

Just to be crystal clear: I do not believe Donald Trump will be elected POTUS. I remain dubious as to whether he will remain in the campaign for the White House.

He will remain on center stage, though, as an ex-POTUS and rabble rouser extraordinaire.

I just want him to vanish. Forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Hoping they’ve had enough

My eternal optimism often gets tested by Texas politicians, so many of whom are motivated by forces with which I disagree vehemently.

But … it is getting a push in the right direction with the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and his pending trial in the Senate on allegations that he is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

Senators will convene a trial no later than Aug. 28. They’re going to hear a chorus of allegations leveled against the AG: that he took a bribe to help a campaign donor, that he cheated on his wife (one of the senators who might get to decide his guilt or innocence), that he fired whistleblowers for making complaints about his behavior.

The House General Investigating Committee referred the impeachment in the House. It was a unanimous vote. The House impeached the Republican AG by an overwhelming vote of 121-25. House members showed considerable backbone in condemning the AG.

Oh, and then we hear about political threats he made to House Republicans if they voted to impeach him.

And why? My hope — if not yet my sense — is that Republicans are fed up to here with the constant drumbeat of allegations of misbehavior by the state’s top law enforcement officer.

It seems to me that whenever Paxton’s name shows up in the news it has something to do with someone complaining about the manner in which he is doing his job.

We need an attorney general who can make news simply by performing the tasks of his office.

Thus, I will hope that Texas senators can borrow from the spunk shown by the House colleagues. My eternal optimism needs a kick.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Stay quiet, senators

Should the 31 men and women who comprise the Texas Senate reveal to the public how they intend to vote on whether to convict the state’s attorney general of crimes he allegedly committed?

With emphasis, I want to say “no!”

AG Ken Paxton is set to stand trial no later than Aug. 28 on 20 articles of impeachment that the Texas House zoomed through in the final days of the 2023 Legislature.

As the Texas Tribune reports, we can expect a “much different rhythm” in the Legislature’s other chamber.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick leads the Senate and he’s keeping his own thoughts on Paxton’s guilt or innocence to himself, as he should.

“Don’t ask me any more questions because I can’t answer them,” Patrick said during an event with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Look at me like a judge before a case and look at our senators like that. Be respectful of their space and time. This is very serious. There are very serious people, and the Senate is going to do our job in a professional way.”

Ken Paxton impeachment moves to Texas Senate, where unknowns await | The Texas Tribune

There you go. The Senate is acting as a jury. The Legislature has hired two legal hot shots — Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin — to lead the prosecution.

I want there to be some suspense prior to the convening of the trial. For senators to blab and blather on their predisposition before they deliver a verdict would be prejudicial and would signal that the fix is in — either way — in what Patrick as described as a “very serious” proceeding.

Let the process move forward.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Step up, GOP lawmakers!

A nagging fear keeps rolling around my noggin concerning today’s expected impeachment vote involving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

It is that Texas Republican legislators are as cowardly as their national colleagues. That is, they won’t vote to impeach a disgraceful “chief law enforcement officer” who’s been dogged by scandal almost from the day he took office in 2015.

National GOP members of Congress lacked the guts to impeach Donald J. Trump. I fear that same cowardice has afflicted the state’s GOP legislative caucus.

There are signs of hope. Such as the House General Investigations Committee’s unanimous vote to recommend impeachment. The panel, comprising three Republicans and two Democrats, stepped up and did the right thing to call for Paxton’s ouster after hearing from whistleblowers alleging widespread corruption within the AG’s office.

Will their House colleagues follow suit and provide the majority needed to force this guy to step aside while awaiting a trial in the Texas Senate?

Let us hope so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How does he carry on?

I have been avoiding the use of the name of the immediate past president of the United States simply because I am sick of seeing it in print or hearing it stated on the air.

For the purpose of this post, I will forgo my boycott of his name and ask: How in the world does Donald J. Trump carry on as a former president?

He is more than likely going to be indicted for alleged criminal activity, although I am writing the word “alleged” only to be fair; I believe he is as guilty as they come.

It could come from the Manhattan, N.Y. district attorney, who has empaneled a grand jury to look into the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star with whom he had a one-night fling. The indictment could come from Fulton County, Ga., DA Fani Willis, who has seated a grand jury to determine whether Trump committed a crime when he demanded that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to help him win the state’s electoral votes in 2020.

Or … the indictment could come from special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing Trump’s incitement of the insurrection on 1/6 as well as the squirreling away of classified documents he took illegally from the White House upon leaving office.

Presidents usually spend their post-presidential time planning for their libraries. They take up good causes, you know … pursuing world peace, helping women find their way, being role models for our youth, working with our wounded veterans.

Trump is doing none of that. Zero. He is spending his waking hours fending off these prosecutors while seeking to run for POTUS a third time.

There won’t be an unveiling at the White House of an official portrait of Trump and his wife. There will be no official White House ceremony marking his tenure as POTUS.

Indeed, the first line of his obituary will mention either his two impeachments or his indictments … or both incidents!

The man’s legacy is shot to hell! Period!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How about the ‘I’ word?

The MAGA cabal within the Republican Party wants to impeach President Biden for … what, precisely, is beyond me.

We keep hearing the yammering from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proclaims that the president is a failure. She doesn’t specify a “high crime or misdemeanor” on which she would base an impeachment. She just talks about it.

Actually, Greene is as stupid a member of the MAGA cabal as there is.

