Tag Archives: Voter fraud

Changing tune on panel timetable

Once, not long ago, I was yammering about the length of time the House select committee was taking as it examined the 1/6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

I am changing my tune. I no longer am as concerned about the time it is taking for the committee to do its job. It has more work to complete. The immediate past president of the U.S. is in trouble — it seems to me. The panel must finish its work completely, assemble its findings and then report to the nation what it has determined.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Merrick Garland keeps reminding us that “no one is above the law” and that he will follow the evidence wherever it leads before deciding on indictments. When someone says that “no one is above the law,” I am going to presume he means, well, “no one.” That includes the former POTUS. Do I have that right? I hope you think so, too.

The finished product of this exhaustive hearing must include remedies for preventing the 1/6 insurrection from recurring.

Now, having said that I am changing my tune about the select committee’s timetable, I am not going to say it should go on forever. Time isn’t exactly in the committee’s corner. The midterm election in November could produce a change of legislative control when the next Congress convenes. The House may shift from Democratic to Republican control. I say “may shift” because that might not be the slam-dunk the GOP had hoped would occur.

With that, it still would be good for the current committee, chaired by Democrat Bennie Thompson, to finish its work prior to the midterm election and certainly before the next Congress takes its oath.

But don’t rush it, ladies and gentlemen?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good news, sort of, surfaces

There’s a bit of good news to report from the latest round of midterm primary election results, some of which haven’t yet been declared official by various states.

It is that a number of the certifiable nut cases endorsed by Donald J. Trump have either won their Republican primary contests or are leading them with just a smattering of votes left to be counted.

Why is that good news? Why would this blogger see their seeming victories be a sign of better days?

It is because the Trumpkin wing of the GOP has clamped a stranglehold on the party. However, there exists a growing — at least I hope it is growing — pool of voters who have had it up to here with Trump’s constant yammering about The Big Lie.

The former POTUS’s cultists have glommed onto The Big Lie and are suggesting they’re going to get some payback if they manage to win the election this November against whomever they’ll face from the Democratic Party.

Democrats should — if they’re smart and have hired capable campaign staff — be able to paste the nut case label on the foreheads of their Trump cult opponents. That would be my hope.

It continues to astound me that so many Republican voters continue to insist that Trump truly was robbed of his “landslide” victory in the 2020 election by “widespread voter fraud.” The only electoral theft occurring comes from the GOP, led by its titular leader and his effort to overturn the results of the election.

But wait! Attorney General Merrick Garland well could have a whole lot to say about that effort and whether the former president has broken the law in egging on the mob of traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6.

My view? He damn sure did break the law! He needs to be prosecuted … but that’s just me.

If he is indicted and Merrick Garland can make the indictments stick, then the Trumpkins who have won their primary contests will have reached the end of their political journey.

There’s more good news!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

’20 election: most secure … ever!

One of the more annoying aspects of The Big Lie and those who believe it to their everlasting shame is that the 2020 presidential election was so “fishy” that the system has been put on notice to ensure that future elections are not fraught with the kind of tomfoolery the Big Lie believers insist occurred in 2020.

That is so wrong that I cannot let it stand.

I hear such rubbish from my network of social media acquaintances. Several of them believe that the next election will be clean, secure and fraud-free only because of all the attention being paid to the shenanigans that allegedly occurred during the 2020 election.

Bear in mind that these nitwits suggest that the only electoral “theft” occurred in the presidential contest. They say that only Donald J. Trump was the victim of “widespread voter fraud.” No other races have been contested in quite the manner than the one that Trump lost to President Biden.

I feel the overwhelming need to remind everyone of this fact. Trump hired a first-rate electoral security expert, Christopher Krebs, to repair what he said was wrong with the electoral system.

Krebs then delivered on what the then-president instructed. He declared after the 2020 election that it was “the most secure election in U.S. history.” His reward for telling the truth? Trump fired him … and then proceeded to call him everything short of the Son of Satan.

The Big Lie is the biggest lie ever told to vilify our democratic process. It is a disgraceful display of petulance and arrogance from an individual who simply cannot stand the thought of losing.

The 2020 election set a standard for electoral cleanliness. The 2024 election for president, I am quite certain, will follow suit.