It’s good to remember the last three presidential impeachments that occurred within the past 25 years. Two of them were legit; the third was, well, questionable.

House of Representatives Republicans were looking for a reason to impeach President Clinton throughout the 1990s. When the late Kenneth Starr, the special counsel appointed to examine a real estate deal called Whitewater, began snooping around beyond his original charge, the president handed the GOP a reason to impeach him.

He lied to a federal grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. Yes, Clinton committed a crime by perjuring himself. That was all Republicans needed. They impeached him on three counts. He was acquitted. I question the political motivation behind that impeachment and wonder to this day why impeach a president for lying about a dalliance.

Then came the twin impeachments of Donald Trump, who in my mind committed far worse offenses. The first impeachment was triggered by his seeking a “favor” from the Ukrainian president; Trump wanted a foreign leader to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Wrong! He can’t do that, says the Constitution.

Then came his incitement of the assault on the Capitol on 1/6, which was a clear violation of his oath of office.

The House impeached him for each offense. The Senate trials ended up with Trump staying in office. The second trial resulted in a 57-43 vote to convict, but it wasn’t enough, as the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to boot a POTUS from office.

One can argue that all three were “legitimate” issues for which a president could be impeached. The Clinton case was technically legit; both Trump cases were the real thing.

Now we have the MAGAites calling for Joe Biden’s impeachment.

I am left to ask: for … what?

Impeachment madness must end in the House. Joe Biden has done not a damn thing that falls remotely into the category of “impeachable offense.” All he has done is seek to right a ship of state that was damaged when he took office.

To my reckoning, he has largely succeeded. That won’t shut down the MAGA cultists. They are a shameful pack of demagogues.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How will Trump be remembered?

1 Comment

Events in my personal life have taken my mind mostly away from current news events … but I do want to offer a brief comment on something that has me wondering.

How will the nation eventually recall the single term as president of one Donald John Trump?

Presidents who seek a second term but lose that effort have faded away. Some of them have forged fine careers and lives after their defeat.

I am thinking of Presidents Herbert Hoover, George H.W.  Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. They all lost campaigns, conceded to the winners, accepted their defeat and then entered private life. Some of them did good work that benefited others. Presidents Hoover and Carter come to mind as men who found new life after serving in public office.

Donald Trump? Wow! How in the world is this guy going to be remembered? He likely won’t build a presidential library. I cannot imagine him being honored with a presidential portrait that would hang in the White House. Will he do anything at all to help the underprivileged or underserved? Hah!

He hasn’t yet conceded that he lost his re-election effort. He likely is going to be indicted for some crime he allegedly committed.

I would call it a tragedy that his single-term legacy has been damaged. Except that he has done the damage himself.

Not a damn thing is “normal” about this guy. His political career began seemingly as a prank. Then he won the 2016 election in what I consider to be the greatest political fluke in U.S. history!

Donald Trump has squandered every single opportunity he ever could have had to be remembered with any sort of fondness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘Expunge’ impeachment? What the … ?

What in the world is going through what passes for U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s mind?

The nimrod Man of the House says he is considering whether to “expunge” the House record of its two impeachments of Donald J. Trump.

So, I am sitting out here in the middle of Flyover Country wondering: How in the world does that make a lick of sense? It doesn’t!

Expunging the record will not suddenly cleanse our memories of what happened. Trump had a “perfect phone call” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which he asked him for a “favor,” which was to find dirt on Joe Biden. No can do, said the House, which impeached him for seeking political help from a foreign government.

Then came the1/6 insurrection. The House impeached him again for inciting the assault on our nation’s Capitol with the aim of stopping the certification of the 2020 presidential election result and for his refusal to stop the assault as it was unfolding.

Historians will continue to record the events that led to the two impeachments. Americans — such as you and I — will remember them, too.

Ain’t no way to remove that stain from the presidency that Trump occupied.

Good, ever-lovin’ grief, man!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Those books … they’re all true!

I have been able to purchase and read several volumes Donald J. Trump’s political career and the term he served as president.

“Rage,” “Betrayal,” “Peril,” “Confidence Man,” “One Damn Thing After Another” all seem to harp on a single theme. They speak to Trump’s narcissism, his arrogance, his ignorance of the law and of government, his lies, his lack of compassion or empathy, his phony faith.

They all come from differing perspectives. Even the book by William Barr, the former attorney general in the Trump administration, touches on all of those “qualities” exhibited by Trump.

Here’s the amazing thing about it all. They’re all true! They speak accurately, as we all have watched this individual’s behavior before, during and after his single term as president.

Yes, that first draft of history is being written. It looks to me as though the final form is taking shape.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

McCarthy is no Pelosi

Having declared my faint hope that the cowardly U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy will find the courage to stand up to the MAGA cabal within his congressional caucus, I want to offer a brief comparison to the woman he hopes to succeed as speaker of the House.

McCarthy will march to the MAGA cadence, I am quite sure. The current speaker, McCarthy’s fellow Californian Nancy Pelosi, also felt pressure from her progressive House members. They wanted her to impeach Donald Trump far sooner than she eventually did.

Pelosi stood firm against the likes of The Squad and other ultra-progressives. She, in effect, told them to pipe down and let her lead the House as she saw fit.

Pelosi eventually announced the impeachment inquiry after the then-president sought a political favor from the Ukraine president, seeking him to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The speaker was not going to be pushed into acting prematurely.

Will the man who wants to be speaker show the same courage?

I am trying to stop snickering at the notion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com