It will have nothing to do with a “fishy” result.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Big Lie channels Fake News

The most maddening aspect of the Big Lie into which Donald Trump keeps breathing life is how the irony matches the Fake News mantra that the future POTUS made so popular on his way to winning the presidential election in 2016.

Think about this for a moment.

Trump kept hammering the media for promoting “fake news” even as he was uttering nonsense related to President Obama’s place of birth and questioning whether the 44th president was eligible to run for and then serve in the nation’s highest office.

The Trumpkin Corps gobbled it up and swallowed it, not grasping the insane irony of their man’s pronouncements condemning the media for doing their job.

Then the former Liar in Chief lost the 2020 election. He didn’t concede. He has never congratulated President Biden for his victory. Never offered to help him or support him in any fashion. He said the election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him.

The irony is that The Donald has engaged in the most blatant act of electoral theft in U.S. history. He incited the 1/6 insurrection. He didn’t lift a finger to end it as the rioters were beating police officers and sh***ing on the Capitol floor. He has allowed his minions to try to install fake electors to overturn the results that showed Biden winning a clear Electoral College victory. Oh, and he bullied state election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to let him win that state’s presidential election.

A “stolen” election? Is this clown serious?

Of course not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Divide becomes a chasm

I discovered a story online that I want to share with this blog post. It tells a sad story about a man in a rural community who feels more isolated than ever in his life. Why the isolation? Because he voted in 2020 for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for POTUS and VPOTUS, while most of his neighbors voted for the ticket that lost the 2020 election.

The result has produced a daily ritual of insults, epithets and assorted forms of verbal and emotional abuse.

The story ran in Politico. Here it is:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/04/pennsylvania-rural-democrats-trump-neighbors-00008915

I can relate somewhat to what the principals in the article are feeling. I, too, voted for President Biden and Vice President Harris. We live in a suburban community in a North Texas county that voted nominally for The Donald in 2020.

The lonely Democrat told Politico that the landscape of Dubois, Pa., is littered with profanity-laced signs cursing Biden and Harris; the signage also heaps praise on Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

According to Politico:

“We’ve never seen this before,” says Joanne Fitzpatrick, a Democrat from DuBois, running through a tally in her head of anti-Biden signs that still cover her town and surrounding communities. “I’m not a prude by any stretch, but it’s offensive. We’ve just never seen this level of vulgarity after an election — and so long after the election at that.”

“In a civilized society,” she added, “we just don’t do that.”

Well, I guess we do. Then again, I believe she was implying that her community isn’t exactly “civilized.”

I don’t recall this level of visceral anger, either. I have lived long enough to recall previous presidential campaigns that were full of venom and vitriol. We had the campaigns of 1968 and 1972 overshadowed by the Vietnam War; the 1988 campaign featured the tearing down of one candidate because he wouldn’t mandate reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools; there was 2000 and the campaign that ended being decided by the Supreme Court.

All these campaigns, though, had something in common. The loser conceded to the winner. The losing candidate did so in 2016 when she lost to Donald Trump.

The difference this year? The incumbent who lost, Trump the cult leader, hasn’t conceded. Instead, he has stoked anger among the ardent followers of his losing effort by repeating The Big Lie about the election being “stolen” via “widespread voter fraud.” There was no widespread fraud. Or electoral theft.

And therein is the cause of the deep divide that has widened into a chasm. It seems unbridgeable, as seen in the story told about the rural Pennsylvania community highlighted in the Politico article.

It is a shame. The terrible divide between neighbors never would have widened had the loser of the 2020 election done what others before him have done. If only he could have summoned the grace and class to admit he lost and extended his hand to those who defeated him.

Yes, elections have consequences. So, too, do their responses.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Debate is impossible

There can be no doubt at all that one cannot debate intelligently the elements of The Big Lie when one side of this dispute comprises individuals who have sworn an oath of idiocy.

The Big Lie is being supported by the cultists who follow the garbage that flows from Donald Trump’s mouth about the phony theft of the 2020 presidential election.

They continue to say:

  • That Trump won the 2020 election.
  • That legislatures should decertify the Electoral College results showing that Joe Biden actually won that election.
  • That Trump will be returned to the presidency.
  • That the “insurrection” occurred in November 2020 when Americans cast their ballots for president.

These Americans are certifiably insane. You cannot engage in intelligent debate with morons … who are led by the Moron in Chief.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Big Lie gets even weirder

I never thought it was possible to embellish The Big Lie but the Republican nut cases who occupy public offices have managed to do so.

It goes like this …

There are those within the GOP who contend now that Democrats are fabricating the impact of various COVID-19 variants to “cheat” their way to winning future elections. One of the Republican nut jobs in Congress, Rep. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo, went on Fox News to suggest that very thing. The hosts on “Fox and Friends” let the moronic physician-turned-politician mutter that trash without challenging him.

One of the hosts said Jackson is “probably right.” Umm, no! He’s not right! He is wrong. So are those who suggest that the impact of the latest variant, called Omicron, is made up, that it’s a fabrication.

The Big Lie was born out of Donald Trump’s phony claim of “widespread voter fraud” in the 2020 election. It has now grown more legs and to my utter horror it is beginning to take root in the gullible mindlessness of Republican cultists’ noggins.

Good grief. Is there no end to this idiocy?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas to check elections in random counties

Texas, in its bid to fight nonexistent widespread voter fraud, has a new law on the books that allows the state to audit the results of every November election in four randomly selected counties.

The state already is coming after the phony fraud in Collin County, where I live, along with Harris, Dallas and Tarrant counties. Good luck finding anything untoward in any of those counties.

I also suspect the state will come up empty no matter where it looks in its hunt for widespread vote fraud that — and I know I am repeating myself, so bear with me — does not exist!

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/19/abbott-emergency-funds-election-audits/

All of this effort is a trumped-up hunt (pardon the use of that adjective) for vote fraud emanating from the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump carried Texas by about 5 percentage points, yet he insisted that Gov. Greg Abbott call for a “forensic audit” of the four large Texas counties. Abbott bowed to his good buddy Trump and got it done.

Ridiculous.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘Fraudit’ proves Biden won after all

Stop the presses!

The so-called audit of Arizona’s election returns in 2020 have delivered a stunning blow to the former Liar in Chief: The Cyber Ninjas have determined that Joe Biden won Arizona’s electoral votes in a fair-and-square vote.

The Cyber Ninjas is the civilian group charged with combing through the Maricopa County returns to find enough votes to overturn the Arizona results, which Biden carried narrowly in November 2020.

GOP-backed Arizona election review confirms Biden 2020 win | TheHill

But … what do you know? Cyber Ninjas — with zero election audit training in its background has determined there was no fraud in 2020 and that President Biden’s vote totals hold up.

To be fair, I cannot imagine what my response would be had the Cyber Ninjas had reached another conclusion. I might go bonkers, bananas. I might be bumfuzzled, bamboozled and bombarded with emotion.

I am left now to wonder if the Cyber Ninjas had taken the criticism of its lack of credentials to heart. Might it have just tossed in the towel and delivered a summary that it knew would be palatable to those of who knew what was obvious from the get-go? That President Biden’s victory in Arizona, while not overwhelming, was sufficient to stand up under close scrutiny.

I won’t offer a full-throated cheer to what the Cyber Ninjas have decided about the returns in Arizona. Its effort to overturn an election was a monumental waste of time and money. Perhaps, too, these findings will fill officials elsewhere with courage to stand up against The Big Lie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

GOP duplicity: simply stunning

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The duplicity and hypocrisy being shown by congressional Republicans is an astonishing sight to those of us who believe in fairness and good government.

The GOP caucus in Congress is hell bent on supporting Republican-controlled state legislatures — such as in Texas — for their effort to curb “widespread voter fraud” that doesn’t exist. The GOP caucus is resisting efforts to approve the John Lewis Voting Rights Act named after the late civil rights icon. Why? They suggest that legislatures have the answer to how to ensure free and fair elections while preventing vote fraud that — I state again — does not exist.

Meanwhile, the same GOP caucus turns its back on the impact of the Jan. 6 insurrection incited by the former Seditionist in Chief. People were killed. They were injured. A mob comprising thousands of domestic terrorists stormed the Capitol Building that day to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

The GOP response? Nothing, man! They have been delivered tangible, visible, visceral proof of extreme malice among the rioters who wanted to “hang” Vice President Pence that day. Meanwhile, the former POTUS did nothing to stop the riot. He reportedly cheered them on from the safety of the White House.

And this doesn’t seem to bother most members of the GOP caucus in Congress? My goodness. I am ashamed of them all.